#I also want to change his name because I was never happy with it to begin with
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madamechrissy · 10 hours ago
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I'll look After You
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Pairings: Satoru Gojo x fem reader (reader is a mom)
Summary: You longed to hear from Satoru, After an epic night hooking up in a club bathroom, sure you'd been strangers, but he has your number, he made you feel so special... but... he never contacts you again. Ten months later, you have a beautiful baby named Reign, with those exact blue eyes. You never saw him again, couldn't even find him, so now, you are living your life as a single mom. Messy bun, dark circles, exhausted, you run into Satoru one day, and he sees her, his baby girl, and sees you struggling, he knows then, you're what's been missing in his life.
CW: Going to be sweet and emotional, Satoru is a freaking doll, misunderstanding led to him not knowing (nothing is kept from anyone on purpose) Fluffy long oneshot where Satoru falls in love with reader and his little girl. Gojo being a dad and being cute! Will have smut at the end as all my oneshots do lol, so MDNI, and flashbacks to the original bathroom smut (will list all the warnings when it comes out!)
Preview below! Comment to get added to the taglist when it's out!! (Soon!!) <3
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You often wondered about him, Satoru was his name.
As you look down at your baby girl, with her brilliant blue eyes while she’s cooing happily, giving you a gummy little grin, you wonder what he’d think if he knew about her. The random guy at the bar you gave your number to after hooking up in a bathroom, the guy who never called, the guy with no social media of which to speak. The guy you never, ever saw again.
Your baby’s father, the best thing that ever happened to you, surely, but also it was very difficult, being a single mom, you’d have to go back to work soon which you were dreading, spending sleepless nights up feeding, changing her. It had been a rough pregnancy, and a shocking one at that, people had questioned you over and over, some mentioned not having her.
But something in you knew you could do this, you could have this baby, you’re broke as fuck but she has all she needs, and she makes you so happy, but those eyes are unmistakable. No one has eyes like that, except her and her… well was he really her 'dad'? You wonder if he’d run ten million miles from you if he knew, or would he have been okay with it?
It’s odd that just a night of fun, alcohol and being on antibiotics created this amazing little girl, but you can’t be upset, not when she brightens your world. But you still ache at times, for her to have a dad, you hope you’re enough. You wonder about him though, the bright energetic man, the one that had made you feel more in one evening than anyone ever.
The last man you’d been with.
Yes, it’s been that long, Reign was two months old, so you’re damn near at a year, you say it’s because you’re so busy, but something deep in you knows that you felt something for him, deeper than the obvious physical. Something about how he looked at you, at how he laughed, at how he made you feel so special.
You assume it must have been some act, clearly, here you are, alone after all. You both only knew each other’s first names, it’s true, but he had that number. Maybe it wasn’t all you thought it was? Maybe he just was that sort of guy, the one that made women think they’re his everything with one of his kisses, maybe you were just too drunk, and he was too pretty.
You blink a bit, shaking the haze thoughts of him as you yawn a bit, exhausted from Reign keeping you up all night, her tummy had been hurting. You’re sleepily putting things in the cart, baby items, groceries, the essentials, you catch sight of yourself in the mirror above the produce, wincing then. You have a messy bun and are in pajamas, god help you if you ever wanted to meet a guy.
‘Oh hi, I have a baby with a random blue eyed dude from a bar, I’m broke as fuck, and I wear pajamas to the store. Wanna date?’
Yeah. That would go over well.
“It’s… it’s… you!?” You sleepily look up then, so exhausted you barely register the six foot three man for a moment, then suddenly it all hits.
He stares at you, those blue eyes, the eyes your baby has, wide now, his pouty pink lips dropped open. He’s just as gorgeous as you remember him, like it’s some dream, you feel weak then, chest rising and falling as your breaths come too quickly. He steps closer to you then, he hasn’t seen her yet, nestled in her little car seat on the cart, you’re panicking.
“Do you even remember me? Oh my god, that night my phone broke, and I had just got it, they couldn’t transfer the numbers! And I tried to look you up? But I couldn’t find you… and I never saw you… and then- fuck I’m rambling.” He laughs nervously, swiping his hand through his snowy locks. “Forgive me, please… what I mean to say is… Hi?”
“Hi…” Your baby whines then, and Satoru pauses, blinking and you move to the side then, he steps closer when Reign opens her eyes, grinning at him.
Satoru’s heart pounds in his chest, his entire world tilts on its axis, he was already so thrown off by seeing you again, the girl he hasn’t been able to stop thinking of, but now… he looks at you in shock, you look exhausted, but so beautiful, your eyes tear up then, he watches your shoulders slump, then he looks back at the baby, realization sinking in.
“She’s… is she… there’s no way…”
“She’s yours, I only hooked up with you for the past… year.” You manage to say softly, right in the middle of the fruit aisle, Satoru was finding out you have his baby.
“You did this alone?” He says then, blinking back emotions for a girl he barely knew, but who now has a part of him, a part he wants to know so badly suddenly, shocking him.
“I had no clue who you were, how to tell you, even if so, it’s not your responsibility okay? I take care of her just fine, I make it work.” Satoru’s heart breaks then, seeing how tired you are, seeing the endless baby items and cheap toilet paper, a cheap bottle of wine, is that all you get yourself?
You did this alone, you have his baby alone, altering your life while he’s living his just the same, partying with his best friends, working and living a luxurious life. Satoru was rich, and it’s clear his baby and his baby’s mother are struggling, and he’s here doing what? Could he have tried harder to find you!? Could he…
“We’re okay, you don’t have to worry. I’d never come for you for anything, I am happy being her mommy.” You say with a tired smile, reaching to touch her little chubby cheek, and Satoru has never seen anything so beautiful, the two of you.
He’s felt so empty for this year, is this what he was missing?
“Can I… please… can I know her?” He asks, gulping now, and you blink in shock, nodding quickly.
“I would love that.” You can’t stop your tears then, sniffling and shaking your head. “Please, let’s talk outside of the produce aisle?” You whisper, he nods quickly, unable to take his eyes off you, off his baby.
Coming sooon- based loosely on a request for @bunheadusa hehe, prob gonna be long I can't help myself.
perma tags- @alt--er--love @cuntphoric @seeing-stars-alt @nanasukii28 @labelt-san @makingtimemine @aldebrana @n1vi Perma Gojo tags: @chiyokoemilia @haruhatake @strychnynegirl <3
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noxitsnox · 3 days ago
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if we get too closе, would it be okay?
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hyun-ju x gn!reader - highschool au
summery: hyun-ju came out to her- now ex- girlfriend who spread the rumor around the whole school.
tags: trans/homophobia (the word tr**ny is used one (1) time), bullying, hurt/comfort, lots of fluff i promise, let me know if i missed anything!
a/n: i am obsessed it's not fair. this is pre-t but i'm still going to use she/her pronouns for hyun-ju <3 also english is not my first language and this isn't proof read, so i apologize for any mistake. @exactlyinfp
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hyun-ju didn't want to go to school that day. her girlfriend, ex girlfriend now, broke up with her just because she trusted her, because she didn't want to hide anymore and she believed that her girlfriend of almost two years would understand. but she didn't. she called her all kind of names and blocked her everywhere.
she hoped this was where it ended. that they could just ignore each other and keep living life as it is. it would have been so much easier that way. but the moment she entered the school hallway she knew something happened. the looks she was getting were strange, full of hate. definitely not the looks you receive when you just broke up. she tried to ignore it and walked to her class with her head down.
it was early. a lot of time passed before some of her classmates entered the room. maybe it was better if they stayed outside. their chatter died down as soon as they saw her. one of them, who was seated next to her, took his desk and dragged it as far away from her as possible. “you're sick”, he said under his breath. “stay away from me.”
she stayed silent as the realization hit her. if he knew, everyone else did too. fighting tears, she forced herself to keep cool.
slowly people filled the room. everyone ignored her, even her so called friends looked at her with disgust. only y/n seemed to be acting as if nothing happened. maybe they didn't know about it yet. they’ll turn their back to you like everyone else, she thought.
“oh hyun-ju, how are you?”
y/n waited for an answer that never arrived. so, with a sad smile, they spoke again. “it's fine. you don't have to talk with me. you have my number in case you change your mind.”
———
for the rest of the week she ignored everyone. she was barely alive.
every morning she entered school feeling like a criminal. her locker in the changing rooms was filled with insults. some guys even tried to push her on the ground. that was the only moment she reacted. she could ignore words, but physical aggression was were she drew the line.
every night she cried herself to sleep, wishing she had someone on her side, someone to talk to. her family didn't know about what was happening in school and she hoped for it to stay that way or she wouldn't even have a home anymore.
it was on saturday afternoon that she lost it. she was out, getting some groceries for her mother at the local market, and she saw her ex with her friends. she tried to hide before they could notice her, but she wasn't fast enough.
"oh god, isn't that that tranny you used to date?", one said pointing at her.
"don't say that out loud, please. what will people think of me?"
hyun-ju ran away without even taking food from the market stall. she kept running until their voice became indistinguishable echoes.
she sat on the side walk and took out her phone, looking for y/n contact. she started crying, the tears blurring her vision.
their words came back to her. you have my number in case you change your mind. were they serious? she hesitantly called them, hoping for the best.
y/n didn't take long to answer and for that she was grateful.
"hey, you called!"
"i- yes... listen can you, can you come here?"
"oh hyun-ju, you're crying? is everything okay?"
"i don't even know anymore. please, just come here." and with that she hung up the phone, quickly shared the position with them.
she hugged her knees as she waited.
———
y/n was happy that hyun-ju called, even if the situation wasn't ideal. even though they weren't intimate, they cared about her and it made them sad to see her suffer. especially if she was being ridiculed for something beyond her control.
y/n tried to get to her as fast as possible. they went out in their sweats without bothering to put on something nicer. they didn't like the idea of hyun-ju seeing them in that state, but they also realized that they had to put vanity aside at the moment.
as soon as she saw y/n she got up and hugged. they remained in that position for a while. hyun-ju cried and cried while y/n rubbed her back, doing what they could to comfort her.
"sorry... i don't know why i did that", she said as she let go of them.
"you don't have to apologize. do you feel better now?"
"i do, thanks."
an awkward silence fell until y/n suggested they start walking with a wave of their hand, "do you wanna talk about what's happening?"
"i just want to forget about it. can we talk about something else?"
"oh sure", y/n looked at her and smiled. "do you wanna hear about this manga i'm reading?"
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a/n: i realize that for an xreader the reader is barely there 😬 sorry. let me now if you liked it!!
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starberry-cupcake · 9 hours ago
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GUESS WHO'S BACK??? Happy new year you bone-loving weirdos (affectionately)!!! Let's start 2025 with Nona!!!
previously, in this react series:
we (I mean me, but also you, alongside me) finished harrowcita del 9
we read some short stories
I made a gideon craft as a gift and the person I made it for told me that the recap I wrote in the back made it to some discord server somewhere
my legacy is being unfunny
NOW LET'S START WITH NONA:
(that's how I called 2 of my great-grandmothers)
I decided to skip all the praise for the book because some of them were getting a little too involved with the story and I don't want to know anything, thank you very much
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I did however read the blurb in the inside cover that I missed the last time
I wonder if at some point I could make like an audio version of a recap as I read, because my reaction when I read the following was Something, but then again you'd have to deal with my pronunciation of the names and idk if I want that
anyway, blurb says "with Pyrrha, Camilla and Palamedes"
???????????????????????????????????????????
