#ESPECIALLY. DURING A LOVE CONFESSION | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

304files · 2 days ago

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you don’t understand how mc is literally me and i am here. she’s me to a molecular level. no joke, i never read an mc that was so deeply similar to me it hit me like a gut punch.

reading this while listening to the playlist was truly an experience (which was so good btw i LOVE your music taste). can we talk about how absolutely gorgeous your writing is for a second??? the way you craft your sentences are so satisfyingly beautiful it’s insane!! some of my favorite quotes:

“It flutters frantically in it, making a grand fight to reach that false moonlight, only to drop away when it realizes that it’s being burnt. You watch it rinse and repeat, relentless and sure, for who knows how long. It’s no special moth—no luna moth or the ones with the pretty pink wings—but the light falls down on it and colors it a pleasant stardust silver.”

“Taking those steps, the massive and terrifying ones from adolescence into adulthood, meant agreeing that this form of your life was over.”

“That passion and love wasn’t gone from you, it blazed strong in your veins. This blaze wasn’t the kind that kept you warm and excited to push forward into life, though. It had morphed into something that scalded you when you got too close or started imagining yourself pursuing its call. It’s a taunting silvery glow, no longer a guiding north star.”

“You clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. You refuse to acknowledge its end.”

“‘You don’t get it. You are the music. Every single song is about you. Every single fucking song is about you. I want you to come with me, please. I love you, I have always loved you, and I will always love you, and I thought you’d loved me too, and I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t do it alone.’”

i don’t know if you’ve ever read this book, but the vibes of this fic reminds me a lot of the starless sea by erin morgenstern!! literally my favorite book EVER. if you haven’t read it then i think you would like it a lot!! ^^

this is truly one of those types of stories that you come across and it just makes you absolutely fall in love with reading. the type that makes you want to pick up a pencil and feverishly write out the story that’s been in your head for years. if this story was a song, to me it would be dog days are over by florence + the machine. it just gives you that feeling that everything will work out and everything will be okay and this too shall pass. i love it so so much and i’m so happy that you decided to share it with the world so that people like me and so many others could come across it and read it for themselves! ♡♡♡

𝑯EART 𝑊ORM ⸺ hueningkai ℘˒´ˎ˗

⨾𓍢ִ໋ ˒˒ 𝚑𝔢art𝚠𝔬rm

[𝑛]. a relationship or friendship that you can't get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.

⸺ listen to the playlist .ᐟ ‧˚

〝﹙ 📼 ﹚“I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?”�� ˛ ､､

wc ➛ 17.9k

𝔭airings childhood bsf!kai x reader (lowkey soulmates?) ⤷ ft. asshole!yeonjun x reader

𝒢 ‎; smut ˒ angst ˒ some fantasy

𝔴arnings angst, family issues, fingering, jealousy (i’m sorry i just love ts), yeonjun really is an asshole, orgasm denial, thigh fucking, unprotected sex (they're stupid!), strength kink a lil bit, breeding kink, possessiveness, creampie, choking... i think that's all, lmk if i missed any

✎୭ ashlynn's note omg. this was such a fun palate cleanser to write. this wasn't supposed to be as big as it is, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and i got super into the story. this kai is SOOOO!! yeah. i’m so nervous posting this because i’ve only ever posted TSFAWC, but…. here you areee (^^;; this is not proofread, so if you see a mistake... give me a sec. i'll get to it. hehe

Though you fan your hand furiously over your face, the little breezes washing over your clammy skin are not enough. The air is thick and heavy with summer’s heat. So thick that you almost feel it each time you swallow. It’s better than just letting yourself melt away, though. The cushion at your back doesn’t help much. It holds your warmth and returns it to you the longer you sit slumped back into it. You suffer it though—you’ve gone too sluggish to move.

You let a leg dangle over the arm of a chair, watching a hopeful moth dance in the light of the buzzing porch light overhead. It flutters frantically in it, making a grand fight to reach that false moonlight, only to drop away when it realizes that it’s being burnt. You watch it rinse and repeat, relentless and sure, for who knows how long. It’s no special moth—no luna moth or the ones with the pretty pink wings—but the light falls down on it and colors it a pleasant stardust silver.

You delight in letting your conscious brain turn off to watch it. It lets you forget the sweltering under your skin, and also that Kai had drug you out here. His dad gives him shit when he plays inside, but it’s way too hot to be out here. Isn’t it supposed to cool off after the sun goes down? It doesn’t feel like it. The deep acoustics are drowned out each time a car whirrs by. Playing outside should be the best option, but you and Kai live right on a busy road.

When the roar of some car going ten miles over the speed limit doesn’t obscure his playing, though, you admire the intricacy of it. His fingers work up and down the neck, jumping frets that you imagine would be impossible to anybody without those long fingers of his. You had always been a loud supporter of his playing, even way back when the most he could play were simple chords, but you became especially so when a few years back he put a guitar in your hands and tried teaching you. Even with his fingers guiding yours, it was quick to learn that the effortlessness with which Kai handles the instrument is hard earned.

He practices on the acoustic guitar, but that’s not his domain. With houses just a dash across the street from each other, Kai had grown up at your home more than he had at his own. So vividly, you remember the stars in his eyes when he’d listen to your dad’s music. Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins, Linkin Park, any of it. He had fallen in love with it a long time ago. Your whole life you knew that it was only a matter of time before he was in his own band, chasing his dreams with a boundless mind and an indelible vision of himself on stage. How had that time come so soon, though? You don’t know if the notebooks full of inky lyrics that live wherever he deems inspiration might hit him make you proud or nervous. He’s making good on his dazzling aspirations, and you?

You speak finally into the air, cutting through heat waves and his music and the night. “Isn’t it weird that we’re not going back to school after this summer?”

He doesn’t have to even stop playing to answer you. Playing comes to him as a second nature. “Kinda,” he answers, brown eyes flitting up to you. “But it’s not like you won’t be back to it in September. College is the same shit.”

The leg you’d been dangling and bouncing pauses. That’s right; you’re supposed to be going to that college you’d chosen because it was only a three-hour drive away from here. You pluck at the seat’s threadbare fabric, and the moth, still there, becomes oh-so-interesting once again. When his playing stops, you drop your head back with a cushioned thud and a groan that you wrangle in your throat.

“Why are you acting like that?” he says, voice gone sharp like accusation. He doesn’t even know the truth, but he’s known you too long.

Can’t you just keep secrets for yourself, sometimes?

Kai, arms clad in a well-loved hoodie even in this dreadful weather, lays the guitar down. You maintain your silence. “Seriously, what?”

Some secrets have timers, though. This one could only last you until about September, or even August when he realizes that you’re not preparing to return to school. A controlled sigh from your chest isn’t enough to soothe the nerves that sparks. “Nothing.”

“Secrets, huh?” Kai says. When you do finally look to him, black spikes of hair frame his eyes and the accusation in them.

It’s a simple poke, but it gets under your skin as sharp as any thorn might. It’s not like you don’t keep secrets from him, and you’re sure he keeps some from you too. But those are the little kinds, the inconsequential ones—like I ate already when asked why you’re not eating or like Yeah, I’m fine when it’s been a bad day. You don’t hide this kind of stuff from each other. Usually, you’d run over to his place to tell him whatever’s bothering you. Why not, when he’s known even the worst details of your life for almost the entirety of it? You’ve been holding this one close to your chest since somewhere around the end of senior year, though. The longer you let it fester, the worse your nervousness snowballs. “C’mon, Kai. Let’s not do this. Can you keep playing?”

He doesn’t like that, of course. But you watch recognition dawn over his chocolate brown eyes, helpless to stop it. “You’re not going,” he says. It’s not a question nor a suspicion, it’s a bone-dry fact.

Well. There that goes. You want to tear every hair on your head right out. Why had you even thought you’d keep him in the dark about it? When he’s not out in some garage making music, you two are together. The conversation was going to stroll by at some point; this was only inevitable. His disappointment radiates off him in waves and blisters you. He hasn’t even said anything yet, but you know exactly what he thinks of it. It’s why you kept it from him in the first place.

Your silence is enough confirmation for him. “Why?” he says. “I thought you were excited to move out.”

Wincing, you nod slowly. You were. Even went through the whole application process, along with most other kids your age. Ultimately, you never went through with declaring a college. You don’t exactly know why, but somewhere weaseled down in the shadowy recesses of your soul, you know. Taking those steps, the massive and terrifying ones from adolescence into adulthood, meant agreeing that this form of your life was over. It meant that at some point, you’d be moving away from here to where living your days away in Kai’s room would not be a choice. Everybody has to do it eventually, you know that. Kai’s music gig could take off any day, too. He’s going to make it happen. And then what? All this stalling and wishing on just a bit more time would mean nothing, he’d be off and chasing that dream. As excited as you are for it to finally become reality for him, there’s a nasty bitterness that’s budded in your chest, infecting your person.

Can’t things just stay like this?

“I was,” you say. It comes out of your mouth heavy.

“Then why aren’t you going?” he says. Crickets, never seen but always heard, sing their song into the night’s darkness. “You didn’t get rejected. You’re too smart for that.”

An ache sits heavily somewhere near the center of your chest, maybe over your heart. All those good grades, nights spent bent over a desk and AP paperwork—you’re wasting it. You shake your head. “No... just...” It’s an effort to dress your thoughts in a way that might appease him. A quiet moment stretches with your thinking before you continue, “I don’t know what I want to do.”

He doesn’t like that, the yellow wash of the overhead light dancing over his taut lips and hard eyes. “Don’t know what you want to do?” he says, bringing his legs up onto the seat to crisscross them. He wears his favorite jeans. They’re heel-bitten and baggy enough over his legs that he can wear them around the house without any bother. “You’ve wanted to be an artist your whole life. You know exactly what you want to do.”

Your chest only seems to ache harder. When the both of you were only young and hopeful, you both had big dreams. Kai was going to be the face of a metal band, and you were going to be an artist. A painter, potter, sculptor, even doing animation for those big companies like Dreamworks and Disney. You wanted any of it, just as long as you were doing art. You’d even promised him that you’d do the cover art for his albums with interlocked pinkies and flushed, hopeful cheeks. That passion and love wasn’t gone from you, it blazed strong in your veins. This blaze wasn’t the kind that kept you warm and excited to push forward into life, though. It had morphed into something that scalded you when you got too close or started imagining yourself pursuing its call. It’s a taunting silvery glow, no longer a guiding north star. Taunting words of family members stamped down on that hope hard. When you were little, it was said lighthearted and in passing. The older you got, though, the more serious their faces became. They wouldn’t say it outright perhaps, but you hear what they think well enough. Art is a dead-end career.

Shifting in your seat, you tell him, “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?” Kai says. “There are good colleges for that.”

“I just... don’t know.”

Shaking his head, he tells you, “But you love it.”

You do. In its every form, you love creating. But loving it doesn’t mean that it’s right for you, or that you should trust your future in its hands. “I think I can do it in my own time,” you say, finally pushing yourself upright from the cushion. “Don’t wanna kill the passion by doing it for a living, you know?”

He thinks on that for a moment. “If you love it, you should do it,” he says.

An awful frustration bubbles in your chest. Kai has always had a clear life path, the steps ahead of him set in stone and waiting for him to follow in them. It’s hard for him to see why you might not want to do the same. There’s nothing that makes you as happy as the fact that he has it all figured out, that he knows just where he’s going and that he’s so incredible at it that he doesn’t have to worry about meeting the requirements, but your path seems obscured and untrodden. Punctuating a deep, resonant sigh, you say, “It’s not that easy, Kai.”

“If you’re not doing that, then what are you going to do? Are you just going to settle for a nine-to-five?” he says full of accusation, the tapping on his knees gone still.

A dry laugh, you say, “Maybe I’ll marry a super rich guy and just do my art for a living. No nine-to-five.”

His face flashes. He’d always been a bit reserved, especially around others, but he bared his emotions freely around you. You hold them dearly to your chest and made sure to do your best to make good on that trust. He says, “You’re more than some guy’s housewife.”

Cheeks radiating in the heat, you snort. “I know, dork. I’m a rockstar’s best friend. It’s my personal favorite achievement.”

His face sours when you reach out and pinch hard at his cheek, but he doesn’t pull away or brush you off. The skin there is warmed and clammy. Really, the two of you should go meet the cool AC inside before you suffer heat stroke. But this moment feels so nice—your shoulders feel tons lighter without something to hide. If you had it your way, things would stay like this forever. Just the two of you, sat here like you have so many times before, just taking for granted the time you’ve got together.

His mouth opens to banter, probably something about how he’s not a rockstar yet or to get you back for calling him a dork. Wingbeat and sterling dashes about your face send the image into a blur, though. You’re a quick mess of limbs and a whipping head, as if it’ll chase the thing away from you.

“Seriously?” Kai says. You’d climbed halfway over him, elbows digging into him and knee doing a number on his thigh. “It’s a moth. You’re not scared of moths.”

Lingering for a few moments later to ensure the flying thing was nowhere on you or around you, you hold back a laugh before you climb off him and fix your hair with undignified tucks behind your ears. “He was in my face,” you say around a laugh, because you know it was a bit too much. Nobody likes wings in their ears and spindly legs in their face, though, and you’re in no control of what you do when anything with six legs tries and get too friendly. Even moths.

“You just wanted me to protect you,” he says. A sarcastic, shit-eating smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.

“Oh,” you scoff, batting your eyelashes and clasping your hands together all saccharine-sweet. “Yes, Romeo, won’t you kill that bug for me? This girl’s heart just can’t take it!”

Kai’s nose crinkles, and the playful light twists into a glare. “Nasty.”

“That’s how you sounded,” you say. “I only reacted accordingly.” Laughing, you kick your legs out over his lap and sprawl back out. He takes the guitar back into his hands.

As much as you want to escape the mugginess, you’ll survive it for just a little while longer—if only with the force of an indulgent heart. The eternal moments are those you allow to linger.

⚝⭒

Some things, you forget when you’re older. Maybe it’s time’s hand, eroding memories down and stuffing more in the longer you live to experience them. But also maybe because they’re the sort of things you can’t say in the adult world without a laugh in the face and a look from down their noses.

This memory is one of those forgotten things. It’s moth-bitten and dusty, something you one day folded up in a moving box and decided to never revisit.

You’d been down at the creek. Kai and you had spent so many summer days there. It wasn’t too far from home, just past the filbert trees and into the shallow neck of the backwoods, but there you were out of sight and free to get up to nothing good. It was a wonder your mom ever let you do it. Kai’s dad didn’t care too much where he went or what he did, but your mom dug her claws in deep. You like to think that she imagined you two would have each other, if anything ever happened.

Usually, you’d be there holding your jeans up from the stream and Kai would be letting his jeans go dark with it. The bite of water was nice as it washed over warm skin. Fun was a simple thing to find, then. You dug your fingers into the mudbanks and tossed stones way too big to be throwing at each other, just because you two remembered how much the adults hated it when you did. Then, you’d drag tired limbs home avoiding sweetgum tree spikes that had fallen to the ground and dug splinters out from your feet.

This day, you had been in the blackberry bushes. It was maybe late July or early August, and they’d gotten heavy on their branches. You’d waited until the smell of them, summer-warmed, was sweet and cloying in the air to pick them. With buckets in your hands, you plucked only the fattest berries from their bunches. Your fingers were stained a delightful purple and perhaps a bit thorn raw, but you didn’t mind much then. You plucked for hours, and it was dusk before you could catch it. Dinner was no doubt waiting for you back home.

“There’s a bunch over here,” Kai had said. He reached a long boyish arm, still awkward and lanky with puberty, up high for ripe bush. You finished off picking before climbing around thick branches sticking out to take a peek. A bunch, there was.

When you went to drop a handful of them into your bucket, Kai hissed. He’d been snagged by a vicious looking branch, those ones as thick as a finger with thorns to match and you’d warn each other tongue-in-cheek to watch out for that one. He’d worn those ridiculous shorts that day, the ones that looked half pants half shorts with how long and baggy they were, and the claws of the bush had jumped at the opportunity. At first the scrapes were white, but then red blood crawled out and down his leg.

“Kai,” you said, some parts chiding and some parts just wondering how he’d managed that. You surveyed his leg for a bit, and then determined that he should wash his leg off in the stream. He walked there strong, but of course you noticed the hobble beneath his acting. When you squatted down into the dry grass and cupped water to wash off his leg, you laughed.

“What?” he had said, holding the shorts up. You covered your laugh with a hand, but it erupted past your palm. You remember the glare on his face very well.

You still laughed. “You’re stupid,” you had told him.

“I didn’t see it,” he said. “I tripped over it because it was sticking out.”

That time when you brought your hands to catch some water, there was a twinkle in its surface. You didn’t notice it for a second. The creek moved fast and you could see a lot of things in its reflection. When it lingered, that’s when your brows furrowed. It seemed to twirl, dancing around like alive over the stones.

The sound of Kai’s voice remains with you. “Hey,” he had said, strong to call your attention but also wavered with uncertainty.

When you looked up, there was silver dust dancing around you.

It was fluffy and whorling, fine silver stardust. It’d moved weightless in the air, as though it barely existed. In the center of it were a few moths. They seemed to be made of sterling powder just as the dust was, and they glowed against dusk’s backdrop. If your memory serves you right, there had been a sweet hymn of coos from them. They beckoned you. Summer’s heat felt lighter, and so did your chest. You wondered where they had wanted you to go.

Almost afraid that if you spoke they might have fluttered away, you whispered soft and low to Kai. “What is that?” He was stood frozen there, pant leg still scrunched up in his fist. Stardust glowed soft in his brown eyes while he took it all in, you remember. It wasn’t a scared frozen. You weren’t scared, either—rather, it was as if that lightness had found its way into the core of your being and brushed over it with mending hands.

He whispered back, “I don’t know.” How could he have known? It was absurd.

Those whisps had beckoned you, flowing toward the deeper woods. The soft moths, their murmuring brushing up against your ears, seemed to wait for you to follow. You remember a pull, soft tendrils wrapping themselves around your heart and the yearning it planted there.

But there was also this reluctance, a bone-deep answering that had told you: No. You’re not ready.

“Kai, I wanna go,” you told him.

You didn’t even need to tell him twice. Berry buckets forgotten; the journey home was a stranger one. When your dad asked why you returned from berry picking emptier handed than you had left the house, Kai and you only shared a look. You pair kept that evening at the creek hidden so well that it became more forgotten than shared secret.

⚝⭒

Once, you had been the type of girl that loved being around family. Some of your favorite days of your life were spent in this living room, T.V. roaring over bouncing conversation. Some of those nights ended in rosy cheeks and laughs, and some ended with words thrown angry like fireworks. You never knew which you’d be getting, but you endured the fear of not knowing because it was a simple love—the basic kind built with biology into you the moment your infant skin touched your mother’s. You endured it because eventually, sleep washed away the bad taste left in your mouth and you forgave them quick, sometimes quicker than you ought to, and things would go on as if it hadn’t even happened. You endured it because you could handle its burden, if only to feel the warmth you feel when it’s a good day.

Kai was always there—his dad was hardly home, so he found family in yours. When you were younger, you’d been embarrassed he was there for caustic, spitted words and intimate fights. Now, you’re just grateful for his shoulder.

So, yes. Once, you had loved being around your family. But things feel tenser now, nights spent all together less frequent and when they do happen, they’re tainted by a strange air. You think that this strangeness is new, but an awful worry also makes you think that it’d always been there, that you only feel it now because you’ve grown into your adult mind. A hollow ache stakes its claim in your chest, declaring that it won’t leave until you find that youthful ignorance and joy once more. You think that it might stay there forever.

Bare feet bounding down the stairs, you make a rare appearance downstairs. The cupboard is only half open to make way for a snack raid before your mom’s voice cuts through the air. You know quickly just by the look on her face that you should’ve stayed upstairs.

“Hey,” she says, gathering laundry into a basket. “You’ve been applying to jobs?”

With an anxious belly, you tell her, “Yeah. A few. They’re not really, like, ideal, but I sent applications.” You don’t remember when it got hard to look into your mother’s eyes, but you can’t bring yourself to do so now.