I thought it was judith and coronabeer twin??????
I'm gonna change her name from regina george twin to coronabeer twin now because she outlived her other nickname
she's the only nickname graduate so far
who took palmolive out of the tamagotchi river loft???????
who set him loose????
how is phyrrha there, she was with gideon/harrow/gideonharrow fusion??????
"each night, Nona dreams of a woman with a skull painted face"
don't we all
the list of books says "Nona the Ninth" and so does the title in the paratext
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instead of dramatis personae we have a guest list for a party
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there are a lot of dogs invited to the party, which is nice
one of them has six legs
there's also people with BOE names
and one kevin, love to see it, I'll remember him
lots of meme potential there
there are some camilla annotations beside all the people from BOE allegedly nona wants to invite
still not seeing coronabeer and/or judith
gonna imagine that, wherever they are, they're making out
good for them
we got two poems after, the latter of which is a bit heart wrenching, I don't wanna ask about it
then we got a title that looks like a bible verse
had to google it and it is a verse about peter and a disciple finding jesus's tomb empty
ice cube barbie is locked tomb jesus confirmed
I've never mentioned this before but this has happened to me ever since book 1, and since it's here again I'm gonna say it
I have noticed I have a bad knee jerk reaction to the adjective 'fat' being used so often for so many things, but I'm trying to work thought it
don't wanna project my trauma onto unintended narrators
we got a summarized recount of events of what might be how emperor asshat and some of his lyctors got where they got from maybe present times???
there's talk about cryogenics for a lot of people and an evacuation plan from earth
and names are erased but we have some initials that could be augustine, mercygirl, cassiopeia and gideon
I don't think c is not!dulcinea because she was meant to be a newer model lyctor
during this recount he's in the beach alongside harrow, who he says he's gonna hurt
harrow apparently says she still loves him
gideon would be kicking him in the nuts
also, I thought the emperor was with yandere twin
what the hell happened between the two books???? where's everyone????
DAY ONE (hot sauce and 5 days until the tomb opens) CH 1
we've got a recorded statement of what feels to me like the Pool Situation Wink Wonk You Know The One
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is she harrow??? or is harrow in the river with the emperor and this is a new person???? who is this????? is harrow's soul in the river???? where is gideon's perfectly preserved body that we knew camilla was carrying around with coronabeer and judith???
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I don't know anything
but my wife is here, so it's all good
also, she's apparently sharing a body with palmolive now
so now the wife ideal turned into a polycule situation, I guess
didn't have that in my 2025 cards
I have two hands, apparently, idk
turns out, palmolive was somehow freed from his tamagotchi loft in the river and placed in camilla's body so they share it
how? by who? when?
glad you asked, I don't know
they're sharing space now, that's all I know
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it's kind of like the lyctors should have been if the emperor wasn't an asshole, I guess
because it seems they can also switch easily and like coexist without totally cutting the other one out
it feels a lot healthier and organic in their relationship, even though palmolive is a soul guest
palmolive says camilla's body is a temple, so I'm glad we agree
pyrrha is also there, I assume taking over og!gideon's body fully, since he died, afaik
they're taking care of nona, who doesn't know who she is and they don't seem to know either, but if she has harrow's memories, I don't know what to tell you
they're living in a complicated militarized situation with few resources and little light use
palmolive thinks he could write explicit materials for a living but camilla doesn't want them to be remembered for that
palmolive wrote a lot of Things to his bae in correspondence, so maybe that's already part of his legacy
nona is sent to her room while palmolive and pyrrha argue about BOE acting weird
camolive want to rescue people, pyrrha thinks it's a bad idea and wants to get nona away from the planet
pyrrha also mentions a "she" that's crazier than camilla and makes references to commander wake me up when september ends but that one died???? twice????? so idk who this new "she" is
let's remember, for the record, that both og!gideon and pyrrha were Intimate with commander wake me up before we go go
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apparently there are more people who are planet refugees in this one planet than two houses combined
which doesn't surprise me in the least, because that's how oppression often works, but is good to have it confirmed
heralds are also still a problem and camilla wants to fight them
pyrrha thinks that's a bad idea, because there's data of that not being possible
but she doesn't know that camilla hect is perfect and can do everything right always
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it is important for me to clarify that, more than anyone ever in this book series, nona is the true definition of what in my land we refer to as: "está en un cumple"
the literal definition of the phrase means "she's in a birthday party"
the idiom definition is that someone is totally unaware of what is going on, without understanding what's around them, often used for people in a content state while unaware of a problem everyone else is worrying about
I truly think it's a very good way to describe her and I can't translate it in a way that feels the exact way, especially due to the party context
I headcanon her wearing this shirt
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she also wants to save the animals, while camolive want to save the people
pyrrha is just tired and wants to retire to a farming planet to live in peace
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I get it, though, imagine having to serve emperor asshat for so long
poor cavalier deserves some rest, og!gideon had the right idea when he exited the entire situation
saw an out with that fight in the river and left the chat
pyrrha is also worried about BOE capturing and torturing camolive for interrogation
and there seems to be an underlying plan between camolive and pyrrha that I'm not entirely sure of yet
nona, apparently, goes to school, because she's in a cumple, as previously established
going to school on top of the eye in the sky and the military issues and the social strife and the potential torturing doesn't sound ideal but very glad there's still an education system in place among all that
AND THAT'S IT FOR NOW!!! It's proving a bit complicated to do recaps with a paperback but I'm gonna try to find my footing!! See you on the next one!!
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wen-kexing-apologist · 1 day ago
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Our Youth: The Responsibility of Adaptation
I regret to inform you all that I dropped Our Youth a few weeks back. Which is tragic because I was so enamored with it at the beginning that I literally went and searched up the manwha and devoured it all in one sitting.
Now, I can definitively say that I do think the first part of both the manwha and the show is the strongest. BUT I want to talk about the two changes I saw in the first half that I do think negatively impacted how the College Years landed. (Forgive me if I get some of the details slight off I'm too lazy to go back to the manwha and check).
For the sake of expediency, I am going to keep the names from the jbl even when talking about the manwha, but please know that Minase and Haruki have different names in the Korean graphic novel.
I. The Big Change that Had a Big Impact
First, I want to talk about the events that get Haruki suspended/expelled from school.
The Show: The bullies Haruki hangs around in school rob a store, Haruki confronts them, Haruki gets in trouble with the school, Haruki...takes the blame for some unknown reason?
The Manwha: The bullies Haruki hangs around bullies a student so severely over the course of the school year that the student attempts suicide. Haruki has never directly partaken in the bullying (keeping with the categories Minase breaks people down in to) but he is a bystander. And when he hears about this student's suicide attempt he realizes that he really should not just be letting the bullies get away with shit like that. He confronts the bully, calls him out on it, and in front of the entire class and as the teacher walks in that fucking piece of shit kid cries and wails and cowers in fear of Haruki making it look like Haruki is not only threatening him but is also the main perpetrator of the bullying that pushed a child to attempt suicide.
In my opinion, there is a huge difference in the stakes and the consequences here, and I think the way the show played it out not only lowers the stakes but detracts from the messaging around the perception of kids like Haruki. The bully in the manwha weaponized the fact that all the teachers see Haruki as a violent delinquent because he...checks notes: choked a teacher who was sexually harassing a student and threatened him to prevent it from happening again and the fact that Haruki is technically culpable because he watched it happen and never stepped in, in order to take the heat off himself and avoid getting in trouble.
In the show Haruki just immediately backtracks on his fight with the bully at the pool hall and takes the fall, suffering the consequences for something he very much didn't do. Haruki's suspension does not induce the kind of rage it would have if they had gone with the manwha version, and Haruki's pulling back from Minase also would make far more sense in the context of Haruki's reaction to finding out about the student's attempt and the part he played in it.
II. The Small Change that Had a Big Impact
Now, I admit I am often guilty of finding a lot of small moments in media to often be what sticks with me, and I can get annoyed when I see an adaptation that might strip away my favorite little moments, or favorite little lines (RIP "call me child one more goddamn time" from Critical Role, you will always be famous to me)
But in this case I do feel it is fair of me to say that making this specific tweak to the story should have caused a hell of a lot of edits to the second half of the story in order to make it compelling. What would that be?
The Show: Minase's father makes a queer indie film. Minase and Haruki attend the film together, there is a happy ending, and Minase finds a label that speaks to his feelings for Haruki.
The Manwha: Minase's father makes a queer indie film. Miase and Haruki attend the film together, there is a sad ending and Minase does not find a label that speaks to his feelings for Haruki. In college, Minase learns that his tutor is gay and has a partner and is happy with his life and this is where he starts to parse through his feelings for Haruki and adopt a label/definition of his queerness.
Small tweak, huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge difference in vibe and in justification for what comes next. In the manwha Haruki and Minase do not see each other for six years because of a phone mishap where one of them had their phone turned off for months in order to focus on studying, and the other got a new phone number or something thus they did not really see or hear from each other. They have an accidental run in in college and they restart their relationship but it still takes them some time.
I dropped the show before I got to the college years so I do not know what if anything happened there, but I do think that when you actually did nothing wrong to warrant getting suspended from school, you know where each other's houses are, you know what your feelings actually are, and your external experiences with queerness are generally happy it is extremely difficult to make being separated for six years feel compelling or believable.
I think it is a little bit more believable when you have a character who is actually culpable in the bullying that led to a suicide attempt, your supposed "school friends" who you kinda have always hated tries to make himself the victim, you don't have a label/definition to put your feelings to, and your only external experiences with queerness are sad and tragic that you might do what Haruki did and assume that Minase also started seeing you negatively and no longer cared for you.
Anyway, I don't think I have a solid conclusion to this post beyond I think if the writers were interested in lightening the mood around the school situation and giving the boys a happy queer ending in high school so they could feel comfortable with their feelings, that's totally fine, but then I think they needed to make some tweaks to the back half to justify those decisions a bit better, at least based off of what I have seen and heard about the way the back half played out.
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wangmiao · 11 hours ago
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from nan pai san shu's POV (he uploaded the video to weibo):
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none of us had any idea that he was actually filming zly on stage himself lol. and he must be very happy because zly actually spotted him.
i didn't find any sources on this yet, but i've seen some netizens talking about how npss wants to work with zly again. and we zly fans were like: yes if you are going to work on projects like belief (2021).
if you don't know, npss' company was one of the production companies behind zly's 2021 show belief.
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i've read that the original novel has the two male leads in their 20s, but nobody in the production team thought any actors in their 20s could have handled the complex roles or acting, so they changed the characters and made them middle aged men. as a result, they were able to have zly as the first male lead and nie yuan as the second male lead. so you know, age is never a problem.
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also did you notice tibetan sea flower actors in belief (of course, zhang fan is in three body as well)?
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i think at this point nobody can deny the fact that npss is a zly fanboy (if you haven't read about how they meet in 2016, here you go). there's no shame in it. we all know zly is award winning director yang lei's muse lol.
so, so far we have three showrunners that's obsessed with zly: yang lei/杨磊, xu bing/徐兵, xu lei/徐磊 (npss), and did you notice the bold blue characters? the inside joke is that if you are a writer/producer/director with either xu/徐 or lei/磊 in your name, you might be "cursed" to be obsessed with zly LOLLOLLOL...and npss actually have both characters in his name, so maybe he's the most obsessed one LOL. i kinda want to put him in a "i love zly more" competition with yang lei.
ps. we all know these airing platforms' own awards don't mean nothing. but at least it's good to know that tencent is happy with tsf and zly. and i also suspect that they invited zly this year to make up to the fact that he didn't go to their event for three body last year. and i'm rather glad that he kinda paused for a sec and raised the trophy when he said "scifi". i'm pretty sure he was thinking about three body. and i'm glad du haitao (the host) mentioned three body <3.
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Zhang Luyi at Tencent's 2024 All Star Night on 2025/01/04
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snarkspawn · 3 months ago
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I really enjoy playing through tnp again like hi it's been a while
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quietwingsinthesky · 11 months ago
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at some point i am going to have to force even to go back and deal with donna & tentoo & rose & all and everything they ran away from. and that will probably involve them losing tentoo’s chameleon arch watch by giving it back to its rightful owner, whether she chooses to open it or not. and that is. not going to be a very fun or stable time for them.
#this part is v vague and fuzzy because i want to watch the rest of 12 & 13 and finish the doctor/donna specials before i set anything in#stone about it. but i think i need to rearrange some things in the timeline here vis a vis when the doctor is also forced to go back and#deal with his baggage.#i dont think 14 exists in even’s universe for this reason. and for the reason of tentoo kind of taking on his role? the human part of the#doctor who can stay with donna & with rose.#she’s also trans to me because i love trans!tentoo. her name is johanna. i think it’s pretty. i make a singular exception to my rule of#never changing characters names when i trans them.#but i think. what im getting at here is that this cant be a happy ending. not so cleanly. its more bittersweet.#like i think this version of the story. what i have so far. donna does remember. (tentoo doesn’t but that’s because she’s become her own#person. the doctor is who she came from but she isn’t just the doctor anymore.) and rose knows her doctor is out there and loves her but#she has her wife at home.#and even. oh even. you can’t hold onto a heart that’s not yours forever. you have to give it back.#this. i think. is a moment of respite and recovery for the doctor. and a really really low point for even. however this works out.#its not perfect but there’s kindness in it. and there’s a home to go back to. if they can bear it. both of them.#but like i said. this is all preliminary based on what i might play around with here. and how watching more of the show changes my ideas.#but i think. whatever revelations come in 13’s arc. i think in even’s universe they have to come after donna. i’ll find a way to make it#work.#but mostly right now the important thing is forcing even to give up the watch because why would i let them have one single comfort object <3#dw oc
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lokissweater · 3 months ago
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little mouse
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{toge inumaki x f!reader}
summary: toge inumaki, the barista at your local campus coffee shop, is the cutest man to ever cross your life— the both of you clicking fast and becoming the best of friends as the years flew by together… but you were in love. uncertain of crossing that line between friendship and lovers as you focused mainly on trying to see if he even liked you back. but as for toge? he was focused on trying not to burden you for the rest of your life because of his inability to speak, wanting you and only you, but juggling and tormented over his labored silent existence, hurting you in the process.
warnings: MDNI. afab!reader, college!au, FLUUUFFFF SO MUCH, pet names, TOGE LOVES YOU BROOO, angst!!! but with comfort!!, happy ending, SMUTTTT, p in v sex, fingering, creampie, doggy hehe, mentions of alcohol and drinking, sorority party, toge is a barista ouuu, cursing, best friends to lovers trope, reader and toge argue, all characters are aged up.
word count: 15.2k
authors note: YEEEOOOOWWWWW this fic was originally NOOTTTT supposed to be 15k but i’ve said it once and i’ll say it again I CAN NEVA STOP YAPPING MY GOD??? i hope you guys love this one as much as i do though it is SOOOOOO CUTEEE man :(( thank you SO SO MUCH for your love and support as ALWAYS, AND I LOVE YOUUUU AHHH MWAH MWAH HAVE A GOOD DAY OKAY <333
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anyone that was a regular at the shop knew toge inumaki didn’t really ever speak.
and it was something you found out on your first day of college, running to the nearest coffee shop at eight-thirty in the fucking morning looking for something to snack on and wake you up before lecture, choosing to go to the one just around the corner from campus through a recommendation of a friend— but not knowing at all that you were about to run into the cutest man to ever plague your god damn existence, as well as your bestest friend in the entire world.
toge was the main barista and cashier at the shop, his mixology skill incomparable as no one else on the floor could replicate it successfully without errors the way he did— ringing customers up while simultaneously throwing coffee bases and syrups in a blender, topping each corresponding one with whipped cream on various orders before sliding it over to the pick up counter, all without even breaking a sweat through the times that you’ve shamefully watched him work from your little table before or after classes.
the first time you met him, you thought he was just having a bad day… and that he also hated you.
you had politely told him your order while at the same time ogling his handsome face— a small and simple sweet vanilla cold brew drink with a little blueberry scone on the side— when toge didn’t even spare you a glance and just tapped in your order on the screen, turning the tablet over to showcase the total before moving to the back to get started on your drink, not a single word leaving his scarf covered mouth as you silently paid and got a table.
it’s not like you were expecting anything out of it, but you hoped you would at least catch the color of his eyes before you had to leave.
and it went on like that for a total of four days— you saying the exact same order but just switching up the little pastry depending on your mood (it only consisting of your usual three— blueberry scone, cake pop, and cheese danish), toge’s eyes never leaving the register or drinks he made as you waited, and him sliding over your order in record time as he got started on attending the next customer.
on the fifth day, toge finally looked up.
the way he took your order didn’t change, but when it came to placing it over the pick up counter where you stood, your eyes widened when you noticed he was already looking at you, a grin on his face as he personally handed you your drink instead of sliding it over.
his eyes were purple.
and you just about fucking screamed, your days of hopelessly coming in to try and ridiculously take longer peeks at his face whenever you could finally paying off in that moment— and not expecting whatsoever to see the sides of his mouth marked with tattooed snake eyes either.
that day was also the day you noticed toge knew sign language.
most of the time toge took orders quickly without a word and punched in requests, but from time to time when a customer had a question about a menu item or what the passcode to the bathroom was, he always had a little whiteboard next to him with a black marker to scribble out what he needed to say— regulars already knowing how he communicated and not batting a single strange eye.
but on that day, a new customer came in that you didn’t recognize to be a regular, signing to one of the confused employees at the cash register until the employee turned around and tapped toge on the shoulder, pointing and saying words you couldn’t really hear before he quickly nodded and put down the blender he was holding, going over to sign.
you were mesmerized by it, the way his hands and fingers came together and away from each other to form different words and sentences completely unknown to those who didn’t understand the language, something that was beautiful to you and made you want to actually learn so you could potentially have the liberty to talk to him some time in the future if you could.
the next time you came into the shop early in the morning, toge was at the register. and upon seeing you walk in, he smoothly looked down and started typing away already on the screen, seemingly not listening and leaving you standing there confused.
“um—” you stammered. “can i…”
you trailed off as you watched him pick up his whiteboard and uncap the marker, scribbling.
‘i remembered your order.’
you froze, your heart doing enormous leaps considering this was the first time toge actually spoke to you apart from getting your order down and smiling at you.
“oh! really?” you laughed nervously. “…do i come in here too often then?”
he gave you a friendly grin and shook his head, erasing what he had before writing again.
‘do you want a blueberry scone, cake pop, or cheese danish?’
your eyes bulged. “you know that too?!”
he laughed, the sound making your hands clammy as you giggled along with him shyly.
“i’ll do a cake pop today!” you smiled. “i’m running a little late and that’s— easy to eat.. you know—”
he gave you a thumbs up and nodded, signaling with his head for you to wait by the pick up counter as he scribbled another few words, turning the whiteboard around.
‘i’ll see you tomorrow :)’
your cheeks flushed pink.
“y—yeah!” you spoke gingerly. “i’ll see you toge.”
the next few times after that toge would absolutely beam whenever you came into the shop, having already scribbled down your three choices of your usual pastries before having it ready for you at the pick up counter once you chose, even every now and then asking you a simple thing or two about your classes and major from the register as you sat by your table, him propping his little whiteboard up for you to see.
and ever since you saw that toge knew sign language, you wanted to know too, your desire to communicate with him more efficiently a silly priority on your mind as you signed up for entry level sign language courses at your college, trying to learn as much as you possibly could so it’d be easier for him not always having to step back and write.
“wait wait!” you put your hands out one slow morning upon arriving at the shop, toge stopping mid tap on the screen just as he was about to input your order, eyeing you.
your fingers shook a little as you slowly signed your order and choice of pastry for the day, trying to remember and grasp what you practiced repeatedly the night before, hoping your efforts would successfully come across and that you didn’t look like a fucking idiot.
but his focused eyes followed your movements, carefully watching you sign with pinched brows until you eventually finished— a slow pearly white smile spreading across is face as his gaze flickered to yours before writing on his whiteboard, turning it.
‘you know sign language?’
“barely!” you sputtered. “i um.. i started taking classes a couple of months ago but i’m not very good… did you— get it though? what i said?”
he quickly nodded.
‘it was a little choppy but good! good job y/n :)’
you breathed out a sigh of relief, a hand over your hammering chest as you swallowed.
“oh thank god.” you breathed. “i was worried i looked stupid or was accidentally telling you something weird.”
he laughed and waved you off, a slight tint to his cheeks as he wrote.
‘how’s learning it overall?’
“hard as fuck.” you mumbled, but peering up at him with a smile. “i’m trying though! i really love the language and i love learning it… it’s just hard because my professor kind of sucks and teaches it too fast.”
he hummed, moving around in the back while preparing your order before coming around through the little swinging door and over to your usual table, you standing dumbfounded at the register still as he stood there with your pastry and his whiteboard.
toge pointed to your seat.
“oh!” you gasped, walking over and taking a seat, smiling gratefully once he placed your coffee and cheese danish down for you, but stiffening once he scooched the chair out across from you and sat, your cheeks ablaze again.
“you wanna—” you looked at him with furrowed brows. “you wanna sit with me?”
he laughed a little and nodded.
“but the…” you pointed to the cash register.
he uncapped his marker and wrote, turning the board over.
‘it’s a slow day. if someone comes in i’ll just go.’
“oh— okay!” you breathed out nervously, wringing your fingers together as you kept them on your lap.
your thoughts were speeding across every corner of your mind, not knowing exactly why toge chose to sit with you right now but hanging on to the moment anyways, you anxiously trying to come up with things to say to get to know him a little better.