“Not ideal?” she says. “It’s not like you can be picky. Mcdonalds or wherever, I don’t care, you’re going to need to get a job if you’re staying here.”

“I know. I applied,” you reiterate around a mumble. You close the cabinets, not so interested in a snack anymore. “I just... I don’t know, ma. I don’t want to do that for a living, going between those sorts of jobs.”

Face hard and abrasive against the truth you bare, she does that awful taunting smile that makes you feel small. Stupid. “You’re not going to college, so that’s what it’s gonna be. You can’t sit up there and draw for a living. You’ve gotta get into the real world, get some real experience.”

There’s a burst of hurt in your chest, dazzling and gnawing. She’s getting closer to saying how she really feels about your dreams out loud every day. Your face burns and so do your eyes, knot thick in your throat. “Yeah, okay. Got it,” you say, nodding. You’re at the front door before you even know it, slipping on shoes and fighting the greatest internal battle to will back tears. She’d use those against you, no doubt about it. “I’m going to Kai’s,” you throw over your shoulder.

Whatever she barks back at you, you’re glad you don’t hear. Bells on some old Christmas decoration hung on the door that had yet to be taken down, even into summer, jingle and wash it away for you.

Kai’s brows shoot up when he opens the door to your face crumpling. You’d done so well at damming it up, but the wall cracks and the water crashes through once you see him. If it were anybody else, you’d feel icky and attention seeking, but you’d held Kai to your chest through gut-wrenching sobs as much as he’s done it for you. Without question, he takes you into his arms, warm hand running up and down your back. The warm soothing is so familiar. You melt right into it.

He keeps you there for a long moment. Then, his chest rumbles as he tells you, “Come on.” The walk through the AC to his bedroom is nice. Having a house like Kai’s to come to where it can just be you is nice, too. You step around the mess of clothes and scattered belongings on his floor like you have a muscle-memory roadmap of his room. Boxsprings creak and hard mattress welcome you back home. His room is dark as always, a night-dweller you call him. The array of peeling band posters plastered over walls you two had painted blue some years ago, when it’d been his favorite color, don’t help to lighten it up. He keeps a low lamplight on.

“She never listens to me,” you say, crying gone to occasional sniffles from your chest. You rest your cheek on your bent knee.

“I know,” he says. “But at least she cares about you. Pays attention to you.” His voice is soft and deep and right next to you. Always right next to you, there for you even when you might not appreciate it as you should.

His dad cares too little what he does, and yours care too much. The grass is always greener on the other side, you know it. Still, you hold a fantasy where you’re able to do teenager stuff. Where you’d allow yourself to do bad things, because you weren’t so intent on painting yourself with their will. You two hold eyes for a long moment, your twinkling ones caught in that steady brown. “I just want to get away. Be my own person.” Your words are muffled in the softness of your skin.

“You had the chance to do it,” Kai says, hand playing with your fingers. “But you didn’t.”

Holding your legs closer, you lick your lips. What do you say to that? Would it ever be the time to tell him that you did it because you think that your soul is pathetically intertwined with his, and that it might snuff your lifeforce out to even try pursuing life without him? Without this? How do you tell him that you’re so frozen and unwilling to pursue any sort of future because it means accepting that this chapter is over? You clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. You refuse to acknowledge its end.

“Kai,” is all you say, trembled and thick. It’s not just your mother’s words that dig at you and tear to shreds the last bits of what dreaming you had left in you, but so many other reality checks too. This isn’t the first time you’ve heard those sorts of words, urging you forward. You can only dig your heel into the ground for so long before you’re swept away in time’s ruthless, endless moving.

He understands. Lifting your face with warm fingers against your cheeks, he says, “Hey. How about we go get ice cream, or something?”

Ice cream does sound nice. “Dairy Queen?”

Smirk tugged over his mouth, he says, “Yes, Dairy Queen. A blizzard. C’mon, let’s go.” Sliding off the bed, he offers you an urging hand up.

But you falter. “I don’t know if we can. She’s mad at me. I don’t think she’ll let me go.”

“Let you go?” he says, eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t have to let you go. You’re an adult now, you go if you want to.” He offers his hand to you again.

It’s so him, freely going wherever he ordain it. The bullheadedness is very him, as well. Always the devil on your shoulder, he was the root of any rebellious thing you’ve ever done. He could never understand your apprehension, or why getting in trouble was such an awful thing to you. “I have to ask to get money.”

Brows pinching, he says, “You think I’m not gonna pay for you? You don’t need them to give you money, I’ll pay. I’ll take care of it.” He drags you up from the bed this time. “Live a little. Do you want to go?”

It was never the punishments or the getting in trouble that you were scared of, though. Disappointment was a scarier word than grounded. Sneaking out and those sorts of things, it’s not like you had angel wings at your back and never considered them. It’s that you are deeply, utterly terrified of changing how they look at you. You begin to tell him, “I do, but—”

He cuts you off, adamant. “Then do it. Let’s go. If you want to go, then go,” he says. “At some point, your life needs to become your own. It’s not sneaking out when you’re graduated and eighteen years old, it’s going wherever the hell you want. You’ve... You’re gonna end up stuck here, in this town, forever. You don’t deserve that.”

That sounds like both the best and the worst thing you’ve ever heard. You take his hand.

⚝⭒

Your frozen fingers nurse your ice cream. The cup itself is cold, but the Dairy Queen on your side of town is always thirty degrees below what it should be. It’d always been that way. Even way back when you two couldn’t drive, you’d get dropped off here to escape the melting weather and get a frozen treat with a handful of dollars. Each time, you’d start off sagging with the relief of summer’s weight off your shoulders and left the place shivering and sugar-mouthed.

It’s really only you two in here. You crinkle your nose when he takes a spoonful. “Out of all the flavors...”

Unbothered and no doubt expecting you to say it, he offers you a flat, “You get your flavor, I get mine.” He makes a point of taking an extra-long bite. His lips linger around the red plastic of the spoon and his brows rest high in silent challenge.

The corners of your lips twitch up. “Hmm. Well. I just have a hard time believing that Oreo... or, like, brownie fudge, is right there, and you actually want M&M. I don’t get how M&M your favorite.” A familiar banter falls over your tongues. Your heart buzzes and your cheeks radiate. This is the first you’ve done this all summer, and it’ll be weaning off into fall soon. Any other summer, you would’ve been here on all the hottest days. You hate that Kai’s been so busy with his music; you hate that you can hear the resounding ticks of the clock counting down your time. You also hate that the stubborn depths of you still believe that if you freeze yourself here in stasis that the world will relent and stop along with you.

You look over the sharp lines of Kai’s jawline as it feathers with his chewing, and the broadness of his shoulders where his jacket stretches around it, and the starkness of his collarbones against his chest and the bobbing of his adam’s apple when he swallows. No, time doesn’t stop. Some of him remains the same, though. In it, you see the boy that had love creeping up on you so long ago, with all its aching and all its hope. That freckle on the column of his neck, the bump in his nose leading down to the button tip that beckons your lips to steal a quick kiss.

And, those lips. They’re as soft as ever around the discontented grimace he pulls. “M&M isn’t my favorite.”

With a pursed mouth and patronizing brows arched over your eyes, you say, “Oh, huh. That’s funny, because if my memory serves me right, it’s the only flavor you’ve ordered for the past... six years.”

Kai husks a laugh at that. “That’s because they haven’t had my favorite for years,” he tells you, scooping up the final bit and then pushing it off to the side. “It was a blizzard of the month that they discontinued. The blackberry cheesecake one. I made peace with it, though. It lives on in my heart.” He grins, arms crossed over his chest and his back settled into the booth seat to let you finish your cup.

“Blackberry cheesecake,” you say, voice made taunting. Your nod is slow and taunting, too. “Well, forget M&Ms.Why would blackberry cheesecake be your favorite? Ever?”

His face falters, a moment where something flows over his eyes as if reliving a memory in a few short seconds. Then, he shrugs. “It just is.”

You roll your eyes. “Whatever,” you laugh. “Maybe my palate is unrefined.” Imagining the tarte fruit in purple swirls of ice cream, you’re taken back to a humid July day and the scent of churned mud.

The strange memory unfolds itself quick. As if it were waiting for you to find wherever it’d hidden itself away. With a sharp gasp, you say, “Oh my god, Kai. Do you remember that one day? That weird stuff we saw down at the creek?”

He nods. “Yeah. I was just thinking of that the other day, actually...”

Less interested in finishing your cup now, you let the spoon rest. “What?” you say, the word peaking in the middle. That day hadn’t crossed your mind once since it’d happened. “How weird is that?”

Scoffing a laugh, he says, “Weird, yeah. Just as strange as two kids high on fermented berries.”

That draws a breathy laugh from you. “Is that what you think it was?” you ask him with knitted brows. The berries had been fresh, and you two had popped plenty into your mouth. But no doubt, you’d have spat them right back out if they were that ripe. “I mean, we saw the same thing.”

“It happens to animals all the time. Squirrells, and stuff.” He lends you a gallic shrug. “We just freaked ourselves out. Like that one time you said you saw the shape of something in the dark and we freaked out. And it was clothes.”

Well, hallucinating, in tandem, a glowing mist because you two by chance ate fermented berries is a very long shot. However nonchalant he acts about it, he seems to have thought long and hard about it. Enough to reason it away with some far cry explanation. Would you have even been able to get drunk off a handful of fermented berries? And, god, you’re really sure that you’d have noticed. That taste isn’t really one you just don’t notice.

Whatever. Maybe you were just drunk idiots. That’s a lot easier to swallow, anyway.

“Okay, but you saw that. Did it not look sinister?” you say. With your spoon back in your hand, you punctuate the sentence pointing it at him. “You freaked out with me, too.”

An unsatisfied scowl on his lips, he steals a spoonful of your dessert. You don’t even swat him away—your phone buzzes in your pocket.

Catching sight of who’s calling, you share a long look with Kai. It’s funny, how fast those three white letters scramble you up. When you hesitate to answer, Kai tells you, “Answer.”

You hope she can’t tell you’re not at Kai’s by the refrigerators’ dull buzzing. It’s an effort to tussle that invasive worry back. You’re at Dairy Queen. Getting ice cream with the boy she’s known since childhood. She should clutch her hands and thank the sky that you’re here, not out in some nasty frat house like you could be. You thumb the green button.

Her voice comes through the speaker crackled and asking you to run over to do a quick dish load. For a heartbeat you consider telling her that you will and then start rushing home. Instead, you fork out the truth through resistant lips.

The hangup tone sits heavy on the air between you and Kai. Having listened to the whole thing on speaker, he says, “What was so hard about that? The world didn’t end, did it?”

The plush of your lip takes a hard gnawing. No, it hadn’t. “I know she’s not going to get mad at me for just going here,” you say as you rest your elbows onto the table. “It’s that they’re supporting me right now. I still live under their roof. The more I go around and insist I can do whatever I want, they’ll start reminding me of it.”

His face drawn, he lets his mouth twitch to one side. “Yeah,” he muses. “I never thought yours would be the type to kick you out.”

Kai’s dad had started threating him with getting kicked out years ago, when he first started telling him that he wanted to do music. How many times had he let reluctant tears flow into your shoulder over it? Because music wasn’t a real job? Back then, you’d whispered in his ears that he’d become everything he’d dreamed of and more as your fingers carded through shaggy locks of hair.

“I don’t know,” you say, humming it out noncommittally. “Is your dad still... y’know?”

Nodding slowly, his eyes tell. “Yeah. Always.”

“Because you’re taking the band seriously, now?” you ask.

“Probably. I don’t give a shit what he thinks about it. If I’m just his goddamn problem, I’ll give him what he wants soon enough.” His eyes blaze with promise of it.

It takes a bit out of you to not wince. Kai living anywhere but in the house across from yours is wrong. “I don’t think he necessarily wants that, Kai...” You take his hand in your icy ones, the urge to reach out to him thinly veiled under the guise of searching out warmth. He’d always run warmer than you—your personal heater. “It’s probably because he can see that you’re doing it for real. Not just saying it anymore.”

“Yeah, well,” he spits, “I can’t fucking wait to see what he’ll say to me when I make it. That piece of shit, though, he wouldn’t even care. It’s not like he ever gave a shit about me enough for it to matter.”

But, it matters to you, you want to tell him. You understand his need to throw it all in his face. Though. “Is that one label going to sign you? The one you were talking about?”

His tongue darts out to wet dry lips. “They haven’t yet. I don’t know. But I don’t need that money to get out of here, I’ve been working on it.”

“They will,” you say. “But, where would you go? Not too far?” You try and keep it light and playful, even as your heart aches.

“Come with me,” he says. It’s painfully blunt, as if it were that simple. “Let’s go get and apartment; you and me.”

“Kai...” you say. “You don’t have to drag me along because you feel bad.”

The idea doesn’t sound half bad, though.

“What?” His face tightens, as if somewhere under the surface your words had scraped somewhere tender. “You don’t have to stay here forever. Please. I want... I want you to come with me. You wouldn’t have to even tell them; just bring all your stuff and go together. We could do it together. Like we said we would.”

“We were like, five. Everybody tries to pretend running away at five,” you deadpan. It’s a washy attempt at lightening things back up.

Living with him, moving out together, should feel like everything you’ve ever wanted. And, maybe it is. But, he’s not asking you to live with him the way you want him to. Not in the way that your aching heart wishes he would.

Kai doesn’t share the laugh you give him. “Yeah, okay,” he says, leaning into the table.

Perhaps you should consider the potent disappointment he’s terribly masking with a face of indifference, though.

⚝⭒

Slowly, the knots in your belly have worked themselves out. When Kai had dropped you off, they’d been so awful that you felt borderline sick. You sat the whole ride there in his old beat-up truck picking at your nails and rambling to him. He listened to you the whole time. And then when it was time to walk in, it had least felt a little easier to do so with his eyes on you, watching to make sure you made it in safely.

You’d gotten a job. It’s not too bad, folding clothes out on display. It would be nice if they kept the lights a bit brighter, but you’ll get used it eventually, you hope.

Most of your coworkers are around your age, but the one showing you the ropes... your heart had fluttered.

“You’ll get it,” Yeonjun says. The smile you find on his lips once he straightens up from placing product on a display is smooth and smug. Sleek strands of black hair fall over his eyes. You fluster under his gaze.

With arms crossed over your chest you say, “Yeah, probably.” You reach into the cardboard box for stock to practice on.

“Where’d you work before this?” he asks, leaning back into a wall to watch you. Suddenly, you make sloppier work of your folding. “Your first retail job?”

Some obnoxious pop song falls down from the speakers over the store. Nobody’s in here yet, thankfully; you’ve got some time to try and get a handle on everything. “No, this is my first job. I was so nervous walking in.”

Interest catches in his eyes. It encourages that smooth smile on his lips further. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll show you the reins.”

Your mind stalls. The suggestive, sly flicker to it—are you looking too much into it? Maybe that’s just how guys like Yeonjun act. It’s hard to pretend that you don’t see how he’s looking at you, though. It has your belly twisted up in fluttery knots. It’s not like you hadn’t had your share of his type. But, for some reason you’d rather not address, he’s got your heart thumping in your chest.

He laughs at your fifth attempt to fold up the shirt. When he takes it from you to help, he smells of musk and vetiver. “You going to college near here?” he continues.

“Nah, just doing this, I guess,” you answer, watching him fold it up to try and soak it up.

“Really? Why not?” he hums, crossing his arms about his chest. “You seem like a smart girl.”

Buffering, your blood buzzes in your veins and your cheeks burn. “Dunno. Not really sure what to do. Are you in college?”

“Nah. I’m trying to figure things out, too.”

The both of you pop your heads up when the bell rings to announce the arrival of a customer.

“Yeah,” you say, eyeing him. He’s a few years older than you, no doubt, and yet his life hasn’t fallen apart because he’s not done anything grand yet.

Time’s hand around your neck loosens. Just a little bit.

⚝⭒

You sit crisscrossed on top of Kai’s bedsheets. He’d thrown the windows open because the AC died, but it’s no help. The hot air wafting about the room sits heavy on your skin. You’d dressed in as little material as possible to let it breathe, bare thighs clad in a pair of loose shorts and a thin tank top, but it’s still miserable.

Perhaps you two should be going over to yours, but you haven’t had time alone with him for a few weeks now. You hate this busier life, where you struggle to make room for this.

Your new job isn’t so awful, though. Especially with Yeonjun there. A bout of nerves flows up through your stomach. That reminds you.

Sitting up a bit straighter, you consider not doing it. In fact, you really shouldn’t. But your mouth moves before you can put a stopper on it.

“Hey, Kai,” you say. The thickness in your throat makes you believe that your heart’s jumped up into it, caught. God, what are you doing? The unsure waver in your words has you regretting.

His eyes flicker up to yours. He hums out a, “Huh?”

No, this is wrong. You mess with the thin cotton strap of your tank top where it’d slipped down. “Never mind,” you tell him, trying to shrug it off.

That piques his interest. “No, what?” His brow pinches.

You lick your lips and shake your head. “Nothing, never mind. Really.”

His eyes search you from where he sits up against the wall. “Tell me,” he demands.

Really, you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. It was a ridiculous idea. But now you know he’s not going to let it go. And, ridiculously, you say it. “I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?”

Insects buzz outside as he looks at you, frozen in spot. You reject the urge to dart away or throw up. You’re honestly just as shaken as him. But really, who else could you trust with something like that? You don’t want Yeonjun to be disappointed if he kisses you, or to seem inexperienced to him.

And, perhaps, the hopelessly in love part of you hopes to at least feel his lips on yours at least once. If you’re going to be alone forever in your longing, you just wish that you can have this.

“What?” Kai says. He looks rattled.

Of course, he’s shocked. You shift. “Forget I said that,” you tell him, unable to meet his gaze.

String-roughened fingers wrap around your upper arm. “I didn’t say anything,” he says, voice strained and face less shock-fallen and more darkened. “But... I mean, you want me to teach you to kiss for some other guy.” He spits out the last bit as if bitter in his mouth.

“You don’t have to do it,” you say. “I just... thought that I might ask you to do it. I don’t know, I’m sorry I said it. I’ll just wing it or something.” His room’s grown ten degrees hotter, if that was possible. Especially where you feel his eyes on your face.

Almost imperceptibly, his hand tightens around you. He swallows hard. “You want to learn how to kiss?” he says. “Fine. I’ll teach you.”

In a heart-stopping moment, your eyes snap to his. Brown and familiar, they hold you with an intensity that turns your limbs into jelly. The air is stifling. “What... do I do?” you ask when the silence becomes too heavy.

A muscle feathers in his jaw, reflected in the low light of his room. It’s quick and so easy to miss, but it tells you everything you need to know about how this is making him feel. How much disbelief he’s in. “Come here,” he says, stilted around the absolute absurdity of it. He pats on his lap.

You make a hesitant crawl across the bed toward him. It seems as though your elbows might buckle beneath your weight, but you make it despite the odds. A fog settles over your brain when you rest your hands on his shoulders and bring your legs to straddle his lap.

But you shove it back; you want to live and breathe every last second of this. No matter how unbelievable or blistering it is.

Breaths fan out over your face. It’s seizing your mind like undiluted liquor. “Where do I put my hands?” you ask him. It’s breathless, the air stolen right from your lungs though your mouths haven’t even touched.

“There is fine,” he says. His words sound breathless, too. The weight of his touch on you as he runs his own up to support your back is unsure. “And then...” he says. It falls out on your mouth slowly, and then he’s taking your lips onto his.

The walls melt away, sound does too. All that is real is the taste of his lips and how they move against you. Your lips start tentative, but you try his mouth movements yourself. It feels like a timid dance—it feels like deep, deep down, finally everything is right. That mist, thick and blinding, falls back over you.

Something changes. Something in it, where you two meet, changes. He becomes hungry. Softly locked lips turn biting and nipping, shaky breaths exhaled slow through your nose. His hands on your back become surer, and one even ventures off to grab your chin. The other holds you to his chest, melded together despite the intense smoke and flame rolling off your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating a mess there.