“i like your um..” you pointed to the corners of your mouth. “—your tattoos. did they hurt?”
he smiled and wrote.
‘thanks :) and not really, my throat hurts more than the tattooing itself hehe.’
your eyes snapped up to his.
“your throat?” you asked softly. “is it okay?”
‘oh it’s fine!’ he wrote. ‘well no but it just hurts a lot when i talk so i just don’t.’
you hummed in understanding, the missing puzzle as to why exactly toge never spoke out loud to anyone in the first place finally clicking into place.
“i’m sorry toge…” you expressed sweetly. “have you tried— well i assume you have but… like getting it checked out? or maybe honey with lemon or—”
he turned his board around.
‘yeah :P nothing really works. L for me.’
you giggled, and he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth in a smile.
‘can you show me what else you know in sign language?’
“ohhh this is it.” you swallowed. “you’re about to laugh in my face and think i’m stupid.”
he laughed and gave you a look.
‘you’re silly. just show me.’
you huffed before timidly showing him very basic simple phrases that you managed to pick up from class out of the millions that were shown— short choppy kiddy words that didn’t even serve to get by in a quick conversation, but enough for simple one worded responses.
“oh! and i like this one the most!—” you put the bases of your palms together and rubbed a little.
toge let out a squeaky cute laugh as he watched you before quickly picking up his marker and writing.
‘cheese? your favorite thing to sign is cheese?’
“yeah!—” you giggled shyly. “it’s funnn! and i never fuck it up.”
he nodded with a gleam in his eye.
‘i could teach you sign language if you want.’
you froze, eyes wide as you looked at him.
“seriously?” you quickly leaned forward. “are— are you sure? you definitely don’t have to at all toge… i don’t want to burden you or anything.”
his eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head.
‘not burden at all.’ he wrote. ‘i’m a lazy fart i don’t do much besides this so it’s fine.’
you giggled and nodded excitedly, a hopeful shine in your eyes as you looked at him.
“o—okay!” you agreed. “i’d like that a lot… thank you toge!”
he was so nice.
and just as he was about to write something else, a customer came through the doors and up to the cash register, toge quickly scribbling something down before standing and showing you, walking backwards.
‘i’ll talk to you later little mouse :)’
you laughed loudly, a hand flying over your mouth as you did.
that nickname stuck.
“bye toge!” you responded kindly, gathering your things before heading out for the day with your coffee and pastry.
unfortunately for you, midterm season came and knocked the absolute shit out of you for a week, you unable to go back to the coffee shop to see toge until it was all fucking over, your heart heavy over the fact that you literally failed your sign language test, but giddy and excited nonetheless to finally see him after a while and go back to your usual happy routine.
and as for toge, he was left utterly confused.
was he too forward? did you think it was weird when he called you little mouse? did you think he was weird?
was it something he did? why had you stopped coming into the shop after going in continuously for like weeks at this point?
and he had just gotten the courage to look you in the eye too.
toge literally had your order ready every single day with your three pastries warmed up and toasted if need be, your sweet vanilla cold brew drink ready to go the moment you walked through those doors at any given point and time… but you just didn’t come. him leaning on the register counter bored out of his mind and dejected over the disappearance of the pretty nice girl that always came in and talked to him at his work, ending up always drinking the coffee he made for you silently and munching on the three pastries you chose between when it was time to close.
but when you finally came in, early in the morning like you always did and looking forward to seeing him again— toge was hunched over the counter with his chin propped up on his hand like he had been for the past week, you unknowing of that as you walked over with a smile.
“hi toge!”
he shot up, eyes wide with his palms flat on the counter.
“y/n!—”
he spoke.
toge spoke and he immediately cowered over in a fit of painful sounding coughs that racked through his body, his mouth shoved into his elbow as he quickly pushed through the doors and walked to the back, leaving you there wide eyed and completely fucking shocked.
he said your name.
“toge..?” you called softly, timidly as you leaned over the counter to try and catch a look at him from inside the employee break room, still hearing faint coughing. “hey— are you okay?”
he returned to the floor chugging back a bottle of cough syrup like nothing before tossing it into the nearest bin and swallowing, snatching his marker to write on the mini whiteboard, holding it up.
‘where the fuck have you been?’
you looked at him with an apologetic little face, your eyes soft.
“i’m sorryyy!” you whined. “i’m so sorry it was midterm week for me and i was grinding so hard and i just didn’t have time to come in… it was torture.”
you guiltily bit your lip. “…are you mad at me?”
he shook his head slowly, his shoulders visibly relaxing at the confirmation that it wasn’t anything he did that could’ve potentially put you off.
‘not at all mouse :P.’ he wrote before reaching to the side and sliding over your already made coffee and three pastries, lined up.
and surprise crossed your face.
“you had it ready?” you gasped. “toge! thank you!”
you quickly opened your book bag and he placed a hand over your arm, stopping you and shaking his head ‘no.’
“no?” you asked softly. “what do you mean? i’m just gonna pay.”
toge only shook his head again with a small smile, nudging his head over for you to sit at your usual table.
your shoulders slumped. “now what would you do if i just burst out crying right now.”
he laughed loudly and let go of your arm to write, leaving a burning fuzzy feeling on your skin in return.
‘cry? why?’
“because you’re so nice!” you whined. “please let me pay. i already feel bad not coming in for a week… especially after you offered to teach me sign language.”
‘go sit down mouse. i’ll sit with you in a little bit.’
you begrudgingly stood in place before nodding and taking your drink with your bag of pastries, walking over to the side and plopping down on a seat.
toge had a bit of a rush in and couldn’t join you for nearly an hour, him constantly shooting you apologetic looks and you frantically waving him off and reassuring him that it was okay, you astronomically thankful that you didn’t have class that day until later in the evening.
but when the rush was eventually over, toge dropped down on the seat across from yours with a big tired sigh and his whiteboard, head down.
you gently poked his arm then, and he looked up.
“is your throat okay?” you asked, face serious. “and you?”
he nodded, giving you a warm smile before grabbing his marker.
‘it happens sometimes, i just slipped up. L for me again.’
you smiled sadly and retracted your hand from across the table to settle back over your lap.
“i like your voice… if that makes you feel any better.” you spoke shyly, looking down at your fingers.
toge bit the inside of his cheek and smiled cheekily.
‘thanks mouse… but i know something that’ll make me feel even better hehe.’
“what?” you asked curiously.
he wrote.
‘give me your number before you disappear on me again you little rat.’
“hey!” you whined. “i thought i was a mouse..”
he chuckled cutely and nudged your foot gently from underneath the table, erasing and writing again.
‘i’m just kidding. we need to set up those sign language lessons soon though :D.’
and at the reminder of that you groaned, body slumping over the table as toge eyed you confusedly.
“you’re gonna laugh. or be mad. or disappointed. or all three..” you mumbled, voice slightly muffled.
he poked your head repeatedly and you lifted it, chin resting lazily on the table as he looked at you expectantly.
“i failed my sign language midterm.”
toge snorted but quickly slapped a hand over his mouth, and you whined again before shoving your face back down as he quickly shook you by the shoulders, trying to get you to look up again.
“no no no i’m a disgrace i’m a failure i studied so fucking hard for nothing it’s over i’m not cut out—”
he kept shaking and delicately pinching you before you finally looked up again.
“what.” you mumbled, eyes dragging to his propped up whiteboard.
‘i’m sorry i laughed… but don’t worry you’ll pass the next one. you’ll be okay.’
“and how do you know.” you grumbled.
‘because now you have delicious me, duh :P’
you giggled softly and lifted yourself from the table, leaning back against your chair.
he gave you a warm knowing smile before writing again.
‘cheer up mouse… i promise i’ll help you.’
a slow cutesy grin spread across your face, one that made him swallow hard as you looked at him through your lashes.
“thank you toge… do you— do you work tomorrow?”
his gaze flickered up in thought before he shook his head, eyes landing back on yours.
“maybe we could start… tomorrow? if you’re free? and if— if it’s okay of course!” you stammered nervously, gnawing at your bottom lip as you waited for his response.
his cheeks fluttered pink a little before quickly nodding.
“okay!” you breathed excitedly. “great! we could do it here? or—”
he frantically shook his head no and uncapped his marker.
‘my dickhead manager will pull me to work if i’m here on my day off.’
you laughed and nodded. “okay not here then.. where? we can try my place but i already know my parents are gonna be annoying about bringing a guy over so..”
he smiled and looked down to write.
‘we can do my apartment mouse. i live alone.’
your eyes widened. “you have your own place? really?”
he slowly nodded.
“that’s so cool toge! oh my goodness i can’t wait to see it now!”
you bounced enthusiastically in your seat and he chuckled, perplexed as to why you would ever be excited to see something like that, but choosing not to question it.
‘it’s kind of small, and i mainly just sleep and be lazy if i’m not working or streaming.’
you tilted your head. “streaming..?”
he pursed his lips and looked down again to scribble, an embarrassed undertone to his face before propping the whiteboard up.
‘i play games and stream to earn extra money on the side like a little loser.’
you giggled, your eyebrows slightly furrowing before relaxing. “why would that make you a little loser toge? you’re making money while doing something you like… i think that’s really fun!”
an eager attractive grin ran across his face before quickly writing again.
‘i’m glad you think so :) but give me your number neow.’
“oh that’s right!” you beamed, taking his offered whiteboard and marker before quickly writing down your number with a heart in the corner, passing it back.
“just text me whenever and we can set a time for tomorrow okay?”
he nodded, his eyes trained to the heart you drew.
for the rest of his shift, toge spent it bouncing around between your table and back to the cash register to take orders and make drinks, seemingly finishing each beverage ten times fucking faster than usual just so he could come over and talk to you before you had to leave again for your evening class.
but you didn’t want to leave whatsoever, and you even juggled the possibility of skipping class to stay longer with toge, but the next class happened to be sign language, and you didn’t want to fail another fucking midterm by not showing up and missing material.
you threw your trash away before grabbing your book bag and slinging it over your shoulder once it was time, you slowly and timidly trying to get toge’s attention as you walked to the exit.
your shy raised hand caught his eye in between him blending and pouring drinks, toge quickly putting everything down and reaching for the whiteboard from the register, erasing whatever he had from a previous customer to write and flipping it over with a silly smile.
‘bye mouse!’ it read. ‘i’ll see you tomorrow! :P.’
and that was nearly two and a half years ago, the heart you drew in the corner of his whiteboard still there to this day as he answered questions, responded, or scribbled directions in any given situation with it no matter if it was in or outside of work— always wanting to have a little part of you with him wherever he went.
toge also kept his promise and taught you sign language, you trying so so fucking hard every waking day you spent with him at his cute little studio apartment— learning phrases and properly constructing it into sentences that actually made sense as you both sat sprawled on the floor for hours on end, him patient and kind as he watched you shakily sign and accept his gentle corrections with an open mind.
but although your sentences were continuously choppy and a little off at that point in time, they were definitely in way better condition than when you tried to study and learn it on your own… and toge was unsurprisingly a really good teacher— ten times more helpful than your literal freaking licensed professor whom you had started with, as toge would actually take the time to write and explain each concept in the best way he possibly could for you to understand.
now you were comfortable enough with it to respond in very simple sentences and phrases, but stronger at understanding it whenever toge signed to you, a plus when he clumsily forgot his whiteboard somewhere or when he just didn’t want to use it.
and ever since that first day you went over to his place to learn and study, you literally never went a day without going back again, your cute routine with him being going to his apartment every second of the day to hang out with him or do the things that you needed to do— some that could easily be done in your own space and home and room, but you refusing to for the sole purpose of wanting to be with toge all of the time, him feeling the exact same way and going as far as to giving you a copy of the key to his apartment.