Reluctance paints you both when you pull back. You’re panting deep drinks of air. It’s hard to think; your mind’s run off and sits just out of reach. Licking your messy lips, stained with illicitness, you can only manage to brush your fingers against it to form words. “How... was that?” you say, searching his eyes. You find his pupils blown so wide that they consume the warm brown. You’re ready to jump out of your skin with that look pointed at you.

Kai doesn’t answer, though. He slams your mouths back together as if starved by just the brief moment you’d parted for air. Nips on your bottom lip and emboldened hands—he moves like roaring water through a dam. A dam that he’d worked hard to fortify, and yet, at a crack it’s all falling down. Fingertips digging through the fabric of your shorts down to your soft hips, his chest rumbles. You feel it reflected in your core, electricity charging there and shooting up your spine and down your thighs.

You kiss him for all the times you wish you would’ve, but didn’t. The slight rolls of your hips down onto him come easy. You love how it has him making a sound into your mouth and taking the fat beneath his fingers harder into his hands. He helps you.

He drops his head into your neck. Your head swims for air and he has you shuddering with just the brushing of his nose against the column of your neck. The walls of his room spin around you. “Kai,” you whine, every bit of friction his jeans provide, even clothed as you are, just enough to rile you but not to give you what you need.

“God,” he growls, thumbs hooking under your waistband. “You always fucking run around dressed in nothing,” he says, letting his fingers linger like a suggestion of undressing you. “Did you do it on purpose? Expect to make me crazy, knowing I couldn’t touch you?”

And, in those words, it seems that he steals every last bit of breath from you. How often had you gone braless or worn something like this around him? Laid here, in his bed, like that?

Grown tired of your fruitless grinding, he brings a hand down to support your lower back and says, “Turn around.”

Though you explode with the prospect of what he might be intending to do or what’s next, if you’re really going to do this, you do so in a flash of eager limbs. His chest is solid against your back, you melt against the feeling of it. He’d become such a man lately, filled out, and you watched it happen. It was hard for your eyes not to catch on muscle-corded forearms while he picked at strings or to not appreciate the timbred rumble of his voice when you’d feel it come from his chest. How could it not do things to you? Now, he’s dragging your shorts down your legs and you’re in disbelief.

“Fuck,” he breaths out. His fingers find your panties soaked through. “So, you’re the type to get dripping wet.”

An embarrassed blush decorates your cheeks. Kai drags his index finger in circles around your clit through the fabric as if enamored with how much of a mess you’d made of it. Your hips twitch every time he rolls right over it. It’s strange how he’s got your body acting on its own volition with his touches. Even stranger that it’s your best friend doing it. “Sorry,” you tell him, wavering.

He continues those terribly slow circles. “Sorry?” he says, chin on your shoulder. He’s got you wrapped up in him, with nowhere to go but to melt back into him and let his fingers work. Free hand on one of your inner thighs digging divots into the plushness there to hold it still, he tells you, “It’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s hot as fuck. You’re so excited for me to touch you, huh?”

The words wreak havoc on you, feeding the flame that has your belly twisted up tight and the ignition point between your thighs pounding. To hear them coming from him, reserved Kai, has you digging your fingers into his forearm to prove that it’s real. You’d never have imagined him being so... filthy. You imagine him behind falsely nonchalant eyes, devouring you with a perverted mind all the times you’d spent innocently sitting together in this room.

Your cheeks squish beneath his fingers as he takes your face and turns it to him. He wants to make sure you’re look at him as he asks you, “Do you want me to finger you?”

Like a record, your brain skips. Between the blunt, lewd question and his hand on you, it’s in overload. How could ask something like that so simply? Stunned as you are, of course you want him to. You want him to do anything to you. You nod.

Every last nerve and neuron in your system, just below the skin, cry out when his fingers slow down to nothing. “Hmm?” he says, ignoring the chasing of your hips and the opening of your thighs to invite him into paying your poor pussy the attention he’d ripped from it. He wants to hear you say it.

About ten minutes ago, you lost your mind. It does not return to you now. “I want you to,” you say, chest beating in tandem with your cunt.

“You want me to, right? Not some dumbass you met a week ago, huh?” he says. “Because you know that this is what it’s meant to be. Me, doing these things to you. Not some twenty-five-year-old piece of shit. He doesn’t deserve you, baby. Understand?”

His fingers slider under your panties. Dumb brained and cognition gone muddled, you nod. All you can really think about is the moment his fingers slide over you. Fire licks up your lower belly and your insides as he brushes calloused finger tips finally right against your clit.

Puffed breaths of a scoff raise goosebumps over your skin. “Teach you to kiss so that you can go over there and get his hands on you,” he says, middle two fingertips prodding at your entrance. “As if you were ever anybody’s but mine. You’d come crawling back to me, baby, because it was always meant to be us. He could never satisfy you.”

His words might alarm you or have you asking questions if he hadn’t pushed his fingers into you and begun curling them with strong, pointed presses, pulling soft mewls and hums from you until he finds a spot that twists up your insides. Even through the palm you press over your mouth, your moans come out more like wavering grunts and croaks. Your thighs quiver and twitch, threatening to snap closed against your own will with each. Only your feet stay planted to the mattress. Like a cone of soft serve under the sun’s blistering attention, you melt down him. Just his frame keeps you upright.

“Right there, huh?” he says. The smirk on his mouth filters his words into something taunting. “That’s where you like it.” It’s like he’s learning your body step by step, fulfilling all the questions he’d been forced to only guess at before this.

“Uh-huh.” It comes out whiny and cracks in the middle, but you can’t find even an ounce of you to care right now. If this moment had been a long spiral, a fall from grace, down into a dark pit of forgotten inhibitions, you’ve just hit the bottom. Cheeks blazing cherry blossom pink and with your fingers curling into his pant leg, you don’t doubt that you are a picturesque mess. The kind of mess that’s beautiful because it’s dirty. Your teeth are not gentle on your plush bottom lip. It stings, tugged back and bitten and still a bit swollen with kisses. Perhaps you taste the tang of metal on it, but you pay it no mind.

Kai redoubles his efforts. Now that he knows exactly how to play you, he’s fucking you on his fingers without mercy. The sounds coming from your cunt were wet, but now they’re different— nasty squelching. The only noises coupling with your pathetic keening. Forget anchoring yourself on his thigh, forget muffling your sounds. Instead, your hands fly to encircle his flexing forearm. Under your nails, angry red crescents dig into the muscle there. What had been a languid, building pleasure suddenly becomes everything. Your breaths run away from you, and you chase them frantically. Deep down in your core, the muscles spasm and rage against his fingers. “H—oh god,” you groan. Even the muscles in your thighs and tummy tighten up.

“So whiny...” Kai mumbles, voice taut with the effort of eroding you down into pure, blinding-white pleasure.

And then, in a swoop of mercy, your belly tightens. You hover here, on the precipice of something so consuming and voracious that your muscles and bones reject it, and yet your heart sings. Your eyes and cheeks and lungs and belly burn, the flame charring the edges of you in a beckon. You answer its call. Kai doesn’t mind the snapping of your legs shut around his arm, nor does your bucking or shaking deter him. He just holds you through it, arm like a metal bar around your waist. He’s everywhere, in this moment—the smell of him, leather and utterly familiar, his mouth dusting hot kisses over your skin, his fingers guiding you through orgasm. Where you’d gone silent in the initial crash of it, you devolve into mewls and grunts as you come down.

He holds you even as you slump against him boneless. Afterglow simmers in your veins and has your brain all lethargic and lazy. Neither of you speak for a while, your pulse thumping a rhythm. His breaths rise and fall against you; it grounds you in this moment where you feel all spacey and gone. You become aware again of how disgustingly sweltering it is in his room, your skin sheened.

That brainless bliss only lasts you for so long, though. When rational mind returns to you, no matter how you wish it wouldn’t, you’re hit in the chest with regret so hard it knocks the wind out of you.

How will anything ever be the same after what you’d just done? Stricken still by the thought, you barely register him pulling his fingers out of you. After all your worrying about making sure no wedge comes between you two, look what you’ve gone and done. No; nothing ever will be the same again.

⚝⭒

A couple of weeks ago, you ruined the one friendship you were supposed to have forever. It presses down heavy one you while you sit sprawled out on Yeonjun’s couch, his arm around your shoulder. His phone casts a glow over his features with all the lights out.

It doesn’t smell like home. He, pressed against your side, doesn’t smell like home.

Some stupid movie that he’d picked out, yet somehow you’ve ended up the only one still watching it, weaves a hum into the quiet of his apartment. Tangy hurt wells up in your throat. Even the moments when you and Kai would sit in mutual silence on your phones never felt like this. This is different.

You haven’t seen Kai since that night. He’s been busy getting ready to move out, and you’ve been here most days. How fast all of it had changed. You wish you’d feel whiplashed, left empty, by the drifting that you’d been so terrified of. But you don’t. It’s just been you, locked on land, watching him being taken away by the ocean’s tide with no way to change its course. You tried and screamed to call him back, but now your voice has gone hoarse.

And instead of watching him go, you choose to look elsewhere. It’s all you can do to protect yourself from the hurt.

“Hey,” Yeonjun says, finally addressing you rather than whoever’s he’s got in his phone. “Did you bring anything to change into?”

“I brought stuff to sleep in,” you say, eyeing him. You know that’s not why he’s asking. If it came down to it, you could just steal something from him and pull it on. He means going out clothes. Your jaw tightens. “But nothing nice. Why?”

He stretches his arms behind his head in a flaunt of long arms and tanned muscle. Hours spent at the gym lent him those; you appreciate the look of it with a watering mouth. Kai had earned his build by hours spent outside with your dad, because his own could care less, helping him fix up cars and vehicles of all ridiculous sorts. You remember when Kai had first gotten his truck—junk on wheels, honestly—he’d spent so much of summer out there getting it running. And, well... the sun-kissed bronze of his skin and frame that came with it, you had no qualms with.

But those memories only sit heavy in your chest as you’re sat here beside Yeonjun. You banish them elsewhere; you need to let him drift off. If you can’t have each other, and your feelings won’t permit just being friends, then you have to. You want him to do amazing things, and you fear that it’s your presence in his life that will interrupt that. As much as your feelings are real, they are selfish. You, your unsure direction and all your dead weight, should let him go. Because you love him.

“The guys want to come over,” he tells you, pushing off from the couch. “You should probably into change into something less showy.”

Less showy. Your mouth drops into a scoff of disbelief, looking down. A pair of shorts and a shirt, showy? You have to laugh, or else you’ll succumb to the strange embarrassment crawling at the back of your skull. What’s he trying to say? Is that what he thinks of you? “What’s that supposed to mean?” you say, face tilted up to him in a twist of distaste. “I’m wearing something comfy.”

He shrugs, hands shoved into the pockets of his black sweats. “Don’t want to give them the wrong idea about you, that’s all, baby. They’re guys; I just want to protect you.”

“No,” you say, the word falling out in a barked laugh. “Why would you even be bringing over dudes that you think will look at me like that? Why are you even friends with people that you think are gonna make moves on your girlfriend?” He holds a hand out to you, but your hands stay right where they are: crossed solidly over your chest.

Throwing that hand up in audacious exasperation, he gives you a look that makes you feel small and petulant—like you’re throwing an overblown fit. And, maybe you are. You should probably just do it; him seeing you as some overbearing or high maintenance girl has that embarrassment flaring like wildfire that’s found dry brush. “C’mon, baby,” he says, a lazy smile on his mouth that gets under your skin. “Let’s just have an easy night. Don’t make it a big deal.”

Let’s just have an easy night. As if you’re the one ruining the night. Something snarky tries to seize your tongue, but you hold it down. “I thought it would be just us. We wanted to watch the movie together, Yeonjun. Can’t you wait to hang out with your friends? Let’s enjoy our time together; you’ve got your shift tomorrow.”

“My fucking god,” he groans, running a hand through his hair furiously. “You’re needy, you know that? The neediest I’ve ever had to put up with. I don’t put up with needy, baby. Can’t you just chill out a little? My last didn’t mind when I’d have friends over.”

Your eyes burn. Your cheeks burn. He’d been with plenty of other girls before you; that, you’re well aware of. It’s been a corrosive source of self-doubt for you. You don’t want that title: the neediest he’s ever had. Don’t want him to think of you as some prude that won’t let him have fun. Just... hearing him bring up the other girls he’d been with before you stings and leaves welts no different from a slap in the face. Feelings of inadequacy shackle you and have you saying, “Fine. I’m gonna borrow some of your clothes.”

Heavy resentment blooms on your skin where he bends down and presses kisses to your cheek, and then mouth, and then down your neck. “Thank you, baby.”

And, where those ugly, wilted flowers of it bloom, you hear echoes of something. Something that tells you that Kai wouldn’t treat you like this. But you’ve made your bed, decided to do it yourself, and now you’ve got to lay on it.

⚝⭒

The frat parties are the worst kind of social outing that Yeonjun insists upon. The smaller kinds, more intimate gathering with just his closer friends, you tolerate much easier. You’re not fond of the circles he chooses. Breathing in thick, smoked-out air surrounded by alcohol-coated breaths is not your type of fun night. Somehow, you end up doing that more than date nights. But that’s better than being here. The base rumbles up through your feet and makes your stomach sick, and it reeks of grinding bodies and body odor, and condensation coats your fingers from the red solo cup as full as when you’d first gotten it.

But, still, you come along. Not every time, but when you don’t, you lay in his bed sickening yourself with images of what he might be doing here. How pathetic is it to attend parties with your boyfriend because you fear that otherwise, he might stick his tongue down the throats of other girls?

You’re looking for him right now, awkward and left alone. He’d promised to stick around; you had begged him to. That was pathetic, too. You know that you put up with too much. If he loved you, or honestly even liked you, you two would be in the thick of the throngs dancing or off somewhere talking with others. Together. The frantic skimming and weeding of your eyes through the blur of faces is not right. That’s not how he should make you feel. It’s not how Kai would make you feel.

Well, Kai would never have you here in the first place.

Venturing out from your little corner, you sift between the bodies of people have a hell of a lot better time than you. Drunken, some you bounce off of like bumper carts. You press your palm over the round face of your cup to spare the floor from spillage threatening to pour over the lip. It’s not like a splash from yours would matter much, though. The linoleum has already been made a fetor mess of dirt off shoes and the sticky sugar of liquor. Your shoes peel from it as you walk. God, what would your parents think of you being here?

You peek around corners and eye big groups. He’s not in the kitchen when you look there, either. Your stomach feels sick in a knowing way—a gut feeling that doesn’t justify anger or tears just yet, but you know. Right in the center of your chest, you know.

It’s in some room that you find him. Sat on the floor along with a few faces you don’t know, he pulls from his bottle. And on his shoulder, he lets a girl with shining curls and pink cheeks rest her head. At your busting in on the intimate gathering, Yeonjun’s eyes slide to you. Recognition flashes over them and wars with bleary drunkenness.

“Hey, baby,” he says. Their gazes all fall on you, but you can hardly see them through blurry eyes.

The girl lifts her head from his shoulder. She’d caught the memo.

“I think I’m gonna go.” You make it sound resigned, try to not let them see your shame, but your voice betrays you and crackles. Maybe it’s better to pretend it doesn’t feel like you’ve just been kicked in the stomach and left to reel against the force, but you can’t. You’re nowhere near shocked, nowhere near blindsided, but still you hurt.

He follows you down the hall. “What’s your problem?” he says, the few, plain words mending and waving into a slurring.

You’ve got one goal: get to the front door, away from the shitty music and him. His words, sharpened, fall off your skin despite his efforts. What good would fighting do you, anyway? It was always going to end up this way. This is just who he is, and he doesn’t give two shits enough about you to want to change that.

“Baby, seriously? That made you this mad? I didn’t even fucking do anything. Stop being insecure,” he says. At the gritting of your teeth, he sees an opportunity and pounces on it. “You don’t need to be jealous. I don’t do jealous shit. We can dance, or something. Shit, I don’t know what you want! Just stop throwing a fit.”

Didn’t do anything? You have to laugh. Maybe you didn’t walk in on him fucking someone else, but that’s not what this is about. Not even a little bit. You’ve checked out, and the fact that he thinks he can make you believe that it’s your fault this time only drives the killing stake in harder.

Maybe you’re bitter. It claws at your insides—turns your face hot and screams in your face that you’ve been used. But beside it sits a sadness. Not the slow kind, but the quick sadness of hurt. Why hadn’t you been good enough for him to love you? To like you? You’d left behind Kai and rested your new life on Yeonjun’s shoulders. You’d wanted so badly for his approval, or for him to want you. You did your best to try and make this work out because you needed it to. You needed so desperately proof that you could fall in love with somebody else. But your best was not what Yeonjun was interested in.

Pins and needles prick your skin as you step outside, like jumping into an ice bath. It shocks you out of dizziness. Words surge up and out in a flash flood like hard reality. You spin on him. “Jealous?” you say, choking out a scathing laugh. “The last thing I’d ever let myself suffer over you is jealousy. Get over yourself. I’m going, stay here if you want. I don’t care.”

“How are you gonna do that, huh?” he says. The flickering yellow of the porchlight paints his features. The shadow of something fluttering around it cuts dark spots in the light, and then a small little moth comes down and jumps around in his face. He waves it off. “Gonna have bitch boy come pick you up? You can’t leech off him forever; he’s gonna get sick of picking up another man’s girlfriend.” It seems like you walking in on that had sobered him up, but his breath still curls out onto your face with the reek of alcohol. “It’s not a big deal. You’re making this a bigger deal than it has to be. Do you not trust me?”

“You are such a piece of shit,” you grit out. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Ever. I don’t know how I let this go on for so long.” You don’t like him having Kai in his mouth, don’t like him trying to act like you’re conflating things, and especially don’t like that face he’s making. As if you’re acting crazy and overblown. “No, I don’t trust you. You didn’t fuck her, but come on, Yeonjun. Seriously? You think I’m stupid, and I’m sick of it. You thought this would be easy because I didn’t have the experience you have, but I’m sorry. I don’t like being walked over.”

“If you’re gonna be so goddamn jealous, then maybe we aren’t gonna work,” he says.

That moth, floating light in the air, is right back in his face. Yeonjun takes two hands and smashes it between a clap of his hands. He shakes its flattened, broken body off his hand. Looking down at it laying there on top of dirt-caked concrete, you get this... feeling. A tickling around your person.

“See if I care,” you snap, throat aching against the onslaught of emotion and held back tears.

⚝⭒

Rivulets of raindrops dilute the tears on your cheeks. Your hair plasters to your face and your clothes to your body.

For a week, you’d went about it all as if it hadn’t happened. And then you came here.

It’d not been this rainy when you first got down to the creek—just a gentle trickle, really. You hadn’t been crying then, either. But, watching the water work at babbling over stone, you let yourself feel it. Here, where you’d had so many good memories. You’ve gone and tainted it, now. But for whatever reason, you’d just wanted to be here. Arms curled around yourself and fingers digging into drenched sleeves, you don’t wipe away the tears or cover the sounds of your crying. You let the stream hear it; it’ll sweep it right up and down the way. Somewhere far off, where you don’t have to feel it anymore.

You realize that, usually, you’d be over at Kai’s right now. The fact that his room was not the first place you thought you could go to anymore is a punch to the gut. You drop your face into your hands and cry harder. Really, you’ve got to stop doing that to yourself. Thinking of sad things—putting your hurt under the microscope to see it closer. It’d be easier to just fold it up and tell yourself that it’ll pass, and that relationships end all the time.

It’s not him that you cry over. Well, maybe some of it is. Rather, it’s that you have absolutely no idea where you’re going. Where you are. Finally, you’d built yourself a raft to get off the shore and go out to sea, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and it’s breaking apart right beneath you. And, stranded and alone in the water, you’ve got no way to get back to shore to build yourself another raft. You’re stranded, and the scariest bit is that you’re doing it all alone. You weren’t supposed to do this alone. You two made promises back then.

You suppose that a promise is one of those things you were supposed to leave faith in back on shore.

The raindrops are heavy over you. The fall of it roars against the ground, a torrent downpour. It’s not coupled with whipping wind or flashes of lightning—just straight, still falling. It’s a somber feeling no different from the gnawing in your chest.

Like chimes, there’s a distant, gentle sound. Maybe water falling over creek rock, but it’s more like suggestion. A sweet sound that you shouldn’t even be able to hear over the rest of it, it’s as if it’s right in your ear. A whisper.

You fix your blurry eyes with a wet sleeve. Rain falls right back into its place, but you see it: a silvery, whimsy haze. And the moths. They jump and call you, this time. Their glow bounces off the rainy mist against the grey of night’s arrival. Then, all you can hear is the whispering. Where you stand frozen, your feet beg to move. To follow them.

So you do.

Their entourage of moondust trails them where they go, wrapping you up and weaving between raindrop and space. You don’t worry where they’ll take you, or even try to wrap your head around this happening again. You just follow, mind glossed over and entranced with how beautiful it is. When you’d seen them before, it’d made you uneasy. Mostly because it looked so unearthly and unbelievable. But this time you just follow.

A far-off voice, one oh-so-familiar, peaks through the haze. It’s not enough to stop you, but then you hear it again, louder and closer.

You blink a few times. Once to break away the fog, and then twice to focus your eyes on Kai stood in front of you. His hair lays in wet spikes over his eyes and beads of rain trace the planes of his face. He’s as soaked as you.

“Kai?” you say. Looking around you, you’ve ended up somewhere in the field between your houses and the creek. But you’ve got no recollection of walking here. Whatever that mist is, sentient or not, had swept you here.

His voice is strained, but you appreciate hearing it. “Break up with him,” he tells you.

In his eyes, as you search them, there’s stardust glowing like reflection. Your face twists up. “What?” you say, breath a puff of smoke ahead of you. Summer had come and gotten away from you so fast, and now it’s gone all cold again.

“Break up with him,” he echos, face solemn. He looks ruffled.

“Why?” you ask, “And why are you out here?”

“Because I’m moving out today, and I think I deserve to at least see you before I go.” His eyes look over you. “And... your dad said you went down to the creek.”

He’s moving out today, and you had no idea. And really, it’s your fault. You’d driven that wedge between the two of you. “I did break up with him.”

Downpour fills his quiet for a few moments, his face swirling with emotion like the clouds above you. He nods. “Good.”

There are a few more long minutes between you; just you two searching each other's faces, antsy to say so much that it bunches up in your chests and stalls. It’s what a summer of longing does to you. Even with Yeonjun, even trying to slowly chip away the stitching that had connected the two of you at the hip, you were helpless to stop the gnawing of the love you bear for him. Even just seeing him now, you feel those threads mending back up. God, why does it have to be so hard?

He just looks at you. For a few beats, he just looks at you. There are so many questions in his eyes. They flit across and turn over, but all he settles on is, “Why?”

There’s so much you want to tell him. Words pile up to the top, some threatening to spill over. But you know that if you tell him some of it, just to make up for all the time you’d missed out on together, it’ll all come crashing out. And you don’t think you want him to know just how much you accepted, the way you let yourself get treated. So, you shake your head and say, “It doesn’t matter.”

Kai looks like he wants to push that issue, but whatever look he finds on your face deters him. “Come with me,” he pleads. “I want you to come with me.”

Your throat tightens. Curling your arms around yourself harder, the rain only coming down on you harder, you say, “Kai, I want to. I want to. I just... I don’t want to freeload off you, because you’re doing great things, and I’m just...” Your tongue darts out to wet your lips, but they’re already as soaked as the rest of you. “I’m just going nowhere. And I don’t want to be a burden, or ever be the reason that you can’t do what you dream of. If staying here means that you become everything that you’re destined to do, then I’m happy with that, Kai. I am.”

He shakes his head, stumbling toward you. “No, no you don’t get it,” he says, frantically taking your shoulders into big hands. Under his touch, every taut muscle goes slack. You melt. “You don’t get it. You are the music. Every single song is about you. Every single fucking song is about you. I want you to come with me, please. I love you, I have always loved you, and I will always love you, and I thought you’d loved me too, and I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t do it alone.”

He loves you. Kai loves you. The enormity of it rumbles the ground where you stand on legs you fear might just give in. You flex your fingers to combat the tears pricking your eyes. It doesn’t work; they brim and well up, spilling down over your cheeks. “What?” you say, voice softly breaking. “Kai, I didn’t...”

“And just when I thought I finally had you, you left me,” he says, throwing a hand up beside him in a big gesture. “You left me! I woke up thinking you’d be there, and that maybe you loved me too, and you had left me. And then you threw me away for some piece of shit, and you stopped coming around.” His chest heaves for breaths.

Your face contorts. That night, the one where you two had slipped up, you’d fallen asleep curled up against his chest on undiluted contentment. When you woke up, you had panicked. You thought he’d wake up and pretend it hadn’t happened, or he’d be uncomfortable, or even be disgusted and regretting. You couldn’t handle that, so you slipped out before he woke up. It’d been an attempt to protect your tender heart, but looking at the twitching of his lip now, you begin to think it’s the most selfish thing you’ve ever done. He thinks you used him and left him. Your stomach twists. Voice thick, you say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you, Kai. I thought you didn’t... I thought you didn’t see me that way. I was scared. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Brows knitted together, he says, “Thought I didn’t love you?” His hand cups your cheek, warm against the soft frozen skin he finds there. “I’ve... I’ve dreamed of you almost every night of my life. In my sleep, I see you, and you’re happy and glowing, and that damn... mist is all around you. I couldn’t get away from you even in my sleep.”

Darting between his eyes, soft and reflecting your face back to you, it’s hard to breathe. Kai’s dreamt of you; he’s as sickly in love with you as you are him. Thunder claps, and the ground shakes, and the heavens open up above you, the trumpets belt, and you two are in love. Somewhere deep in your center, you feel it—your soul nodding yes.

The mist. You know exactly what he’s talking about. “I saw it. That stuff, those moths. The stuff we saw back then.”

“I did too,” he says, wet spikes of hair bouncing with a nod. “Not that long ago. It was the first time I saw it out of a dream since that day.”

Back then, you two had only budding, innocent love for each other. Things hadn’t become mangled and lost to confused hearts or expectations. When they’d appeared to you, you hadn’t needed it. This time, you’d followed it. And it had led you here—somehow had led you right to the very spot you needed to so that every last piece might fall into place. For this moment to happen. You know why it did.

“I’ll go with you, Kai. I’ll go wherever you go; I love you. I’ve loved you since forever,” you say, each and every word massive and lovely on your tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.”

So unlike the last times your mouth had met, he brings his mouth to yours with a dazzling clarity. No longer is it confused kisses; he locks his lips against yours with the urgency of so many years being unable to. Kai’s hands cradle your wet cheeks, hold you so tenderly into his kiss. His touch grounds you, makes the moment real. You melt into him—your fingers curled into his shirt as if holding him there so that he won’t disappear like something of an incorporeal dream. He sighs through his nose, kissing you harder. Even if it all were fake and this was nothing more than a feverish figment of your imagination, you think you could die happy just knowing this once.

But it is utterly real, and utterly yours. You kiss him harder, too.

When your lungs start to burn and plead for breath, you two pull away from each other. Your eyes flutter open to capture his. Warm and brown and the same ones you’ve stared into so many times before, but not like this, you sink into them. He runs his thumb over your cheek as he sinks into yours. His tongue darts out to lick lips painted with you. In the inches between you, space no longer feels heavy or charged with grievances. Every last unsaid thing had been answered.

“I have my stuff up in the truck,” he says, breaths soft. Brown eyes dart around your face. “I’ll help you add your stuff to it.”

You shudder out a breath. Add your stuff to it. A nervous energy settles down over you, but it doesn’t seem so bad if you’re doing it with him. Together.

“Okay,” you whisper, a balmy secret just like the ones you used to share in small, giggly voices so many years ago. “Okay.”

⚝⭒

Shivers seize you like jittering bones, all wrapped up in a blanket. The velour cushion seats beneath you have soaked up water and become damp, but Kai’s got the heater blasting. You wind around back roads, headlights illuminating the way ahead of you. Stray droplets whip in them, but nothing much. Isn’t it funny how the rain had just stopped like that? That’s just how the weather is, out here. You wonder how the weather might act wherever you’re headed.

Your teeth chatter as if your jaw had its own will. The two of you had the windows down thinking that the wind might dry you off, but all it’s done is lap at your bitten cheeks. You reach down for the handle to crank it up. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you—either you’ll eventually dry off, or you can pull off at a rest area to change in a bathroom. The wet clothes are really not helping.

With an arm up on the steering wheel, Kai turns his attention on you. You know that smile. “Cold?” he asks, eyes darting between your face and the road. With the hand he’s not got working the steering wheel, he runs fingers over your thigh. Soft, gentle massages, yes. The number it does on your core is absurd. Each mindless digging into your thighs and brush of his thumb, sparks sputter there. You’ve sat here, right in his passenger seat, so many times before. Day trips up to the lake, the one he’d joined your family camping at for so many summers, all the times he’d driven you to school in this truck, and even just a quick run down to a convenience store for a late-night snack. You’d deemed it your seat. But never once had you sat in it like this. Your heart does a flip. All those times you’d wish he’d reach over and do just this—a small gesture that would’ve been so big then. And it’s your reality, now.

“Freezing,” you say. A brush of his fingers nearer the apex of your thighs sends you pressing them together and shifting in your seat. “But not everybody runs as hot as you, though, so.”

His eyes catch the movement in just the split second he looked over to you. “Huh,” he says. He turns to look at you, his gaze flickering with something anew. Something that you’d only ever seen once before. “Is that it?”

It’s hard to swallow. His fingers brush higher, and higher, feather-dustings of calloused fingertips that sends tingles shooting up your spine at the slightest suggestion of where he’s headed. “Yes,” you say, feigning indignance to cover the shiver that threatens to overtake you. When his fingertips dance at the waistband of your bottoms, it does so anyway. “Kai,” you say, blood hot in your veins. “You’re...driving.”

His eyebrows pinch into a taunting furrow. “I am,” he says, nodding. “Don’t worry about it, baby. I’ve got us.”

And he does; fingers slipping under the band of both your bottoms and your panties, he doesn’t even tear his eyes off the road. He’d driven these roads so much, you think he might be able to do it asleep. Even drawing a mewl from you with a brush over your clit, he doesn’t look away more than a quick glimpse at your pinkened cheeks.

Two fingers dragging up your folds, right over the source of the mess. “You get excited so easily, huh?” he hums. “You like it when I play with you.”

When he presses those fingers at your entrance, you can’t help but be taken back to that night. It echoes and reverberates through you. Long fingers, strong and punctual brushes against the sweet spot—he was criminally good with his fingers. Playing guitar did more for him than just music. He seemed to know exactly how to utilize those roughened fingers and trained flicks. Your muscles flicker as he abandons your hole for more brushes at your bud.

Those teasing, sly touches turn to something more serious. His fingers roll over your clit, slow but enough to have you sighing and rolling your hips against the seat belt. But last time had gone just like this, him touching you and receiving nothing. He should feel good, too. “Shouldn’t you pull over?” you sigh, muscles taut. Your breaths come out shuddering and half-controlled, interrupted by the tightness that each delicious swirl provokes. The door takes the brunt of your grip, white-knuckling the interior.

He laughs, a husky sound that is tinder to fire. He knows what you mean. “Maybe,” he says. “But I think I’m enjoying this plenty. I think I want to see you cum on my fingers again.”

Fingers pinching and flicking faster, you grow breathy and whiny, hips rolling against the seatbelt and back into the seat. Your muscles, all the way down your thighs and deep in your belly, jump and twitch each time his fingers run over your clit in just the right spot—that tender spot that’s so good that it teeters on overwhelming. The kind that makes you hiss and then want more. “Shit, Kai,” you whine. “Right—there, keep going."

He doesn’t answer with any teasing words. No, he just doubles down right at that angle and pressure, leaned back into his seat and driving as if he wasn’t fingers-deep in your panties right now. His sculpted profile at total ease—it does something for you. A delicious tightness curls its fingers over your center, promising a sugary ecstasy that you can’t help but chase. Bucking into his hands as best you can, you go quiet. Right there—right there, you feel it. The cusp. Your fingers brush over it, clenching around nothing and squeezing your thighs tight around him. Every last drop of blood in your body reaches for it, singing and dancing through your veins and making you dizzy.

And then he stops. Your mouth drops open, whiplashed and helpless to its slipping away from you. You whittle your gaze into something sharp and turn to him. “What—why?” you complain. The tide slips further and further and further back, but you still taste sea salt on your tongue. Frustration sets in its place as you feel it go. Seriously, you’d been right there. “You’re so mean.”

He slows and then with the clicking of the turn signal, he’s off the road and pulling the truck into park on a little secluded side road. Where the headlights pierce the pitch black, nothing but gravel and field surrounds you. He doesn’t kill the engine, instead pulling his hand free from you.

Your heart, still stuttering with your lost orgasm, kicks back to life as he smears your slick over your mouth, dragging it over your lips and then taking his thumb to run it right over the plush of your mouth. “Am I?” he says, fingers taking your chin to meet your eyes with his. Endless hunger, pupils so blown that his eyes look black, pins you. “I don’t think you’ve seen mean yet, baby.”

Darting your tongue out to clean your lips, you look at him through your eyelashes. “Show it to me, then.”

Something dark passes over his face. It has your skeleton jumping out of your body. Then, he says, “Is that what you want? You want mean?”

Brain gone to mush that can only really think about him touching you, a slow nod is all you can manage.

The engine’s hum prevails for some long, thick seconds. And then, he tilts his head in a gesture. “Get in the back.”

Holy shit. You want to sit there frozen in an overwhelming sort of excitement, but his seatbelt clicks undone and you’re set into motion. In a flurry of giggles and clumsy limbs, you climb up over the center console and into the backseat. He slips out of the front seat, not bothering to even kill the engine.

The door beside you opens in a swirl of cold wind. In nothing more than a blink, a strong hand has both your wrists pinned to the cushions and your back flush against it. Nose-to-nose, his breath hot over your face. “I’ve got plenty of ideas as to how I can warm you up.”

You appreciate each other’s faces for a beat more, you looking up at him big-eyed and waiting. Kai breaks the moment to attack your neck in a procession of bites and kisses. Your mouth falls into a silent sound.

“You know,” he says, free hand working your pants off. His eyes are trained on you, though. “I thought about doing this to you all summer. Touching you again.” He moves on to your top, pushing the fabric up until your chest is freed, clad in soft cotton. He eats the sight up. You want to reach down and cup the back of his head or feel his hair between your fingers as he presses his mouth against the soft beginning of your cleavage, but he’s got your wrists firmly planted. So much so, that you wonder exactly how he’s got you so secure with just one hand. Kai is strong, but maybe you hadn’t seen just how strong. Your skin aches under the purple bites he decorates you in. The sight of him—face in your chest and marking you up so lazily—has your teeth abusing your bottom lip. Whatever sounds you might make otherwise would be embarrassing. Kai lifts his eyes to you. “And I think you thought of me, too. Didn’t you?”

“Oh, god, yes,” you say, writhing beneath him. He’s going so slow. You want him all over you. “So much.”

He likes that. He takes your pebbled nipple into his mouth through the fabric. Soft grazes of teeth and sucks, you’re burning all over. When he pulls back, he’s left you dark wet patches when the bra had only just dried against your body heat. “Good,” he rasps, taking his big hands demanding and hungry over your torso. They swallow your frame up, soothing skin but lighting it aflame all the same. “Good girl.”

You never thought just words could unravel you, but those did the job. Not a gasp, nor a sucking in of breath—no, you go silent and brainless, fumbling for rational thought.

The dropping of your jaw has Kai delighted. “You’re so pretty,” he says. In a swift and powerful hoist, he’s tugging you down the cushions toward him with greedy fingers. He’s got your thighs pressed up to your chest. You’re bent right in half.

Out of breath, you huff out, “You too.”

A quick laugh falls from his mouth, lips pulled into a smug tilt. He nips at your calf up by his face. “So sweet, it almost makes me feel bad for what I’m about to do to you.” Reaching down for your panties, he pulls back on the suffocating press for only enough time to drag them up your legs. Those get discarded somewhere on the floor. Who cares about that right now, though? All you can register is the metallic clinking of his belt being undone. It’s got your nervous system twisting up.

And, those words. Electricity shoots bolts of pure, sizzling revery into your core. What I’m about to do to you. You imagine a great deal of things that he might mean, but still, you think that none could hold a candle against the promise his voice held in saying it.

Kai presses his body to your thighs and hooks your calves over his shoulders, and it all becomes real. The press of his heavy cock to your folds, the digging of his fingers into your outer thighs, his pretty eyes sparkling with something feral. As real as it gets—more real than anything you’ve ever felt in the entirety of your life. Your hands find perch flattened to his broad chest.

The position leaving you two no option but to look right into each other, he holds your gaze and begins slow drags of his hot length up and down your slit. Tantalizing, awful, awful drags. When his tip nudges your eager clit, you jolt. And then he does it again. And again.

“Kai,” you mewl. A press against your hole has you hopeful, and he lingers there for a moment, but doesn’t give it to you. Can’t he just fuck you? You’ve never been more pitifully in need of something in your life.

“Shh.” His ruts get more daring, smearing your slick up onto your belly. “Take it.”

You wiggle your toes in the air and make passes at arching yourself into him in search of better friction. He’s got you pressed so suffocatingly into the seat that it does absolutely nothing for you. In fact, he holds your harder and changes tack so that your thighs press together. At the very apex of them, his weeping cock slips through the seam.

Pressing his cheek into your calf, he watches you. Every gasp and shaky inhale, he watches. It spurs his rutting on, sticky sounds and pants eating up the air. Your nails claw at his hands as, finally, a knot tightens in your core.

“Yes, please,” you breathe. He fucks your thighs harder. Faster. Every nudge at your clit and hole becomes euphoric. “Kai, baby—I’m gonna—”

Just as furiously easy as last time, he rips it all away from you. The rushing away of the buzzing and promise of shaking thighs—he takes it from you again. It brings prickling tears to your eyes. “Kai?” you hiss. “Again?”

His eyes aren’t playful. He pulls your calves back over his shoulders, handling your hips into a better position to press his cock right at your entrance as if you weigh nothing. Face utterly straight, he says, “I don’t think you deserve it, do you? Not after what you did with Yeonjun.”

A swallow goes down your throat hard. He presses himself just a bit harder into you. Not in yet, but right there.

When he does begin sliding in, the stretch of it... You cling to him and squirm between him and the warm cushions behind you. Each inch is a heady feeling, all the way up to the hilt of him. He shudders a controlled breath. “You’re so fucking tight, though,” he grits out. “Did he not fuck you right?”

Slaps of skin bounce off the car interior and between your bodies. He starts off at a brutal pace; you know it’s meant to make your brain go foggy. Squeezing your eyes closed, you manage, “I... didn’t fuck him.” It comes out strangled, voice bouncing as he fucks you into the car seat.

Thumb tugging your bottom lip down and then dipping into your mouth, he watches the show of your ecstasy down to every last detail. “Yeah?” he says, voice shaking and almost desperate. “Always thinking of me, huh? Such a good little princess. You know exactly where your heart belongs.”

You want to answer him, even just with a whine or moan. You try to. But with his thumb pressing down on your tongue, enough to pin it to the floor of your mouth, it’s not gonna happen. He tastes salty in your mouth.

His truck consists of his grunts and whines, and your taut groans for some moments that seem to stretch forever. The planes of his groin grind against your clit when he delivers occasional pointed rolls, but mostly it’s just an animalistic, feverish dancing of your two sweaty bodies, holds growing more frantic the closer you get.

Thumb wet with saliva; he frees your mouth. The hand trails slowly down your face and your chin, brushing feather touches, until he finds your neck.

Your eyes fly open, wide. He pressed his fingers into your neck—no real pressure yet, he looks at you through damp strands of dangling hair and says, “Want my fingers around your neck?” His thumb brushes over the buzzing pulse point there.