(toge :D): MOUSE
(toge :D): MOUSE
your phone buzzed repeatedly just as you were walking up the steps to toge’s floor, you nearly dropping it over the uncontrollable buzz.
(toge :D): LITTLE MOUSE
(you): YES <3
(toge :D): ouuu a heart?? i didn’t know we were married :P
you let out a giggle and quickly typed a response, your face hot.
(you): mmm i don’t know my ring finger is quite literally bare right now :/ maybe next time!
(toge :D): YOOOOO
(toge :D): it’s because it’s gonna be under your pillow
(toge :D): like from the tooth fairy
(toge :D): a big shiny cock
(toge :D): I MEAN ROCK
(toge :D): ROCK I MEANT ROCK SORRY
you burst out laughing as you readjusted your book bag on your shoulder and turned the corner, nearing his apartment number.
(toge :D): …please still come over
(toge :D): oh wait that’s why i texted you! :P
(toge :D:) WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU
(toge :D): YOU’RE LATE MOUSE
(you): LMFAAOOO
(you): IM COMMINGGGG i’m literally down the hall sir
(you): but now that you yelled at me HMMMM i don’t feel like going today <//3
(toge :D): NO
(toge :D): i’m sorry i’m on my knees
(toge :D): i’m begging
(toge :D): i even brought you a blueberry scone from work
(toge :D): and i’ll buy you whatever you want
(toge :D): FUCK COME OVER NOOOWWWWW
(you): SAY PLEASE AND ADDRESS ME CORRECTLY
(toge :D): PLEEEAASSEEE MOUUSEE
you bit your lip in attempts at suppressing your giddy smile, it not really fucking working as you arrived at his door, pulling your keys out from your bag and shuffling through them to find his— one that had a tiny onigiri design on it.
(you): coming!! <33
(toge :D): so you’re saying we’re married again :P
the door clicked open upon you twisting the key in, stepping inside before closing it behind you while juggling your textbooks and locking it, toge seated on his little gaming chair when he swiveled around and waved at you with a big smile, standing.
“toge!” you gasped exhaustedly, stepping over to him. “you have got to help me please my god—”
he grabbed the textbooks from your arms and walked over to his desk, setting them down before turning back around and giving you a curious look.
‘what’s wrong?’ he signed.
“everything! everything is wrong sign language two is not for the weak oh my goodness gracious—”
you flopped down with your back flat on his bed, eyes shut in agony as he watched you amusedly.
“my professor’s teaching us grammar now and it just gets harder! i don’t know where to properly put anything or— or sign anything.”
he giggled softly and you peeked an eye open, looking at him.
‘i’ll help you mouse.’ he signed, stretching a hand out and you taking it, letting him pull you up to sit as you lazily did so.
“but i ask you too much.” you pouted. “and i feel bad every time i do, especially when you’re playing.”
he snorted, going over to his little dining table and pulling out a chair, lifting it over to his desk gaming set up area and placing it down before ushering you over with his hand.
“nuh uh.” you shook your head.
toge gave you a half lidded look and sat on the dining chair, him always saving his big comfy gaming chair for you whenever you sat with him at his desk since the first time you came over— his eyes expectant.
you deeply sighed and stood, trudging over to his gaming chair before plopping yourself down.
“you don’t have to toge… it’s okay.” you spoke gently. “you’ve been teaching me for like— two years already. my new year’s resolution was to stop bothering you about it and let you live.”
he slid his little whiteboard over and erased what he previously had, uncapping his marker and writing.
he showed you.
‘i’ll always help you and you know that :( and it doesn’t bother me you rat, i do it because i want to.’
or because he’s in love with you. either or.
you giggled and lifted your hand, your index finger erasing over the word ‘rat.’ “—it’s mouusee toge. it’s like you get off on abusing and hurting your bestest mestest friend.”
he laughed boyishly and put down his whiteboard, sliding over one of your textbooks from across the table to him and flipping through several pages, reading to try and see exactly where you were at by the sticky notes you left behind in the margins.
“don’t you have to stream today though?” you asked timidly. “like right now?”
he simply shrugged, turning a page as he reached over to write again on his board.
‘i can stream later tonight—’
he quickly turned it around again to add something just as you had finished reading, him flipping it back over.
‘—with you asleep on my bed. because you’re sleeping over. and that’s FINAL.’
you laughed loudly while leaning forward, your cheeks brewing up a little flush at the request even though you’ve slept over at his place plenty of times before— the thought of him actively wanting you to making your heart bounce around erratically in your chest.
“fuck i don’t know…” you feigned concern. “i’m not sure if i can toge i’m sorry.”
he slumped, eyes so sad that it made you almost sick to your stomach as you struggled to commit to the small bit.
‘why not?’ he signed.
“because i’m missing something.” you pouted.
‘missing?’ he signed again. ‘missing what?’
you snickered.
“my ring!” you extended your hand to him and wiggled your little fingers, you poking the tip of your tongue out to the side cutely. “the one you promised me over text.”
toge breathed out a laugh and nearly dropped dead at your cute expression, him mimicking you and sticking his tattooed tongue out before picking up his whiteboard from his lap to write.
‘i told you the tooth fairy has it :D you have to be patient little mouse.’
you giggled and put your arm down, giving him a stern silly look.
“kayyy thennn!” you dragged, sitting up in your chair and looking over your textbook. “i’ll be expecting my big shiny rock under my pillow in the morning sir.”
he saluted you and you grinned, the rest of the time being spent with toge trying to teach you as best as he could with you hopelessly following along, feeling like the dumbest bitch alive and embarrassed whenever you got something wrong.
but toge never minded, not one single bit— even when you made the same grammar mistake literally three times in a row and him correcting you each freaking time the same exact way, no sign of annoyance or frustration on his face as he worked with you.
and that’s one of the biggest reasons as to why you loved toge so much. since the moment you met him all he wanted to do was just help you, regardless of the fact if you were a stranger or not as he generously always put the things he needed to do aside for you— making sure you were always okay and getting the things you needed no matter how many times you told him he didn’t need to worry, you feeling special and appreciated whenever you were with him no matter what.
you hoped to god he felt the same… and you hoped you weren’t being straight delusional when you noticed the way he looked at you a little longer than he should have at times, or when you read too much into the casual little pecks on your head from him, or when you had told him how much you loved just studying on the floor beside him while he streamed but made a joke that sometimes you couldn’t see because it was so dark in his apartment, toge literally the next day buying you a little flower lily lamp to set and prop up right next to you so you could comfortably study, him laughing and wiping your tears when you ridiculously cried over his consideration.
so did that mean he loved you too?
“toge…” you murmured in the midst of him fixing a signage error of the word ‘before’ with his fingers.
he pointed to your hands so you could take note of the alteration he made, waiting for you to carry on then.
you smiled softly in gratitude before continuing.
“have you ever—” you pursed your lips. “have you ever um… well— actually nevermind—”
he blinked before slowly lifting his hands.
‘have i ever what?’ toge signed, and you quickly shook your head.
“nevermind! it’s okay.”
he gently nudged your foot with his, beckoning you to tell him as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
fuck.
okay if he kisses your head right now then you’ll tell him.
“i forgot toge.” you lied. “that’s why i said nevermind… oopsie!”
he laughed and leaned forward, pecking your forehead before reaching a hand up to ruffle up your hair.
fuck!
no you take it back you can’t do it you can’t—
‘silly.’ he signed, turning his attention back to your textbook and flipping a page.
he wondered what it was, but figured it would come back to you eventually and you’d tell him soon after.
by the end of the day, it was like there was an actual fucking light at the end of the tunnel for you and your sign language two class— you going from being over a thousand percent sure that you were about to pathetically fail the entire course, to having a shiny little sliver of hope because of toge’s ability to get anything through your big head and make you understand, feeling eternally grateful for him in many ways than one.
and you wanted him, so fucking bad, ever since you saw him at the coffee shop, that you thought in that moment while toge set up his bed for you to sleep in while you sat on his desk chair, dressed in his big white t-shirt and pajama pants, that if you just— maayybee tested the waters and crossed the line a little bit without it being too drastic, that you’d get your answer.
but did you want to know? what if he didn’t love you back? what the fuck were you supposed to do then?
cry and wither away, that’s what. you don’t think you’ve ever loved someone as much as you loved toge.
you hear the familiar squeaks of his black marker streaking against his little whiteboard, the sound pulling you from your thoughts and you looked up.
‘you’re so spacey today pretty. are you still worried about your class? :(‘
pretty.
“oh!” you stood. “no toge i feel a lot better about it actually because of you… thank you.”
he grinned, nodding before walking and leaning over his pc to set up his streaming session, mouse clicking away.
“toge—”
he looked over at you with his gorgeous purple eyes and you froze, cheeks heating up as your wobbly lips struggled to come together and fucking speak.
“nevermind nevermind—”
his eyes narrowed, snatching his whiteboard and quickly writing.
‘you did this earlier today too. tell me what’s wrong.’
“no.”
‘no?’ he signed. ‘tell me y/n.’
“no! not my name!” you dived dramatically on his comfy blanket filled bed and groaned. “you only call me by my name when you’re mad and i don’t like it.”
he sat next to you on the edge of the bed and pulled on your shoulder slightly, you fully turning around on your back and looking at him anxiously.
toge wished he could continuously beg you and ask you what was wrong so you’d just tell him— him at times sick of constantly having to pause and make you wait so he could get his point across, a painful fact that never left his mind and made him feel like the biggest burden in your life.
that’s why he never wanted to cross that line you both always seemed to lean over without meaning to. the line that’s kept you both on this limbo of half best friends and half more as he sometimes hugged you a lot longer or snuck in a couple of self indulgent cheek and hand kisses to your skin… but that’s as far as he’d really let himself get. toge didn’t want to permanently have you drag him along in your life no matter how much he wanted to be in it as something way more.
you deserved noise, you deserved loud love, you deserved someone who could actually speak to you— things he mourned over that he could never give you.
and he knew this. he’s known from the moment you walked into the coffee shop the very first time even though you swore up and down that he noticed you later, you unaware that he actually saw you right off the fucking bat on the first day and couldn’t bring himself to look you in the eye— knowing you were going to be the biggest heartbreak of his life and ruin him if he so managed as to let you in when you kept coming back.
but toge was selfish, and he couldn’t help himself.
so he tried to compromise.
there’s nothing wrong with being just friends… right? a casual conversation between two people while he was at work? to then bid goodbye and say hello to every now and then?
except a quick conversation with you turned into ones that lasted almost his entire shift sometimes, and then casual meet ups turned into sleepovers at his apartment when he offered to teach you sign language, and then little hugs of farewell and hello’s turned into him kissing you practically fucking everywhere that wasn’t your mouth with the tightest embraces, him completely going against what he swore he wasn’t going to do and damning himself for life.
and even more so when you had joked about wanting a ring that one day, him actually going out the next day and buying you matching ones even though he didn’t even know if he was strong enough to actually give yours to you.
but toge was still freaking selfish.
because as you looked at him now, your gorgeous face anxious and thought-filled about things he wished you would tell him without worry, the outline and shape of your plush soft lips burning his pupils in such a way that it felt like a privilege, your body in his clothes—
made him want to speak the three worded phrase he was only allowed to say in his sleepy dreams if he was lucky.