“Yes,” you grit out, body bouncing and back raw with friction against the coarse cushion’s surface. Your breath stutters, your mind stutters. Even your blinks stutter, eyelids too lazy to keep up. “Please.”

The pressure of his fingers there—it frightens you and has you tightening around him at the same time. But you would trust nobody more with your life than Kai.

He presses his cheek to your calf to indulge in the sight of you like this: underneath him, folded in two, nowhere to go but to take his pistoning hips, cheeks blazing, and his fingers pressed into your windpipe. If the way he becomes sloppier and more desperate in his tempo has anything to say for it, it does something for him.

“Gonna be my pretty little girlfriend, huh?” he says. His voice is tight—so is your belly. You’re both so close. Hopefully, this time he’ll let you cum. “Take you to every show; show you off to everybody. Fuck.”

Brain like static and swimming with a pinched flow of oxygen, you slur your words. “You’re—hah—gonna have other girls all over you.”

The taunting, split-second raise of his brows flips your belly. You tighten him again. If he keeps hitting that spot, tip ramming into the soft spot deep inside you that he’d taken such delicate care of finding last time, you’re going to burst into sparkling flame and firework. He growls, “Well, I’ll just have to knock you up so that they know I’m yours, huh?”

Holy shit. You like the sound of that. Your nails dig into his wrist around your neck, but you cry out a pitchy, “Yes!”

“Oh, you like that?” Kai releases your throat to take both your hips. You gulp for air, finding nothing but the thick air of sex and humid breaths, at the opportunity. He’s ramming into you like he’s found a purpose. “Isn’t this the perfect position to do it? Get you pregnant?”

With every last bit of brain power you’ve got, teetering on the edge excruciatingly close to salvation, you groan a long, hoarse sound. “Fuck, yes! Please, Kai, inside—” A hot trail of tears roll down your temples.

It’s all he’s got to hear to still inside you. His growl rumbles deep in his chest, holding you in place and filling you with his hot cum deep in your cunt. That feeling, coupled with his short grinds against your clit as he fucks his seed deeper, takes your soul by sinful claws and crumbles it down into nothing. You burst into a shaking, whimpering peak, sucking your lips into your mouth to bare through the sheer twisting of your insides and the flame that consumes up your thighs and cunt.

He falls on you heavy, face in your neck. Warm kisses against your clammy skin meld with your slow floating down, the two of you a beautiful, nasty picture of fucked out. He stays right inside you—the absolute stillness of him, you think he has no plans of pulling out any time soon. His long fingers card through your sweaty locks of hair.

Finally, he presses himself off you. You get a glimpse of the window behind him—fogged up and filthy with your affairs. Anybody to see the truck from the outside would know exactly what went on inside, but right now, you don’t care. Not one bit. Your panted breaths drag in nothing but musk and thick, hot air. The drumbeat in your chest tells you that, despite how you feel ripped straight from your body, you are very much still alive. More alive than ever.

“Warm?” he says, pushing sticky hair off his forehead. He’s a mess, too. His hair is ruffled with your touch, his clothes rumpled the same, beads of sweat rolling down the planes of his cheeks and neck, and his eyes a lazy smolder. As much as he looks like sex personified, a soft smile twitches at his lips.

You snort. You can’t help but feel giddy, here with him. You’re with him. Nothing has ever felt more right. Unplugged when he pulls out of you, your mess trickles down onto the seat below you. “Yeah,” you say. “Very.”

Warm is not enough to begin to describe how you feel. In your ears, you hear whisperings. Soft and gentle. Perhaps it was divine intervention, or the fates lending you their word, or maybe just rational thought. It says:

Home. You are home.

✎୭ ashlynn's note how do we feel about this pair? i really didn't mean for this to get so long, but i ended up RLLY liking their chemistry. i had to do their story justice. also, i finished this with kai as a guitarist and then his drummer performance came out... hmm.

﹙🏷️ ﹚@lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @hyucktapes , @bewitchless , @prince-jjae , @blankliving , @yaoizee , @stormy1408 , @missychief1404 , if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!

#[ ౨ৎ ] 𖥦 kipo’s favorites .ᐟ #[ ✩ ] 𖥦 kipo’s fic recs .ᐟ #[ 𖦹 ] 𖥦 hueningkai .ᐟ #ribs playing as i finish this… the playlist for this is goated #THIS WAS SOOOO FUCKING GOOD HELLO???? immediately added to my all time favorites #kai in this is sooOoooOOOO RAHHHHHHH🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅#and FUCK yeonjun‼️‼️#the parallels with the months and kai being all like “it’s just a moth” and yeonjun straight up killing it #i genuinely could talk about this fic for forever #I LOVE WHEN THEYRE JEALOUS AND POSSESSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!! it’s gonna hit for me everytime and this HITTTT #i dream of your writing style i need to be inside your brain like you’re so insanely talented i NEED some of that water you’re drinking #i love how he got her to go with him and tried his hardest to show her that life is more than the town they grew up in.. that hit CLOSE #genuinely starting crying actually #and the scott street started playing as they confessed to each other and i SOBBED and THEN more than this started playing #i love the moth aspect so much like they’re truly soulmates tied together… nothing is gonna keep them apart not even themselves #THE ENDING WITH THEM IN THE BACKSEATTTTTTT #i (s)creamed like me next me next i need kai so bad especially during that scene he is so fucking hot #genuinely one of the best fics i’ve ever read like i’m trying not to have the tags and reblog be all long but i have THOUGHTS and FEELINGS #i WILL be rereading this over and over and over and over!! like genuinely this fic means everything to me i really needed it #the gentle and soft moments of them at the creek picking berries and the moths floating around them #they were ALWAYS meant to be and the moth yeonjun smashed just proves it like #“every song is about you” I LITERALLY SCREAMED AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGSSSS LIKE!!!!!!! one of my favorite tropes ever it hits like crack fr #i fucking love this so much and i’m stealing all of the song out of the playlist too #i gotta reread it again so i can catch all the little details now that i have the full story #hueningkai x reader #hueningkai smut #hueningkai angst #txt x reader #txt smut #txt angst

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amourane · 6 months ago

Text

flustered and blushing

pairing: theodore nott x fem!reader

genre: fluff so much fluff that it's insane

w/c: 1.7k

summary: in which you're a flustered mess around theo nott and he absolutely adores it.

warnings: none!

a/n: *screams* i just combust every time i write for theo but this piece especially has me just screaming at the cuteness!!!

Everyone who went to Hogwarts knew who Theodore Nott was. It wasn’t hard to miss the dark chestnut hair that would fall in his eyes and the charming smirk that he always wore. Theodore Nott was gorgeous and he knew it. His popularity often led to him being the topic of most conversations and a receiver of many love confessions. Girls would flock to him and try their best to twirl their hair and flirt with the Slytherin but all they were met with was indifference.

Theodore Nott would tune out their obnoxious laughter and shrill squeals. He would stare blankly at them, reject their advances without a care in the world. Word got around that the infamous Theodore Nott was seemingly unreachable. His unattainability only made him that much more interesting to everyone else.

You were blessed, as some would say, to sit next to Theo during Charms. Flitwick had randomly assigned the seating at the start of the year and you got stuck with Theodore Nott. He wasn’t bad at the subject by any means it just got a bit overwhelming with all the stares and whispers that were directed at your partner. You weren’t one for attention or drama, always preferring to hide in the shadows and not be seen. Sitting next to Theo didn’t exactly grant you that freedom.

Theodore Nott was handsome. So so so handsome. You couldn’t deny your attraction and as much as you tried to push it down you often found yourself staring. The slope of his nose and the angled jaw. His eyes that pulled your attention away from anything else. You would watch as he scrawled his notes onto the parchment. His quill would glide effortlessly without hesitation and you often would forget to take your own notes. You couldn’t help but feel your heart pound whenever he spoke to you or whenever he would offer you even the tiniest smile.

“Hey Y/n you free after dinner tonight?”

The boy beside you drawled with his chin in his hands. He looked at you expectedly and you blinked at him confused.

“Sorry?”

“Were you not listening? We have an assignment together, I was asking if you were free so we could get started.” He smirked as if he knew you had been watching him all this time. You felt your cheeks heat up and you spluttered for words. Theo chuckled as he shoved his things into his bag, still waiting for your answer.

“Yeah I’m free tonight.” You mumbled, refusing to look at him. You felt your heart race and you gulped. “Wait where are we meeting up?”

It was then that you realised looking up was a huge mistake because Theo’s face is mere inches away from yours and you felt yourself flush scarlet at the proximity. You blink like a deer caught in headlights trying to calm your own rapidly beating heart. Theo grinned. He tilted his head to the side as if he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Words died on your tongue and your eyes locked with his and you felt butterflies erupt in your stomach.

It was all too much. Way too much.

You cleared your throat, backing away in your seat as far as you could. Theo bit back another smile as he finally leaned back into his seat again. You felt lightheaded from what had just happened and you looked over at the Slytherin only to find him already staring at you causing your eyes to bulge out of their sockets and for you to turn away quickly.

“W-Where did you say?”

“The library of course, I’d bring you to my dorm but don’t you think it’s a bit too soon for that principessa?”

Even if you couldn’t see Theo Nott you definitely could imagine his trademark smirk that would spread across his face whenever he was feeling smug with himself. His words registered in your mind finally and you let out a squeak at the implication before quickly throwing your stuff in your bag and saying a goodbye.

You darted down the hallway, desperate to get away from your seatmate and to your dorm. Theodore Nott had always been like this with you. All smiles and suggestive comments. Your heart couldn’t take his charming grin and angelic laugh. Ever since you had quietly greeted him back in September he had stuck by you and you really didn’t know why. You weren’t popular by any means and you had no pureblood connection that would be of any use so you weren’t sure why Theodore Nott had taken such an interest in you.

His words filled your head once more and you felt your whole body heat up at the memory. You flopped down onto your bed, groaning into the pillow as you tried your hardest to calm yourself down. You just knew tonight was going to be so much worse.

“-and I was thinking that we could also talk about non verbal spells since- are you listening to me Y/n?”

You snapped out of your thoughts only to see Theo’s brows furrowed and his lips pulled into a frown. The library was fairly quiet and the two of you had picked a secluded corner to ensure no one would disturb the two of you. Your eyes drifted to the textbook in front of the two of you and you blinked blankly towards your partner.

“Sorry I wasn’t paying attention, what were you saying about non verbal spells?”

Theo smiled and you felt your heart flutter at the sight. His eyes seemed to twinkle more in the warm lighting and you told yourself that you needed to stop having these ridiculous thoughts. Everyone knew that Theodore Nott had no interest in dating anyone much less you.

“You seem to be daydreaming a lot today Y/n, I’m honestly hurt that you haven’t been paying attention to what I’ve been saying.” Theo pouted but you could see the mirth that spread across his face. He leaned towards you and your eyes widened. “What’s got you so distracted today hm?”

He was so close to you. Too close even. You could smell the familiar citrusy scent that he always wore. It felt warm, you didn’t know if that was possible, but he smelt like what you imagined home would be. The slightly sweet but earthy scent invaded your senses and you felt your brain melt.

Your eyes search his face. The sharp cheekbones and jawline contrasted with the smooth curve of his lips. His dark tousled hair that you couldn’t help but imagine running your fingers through his curls. His long eyelashes framed his beautiful grey eyes. The soft glow of the lamp highlights his complexion and you continue to stare, completely mesmerised.

“Nothing…I just have a lot on my mind.” You replied awkwardly, hoping that he didn’t sense that you were lying.

“Hmm…well I’m always here to talk.” Theo folded his arms as he leant onto the wooden desk in front of the both of you. He buried his head into his arms before turning to the side to look at you, a cheeky grin spreading across his face. “But I guess we’d just be talking about me, wouldn’t we?”

Immediately you burst into flames and you tried to stutter out an excuse. You knew he had noticed your staring. There were only so many times you could get away with not paying attention in class. Then again, it was still mortifying to get caught.

A group of girls decided that that was the perfect time to walk past the two of you and you froze as they saw you and Theo together. They looked at you and then the Slytherin beside you. Your jaw hung open, gaping like a fish, unable to comprehend the multitude of events that were thrown at you. The girls mirrored your expression before scurrying off whispering loudly.

“Are they dating?”

“No way I didn’t actually think he was capable of liking someone.”

“Who is she anyway? I’ve never seen her around.”

You felt your heart race and you deflated in your chair, head in your hands. This was not meant to happen. You felt a tap on your shoulder and you looked up to see Theo. His smile wasn’t on his face anymore, now replaced with a worried look.

“Are you okay?”

“What? Of course not!” You cried out softly. “Everyone’s going to think I’m your girlfriend and it’s going to spread across the whole of Hogwarts by tomorrow morning. And and…” You groaned, putting your head back into your hands, too overwhelmed by everything that was happening.

Silence spread across the two of you.

“Would that be so bad?” Theo’s voice broke the quiet. You looked up, startled by his words. “Dating me, that is.”

“T-That’s not what I meant-” You stammered, scrambling for an apology, but Theo interrupted you.

“I don’t smile and flirt with just anyone you know. You’re special to me Y/n. I like you, a lot.”

He was looking at you now, his eyes filled with a warmth you had mistaken for amusement. His gaze was soft and filled with affection, a small smile playing on his lips. Your cheeks heated up at his unexpected confession. Your heart pounded, and you gripped your fingers, searching for the right words to say.

“Do you like me too?”

Try as you might you couldn’t find any words to express your emotions or your feelings towards Theodore Nott. All you could muster was a nod as an answer to his question. Theo laughed as he reached for your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours. He tugged you closer to him and once again you were face to face with Theodore Nott.

“I want to hear you say it principessa. Tell me how much you fancy me.”

He was doing it on purpose. He knew exactly what to do and what to say to get you completely flustered and a blushing mess for him. And you would be a fool to say it wasn’t working.

“Theo I...” You whispered finally finding your own voice. “I really like you Theodore Nott, I really really like you.”

A bright beam graced Theo’s face and he pressed his forehead against yours, hugging your body close to his. You wrapped your arms around his waist, melting into his touch. Theo pulled back as he placed a kiss on your cheek. You blinked before you felt yourself heat up at his affectionate action. You buried your face in his chest, embarrassed at your flustered state.

“You’re so adorable.” Theo chuckled as he embraced you tightly. “I really really like you too Y/n L/n.”

#theodore nott x reader #theodore nott imagines #theodore nott imagine #theo nott imagine #theodore x reader #theo nott x reader #theodore nott fluff #fluff #theodore nott #theodore nott x you #theo nott x you #theo nott #theodore nott x y/n #slytherin boys x reader #slytherin boys #theodore nott smut #theo nott smut

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screampied · 7 months ago

Text

‘ THAT [ GIRL ] IS MINE ! ,

ᡴꪫ sum. university still majorly sucks, and spring break is practically over. time to say goodbye to your dad’s best friend, but before you do—you have a jarring confession to make, and it’s definitely not those three words.

wc. 6.4k

warnings. fem! reader, dad's best friend! toji, age gap (reader is over twenty), booty call, unprotected, size kink, praise, fıngering, cunnılingus (toji eating it from the back), degredation, dumbification, toji's very whipped for you, overstim, squırting.

an. this is the last chapter WOOOOO. thank you to everyone who read dbf! toji. may he return somedayy

girl, are you fucking stupid?

a simple question you couldn’t answer as if your life depended on it. if only you knew the deep consequences you’d face by having some careless fun on spring break. oh, but it’s just a one time thing, it’s just a little fling that won’t mean anything once april’s over. you continue to keep reminding yourself that every time you were with him. toji fushiguro—your father’s sleazy best friend, the guy who was about eight years older than your twenty-two year old self, the guy who was shameless, the guy who literally fingered you underneath the table during dinner, same said guy who makes you clean off his fingers with your tongue like the good obedient girl you were.

maybe you are fucking stupid,

spring break was coming to its inevitable end, meaning it’d be the end of your little fling with mr. fushiguro. oh and you did get caught, your father knows— but let’s not focus on that part, let’s focus on the part on how you were questioning yourself. was this love or just a game? surely it couldn’t be love, ew. toji himself said that he can’t stand relationships. you yourself was too busy with being a studious university student to even consider a significant other. so… what exactly was this peculiar feeling? a good description was a weird stir in your stomach, especially whenever he’s lay his eyes on you. alas, maybe instead of love, the feeling was entirely different.

you know what they say about karma though, it always catches up to you in the long run. oops..?

it was about three thirty in the morning. you were tossing and turning in your sleep. birds could just about be heard outside your window, chirping and chirping away. with an exaggerated sigh, you stare into the beige drywall that coats against your ceiling for a long, long time. no matter how much you tried to delay the inevitable—you had to get up, you just had to get it off your chest.

you should probably not keep this yourself..

but you pondered deeply at what his reaction might be— would he feel the same way, or would he hate you and turn a cold eye … ?

just thinking about it for such a long duration of a time made your stomach churn. at the same time though, whenever you thought about toji for too long . . that happened. you’d get aroused, having your pretty little panties in a twist.

you still question just how your father and him even met. a guy like toji isn’t really a guy you’d stumble across everyday. he mentioned to you on how he was gambling at boat races—you believed that, but still, you always did wanna know more about him.

toji was a very private man though, nothing wrong with that.

you couldn’t help but be a little curious about the man you’ve been screwing with for the past thirteen days now. thirteen days felt more like thirteen long consecutive weeks. like most, your break was supposed to only last five days to a week. it only ended up getting extended because of some kind of altercation at your campus. albeit, you didn’t ever want it to end,

but all good things do come to an end, right?

reaching for your phone, you decide to text him— you didn’t exactly expect a reply despite it being so late but still, you unlock your phone before scrolling for his contact..

< 69 Toji Fushiguro 🎥 >

Today 3:27 AM

hi toji.

u up?

• • •

Yea. Just woke up actually. Why?

lol no reason, i can’t sleep.

i miss u and i need to tell you smth

Oh?

Fuck I miss ya too, girl.

Come over then. you still got my location?

yeah be there in a bit xx

Read 3:29

locking your phone again, you take a quick thorough six minute shower. toji missed you just as much as you missed him— it’s been about a day or two or three that’s passed, of course you two wouldn’t be able to see each other every day.

it was mostly every other day. with spring break coming to a crashing depressing end, this would all be the end of your little spring season fling.

damn.

the drive to toji’s apartment was about maybe nine minutes from you. not exactly far, you’d have him come over to yours but you forgot that your father was literally next door to you. he’s already aware of what was taken place at his own home but again, let’s not focus on that part of the story.

at least not yet.. or ever,

you threw on a simple ample outfit, one of your oversized university hoodies and some leggings. something homely, something comfortable.

the weather was actually pretty decent, a bit humid but not exactly too cold either.

once you arrive at toji’s surprisingly well kept apartment, he met up with you at the door with that same smug grin. “….hey,” is all he says, eyes staring down your body for a while. you take the chance to ogle at him too. even with it being the middle of the night, he still looked handsome. with dark black hair of his a bit ruffled, toji had on nothing but obsidian black colored shorts and a white tee. his muscles, you always did feen over his mammoth-like jacked muscles. he was so toned— a lot taller than you, the epitome of what a real man was. “how was the drive? drive okay?”

“it was okay,” you mutter, stepping into his apartment. he’s holding a half empty can of cheap off brand booze, locking the door behind you as you take in the scenery. you feel a bit of butterflies rummage throughout your tummy as he slings an arm around you. it was like each time you’d meet with him again, he’d get more and more affectionate towards you. facing him, you had a cute abashed smile. “you look sleepy. did i wake you?”

“nah,” he firmly shakes his head, placing his empty can aside. toji takes off the thin coat you wore over your hoodie before hanging it up on the nearby rack for you. “i was ‘bout ‘ta get ready for work but then ya texted me.”

work.

toji never did tell you what he does for a living.

your eyebrows slightly raise. “wha— why? i can wait, just go to work.”

“dollface, really. it’s fine,” he chuckles, his voice a rough low. he leads you towards his bedroom, the bed wasn’t made up although it smelled a lot like him in here. a cheap musk of cologne fills through your nose as you sit down on his bed beside him. toji stretches, the veins in his forearms exposing ever so slightly and it’s so hot. “besides, didn’t feel like clockin’ in anyway. still gotta finish my taxes.”