“what toge?” you spoke softly, reaching a hand up to delicately card through the front pieces of his pale blonde hair, soft and silky as the outline of his tattooed snake eyes made you a little fuzzy.
he slowly shook his head, a far off look in his eye as he leaned over you, his face close and strained that your eyebrows pinched a little at his expression.
your hand proceeded to gently smooth down from his hair to the side of his cheek, cupping it and caressing over it with your thumb so lovingly that he nearly broke his oath.
if you said that you loved him… he wondered if he would crack. if you confessed and told him that you felt the same way, he juggled the possibility of ruining his own life by giving in and letting you take on the burden of his existence just to have you like he’s always wanted—
“i love you.” you told him.
toge’s big wide afraid eyes stared back at you as you smiled sheepishly, his breath caught in his throat.
“i—” you hesitated, playing with the hem of his shirt. “i really love you. like in the way where i want you to like— kiss me and stuff in your free time…”
he huffed a shocked breath, his face still just alarmed and strained and you started to believe that maybe you actually were delusional and misinterpreted things, his lack of anything making you second guess.
“i’m sorry.” you blurted. “i’m sorry i thought—”
and toge was still selfish as he let his lips fall down and crash against yours, moving so feverishly and hungrily that you couldn’t keep up as he dug his arms underneath you and around before pulling you up flush against his body, wanting you as close to him as humanely fucking possible incase he never got to do this again with you, the possibility horrifyingly still there.
“does this mean—” you spoke in between kisses, breathless. “does this mean you love me too—”
toge broke apart momentarily and quickly nodded, eyes ditzy and clouded as he panted against your lips, drunkenly lowering his head and linking his wet lips with yours again as he sloppily kissed you, laying you back down while you wrung your arms around his neck, you giddy and absolutely fucking enamored with him and that he was finally yours.
except he technically wasn’t… yet…
even when three full weeks had passed.
you still visited toge at work in the coffee shop in the mornings or the afternoon like you always did, ordering the same thing and going in to chat as he wrote his responses on his whiteboard— except now whenever rush hour would conclude, toge would greedily sneak in kisses with you at your table or hold the back of your hand to his cheek as you talked about your classes and your plans for the weekend, his conflicted mind putting his oath on the back burner for now as he tried to relish in the love he’s been wanting for so long.
and you were a little confused as to why toge hadn’t taken the initiative that night and asked you to be his girlfriend, but you didn’t complain, you too caught up in the moment when he would make out with you at his apartment in between study or streaming breaks with his hands literally all over you like a man starved, groping and squeezing at anything he could but never going over that last jump to do something intimate with you, your lovesick mind too in it to care at the moment.
that was the next compromise he made.
if you both just— just stayed this way. no official title no matter how much it pained him just so that he could continue doing these lovely lovely things with you whenever you both wanted, his mind thinking that since you both weren’t technically together that he wasn’t burdening you for life just yet, wanting to keep it this way for as long as he possibly could because toge didn’t fucking know what he was going to do when the time came for making it official.
well yes— he did know. but what he wanted to do and what he should do were two completely different things.
“togeee!” you bounded into the shop one morning, thankful that it was empty as you quickly leaned over the counter and pressed a sweet kiss to his cheek, him smiling wide with a flush to his face in response.
‘hi mouse :) <3’ he wrote on his whiteboard. ‘have you had something to eat yet?’
“i’m good im good! wait i haven’t ate but im good!” you spoke excitedly. “i come with newwsss. really fun news!”
he hummed and nodded, motioning for you to continue as he moved around in the back to get and warm up a breakfast sandwich for you.
“one of my friends from sign language told me she’s throwing a party at her sorority house and invited meee!” you beamed, hearing a little oven ping and then following him to your usual table so the both of you could sit.
toge gently slid your sandwich over upon scooting his chair up, warm and yummy as it sat pretty on a little pastel green plate and him signing ‘eat please’ as you grinned.
“and i know you told me once that you’ve never been to a college party, so i was wondering if you wanted to maybe.. come with me?”
he smiled softly.
‘when?’ toge signed.
“tomorrow night!” you responded, taking a bite out of your breakfast sandwich.
he nodded, thinking a little in his head before sliding his whiteboard over to write.
‘of course ill go mouse but it might be better without me.’
you faltered, swallowing. “without you? why?”
he erased and wrote again.
‘because i can’t talk. your friends might think it’s a little odd.’
“no they won’t.” you countered. “and that’s totally okay, toge. just bring your whiteboard.”
he snorted, shaking his head.
‘i’m not bringing my whiteboard silly that’s even worse.’
“but you’ll be with me.” you reasoned. “and i don’t really talk to anyone at school either besides her so it’s literally just you and i hanging out.”
you wiggled your brows. “and drinkinggg ehh?”
he laughed and eventually nodded, reaching across the table and taking your hands in his as he agreed to go, caressing his fingers over your wrists.
the familiar scent of coffee beans and vanilla— a scent you’ve come to know for almost three years now wafted and swirled around through your nose comfortingly, it permanently reminding you of toge and the time that you’ve spent with him.
he let go of your wrists to write.
‘how was sign language yesterday? are you still good?’
you swallowed the bite you were chewing on and held back a grimace.
“oh i’m doing horrendously again… but it’s all good! ignorance is bliss and i’m choosing hardcore ignorance right now.”
toge’s jaw dropped before he laughed in disbelief and picked up his marker.
‘you’re sleeping over at my place again so i can help you no exceptions sorry about it :p’
you giggled and nodded— saluting him, a mannerism you picked up on from him as he smiled brightly.
“but i do know this!” you exclaimed excitedly as you pressed the bases of your palms together and rubbed, signing the word ‘cheese’— your favorite.
toge laughed cutely and signed the same word back, unable to do much else as the doors chimed to the shop then and a group of students came in, toge’s chair scraping against the floor as he stood before giving you a quick kiss and a ruffle to your hair, his whiteboard in hand as he started making his way to the back.
‘i love you.’ he signed and you bit your bottom lip in a smile, your heart swelling obnoxiously as you watched him shuffle on and tap a few things into the register, nodding along to the groups order as you soon after gathered your things for your afternoon class.
and that night after toge taught you a little more sign language and helped you work on the things you were struggling with, you fell asleep rather earlier than usual on his bed— him reaching for one of his fluffy blankets and draping it over your sleeping gorgeous self and staring, slowly leaning down and pressing the softest kiss ever to your little warm cheek— his chest twisting and contorting with the desire to just fucking give in and stop his stupid ridiculous suffering, to just be selfish one last time and ask you to be his.
and maybe he could.
maybe toge could allow himself this one tiny thing— the most important pretty thing of all, he felt.
just once.
“toge?” you murmured sleepily, eyes pinching a little as you lazily reached out for him.
but what if you grew tired of him? of the silence?
he delicately took your outstretched hand and hummed in question.
“come sleep.” you mumbled. “with me.”
his eyes softened, the corners of his mouth curving as he carefully tapped his index finger against your cheek repeatedly, you straining your eyes open.
‘look under your pillow.’ he signed.
your groggy eyes narrowed in confusion, barely making out what he was signing in the dark but catching key words.
“under my pillow?”
he nodded, pointing.
you breathed in and propped yourself up on your elbow, lifting the pillow you were laying on and suddenly snapping the fuck awake.
a ring.
you shot up, sitting up fully as you looked at him.
he stood and reached over for his whiteboard and marker, uncapping it and writing for a moment before flipping it around and showing you.
‘i got us matching bestest mestest friends but also in love at the same time rings :]’
you picked it up, a dainty thin silver banned ring with a milky white heart in the middle, iridescent as it glowed against the moonlight streaming through his open window.
“toge—” you breathed out. “you actually… you actually got me a ring?”
he wrote, a sly little grin on his face.
‘the tooth fairy did mouse.’
you giggled then, a vibrant pink glow to your cheeks and still a little shocked as he took the jewelry piece from you and gently grabbed your hand, sliding it over your ring finger smoothly, his ring finger already having his shiny silver band on.
he put your hand down and grabbed his whiteboard again.
‘that ring is me promising to help you and love you and kiss you until i die.’ he wrote. ‘okay?’
you quickly nodded, absolutely cheesed as you threw your arms around his neck and pulled toge in— feeling so so happy and fresh and loved, like everything was officially falling into place after nearly three years of semi crossing lines and stolen glances and unanswered questions about what exactly you both were for the longest.
your pretty pretty face had toge in a daze as you looked at him like he carried the world on his shoulders, his mouth slowly coming closer and closer to yours before softly pressing against them— slow and tender as you tugged him down to you by his shirt until he climbed in and was in between your thighs.
each kiss exchange was sensual and a mouthful as you helped toge tug his shirt off over his head, your palms running over his bare skinned chest and back as he deepened his kisses, your hands quickly pulling your shirt off and his eyes bulging at the sight of your puffy tits snug and pretty in your bra.
you were desperate for him and didn’t even have to think twice about something like this as you reached and tugged a little at his jeans, signaling him to take them the fuck off—
‘baby.’ he signed shakily, not even sure why he was asking since he doesn’t think at this point he could stop, but needing to check in with you first. ‘are you sure?’
“fuck yeah i’m sure.” you whispered quickly and unzipped his pants, toge smiling big as he kicked his pants and everything else off, carefully helping you do the same until you were bare and vulnerable in front of him.
toge moved to place a hand on your thigh and you squeaked, suddenly bashful as you shyly covered your arms over your chest and squeezed your thighs together.
he leaned down and placed gentle soft kisses on your cheeks, patting a comforting hand over your head.
‘it’s okay mouse. you’re okay.’ he signed.
you nodded, comfort washing over you as you slowly let your thighs spread and your arms reveal you, his spit catching in his throat at the sight of your gorgeous fucking body beneath him, his dick embarrassingly already leaking a little bit of cum as you watched him pump it a few times.
‘you’re beautiful.’ he signed, and you blushed.
he drooled some spit over his fingers and slid it gently in between your folds, your bottom lip coming in between your teeth as you tried to hold back your moans, his digits prepping you while slipping through your hole deeming it fucking hard as he was completely lost in it, unaware of the way he was riling you up and already building up that familiar sensation in the pit of your tummy.
“t—toge—” your pussy clenched at the way he was fucking you with his fingers, keeping your thighs apart with his other arm as he was completely drowned in the gushy sticky sounds of your hole.
“you’re gonna make me cum and i—” you panted, cute whines slipping from your lips as he looked up at you. “—i wanna cum when you’re inside—”
his cock spasmed and a drop of cum drooped out at your yummy plea, his breathing trembling as he quickly nodded and squeezed your thigh endearingly, slowly slipping his fingers out and stuffing them into his mouth to suck your juices as he pumped his cock while lining it up with your hole.
toge sunk in his dick then, the both of you groaning at the way he filled you up so fucking nice and stretched you, your pussy literally grabbing his cock and sucking him inside easily as you gripped his shoulders tight.
“mmm!—” you whimpered, toge now slowly pumping his cock inside of you as he leaned over and propped himself up by his arms, hips tenderly and deliciously rolling in as he panted and softly whined in your ear.
you were so god damn tight, his throat literally closing at the lock you had around him as he fucked you slow and breathless, one of his hands coming down to grip your waist to try and keep himself grounded and from snapping his hips into yours brutally— him wanting to make love to you and not do that just yet.
toge ducked his head down and licked over a perky tit, your breath hitching and subconsciously spreading your legs wider as he closed his lips around your nipple— suckling and laying a flat tattooed tongue over it as you moaned.
“faster—” pant! “faster please baby—”
with a mouthful of your tit he snapped his hips up, you choking as he started going a lot quicker than you anticipated as your hand flew to your mouth to keep your moans in, your tits bouncing with every fuck.
“oh my god oh my god—”
toge suddenly pulled out and threw you over, tummy to the bed as he hauled your ass up and lined himself at your entrance again, wasting no time in pushing in and screwing you in the same pace he had before.
but this new position was an absolute delicacy as you drooled over his sheets at the way he rammed his cock, the recoil of your ass sending a shiver up his spine and roughly gripping your hips and ass in anyway he could, you screaming and whining into his pillow as a series of slaps to your ass cheeks from him echoed through his little studio.
toge was about to dump the biggest fucking load in you that it was embarrassing.
you reached a hand behind you and he quickly grabbed it, his thumb running over your skin soothingly as he pistoned roughly into your cunt, him groaning and whimpering over the squelching and leaking of your hole as he felt his dick harden— his cum on the brink of release.
“fuck fuck fuck—” you hiccuped into his pillow. “baby i’m gonna cum i’m gonna cum hah!—”
he gripped your hand harder and leaned down over you, rutting into your pussy as he heaved and pressed his lips up against your ear, choking out the word ‘cum’ so softly that it bypassed the confines of his situation, your eyes squeezing shut as the hardest fucking orgasm you had ever had in your life hit you like brick.
you felt toge’s hips snap up and still as his hot milky cum spilled through your walls with a grunt, gooey and slimy as it filled you up and left you squirming at the weight of it.
his breath fanned against your hair as he tried to calm it, his hand moving soothingly up and down your back as you weakly tried to gain back some consciousness, the both of you sweaty and spent with his softening dick sliding out slowly.
toge carefully nudged you back over and kissed you tenderly, his hands traveling from your back over to your tummy and smoothly caressing every part of you down to the sides of your thighs, eyes swelling in utter worship over you as he leaned back to look at you.
‘i love you baby.’ he signed, and you beamed.
and just as toge had finally decided to ask you to be his girlfriend then, to officially let go of the fears he had and let himself have you— there in your arms as you peppered sweet cute kisses all over his face and over his tattooed markings on the corners of his mouth, pulling him further in to rest and sleep?
toge had a horrendous day the following morning that threw it all away.
horrendous.
it started in the morning when he left your sleeping figure quietly with a kiss to your head for his shift at work that day, excited and in a never ending state of bliss from the night before as he drove to the shop.
except he had forgotten his whiteboard at home.
toge had realized when he was already fucking halfway into the drive, a full fledged twenty five minute one that he didn’t have time to go back and repeat as he pulled up to the parking lot— cursing himself for being such a dumbass and wondering how the fuck he was gonna answer specific questions from customers, especially since he was the only one really working today.
he figured he should be fine… right? usually the people that come in already know what to get and they just read it out to him.
but there’s always a few every single day without fail that ask questions toge needed his whiteboard for. and you didn’t have class that day— so the means of you coming down there were for nothing, at least not until the party later that night.
and he didn’t want to ask anything of you…
but he really needed it.
(toge :D): hi pretty mouseee i know you’re asleep i’m sorry but is there anyway you could come to the shop when you wake up and drop off my whiteboard please? i left it on the desk like a stupid fucking idiot EL OH EL
“inumaki.”
toge froze on his walk to open the shop and looked up from his phone, eyes blowing wide.
there his manager stood, who was also the owner of the coffee shop itself, a stern look on his face with crossed arms as they both stood in front of a shattered door and windows, shards of glass twinkling on the floor.
“did you lock up last night?”
toge nodded, eyebrows furrowed as he scanned the ground.
“everything?”
he went to nod again, but stopped.
he did… he did truly he did—
…oh.
he forgot to lock up and cash in the register.
toge quickly stepped over the glass and swung open the shattered door and over to the front counter, sure enough finding the register wide open and battered with not a single fucking penny left inside.
he groaned, his hands shooting up and digging the bases of his palms into his eyes as he leaned back, lips in a thin line at how utterly fucking stupid he was for forgetting to lock up the register and take in the money— the number one thing he was always supposed to do.
“what happened?” his manager asked, hands out. “have you been not locking it up?”
toge scrambled for his phone and pulled it from his back pocket, the thought of his job literally on the line because of this sending him for a fucking ride.
‘i always lock it up, honestly.’ he typed and showed his phone. ‘but i stupidly forgot last night and i can’t express enough to you how sorry i am.’
his manager sighed deeply and dropped his hands, looking over at the open register.
“you’ve consistently been one of my best.” he spoke. “but a mistake like this isn’t something small like forgetting to properly close and wipe down everything or put up the chairs.”
toge nodded understandingly, arms tightly crossed over his chest as he shamefully looked to the side, feeling like the biggest pathetic loser for doing something like this that could’ve been entirely avoided if he just did his damn job correctly.
“it’s alright.” his manager reached and patted a heavy hand to his shoulder. “it happens. it’s just unfortunate that we got broken into right when it did.”
toge looked at him.
“we can’t open today because there’s glass everywhere… so if you can stay and call up the insurance for the shop—” he pointed to the wall, their number amongst others typed and labeled. “—and file an insurance claim in any way you can for me that’d be great. i’m gonna go down to the police station and report.”
toge quickly nodded, typing again on his phone before showing him.
‘okay sounds good. i’m really really sorry and this won’t happen again.’
his manager waved him off with a smile. “don’t sweat, inumaki. i’m pretty sure i did this too when i was working except it was my works safe and not the register…”
softly chuckling, toge nodded once more and gave his manager a tiny wave as he patted his shoulder again before stepping around the glass, leaving.
regardless of being lucky enough to have such an understanding boss, toge still felt like complete and utter shit as he stood behind the counter slumped over after, on hold with the insurance company for thirty minutes now as he stared at the broken shards and the register.
you had gotten toge’s text the minute you woke up and quickly got up to get ready, not even bothering to change into anything different as you left with his pajamas on you and his little whiteboard, hopping into your car and speeding off knowing how much he needed it for work sometimes.
and when you pulled into the shops parking lot, confusedly already noticing scattered glass on the concrete walking up, you froze in front of the coffee shop upon seeing the windows and doors completely shattered— toge propping his forehead up with his palm on the counter solemnly.
“toge?”
he looked up.
“what happened?”
his shoulders dropped in relief and he slowly came around the counter, opening his arms a little and pulling you in as he buried his face into your hair, sighing.
you hugged him back. “are you okay? did this happen right now?”
he shook his head and stepped back, taking the whiteboard from you.
‘someone broke into the shop last night. but i forgot to lock up the register and cash in the money so they stole that too.’
“oh my god!” you gasped, hands flying over your mouth. “fuucckkkk was your manager mad? don’t tell me he fired you—”
toge erased and wrote before flipping the board over.
‘no just disappointed. but i still feel like such a fucking moron for forgetting and i hate that i did.’
“toge..” you sighed sadly, running your hands over his upper arms. “it’s okay you’re human baby. these things happen so don’t feel like that please..”
he nodded a little before ducking down and pressing a soft kiss to your lips.
you smiled and looked around.
“seeing the shop like this is nuts.”
he hummed in agreement.
toge stuck around for a little while, you next to him behind the counter still waiting on hold with the insurance company, feeling awfully bad for keeping you here when he knew you wanted to go shopping for a dress for the party, but him stupidly forgetting again that he couldn’t speak— too caught up in trying to make it up to his manager for his fuck up to think about how exactly he was going to talk to the insurance company on the other line, you demanding to help him.
sometime down the line when the insurance claim was filed, toge’s manager told him that if he wanted to open up the shop for the day he could, and to just sweep up the glass a little from the ground and fix up the place a little so it didn’t look like they just got robbed.
and because toge was still in his self dreaded state of guilt and shame over what happened, he immediately agreed to, trying to make up for his mistake and see if he could double the shop’s earnings for today.
“i could stay toge let me stay.” you pushed, but he only shook his head and sent you off to do the things he knew you needed to do with a pat on the head and a kiss on the cheek, telling you he’d see you at his place to get ready for the party.
but maybe toge was better off telling his manager a bit fat no and going home with you, because it was like everybody that came into the shop following that had eaten a big bag of dicks and salvaged the biggest fucking attitudes out of it to spit back in his face.
no one was understanding him. no one. not a single soul. even when he used his whiteboard to explain everything that certain customers needed, for some reason the extra effort of them having to just read putting them off and yelling and making toge’s shift a living hell.
and it’s not like he’s never managed shifts on his own either— never having an issue and still putting in and preparing orders efficiently like he was supposed to, but he figured the debacle from this morning was setting him off since he couldn’t do anything right at the moment, the attitude he was getting from literally every single fucking customer leaving him wishing he at least had one more person on the floor with him.
but toge was still blaming himself.
why couldn’t anyone understand him? why couldn’t he just speak? his life would be so much easier if he could… and you would’ve been his a long time ago.
so as toge sat there tiredly after work with his eyes closed on a stool next to you in his bathroom, you applying the finishing touches to your hair and makeup— you could practically feel toge’s exhaustion, frustration, and sadness seeping into your skin and insides over the shift he told you he had, your eyebrows pinching anxiously.
“we don’t have to go baby…” you murmured, looking down and playing with the rings on your fingers. “i would much rather stay here with you so you can relax for a little…”
he slowly peeled his eyes open, the sight of you standing there in front of him— so fucking beautiful in your dress and heels and dolled up in the way that you were, made his cheeks buzz pink as he slumped forward and mushed his cheek up against your tummy, wrapping his arms around you and shaking his head.