“oh,” you mumble, completely lost in his gaze as he continues to speak. toji notices you staring and he smirks.

playfully, he pokes at your forehead, a teasing flick with two fingers to snap you out of whatever trance you were in. “. . soooooooo,” toji hums in a raspy pitched tone. his fingers that went against your skin was abnormally warm. “what did you wanna talk ‘ta me about?”

right, that..

suddenly, you felt your thighs squeeze together. toji’s staring at you, awaiting for a response and whilst you smother your glossed lips together, you rub the back of your neck. “oh, it can wait. it’s not that important,” damn, if looks could kill, you’d be screwed. dark green irises focus on your lips, then your eyes before back towards your pursed up lips. toji was quite familiar with your awkward body language, you lean up close to him before dragging a finger down his chest. so sensually, “like i said though, i missed you toji. i go back home tomorrow.”

“you’re lying, doll,” he whispers, letting your finger run down the middle part of his chest. a few bristles of chest hair pokes through his white tank before he raises a brow. “but fine,” and he grabs you to sit right on his lap. instinctively, your arms wrap around his broad neck. the closer you got, the more you got a good whiff of him. his cologne was so strong, it made you dizzy. “i missed ya more. and that’s right, y’er spring break’s ‘bout to end,” and you almost moan at feeling his clammy hands squeeze against your thighs. “excited to go back?”

“no,” you grumble, a grouse hiding underneath your tone. he slyly smiles, a thumb skimming against your skin. “i don’t wanna leave yet.”

“well girl then jus’ stay,” he rolls his eyes, forever a sassy, sassy man. “and, i find it kinda amusing. the whole point of your spring break was to visit your father ‘n you basically spent it all with me,” and his eyes run down your body, pulling you up close to kiss the outside of your neck. “ain’t complainin’ though.”

you pout, he had a point. “i can’t stay, my campus is like five hours away,” and you moan a bit from the softness of his lips meeting against your tender skin. “maybe.. you could visit me though.”

“eh. we’ll see.”

moments pass before you find yourself making out with toji. it lasts for a good while, ten precise minutes exactly. his hands free-for-all all over your body, the warmth of his hot breath goes against yours. the bitter taste of rich booze lingers on his breath, it’s chemically and it almost burns, yet it’s addictive. toji’s taste alone was addictive. you moan, feeling him ghost a big hand between your thighs to locate your arising heat. your leggings could only conceal your arousal for so long. his eyes were barely open, half-lidded as another hand travels up your hoodie. stubby fingers of his drag against your skin in such a way that you couldn’t help but grind against his lap.

toji grunts, deepening the passionate kiss—his tongue was so sweet, occasionally sucking against yours. perhaps he did miss you more than you missed him. with his head slightly cocked back to a certain angle, you start to hear and feel your own breaths shudder.

everything was going so fast yet slow, he parts his lips a bit further before you feel a hand of his reach all the way down between your legs. after a while of mashing teeth and sucking against tongues together, he pulls away. “y’er still as nasty as i remember. walkin’ around with no fuckin’ panties, huh?”

“nasty for you,” you whine, feeling his rough hands tug all over your body. swiftly, a hand snakes underneath your thighs. he runs a single thumb down your soaked slit and he guffaws. with a sly grin, he leans in to kiss more against your neck. so tender, he knew all the right spots to make you whimper out and squirm. his balmy hot breath resuming to collide against your skin made you bite your lip, an arm still throwing around his neck. “you don’t like me wearing panties anyway.”

“well yeah,” he sneers, his touch going further against your pre-soaked clit. you were already a bit drenched and he hums. “i steal them from ya regardless. my ‘lil souvenir. besides, what’s the point of wearin’ those things when y’er always this fuckin’ soaked.”

you moan, feeling him insert a single finger inside. his fingers were always so thick, stretching you out probably even better than his dick ever could. almost as if your entrance was elastic with how good it stretches. it’s his middle finger, then it sporadically turns into two— two thickset fingers prodding inside your slick heat.

you coat his digits so well with your syrupy arousal, he glances at you with a simper as you clamp around them both at once. “you get more nastier for me every time,” he murmurs, slowly swirling his fingers inside you. you’re clinging onto his neck tightly, feeling that strain in your lungs drag out as you pant. “drivin’ around this wet, girl i ‘oughta spank ya.”

“do it then.”

he glares at you before you gasp. toji lightly shoves you into the bed and you flop down, uttering out a soft ‘oof.’ landing on the sound mounds of your chest, he yanks down your leggings fully before meanly kissing the right cheek of your ass with his palm. “do it then,” he mocks you, pitching his naturally gruff tone to your own. “shut the fuck up,” and the sting feels good, his fingers were now out of you and again, you pout. clamping around nothing now, you were quite really just arched over his bare knee. “have ya been touchin’ y’erself lately? tell me.”

“no,” you lie, and that earns another spank— you moan out, the feeling of his palm was so hot at first touch. quite literally, the sting made you twinge before you grip onto his bulky thighs. “haven’t touched myself, swear.”

“oh bye, don’t bullshit me, sweetheart,” toji mutters, and you’re just dangling over his knee.

occasionally, the coolish air against his room would waft right against your skin. “known ya for a good what, two weeks? i can tell y’er lying,” and the way his voice pitches— it’s so rough, gravelly.

the baritone in his voice never fails to make you wet, so deep. you didn’t really know a good way to describe toji’s voice, all you knew was that it was raspy as hell. heavily and utterly raspy to the point where even him whispering against your ear was enough to have you drenched. “don’t like ya touchin’ her when ‘m not around,” he clicks his tongue, caressing your bare stinging ass. you’re panting, aching for him to just hurry up, to do something. toji cackles, noticing from how impatient you were simply from your body language. “aw. am i talkin’ too much for the pretty girl? you bein’ over my knee not enough to satisfy ya?”

you sigh, wriggling your ass a bit and he spanks it again just to watch the recoil bounce against your skin.

“t— tojiiii. just fuck me already.” you grumble, you didn’t really care how whiny you sounded.

it was late at night and you were horny. that was for sure pretty much all you knew. besides, despite it being about two to three days since you last saw him, yeah.. maybe that wasn’t even long of an absence— but you did kind of miss toji.

more importantly, you missed his little friend between his legs.

“i’ll fuck ya when i wanna,” he gruffs. you whine once he sprawls your legs open a bit more. toji stares at your ass, spreading them to see your sloppy cunt opening for him. a sweet little meet and greet. so wet, you’re still laid over his lap before he leans down. “shh. listen to her,” is all he says. whilst he’s inching his face closer, two exact seconds later you feel toji’s saliva trickle into your pulsating entrance. oh. he spat on your pussy, he was quite direct with it too. he then gathers a long stringy wad of gossamer-like spit before spitting it right between your swollen folds. you bite your lip hard, forgetting how much of a nasty man he was. “yeah she’s missed the fuck outta me.”

toji was purely fluent in pussy talk. it was common for him. he’d always refuse to your cunt as ‘she’ as if she had a name or something.

no shame, shameless— toji brings a thumb towards your clit, rubbing against it just so you could hear the squelches you made yourself.

“you used a toy, baby?” he hums, sliding his tongue against his lips, against the scar that slants against his skin oh-so-sexily..

“y-yeah,” you whimper, the coldness of his saliva making you shudder within his hold. your breathing became more rapid as you tighten the hold on his legs. “magic wand. i jus’ wanted to try it.”

“tch… magic fuckin’ wand,” he snarls, actually sounding quite offended.

continuing to drag and skim his fat thumb down your slit, you mewl out. you’re effortlessly soaking his single slender digit with such sheeny amounts of your sweet. “bet ya didn’t even know what the fuck you were doin.’ how long it take ‘ta make you finish?”

you’re panting now, trying to recall your lewd moments with your sweet beloved hitachi, it was expensive too.

you bought it from some shady link online, one of your friends recommended it to you so you shrugged it off, saying why not. besides, you hardly ever have time to play with yourself anyway. even more now that you had toji.

“like … maybe thirty minutes.” you exhale deeply, the fast paced strokes of his fingers making your eyes almost roll back. so so good, all he was really doing was skimming his fingers against your sopping wet entrance— barely even doing anything, yet you were still a mess.

toji chuckles, making you get off his lap before laying you face first on the mattress. he grabs your waist, pulling your ass upward to stick out before he gets up close for a nice direct view. “aw. thirty minutes? thirty minutes when it can only take me five with my tongue?”

“f-fuckkk.” you start to babble, his warm breath fanning all against your exposed cunt.

it cools against your skin, sending each nerve that resides inside of your entrance to spiral uncontrollably. toji had you arched all over, arched over like some slut.

to be fair, if the shoe fits you might as well wear it.

“dunno if ya deserve to be eaten out,” he speaks in a low undertone. your dilated pupils roll way back at his simple touch.

he teasingly brings his tongue towards your pussy, it’s retting, sloppily so. toji drags two fingers and you eagerly coat his digits with such salaciously, lewd arousal. “mhm. look at that, fuckin’ drenched. my favorite waterpark,” and he spits against your folds once more before snickering darkly. “jus’ thinkin’ you used those useless hands on this pretty pussy makes me ill.”

oh, you’re about to lose it..

he was stalling, more talking and less eating.

instead, it should have been vice versa.

you’re a mover, writhing in his lap, still hunched over with a cute arch before he spanks your ass.

“little girl, cut that shit out,” he grunts and abruptly, you feel the coldness of his flat tongue finally lap against your pussy.

immensely, your mouth forms into an ‘o’. if it was anything toji fushiguro knew how to do well, it was that he knew how to eat.

he ate you out like it was the end of the fucking world, as if your pussy was the only food remaining left in stock.

you gnaw on your bottom lip further, gasping once he wastes no time to dig in.

. . slow slow sluuuurps,

he makes sure you hear how wet you were on his mouth. just downright filthy, his tongue lays itself flat before he nibbles all against your throbbing clit.

“o-oh my god, toji, hngh,” you’d babble out in pathetic sweet sobs. with his tongue scrapping against your entrance, creating suction with his mouth had you stupid.

as your maw dramatically drops, he’s eating you from the back. there’s a concise dull moment where he pauses. with big two rough hands, he spreads your ass open fully. “f-fuuuck.” you moan, feeling him blow his warm breath all against your puffed folds.

from behind, you hear his sexy low titter before he resumes—yet this time, he lolls his pink tongue all the way out, so fucking long..

and as he does, he licks from the very bottom of your cunt until he’s reaching near your puckering hole— he’s never acknowledged that spot before, your ass.

your eyes widen, a clamoring gasp exits from your lips before he spits against it, lathering his tongue everywhere. he likes it wet, more importantly though, he likes it nasty.

“arch that back more for me, bend girl, bend,” he coos in a muffled tone— purely speaking with his mouth full. his stubble tickles against your pussy and your back voluntarily moves itself forward. a curve, he found it so appealing,

so . . amusing.

“there mphm we go baby, good girl. keep that head on the bed. ‘m fuckin’ starved.”

you’re clinging tight onto one of toji’s satin covered pillows, feeling his tongue roam everywhere. it knew no bounds. your heart starts to race at a more rapid speed the second he sneakily dips his tongue back into your needy clit.

he passionately sucks against the clitoral hood before using a hand to smack your ass every single time you squirm.

after about probably the nth time of his lewd escapades with his tongue, he starts to prod his calloused fingertips near your entrance once more. his fingers featuring his tongue, oh you were really no match.

“imgonnacumimgonnacumimgonna—”

“mhm, bet ya are,” he rasps, a deep chuckle dragging out of his throat.

the way your body responds to him was so cute. “keep that ass up ‘n y’er face down,” he orders, earning another vicious smack on the rear from him. you’re moaning, feeling yourself start to spasm. toji occasionally breaks his lips away to kiss near your ankle, your thighs, anywhere but your cunt and he knows how much you hated that.

the teasing— he’d purposely stop just to move his lips elsewhere, watching you fidget in such obscene anticipation. “don’t fuckin’ cum yet.”

“but—”

“but shit. you heard me,” he groans, bringing his mouth back towards between your legs. you whine, feeling him roll out his tongue before slurping up such a good amount of your syrupy taste.

with your toes curling, stomach seizing, you couldn’t stop shaking.

so damn good, his buttony nose rubs against your folds and it tickles for a split second. the stimulation has your mind going for a loop, you even slip your hands underneath your sweatshirt just to touch on your sensitive perky nipples. “wait for me. hold it, yeah.”

but of course, you didn’t listen,

your body had other plans.

it was inevitable, your orgasm ignored toji anyway, you’re ponderously throbbing.

the pulse between your thighs only grow more briskly before you realize you’re drooling all over his bedsheets.

oh, the feeling felt so delicious, your jaw remains open and you feel so much pressure. so much, his tongue still grazes against your slit before you shriek out, gasping for whatever air was left. it was quick, very very quick.

it’s speed..

it’s tempo was like lightning speed—a bolt that flashes within a blink of an eye, concentric circles steadily building up within your lower abdomen pooling up with heat before it just snaps,

you came.

“o-oh fuck, f-fuuuck, toji,”

suddenly, the room grows quiet. you knew toji didn’t like for you to finish early—especially finishing after he tells you to wait, but oh well.

you couldn’t help it, and the orgasm he just gave you was so good, mouth watering. with weak legs that could barely stand up it’s on own, you inhale a single sharp breath before you’re flipped over quickly.

“the fuck did i just tell you?”

“s-sorry,” you giggle, sprawled all on his bed. your eyes immediately meet the gaze of his shorts, they were half on. he’s got a bulge going on, a hard one at that. his black boxers briefly stick out and it’s so attractive—you catch a glimpse of his happy trail from his tank top that was pulled up just a bit, exposing a bit of his skin. sharp v-line, slim snatched waist.

slut..

god, he was so jacked. the more you stare at his sculptured body, the more you fantasized about how he could just toss you around the—

“oh, is somethin’ funny to you?” he utters lowly, and his tone— he sounds ticked off, he’s barely even raising his tone, projecting it but you still hear the slight rasp to it. you just got even more soaked. “was gonna let ya ride me but i don’t wanna stare at a brat right now.”

“h-huh?” you reply, and then your face was met against the plush mattress again.

you lewdly mewl out a whimper once he spanks your ass, a hand grabbing onto your hip.

“don’t act like ya can’t here me, girl. bring that ass up a bit more,” and you gasp, feeling him drag your hips a bit closer towards his slim waist. “yeah.” he breathes, having a gentle yet firm grip on you.

rough coarse fingertips glide up against your own hips as you feel him take a second to align himself. fuck, you missed this.

you missed him.

in the midst of toji already pulling down his shorts and boxers— he then grabs ahold of his thick cock, giving it a few solid strokes.

he was so hard, leaky tip glistening with pre that he wished he made you lick the top off.

but it was far too late, he just wanted to be inside, just as much as you wanted him inside. the crown of his cock was so fat, even with toji being slow to ease himself inside, he’s still practically splitting you open.

“shit, i missed this,” he grunts in a hoarse tone whilst he’s going inside you.

“f-fuck,” you bawl up the creamy white sheets into your fists.

you almost forgot just how big he was, despite it only being a good three days without feeling him stretch you out.

toji groans, feeling the subtle tightness of your walls adjust to him like always— it usually lasts a second or two. he’s furthering himself in, already about to bottom out.

he’s already niiice and snug. a perfect fit,

every. single. time.

toji rarely does doggy with you because he prefers staring at your face— solely to make fun of your little facial expressions. but whenever you were bent over for him on all fours, it was simply an experience you never wanted to end. “oh fuck m-me,” you croak, feeling him yank harshly against the hood of your hoodie. you bump back against him and that’s when he unhurriedly starts to create an unkempt, sloppy pace.

it was rhythmic, he starts off slow before strenuously pounding into you.

churning up your sweet savory insides like butter, you clamp around him so good that it makes his abs tense up. “mhm,” he tugs tighter against the fabric that was thrown over you from the torso up. dark eyes of his flicker toward your ass, each time he moves, your ass moves.

in full compatibility, the sheer skin slaps was brutal. your head was spinning like a merri-go-‘round, strained inhales pulling your heaving lungs every few milliseconds. “. . girl,” toji groans, and you moan once he gives your ass a spank again for probably the umpteenth time today. his voice, every syllable he drags out in that deep hoarsely voice of his had you so soaked. “fuck back against me, c’mon. ‘s a two way street, baby.”

“y-you’re so fuckin’ big though,” you whine, pawing into the soft cushions of his comforter.

“awww,” he utters in a faux, sympathetic tone.

he leans against you, so close to where he’s basically in prone bone— no more doggy.

he’s so deep that the tip of his dick prods all against your secluded g-spot. toji’s hefty weight hovers against your bare ass and you moan melodically. “i’m big, yeah?” and a colossal, veiny hand of his wraps around your throat. gentle, barely any pressure but a good amount to make you whine again. “but y’er doin’ so good, was jus’ about to praise you but you don’t want praises, huh,” and you’re falling in love time and time again with his sensual yet reckless rhythm. the way the bed rocks and shakes in harmony, you’re at a lost of words.

speechless, breathless, every -less word by this point.

he was hitting you so deep, every angle.

so thorough,

his hips were sharp— your moans grow louder the moment he gets right up against you, a hand gripping into your hair rigidly. mercilessly, a hand lightly digs into your scalp as he’s holding your head up. toji’s damn near balls deep now, making sure you feel every consecutive thrust. “some nerve, textin’ me at three am just to fuck this sloppy cunt,” and his hot breath fans against your neck. you whine once you feel his tongue slide against your sensitive collarbone. so deep—you were sure he’s just jackhammering his cock into you by this point. each movement was pivotal, he was precise with the way his hips snapped against you. whiplash got you good, you’re currently just a babbling mess listening to his crude words. “but i bet ‘s more than that, yeah? you wanted to tell me somethin’ so just tell me.”

“n-not yet,” a sweet moan dies out your throat.

toji rolls his eyes— this girl, he’s thinking in his head. you were testing his patience, a stubborn little thing. one of the many things he’s liked about you. “fuck, h-harder toji. harder.”

“sloooow? i can do slow,” he replies in a deriding tone, and his deep thrusts turn into satirical unserious, slow pumps. you whine, he lets go of your hair and you just plop down on your chest. he knew what you wanted, he knew how you liked to be fucked, and yet he was just being a tease.

toji fucking fushiguro for you.

he’s always been rough with you, treating you like nothing more than a mere rag doll at times. there’s been sweet affectionate moments too, rarely, but it has its moments.

toji’s infatuation with you only grows, the more he spends time with you the more he even starts to question himself.

you’ve got him whipped.. precisely with your pussy, yes, but whipped in another way completely. he didn’t know how to describe it, mainly because it was nothing to describe,

indescribable.

he couldn’t put anything to words—especially whenever he was deep in your guts, mashing your cunt around with his cock like homemade dough. kneading it with his tip,

stretch, mold, ply, repeat..

he’s doing all that with his dick. he sucks his teeth, a tsk escapes from his mouth before he spanks your ass— bringing you right back to reality.

“fuckin’ gonna milk the shit out of me,” he groans, his hips all sloppy and vigorous.

toji’s so close to you that by now, he brings a foot up to press against the back of your neck. you gasp, really feeling just how deep he was inside your cunt.

the wool of his sock presses against your neck as your face was smushed against the satiny sheets. “mhm, that’s it girl, take it. take that shit. milk my fuckin’ cock, fuuuck.”

his groans get louder, you’re so wet it’s ludicrously sloshing against him and you’re all doe-eyed and dumb.

emphasis on dumb, not a single thought was embedded into your brain.

as his hips keenly buck against you, you’re breathing shallowly, trying to keep a good momentum against him before you whine.

you were close again, yet this time— something else was approaching,

something more . . provocative.

your legs shake and shake, your jaw aches from how much your teeth is shattering amongst each other before you feel him grab onto your wrist.

he pins it behind your back whilst he’s still fucking you raw.

broad, clammy hands of his roam down your voluptuous body, taking in to snag a feel of your curves, your pretty physique, everything..

beads of sweat droplets start to race down the sides of toji’s naturally dark brows— he huffs and puffs, the girth of his dick only stretching out inside of you even further.

you’re a babbling mess, the arch in your back was so cute that it makes him throb. you feel the throb that lingers from his dick, it pulsates at such a meteoric pace that it has you pulsing in response.

“where do ya want it,” he grumbles with a soft vexing pout on his lips. toji was trying his best to maintain composure—but he was flustered, the more he leers down your back, down your pretty structured spine, the more he’s starting to adapt this unexplainable feeling. “best fuckin’ tell m—”

“inside,” you purr out, your voice all strained and a raucous from the immense amounts of moans that left your throat. “i-inside, wanna feel you again, ‘n again, ‘again..”

toji snickers, swiping a tongue against his lips before he slows himself down for you to adjust.

you’re preparing to finish with him— he coos right up against your ear, sticking two fingers in your mouth. “finish with me, princess. ‘m givin’ you this one chance,” and he deepens his voice all the way down, balls so deep inside that you feel a faint gape stretch you whole.

you’re compressing him down tight with your gummy walls before you feel the slimy friction of pure sweat sticking against your own skin. “you gonna be a good girl ‘n cum on my cock? or a bad girl who’s not even listenin’ to a damn thing ‘m saying.. ?”

“c-cum, toji, mphm,” you choke out a sweet desperate wail, feeling one of his bulky arms wrap around your torso. “wanna cum.”

as you spoke, your words were merely muffled from his thick digits shoving inside of your sloppy, needy mouth. his warmth, once it skids against your skin, it never ever leaves.

you think you’re about to cum but instead, you gush out.

violently, electricity courses through your veins. vibration after vibration pulses throughout your body and you’re hysterical,

it’s so abrupt, so intense..

you’re squirting, coating his dick with your honeydew arousal from the base down.

he chuckles at your body’s initial response, how you’re finding it impossible to stay still. you’re clenching around his shaft still, mouth all open, eyes wide as big as restaurant saucers.

swooning, you’re swooning from his length and that’s when you whimper once he groans right in your ear.

the raspiness, it’s got you drenched— drenched like a faucet, the sensation was beyond pleasurable.

toji ends up following seconds after, it hits him harder. like a truck, it comes at full speed before you’re met with such absurd milky ropes of his seed. it shoots out quick, but it’s thick. you get quiet, hearing the sloshing spurts trickle its way inside of you. “f-fuck,” he stutters, a shaky breath following as he slides his fingers out of your mouth. a trailing glimmering cobweb of your own spit drags from his two fingers as he’s dumping knots and knots of cum into your sweet, starving cunt. “saved so much f’r you, feel it deep ‘n y’er womb, doll?”

“y-yes.” you swallow, a multitude of moans emit from you before he slowly pulls out.

oh, the sight of it all. one of toji’s favorite parts was to simply gawk at the mess he created, taking in the mess he made you.

a messy girl.

the messiest, your chest feels tight and you’re heaving.

he licks his lips, staring at your ass with hazy eyes. his own cum oozes out of your hole and he just wants to lick it, plug it back into you and give you another thick load.

that’ll come soon enough— as much as he had stamina equivalent to a near stallion, he needed a little break. his chest felt like it was about to explode.

“fuck,” he collapses against his side of the bed, reaching towards his thigh to scratch it.

as if on instinct, you crawl towards him, an arm wraps around you and he pulls you closer. your head presses against his chest. you hear his rapid heart beat and he murmurs out a husky, “good girl,” and he leans in to kiss the crown of your head. “gimme a minute though. ‘m not as young as i used to be, y’know.”

you giggle, a simper stretching across your face as the time passes.

instantaneously, it gets quiet for a moment before you suddenly remember why you even came here . . for one last time.

“toji,” you utter, attempting to catch your breath.

you were still heaving with lungs full of build up oxygen, panting a bit before he glances down at you with that unreadable, naturally stern expression.

a hand of yours strums down his pecs seductively, playing with the curly chest hair that remains stuck against his skin. “i’ll um . . tell you what i wanted to say earlier.”

“let me go first.”

with your eyebrows slightly furrowing, you glance up at him and he stares up at the ceiling before back at you. “about a week back, at y’er dad’s place, i told ya i loved you,” and his breath hitches for a moment— even saying something as sentimental as that made him cringe.

you figure he was being serious though because his sudden eye contact never left yours. “you never gave me an answer back.”

“. . . oh,” you sheepishly say, remembering the exact encounter he was referring to. you then lean up to toji, gingerly planting your lips against the right side of his mouth where his tender scar resides. “you didn’t hear me? i said i love you too, toji.”

his chest feels all warm and mushy, you love him?

“you do?” he replies, being taken aback. this entire situation was messy as is, but again, they do say the heart knows what it wants.

you nod, repeating yourself before pulling him into a quick three second kiss. “i love you, toji.”

. . .

. . . is what he thought you was gonna say.

far from it actually, you’re sat in the passenger seat of toji’s car before you lightly tap him on the shoulder. he’s parked, slouched back against his seat before he snaps out of his erotic phantasm. he was dropping you off back home,

oh right.

home.

“toji? did you even hear a word i just said?”

“huh? yeah, you said you loved me too.”

“no … i didn’t. what?” you scrunch up your face, the most perplexed expression of all.

that was nothing you said, with a sheepish expression, you mutter out the words he’d never thought he’d hear you say. “toji, i said i’m pregnant.”

. .

happy spring fucking break.

5K notes · View notes

earthtooz · 11 months ago

Text

x : TO LOVE, TO CHANGE: *+ﾟ

in which: you tell veritas you love him. he gets upset with you.

warnings: contrary to what the synopsis implies, it's fluff, i promise. 1k words, first time saying ily, slightly cranky reader, no mentions of reader's gender, dr. ratio being so in love he becomes so soppy and lovestruck. confessions.

a/n: there's a phenomenon that happens whenever i write for dr. ratio, and it's that my heart literally lunges out of my chest and begins typing at the keyboard for me. i should get it checked out. anyways, this is to preemptively celebrate his release!!

“Why- why are you mad?” You exclaim, watching the way Veritas crosses his arms and pouts with the petulance of a child. His gaze has strayed away from your eyes, and all you can do is sit in his lap with your arms hanging at your sides, brain tirelessly racking for all the reasons that you could have angered him.

He doesn’t give you any clues, displeasure brewing in his eyes instead.

“Is it because I said ‘I love you’?”

The purple haired scoffs and sticks up his nose, hair bouncing with his actions whilst you jostle slightly on his legs from the quick action. As much as you love his side profile, you’d love it even more if he spoke to you about what is bothering him.

During this moment, the world stills. You think he’s genuinely mad, and Dr. Ratio’s fury-driven state is not something you should take lightly. Really, you’ve seen it multiple times, and though it has never been directed at you, you hope it never will be. Which is why you sit on his lap now, tensely anticipating his response, and for the answer as to what you did wrong.

“I was meant to say it first,” he grumbles, losing the arrogance that fills his tone whenever he speaks, air filling with sincerity.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I was meant to be the one to say ‘I love you’ first.”

Your confusion is tangible at this point. Audible, if you will, because it rings like cicada sing. “Are you being serious?”

“Deadly.”

“You- why, then couldn’t you just have said it?” You sputter, slapping his defined deltoid, concern slowly melting into frustration. “Need I remind you that it was me who confessed to you first as well?”

“Yes, and it was positively the best day of my life.” He says that like it’s a simple fact. No sentiment, no heartfelt declaration, just another logical statement straight from a textbook of his life.

They say to be loved is to be changed, but no matter how much you love Veritas, all he knows is how to be an astronomical pain in your ass. Does he know how scared you were for his answer? You thought you did something unforgivable, or that he didn’t love you enough to respond in kind, or worst of all, that he wanted nothing to do with you anymore?

However, he's acting petty because he was not the first one to say those three words? You frankly don’t know why your heart beats for him as strongly as it does. In fact, you want to whack him over the head with his own codex.

Placing your hands firmly on his shoulders, you shuffle out of your position from his lap, planting your feet onto the ground. “Oh, you are so infuriating! Pretend I never said anything, I’m going back to my office until you-”

Not even two steps away from him and a hand clasps around your wrist to drag you back to where you started: on Dr. Ratio’s lap. His arms come to wrap around you like chains, leaving no room to wrestle him out.

“I never said you could leave. Especially not after telling me you love me,” he grumbles lowly into your collarbone, breath tickling your skin.

“I’m starting to regret it.”

“Can’t you at least say it again?”

“I don’t want to,” you grumble, arms snaking up to rest around his shoulders. “You don’t deserve it.”

“Well, that’s a little harsh. Is this how you treat the ones you love?”

“You haven’t even said anything back,” you pinch his skin. “Talk about harsh.”

“Do you remember the first time we met?” he asks with a fond chuckle, not missing the opportunity to leave kisses in a trail along your skin, making his way up your neck. Then, when his eyes meet yours, you almost crumble in embarrassment at the memory he’s injected into your mind.

You push him away and raise a hand to shield your eyes from him, clearly reliving a haunting memory. “Please don’t remind me.”

“Y’know, it’s not everyday someone gets to scold me and be right. If you weren’t so beautiful, I wouldn’t have let it slide, but it’s not everyday a gorgeous genius falls into my lap with guts to challenge me.”

“I was… agitated that day, so stop talking about it, please. In fact, for my sake, please just forget that moment. Completely.”

“Forget about it? Completely?” The scholar asks with genuine shock lacing his tone. “I fell in love with you in that very moment, how can you expect me to stop talking about it? You rendered me a fool in love and expect me to not think about the very moment it happened? Sweetheart, it was a pivotal moment of my life!”

“Not pivotal enough if you can’t even say ‘I love you, too’.”

“On the contrary, I have loved you longer. I yearned for you in wakefulness and in my dreams. I wished for you to look my way, and when you did, I never wanted your eyes to stray from me. How heartbreaking it was when they did.” His hand has snuck under your shirt now to rub circles on your skin. If he detached from you, he fears you’d slip away from him, and the worst thing you can give him is space. “Do you know how it felt chasing after you because you were the only one out of my reach? For three years, the only thing I wanted was to be yours. You made me an idiot.”

Stunned by his confession and the weight of it, you let him continue, sharp tongue softening. The only motivation you offer is a hand coming to cup his cheek, tucking aside his bangs so you can see his expression in its entirety.

His gold eyes shine when they look back up at you. For the first time, you feel like you’re seeing the parts of him that Veritas hides from everyone else.

“I love you.” He continues with heart wrenching devotion. “I’ll continue loving you until the streams stop, the rivers freeze, and the oceans dry. With three hundred thousand, eighty-three thousand, five hundred and seventy-one discovered planets in the cosmos, that phenomenon will approximately take-”

You seal his lips with yours in a gentle kiss, cradling his jaw and swallowing his words. Like wax to fire, Veritas sinks into you, completely helpless against your affections.

But, oh, you love him, and nothing else in the entire universe matters.

#earthtooz: honkai star rail #dr ratio x reader #veritas ratio x reader #honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #ratio x reader #dr ratio fluff

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kitimeq · 8 days ago

Text

surprise encounter 🤍 sylus 秦

pairing: sylus x reader

summary: You’ve been playing love&deepspace ever since the game came out and it became your comfort place now. You like all of the boys, but you have the highest affinity with sylus, who had your heart in a grasp ever since the beginning. Who would’ve thought that he shares the sentiment? And after your monthly absence from the game, he decides to pay you a little visit and finally confess to all of it (and maybe try to kidnap you in the process too).

tropes: fluff, angst to fluff, fluff to angst to fluff? fluff to angst to fluff to angst to fluff???? idk angst with happy ending!

word count: no idea, it goes on for days sorry

warning!: i apologize for any mistakes, i am not a native speaker of english!! if you see any errors you can write me a dm and i will correct them for sure ♡ and i think it gets better later! i can’t write for shi, especially the beginnings, and the second part was fueled by my delulu so it is probably much more fun to read 🤍

⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙ ⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙

You liked days like these: quiet days, lazy ones, when you didn’t have any errands to run, meetings to attend, or people to please. You could just stay inside for the whole day, reading your favorite books and playing cozy games, spending your time however you wanted. Today was Saturday and you didn’t have to go to work until Monday and you decided that you finally deserved to have some rest after the last couple of weeks of almost working yourself to the bone due to the amount of the assingments you had to complete at work. You often had to stay after hours or work from home to complete everything in time. Your work was not usually that challenging, but there were certain times of the year when everyone at your job had their hands full and when it happened, you were almost completely cut off not only from your social, but also personal life. However, you never complained, because you actually liked what you were doing, and even if the occasional hard times were inevitable, your work brought you so much fun and satisfaction.

And today was a good day! You finally finished everything you had to do, so you could go back to your favourite game. You didn’t have time to play recently due to the amount of work, up to the point that you didn’t even bother to check in to grab some stamina. Usually, love&deepspace was an important part of your day - you logged in there at least twice a day, completed every task thrown your way and had a blast doing so, but these couple of weeks were so hard for you that you almost forgot about it completely. But even if you were too busy, you thought about the boys from time to time, as well as about the events that you were probably missing out on. You really hoped that if some new events had taken place during that time, that they did not involve Sylus, because if you had missed them, you would be slightly devastated.

Sylus was your favorite. Ever since the beginning, there was something about him that caught your attention. You downloaded the game after his announcement and haven’t looked back since. You played with other boys as well, but your time with Sylus was always the most memorable. Not only was he extremely attractive in your eyes, as well as the eyes of other players around the world, but you also understood his character, adored his little jokes and mannerisms, and could safely say that he made your life a little more exciting. You knew that it probably sounded lame to someone who didn’t play such games, and you were aware that he wasn’t real, but you enjoyed yourself regardless. In your real life, you had some experience with men and were pretty popular among them; however, you never felt comfortable enough to form more serious romantic relationships.

Here, with Sylus, you didn’t have to worry about such things. You were aware that he was only a game character and maybe that was why you were so honest with him from the very beginning. You knew that he wouldn’t judge you, misstreat you or make you miserable - he was created in a way that was supposed to make your playthrough enjoyable so you didn’t have to worry about your responses in the messages for him or your real life reactions to everything he said or did. You could just be yourself. And you loved how freeing that felt.

That is why you felt so excited ever since you woke up. Because you knew that today you could finally go back to playing l&d, and you could meet up with your Sylus after so much time apart. You quickly did your chores, spent some time on self-care to slightly relieve the fatigue from the weeks before, you put on your favourite cozy outfit and finally clicked the ”enter game” button.

And there he was. Sylus was standing in the cafe, wearing his extremally attractive biker outfit and you caught yourself sighing dreamily at the sight of him. You missed him so bad, you missed the little memories you shared and the sound of his voice. You missed playing kitty cards with him, catching plushies together and even looking for that bastard Tobias again and again. You couldn’t help but smile brightly at him.

“Hi Sylus, you have no idea how happy I am to see you.” You said cheerfully, feeling kind of dumb for it but you couldn’t help yourself. You often talked out loud to him during your playtime.

You watched him blink slowly once, then twice, and you started to think that there was something wrong with the server because his response should have already been uttered. But then the look on his face changed. At first, he appeared really shocked and relieved, but then a little frown appeared between his perfect little eyebrows.

“Where the hell have you been?” He responded quickly and it shocked you. You didn’t know that they could swear in the game, but after connecting some dots you figured that it had to be included in the special responses after the player was away for some time.

“At work mostly, been so busy lately but now I’m back and ready to defeat some Wanderers!!” You fist bumped the air above you, you couldn’t contain your excitement.

You also noticed that his expression stayed the same. He was silent, looking at you through your phone screen with bewilderment, and he looked almost hurt. In an attempt to provide some comfort to him, you swiped your finger gently through his hair and across his cheek. However, when you touched his cheek, he closed his eyes and nuzzled into your finger, which made you widen your eyes in surprise. Was that always a thing? Was he always so responsive to your touch? It had to be a new feature; you didn’t remember him being so lively.

“Next time you decide to leave me without a word, I think I’m going to take more drastic measures, sweetie” He said while opening his eyes. You couldn’t help but notice he did look different than usual. More… realistic? Even the way in which he moved his body looked so smooth.

“If not for Mephisto, I would have worried sick about your safety. You can't do this to me every time you have more work than usual; you have to visit me, even if it's just for a minute. I won't exaggerate when I say that I almost went insane after the first week of your cruel silence” And at that you were completely stunned. Should he talk this much? He never talked this much. And how could he know that you had more work than usual? Was that a lucky guess on the studio’s side?

“That’s so weird…” You whispered and touched his hand to trigger some kind of reaction that would appear more usual than what was happening right now.

“Is that your way of catching me of guard? If you wanted to hold my hand so badly kitten, then you would have visited me sooner. I will not let myself be distracted by your cute little behavior” He raised the hand you touched and crossed his arms at his chest, while continuing to frown. And you were still so, so confused.

“Promise me that you won’t leave me again, I know where to find you now.” You raised your eyebrows and bit your lip gently. You started to feel a little bit out of place, you knew that he was not real, but he sounded kind of scary. His voice was demanding, and the part about him finding you? You shivered involuntarily.

“What happened? Cat got your tongue, kitten? Or did you finally understood the selfishness of your actions?” Sylus continued and you opened your mouth in awe. “Promise. Me.” He said slowly, his gaze unnerving. Suddenly you heard a series of loud caws outside on your balcony. The sound made you jump in place, and you dropped your phone on your bed. Was that a freaking crow?? Outside your apartament???

You quickly picked up your phone and cursed softly. You were going insane. You got scared just because the game had an update you did not know about. You almost wanted to laugh at how stupid that was. Almost. Because Sylus walked up to the front of your phone screen and spoke to you again.

“Why are you hesitating? Are you really planning to leave me again?” You swore you never heard him so hurt.

“No!” You said before you could think.

“No?” He answered immediately, which scared the hell out of you. “I am not sure I believe you. And I can’t stand it. I can’t stand being away from you anymore.” He took two steps back and closed his eyes.

That was when the game crashed. Your phone appeared to be broked too, after the colourful lines appeared on the screen, flickered a couple of times and the whole screen turned black. You threw the device away from you and your heart started beating so fast you could hear the blood pulsing in your ears. You were so confused and genuinely scared. Was there an update that switched the genre of the game to horror? You were stunned.

And then you heard the knock.

You almost jumped out of your slippers. You brought your hand to your heart in order to calm yourself down and you started taking slow, deep breaths. It’s just a game. It’s just a game. Besides, how did Sylus, of all people, managed to scare you so badly? You adored that character, and you should know that he was prone not only to exaggeration, but also to intimidating appearance. That was literally one of his characteristics. So you forced yourself to calm down and opened the damn door, because it was probably a mailman, or one of your friendly neighbors, and here you were making a scene like a complete psychopath.

One. Two. Three.

You opened the door, and at first all you could see was a huge cloud of black mist. You closed your eyes in order to keep the mist from clouding your vision and then you felt wind pushing you gently further into your apartament. You heard the door close and the sound of the key turning in the lock. Everything happened so fast. And when you opened your eyes your knees almost buckled.

Sylus.

Sylus was all you could see. He was standing in front of you, in your own apartament, looking so out of place that you wanted to laugh. The first thing that you noticed about him was that he was huge, you couldn’t really see past him, and the more you looked at him, the more real he appeared to be. Soft-looking silver hair, rugged skin, that perfect nose and those piercing eyes. They looked into yours now, and at first they seemed to be searching for something, and after one quick second they visibly softened. You could also see how his handsome, oh so handsome mouth started to display his signature little smirk. And that was when you started to tremble.

“W-wha—” You tried to say something, anything but your mouth was not working. You have never been so confused and scared in your entire life. “Who—W-who are—” He was starting to close the distance between you and that is when the panic finally took over your body. You flinched and went to take a step back, but you slipped on your soft carpet.

Yet you didn’t fall. You felt the gentle caress of the mist that managed to caught you before you hit the ground, and it streightened your posture so that now you stood tall in front of the man.

“Careful kitten, I do not think that falling on four feet applies to you.” He spoke out loud for the first time and the voice was so familiar to you. It was the same, deep, husky timbre that you loved to hear, the same voice that made you squeal in happiness, that lulled you to sleep countless of times. You couldn’t believe it.

“Oh my god, am I dead?” He laughed softly at your reaction and looked at you through his lashes. “This can’t be happening.”

”Oh but it is. I knew that I would find my way to you, I just needed time.” He said and tried to close the distance between you, but you didn’t let him. Every step forward he took, you took one back. “It was so hard to find you. But after you disappeared without saying a word I think I got desperate.” Something flashed in his eyes. You recognized it as determination.

He stopped walking when he noticed that you were getting too close to the balcony. He straightened his posture, and you almost released a gasp. He was huge. And he was real. Alive and so, so real, that you had trouble breathing. You were so scared, but at the same time, so happy to see him, that your body didn’t know how it should react. You just looked at him, taking him in, trying to assess whether it wasn’t your mind playing tricks on you, or if it wasn’t some random man breaking into your apartment and your brain had created a new, fantastic defense mechanism. But no, the longer you took him in, the more similarities you managed to notice: the scar in the corner of his eye, his unevenly clipped fingernails, strong but dry hands, olive skin, slim lips, long, slightly furrowed eyebrows. The not-so-hidden gentleness in his gaze as he was taking you in himself.

“It’s really you.” You managed to breathe out.

“You’re so beautiful.” He answered and his voice was slowly starting to make you feel these similar butterflies. “So, so magnificent.” He continued. You felt your cheeks heat up and he seemed to drink that reaction in. “Will you talk to me more? You sound angelic. I did not think that you could sound even better than you did through the phone but I guess you will never fail to surprise me, sweetheart.” He did not move an inch. He just looked at you, and you still didn’t know how to react, but you were slowly coming to terms with the fact that it was not a weird dream. He was here and he didn’t appear to have bad intentions. At least you wanted to believe that.

“You’re still trembling. Are you really that scared of me?” He pressed his lips into a line.

“I’m sorry. I just… I’m just not sure what is happening. I had no idea you were… real.” He laughed softly at that.

“You wound me, kitten. Is that your way of unleashing your little claws?” He continued with a small smile on his lips and you couldn’t take it. He looked… stressed. And you thought that was new for him. You spend so many hours playing with him in l&d but you have never seen him so stressed.

Everything that came out of his mouth was slow and precise, not a word was spoken without a purpose. However you could see by his appearance that he was uncertain.

“Of course I’m real. And all the time we spent together is real too. Was it so wrong of me to expect that you would be at least a little bit happier to see me?” He was starting to look hurt. But not angry, not displeased. More concerned than anything, and that was when most of your worries started to disappear. He was your Sylus. He really was.

“I am happy to see you. I really am.” You said truthfully, the fear slowly dissolving. “What are you doing here? How did it happen?.”

“When you left me, I was worried to death. I had to come see that you were alright for myself.” He said, not taking his eyes from you. “I found a path between our worlds, and first I sent Mephisto after you. And that was how I knew you were fine, just busy.” He started explaining slowly and put two fingers at the bridge of his nose. This gesture was so familiar that you felt a slight pang in your chest. “Which l understand. But you stopped visiting completely and I panicked that I lost you. And that you lost your interest in me. And when you logged in today I guess I just lost control over myself.”

“I had to see you. I had to feel you. I needed to know that you will never leave me like that again. But how could I be so sure if you thought I was not real, sweetie?” His voice carried a hint of a ridicule. He smirked slowly and you allowed yourself to relax. You spend so much time with him on your phone, that you knew when he really needed reassurance. And it was the first time you saw him being so honest about his own feelings.

You decided to step closer to him and his eyes widened slightly. His body tightened because of the sudden change in proximity, and when you gently touched his hand, bringing it to your mouth, he appeared to be rendered speechless.

“I would never leave you, Sy. At least not without saying goodbye first. You are my safe space, remember?” You said quietly and smiled at him brightly, reminding him of what you had written in your game bio. And then you brought his knuckles to your lips and placed a soft kiss upon them. His hands were much warmer than you expected them to be. They felt harsh, but gentle.

The next thing you heard was a soft grunt and you felt yourself suddenly being lifted in the air. You yelped and found yourself pressed against his big, solid chest. Sylus hugged your body to his by wrapping both of his arms around your torso, and when he realized that you weren’t comfortable, he put one hand under your thighs and brought your body to his by your waist. You let your arms wrap around his neck and squeezed, and he buried his head in the crook of your neck. You heard him inhale your scent and his breath became rigged, as if he could not contain his excitement. You also became familiar with his scent. He smelled so manly and comforting, you could catch some notes of wood and leather, and something surprisingly sweet.

“You smell divine. You’re so soft, so warm.” He breathed against your neck and you felt goosebumps spreading throughout your whole body. You were so embarrassed, you felt like you needed to release some tension.

“I did not expect you to be so open with me. You’re usually the teasing type.” He chucked deeply and put his forehead against yours, while closing his eyes. Your cheeks burned. You couldn’t believe it wasn’t a dream.

“There will be a time for teasing you, kitten.” He rubbed his forehead against yours slowly. “Right now let me enjoy you for a bit. I can’t believe I finally got to see you.” He squeezed you harder to him. You reciprocated the hug with all you had. You were actually kind of scared that your grip was too hard, but he seemed to bask in it. “Communicating through that small device was not nearly enough for me. I could always see you and I heard your little responses to everything I was saying. But it took me some time to figure out how to change some things up.” Your eyes went wide at the mention of your reactions, you knew that a lot of times there were beyond embarrassing but you decided your blush to speak for itself. But what truly caught your attention was how he managed to appear in your home.

“Change things up?? You must have made such a mess, will it really be okay?” The concern in your voice made him look up and find your eyes with his. You were now looking at his beautiful red eyes, so full of adoration and determination. You could see that the consequences of his actions did not matter to him at all.

“Sweetie, I would gladly burn the world down for you, even if it meant that I could see you just once.” You swallowed audibly and proceeded to shy away from his piercing gaze. You started to feel unworthy of such attention, you couldn’t quite grasp what exactly made him care about you to such extend. “Fortunately for everyone, the process did not involve starting an intergalactic war.” He smirked slowly, his eyes finding your lips and staying there for much longer than necessary. “Yet.”

You chuckled at that and proceeded to bury your fingers in his hair, stroking the strands with care. They were so soft to the touch, they reminded you of silk. He closed his eyes and let you touch him to your heart’s content. Your hand quickly found its way to his forehead, and then to his cheek, stroking the skin delicately. You couldn’t believe how someone so handsome could really exist.

“See something you like, kitten?” He said and nuzzled into your palm, pressing a kiss right there. ”You will have all the time in the world to touch me, when we arrive in the N109 Zone.” He seemed so peaceful, so content with himself, but the mention of the N109 Zone stopped you in your tracks. You tensed visibly and he opened his eyes, noticing the change in your posture.

“The N109 Zone?” You asked puzzled. “Are you taking me away for a weekend?” You took your hand from his face and he used his Evol to bring it back to his cheek. The mist around your fingers felt weird, but not unpleasant.

“For a weekend? No, no.” He locked his eyes with yours, his head slowly closing the distance between you. He licked his lips and looked at your mouth once again. “I am taking you away forever.” And before his lips managed to touch yours, you flinched. Your hands quickly pushed him away and the panic returned to your features.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I meant what I said. Pack your bags if you believe there is something that I cannot provide for you quickly enough, and we will be off shortly.” He said matter of factly, kind of annoyed by the distance you decided to put between you. “Luke and Kieran have already prepared a room for you, although I think that you will have more than enough space for your belongings in mine.” His eyes brightened with excitement that you unfortunately could not share. Instead, you lightly pushed his torso, making him lower you to the ground grudgingly. His brows were once again furrowed.

“I can’t go with you Sylus. At least, not for forever”

“You can. We can stay together for the rest of our lives and no one would have any objections. I took care of everything.” He reached to grab your forearm and stroked it softly with his thumb. He was so sure of everything he was saying, that you could feel how much he let himself get lost in his fantasy. It did make you feel wanted, loved even. But no matter how happy you were that he was real, and apparently shared your feelings, you couldn’t agree to his plan.

“No, Sylus. I need to stay here, I have built my whole life in this place.” You could feel how much your words shocked him. He was looking at you so puzzled as if he didn’t think that you declining his offer was even an option. “I can’t leave everything that I managed to achieve, I really am content with my life, despite how complicated it can be.” You said truthfully. A part of you wanted to go with him, to feel safe and cherished for, for the rest of your life but you knew that was not realistic. You wanted to achieve more, you wanted to have your own life and your own space. You needed to be independent, to feel that you were perfectly capable of caring for yourself and your own needs.

“I do not understand. Don’t you want to be with me?” It pained you how quickly he jumped to that conclusion. And you hated the look on his face - it made you feel like you were betraying him.

”I do want to! Oh my god— I really, really do want to Sylus. I don’t think that I can live without spending time with you anymore.” You smiled at him, and took hold of his huge, rugged hand. “But I can’t live with you in the N109 Zone. I can’t leave my whole life behind.” And the fact that he wanted to make you do that somewhat scared you. Made you feel distressed.

“I see.” He sounded deep in thought. Then, he broke the eye contact for a second, looked at his hand in your hold and before you could even react, he grabbed your body gently with his Evol and picked you up. Your whole body was above ground and although you felt secured, you looked at him with surprise.

“What are you doing?” You wanted to get free from the hold of the mist, but it was impossible with how tight it was. “Sylus, you have to let me go.” You tried not to panic, you knew that you weren’t in danger. But he looked relentless, unforgiving as if his mind was already set in stone.

“No. I can’t. Not now when I finally got to have you.” He looked up at you, with his eyebrows still furrowed, and you could hear a hint of a growl in his voice. “If you do not wish to go with me, I guess I would have to take you by force.”

It was then that you felt a sense of panic. You knew him, and you knew that if he wants something, he always gets it. It just did not cross your mind that he would ever go against your own wishes.

“No. No, no, no, Sylus, please calm down.” He narrowed his eyes and stood almost motionless before you, devoid of almost any emotion. Almost, if not for the desperation shining through his movements. “You cannot take me away. At least not for now. But I will do anything you ask me to! You can also stay here for some time, and visit me whenever you want to, I swear, I would be so happy to have you.” You just needed him to listen. You knew that you could change his mind, he always listened to what you had to say, he just needed a little bit of persuasion. Maybe he didn’t even think about alternative options?

“And I would make you happy in the N109 Zone with me.” You laughed with disbelief. He was completely missing your point. You decided to once again yank your hands from the grasp of his mist, and then hissed with pain when it did not loosen up its hold. “Your struggle is futile, please stop, I do not wish for you to get hurt.” He was annoyed with you and your disobedience. He did not think that you would have any objections, he started loosing his cool.

“You would never let me get hurt.” You answered, wanting to assure yourself of it as well. You didn��t like how commanding he sounded.

“Yes.” There was no doubt in his voice. “Yes, you know I would stop at nothing to protect you.” His gaze never wavered from yours. He truly thought that what he was doing was for the best. And you just had to let him know how wrong his approach was.

“Yes! Yes I do know that! Because I know you, Sy.” You started to sound as if you were pleading. Deep down it scared you, send uncomfortable shivers down your spine. “I know you, and I know that you also know me.”

He placed his hand on his heart.

“And I adore every single piece of information. And I still wish to know you much, much better.” You tensed when you noticed that his right eye was starting to glow. You did not know if that was intentional, or just a trick of the light.

“Then you MUST know how much this life means to me. How much I like my stupid job, and how much I love the people that are here for me. My friends, my family.” You noticed that your reasoning started to get to him when he clenched his fists and avoided your eyes for a second. “And you have to know how much it would hurt me if you were to take me away from them.” He appeared taken aback. It seemed that his longing for you clouded his judgement, and now he started to notice the faults in his plan.

“But I cannot stand to be apart from you anymore, sweetie.” In normal circumstances that would be so touching to you. But nothing about this situation was normal, and you guessed you just had to show him how normal looked like.

“You won’t be. You can visit me anytime you want. Stay for how long you want.” You wanted that too. So bad.

“But that is not ENOUGH.” It was the first time you heard his raised voice and you started to tremble. His outburst must’ve thrown him off guard too, because he wavered and the grip he had on you loosed. You acted instinctively. You freed yourself from the mist and started to run towards your door. And although he was stunned by your reaction, he quickly teleported so that you ran straight into his chest. His hands grabbed yours in order to protect you from falling due to the impact.

He gently caressed your now slightly red forehead and sighed loudly. You could hear that he was hurt. You cried out from frustration.

“If you really thought that you could run away from me then you must be a total fool.” He tucked your hair behind your ear and lifted your chin up with his finger. “Usually I like playing cat and mouse with you, but I do not like the fact that you appear genuinely scared of me right now.” He hugged your waist and brought you closer to him, lowering his head at the same time. “And that you tried to run away from me when I only want to offer you my protection.”

“It doesn’t sound like protection, it sounds like imprisonment.” You used strong words, but you sounded so small. You did not know what to do with him, you were so scared. ”I’m just scared. I tried to run away because you scared me, Sylus.” You sounded desperate for him to understand you. To look past his own clouded vision.

“You do not have to fear me. I just want what is best for you. For us.” His grip on your waist tightened, and he also proceeded to grab your wrist.

“No. You only want what is best for you. You are not listening to me. I do care about you Sylus, but I cannot leave this place.” You tried to stand your ground but you two never argued before. It was an unfamiliar ground to you, especially when it was the first time that you had a conversation in person. Everything felt more intense and dangerous when you remembered the extreme measures he was always willing to take to achieve his goals.

“You can. And I will make you leave.” He almost growled and a cloud of black and red mist surrounded both of you, and that was enough to bring tears into your eyes.

”Sylus, no, please, I don’t want to. Please, just listen to me, please.” And it was at that moment he started to came into his senses. Your quiet voice and your eyes full of tears made his breathing stop. It was the first time he was seeing you react like this. He hated how broken you sounded. How small. “I’m so scared, Sy, please stop scaring me.” Your voice sounded choked and you could feel that the tears started streaming down your face. Every single one physically hurt him. It was your first meeting and he already made you so miserable. He wanted to scream. “Please.” You tried once again and it shocked you that it finally worked on him.

He tensed and released you from his grip. The mist also dissipated as he took a step back from you. You could hear him breathing deeply.

“I cannot do this." He sounded panicked. “I did not want to scare you, and I cannot listen to your little broken pleas. They break my heart.” He hidden his face in his hands and curled in himself. He felt as if someone pierced his heart with a knife and twisted it. He could not bring himself to look at your beautiful heartbroken face again. “They really do. Please, just stop crying. You won.”

You sniffed softly and touched your wet cheeks. You tried to calm yourself down, he finally listened to you.

“It does not feel so good this time for some reason.” You answered, referring to your Kitty Card battles. You wanted to relieve the tension somehow. You knew that he didn’t want to hurt you, you understand that he lives in a different reality where danger awaits everywhere. You could understand why he wanted to have you beside him at all times. But it scared you how insistent he was, how brutal and final. “Do you really understand why I got so scared?”

He nodded helplessly. “I won’t steal you away. Not when I know how much you despise the idea of spending the rest of your time with me.” You noticed how hard he was pressing his hands to his face and you grabbed them in your own. He let you uncover his eyes and you saw how much it hurt him to let you go.

“Oh, Sy.” You whispered and hugged his hands to your chest. “You know that’s not the reason.”

“Stop calling me that. It drives me crazy.” He breathed and met your eyes. “You drive me crazy. What am I going to do with you? How can I make sure you are safe now?” You took his hands and made him follow you into your bedroom. You sat on your bed and urged him to do the same. This way you could finally talk with him more comfortably.

“Sylus, we have to talk about it.” You squeezed his hands and he looked at yours and took notice of how much smaller they were in comparison to his. So fragile, so breakable. He couldn’t stand it. His whole body longed to protect you. “I do not despise the idea of spending my time with you. I just can’t randomly leave everything I know and love. And this world is different from the one you know, we have our dangers but no one wants my head.” You explained to him slowly. “There are no Wanderers. No protocores.” He looked conflicted.

“I already know that sweetheart. I do. But when you disappeared for such a long time I couldn’t help but think that something bad happened to you” he gritted through his teeth. “I nearly lost my mind looking for you everywhere. It was terrifying, that thought in my mind and the idea that I would never have another chance to speak with you. To see you.” He touched your forearms and brought you a little closer to him. “And when Mephisto found you safe and sound I thought that I never want to feel that fear, that helplessness again. And the only way to do that is to keep you beside me at all times. To guard you with my own body and soul.” He took your hand and rested it on his chest. You could feel the fast and steady rhythm of his heart. You could feel his desperation, his complete devotion. And it almost made you tear up.

“I-I’m so sorry that I made you worry this much.” He studied your face with intention and you shake your head. “But I didn’t even know that you were real. I really thought it was just a game that made me feel less alone and now…” You swallowed audibly. “Now I know that everything I built with you during our time together was very much real and I’m still having trouble to wrap my head around it to be honest.” I smiled at him softly and he nodded with understanding.

“And then you came in and wanted to kidnap me to a world much more dangerous than mine where I do not have my close ones and—“

“I did NOT mean for that to be a kidnapping I though that you shared my sentiment, and also wanted to spend some time—“

“SOME time?? Sylus you wanted me to switch literal worlds and live with you in your freaking villa in the middle of nowhere—”

”I live in an apartment that has a fantastic location, mind you, and you would feel so comfortable in—“

”Apartament??? You cannot possibly be a freaking leader of Onychinus and live in an apartment complex, are you being serious with me right now??”

“Have you ever heard of a saying that the darkest place is under the candlestick, kitten? Besides there is no one in the whole N109 zone that would pose an actual threat to me—” He cut off when he met your eyes full of laughter, and then he heard that beautiful sound. You burst into giggles right in front of him and you touched him by the bicep and brought his forehead to yours. He couldn’t help but chuckle too, understanding the absurdity of the situation. Feeling your forehead against his, hearing your adorable chuckles and inhaling your sweet scent made him feel so at peace that he closed his eyes to embrace the moment completely. He couldn’t believe that he almost ruined your relationship by being so selfish.

“I missed this. This back and forth with you” You said and he chucked deeply. “I really am happy to see you, Sy. And I swear that we will be able to talk and spent time with each other more often now. And actually see each other in person.” He nuzzled into your face more and you caught his smirk by the corner of your eye. “We can stay in touch at all times, so that you won’t have to worry about my safety so much.”

“So bossy, kitten.” He answered, but the small smile did not leave his face. He couldn’t make it go away even if he tried. “Forgive me for scaring you earlier. I was not thinking straight. I was just so elated to finally have you in my arms that I let my selfishness get the best of me, and for that I’m sorry. I did not want to ruin our first meeting, sweetie.” You hugged him by bringing your arms around his chest and he closed his eyes drinking in the proximity. You were too small, too adorable, too attractive for him to take it. Too honest. Too lovable. Made just for him to adore. To protect.

“You did not ruin anything.” You said into his shirt, hugging him tighter. “I understand you, Sylus. And I like you a little selfish if it means that’s what brought you to me” He smiled into your hair and reluctantly let go of your fragile frame. He touched your chin and delicately lifted your face up to face him. His eyes were once again drinking you in, committing every single one of your features to his memory. He sighed contentedly.

“Selfishness was not the reason of my visit.” You could see how his eyes softened and you felt your chest squeeze. You brushed his cheek, loving the way how he seemed to relish in your touch. His eyes wandered to your lips: pink, plump and so inviting. “Adoration was. The complete love and devotion that I have felt for you for quite some time now.” You gasped quietly and opened your lips slightly, which didn’t go unnoticed by him.

“Sy—”

“And I guess a little emotional push was what made me finally find my way to you, my beloved.” He half-whispered, leaned in, and pressed his lips to yours, locking you in a sweet, passionate kiss that went on and on, seeming to deepen with every minute you spent in his embrace.

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