“are you sure?” you asked gently, running your fingers over his soft hair. “i don’t mind what we do toge… as long as with you i’m okay.”
his heart jumped as he looked up and gave you a cute smile, nodding.
you’d decided to meet in the middle and just go home early so toge could have enough rest for his shift tomorrow, him driving you both to the sorority house and parking a bit down the street amongst dozens of other cars, a little nervous and apprehensive and wondering what he was gonna do if any of your friends came up to talk to him— but the desire to make you happy and accompany you to something that you were so excited for far, far greater.
the night went smoothly for the most part, you in no time at all spotting your friend that initially invited you through the crowd along with some of your other friends that you had no idea were coming in the first place, introducing toge to each one and him giving a small smile and wave in response as he interlaced your fingers and gladly let you lead him to wherever you wanted through the dark and blue lit house, taking sips occasionally of the tequila orange liquor mix from his red solo cup and funnily from yours too— since you had gotten a different punch like flavor that he liked better.
“y/n? i didn’t know you were coming!”
your head snapped to the voice just as you were talking to toge, your eyes widening and a huge smile spreading across your face.
“oh hey! i didn’t know you were either!” you quickly turned to toge. “he’s in my sign language class the one i told you about that teaches us how to cuss—”
your friend laughed, “you talk about me y/n? interestinggg.”
toge quirked a brow.
“not like that—” you slapped his shoulder. “i talk about you so i can build up the stamina to rat you out.”
he gasped dramatically. “says the one who bothered me last class to teach her how to sign the word cunt.”
“no i didn’t— wait actually i did.”
your friend laughed again but diverted his attention momentarily to someone pulling on his arm a bit.
toge nudged you gently and you turned.
‘i’m gonna go get a drink mouse.’ he signed.
“okay!” you nodded. “i’ll wait for you here.”
he nodded, kissing your head before leaving— the kitchen not too far from where you both were originally at as he walked and threw away the drink he had initially and scanned the counter, looking for the fruity punch one you got before spotting it and picking one up from the rows of others, the smell of alcohol filling his nostrils.
“hey sorry to bother, which flavor is that?”
toge froze and looked over, a girl standing there and pointing at his cup.
oh shit.
toge pointed to his cup.
“yeah, which flavor is that one? i’ve tried the others but not that one yet.”
oh fuck.
why couldn’t he just talk?
the girl quirked a brow at his silence, and just when she was about to say something else, someone came through the kitchen.
“i think that one’s tutti frutti but i could be wrong.”
she turned to the other person and nodded, giving toge an awkward look before walking around him to get a cup for herself.
toge covered his eyes with a hand in complete fucking mortifying embarrassment, cheeks warm as he leaned against the kitchen sink in the lowest low he had ever lowed.
or so he thought.
because the sound of your loud pretty laughter had him slowly looking up and taking his hand away, you conversing so— so openly and freely with your friend from sign language triggering a hint of jealousy and bitterness in his chest. bitter as to why he was cursed to deal with something like this, bitter over the loser that was blatantly obviously flirting with you… but jealous of him that he was able to open his mouth and speak to you in whatever words and phrases he wanted, syllables flying out without any sort of pain or blood as a paying price like he had to.
that’s what you needed… that’s what you should have. not him.
not his inevitable silence and whiteboards and constant pauses, his lack of being able to tell you how much he loved you and how much you meant to him whenever, wherever… without being tied down to a marker or a phone.
his mixup from this morning, his customers not understanding him, everybody else not understanding him, has led him to believe that someone as beautiful as you shouldn’t carry the burden of even trying to.
toge knew from the very first time you came into the coffee shop that you were going to unknowingly break his heart if he let you in because of his situation… and fuck did he let you in.
and now he had to break yours so you could find and be with what you deserved.
toge walked over to you then, head down with his jaw tight and mind fogged over as you doubled over in laughter over something your friend said.
“wait—” you gasped. “wait toge he just told me that—”
“is he your boyfriend?” you friend asked, pointing to him.
well, toge still hadn’t really asked you… but he gave you a promise ring, and you were both wearing them tonight so—
your eyes snapped to toge, who was shaking his head no.
…no?
your brows furrowed.
“oh! i thought you guys were together, my bad.”
toge twitched over the way your friend sounded relieved, but you didn’t notice a thing, still looking at him with the most gutting look that made him want to scream.
“yeah.. my bad too.” you mumbled, your friend not catching it as he then got pulled by the shoulder to a different crowd, him calling over that he would come find you later on in the night.
“no?” you repeated to him.
‘come with me outside.’ he signed before slowly walking and leading you back to the kitchen and through the backyard doors, the chilling cold night air a refreshing break from the stuffiness inside.
“if this is a joke it’s not that funny toge.” you mumbled, hugging yourself as you closed the door behind you.
he looked at you sadly.
‘you shouldn’t be with me mouse.’ he signed.
“what?” you breathed out. “what are you talking about?”
‘i can’t give you what you need.’
“what i need?”
he nodded. ‘it won’t work. you and me.’
“toge—” your chest picked up speed, tears prickling a bit at your eyes. “you’re telling me all of this yet no answers— why won’t we work.”
‘you should be with someone that can talk to you and tell you that they love you and say anything without all of this baggage—’
“wait wait slow down i can’t—” you put your hands out. “you’re signing too fast i can’t understand you—”
you couldn’t understand him.
and toge realized that the reasoning he had would be something that you would counter and fight for, and something he would more than one hundred percent give in to you winning just so he could have you again.
he needed to make you hate him so it would be easier for you to move on.
toge dropped his arms, a defeated look on his face as he shoved a hand in his pocket for his phone, typing out a message to you.
you received it on the other end, your phone illuminating your face as you opened it.
(toge :D): i realized after we confessed that this isn’t what i want anymore and im sorry
your jaw dropped, eyes narrowing as you looked up at him.
“what the fuck do you mean.”
his thumbs shook as he typed, his heart pulling and screaming at the muscles and nerves tied to them for him to stop.
(toge :D): we’re better off as just friends. i’m really sorry that i realized after the fact. you deserve someone better anyways and i just don’t think it’s with me.
you let out a sob that ripped him to shreds, hand coming over your mouth in disbelief as you stared at the blurry screen in your grasp.
he realized this after the fact? after messing around with you for almost three years? after confessing to you and saying he loves you? after being intimate?
you felt fucking used.
“you’re realizing this now?” you shook your head. “toge— you realize we’ve been flirting like this for as long as we’ve known each other and all of a sudden you’re pulling back? after you got your fucking fill? after kissing me and telling me that you love me, and— and after—”
you ran an exasperated trembling hand through your hair. “toge we had sex and you’re telling me this isn’t what you want?”
god this is everything he wants.
but toge bit his tongue, him strained all over with a locked painful jaw as you yelled at him, his eyes glossy over how much he was hurting you as he stiffly nodded.
you stepped closer, jabbing a finger to his chest. “look at me in the eyes right now and tell me if our entire fucking friendship before leading up to our bullshit confessions was all a lie. tell me right now if this—” you held your hand up, the promise ring he gave you shimmering under the fairy lights of the backyard. “—was a lie when you promised me that you would always help me and love me.”
toge breathed in and out shakily, swallowing thickly as he slowly nodded, his entire body in absolute detriment.
holy fucking shit.
how long had you been this stupid for you to not realize the kind of person he actually was?
but— but it didn’t make any sense. this wasn’t toge. this wasn’t toge at all you didn’t know who the fuck you were yelling at right now because toge would never do this to you.
“do you know why i’m learning sign language in the first place?”
toge blinked back tears, shaking his head no.
“i started taking sign language for you, asshole!” you sobbed. “when i was stupidly crushing on you at the shop before we talked for the first time, i noticed you knew sign language and i signed up for you so it’d be easier for you to communicate with me without always having to use your whiteboard.”
he felt a pang to his heart, harshly wiping his eyes.
“but even then i don’t fucking care toge! you could have absolutely nothing to talk to me with and i’d still love you and do anything for you because that’s how much i’m in love you!”
you sobbed as your shoulders shook violently, hands covering your eyes.
“glad to know the feelings not mutual.”
oh he takes it back.
he takes it all back.
toge reached for your hands and you pushed him away.
“you’re so full of shit toge.” you sniffled. “if this is what you want then fine. take this fucking—”
you slipped the ring off from your finger and threw it at him, the feeling of it thudding against his chest and clinking to the ground beneath his feet close enough to a damn bullet.
he shook his head frantically, picking up your ring and following you up the steps of the porch, grabbing your hand and pulling you back, but you only shaking it off and trudging on forward.
“mouse—” he spoke. “please stop—”
the sound of his rare voice made you freeze in place, unmoving and feeling guilt pool in your stomach at the sound of him reeling over and coughing violently as a result.
he spoke to you… but his dreaded words from earlier still lingered in your mind, betrayal etched into your chest like a tattoo.
“don’t call me that.” you mumbled over your shoulder, swinging the door open to the kitchen and slamming it shut.
toge heard nothing from you for four weeks.
even through all of the calls and texts he sent you, he started to conclude that you actually blocked his number the moment you left him that night, unable to see his actual explanation through the masses of messages he sent you and still continued to even after confirming the thought that you had blocked him.
he couldn’t believe himself. he couldn’t believe he actually hurt you and drove you away like that.
and toge had never felt so much self hatred, missing you like fucking crazy throughout those weeks— it reminding him of that one time when you first started getting to know each other where you disappeared for a week, except far far worse now that you had both built so much together over the years.
his life felt empty now that you weren’t in it.
and funnily enough, his job— something he had gotten before you, now solely reminding him of you as he tried to work without throwing something over the random flashbacks he’d have of that night, blending and serving drinks and sliding them over the pickup counter all meaningless if you weren’t there at your usual table to give him a cheeky smile and sign the word ‘cheese’ to make him laugh on the other side.
his little mouse.
and toge silently cried almost every night at his desk, him clutching your ring.
you were basically the same way as him, if not fucking lower as you were the one that was practically presumably dumped and used, you unable to sleep for hours on end in your bed and your parents wondering what the hell happened between the two of you as they tried to console your tears through your restless nights, you half in denial that this was your reality and toge was out of your life.
after some time, you realized that you had left nearly half of your things in toge’s apartment, it settling into your mind how much time you actually spent with him and not at your own house as you constantly found yourself needing things but couldn’t have them because they were over there— one of those things unfortunately being your freaking sign language textbook.
there was absolutely no way you could get it, and you opted to borrowing your friends for the longest time… but by the time you reached the beginning of the fifth week without toge, you started feeling really bad for continuously bothering your friend for her book when you could just suck it up and get yours.
so you made your jumbled mind up and reached for your phone one day after your morning class, going to toge’s contact number and unblocking him before texting.
(you): hi. sorry to bother but i left some things in your apartment that i need. i was wondering if i could come by today to get them.
toge nearly jumped out of his skin at your pretty name flashing across his phone while he was lazily and depressingly laying in bed, scrambling to type back not even a minute later.
(toge): yes of course
(toge): i’m home right now if you want to come
(toge): and you’re never a bother
you pursed your lips, a lump building in your throat.
(you): okay. i’ll be there in a few minutes.
toge flung his scattered clothing inside his closet or literally anywhere that was out of eyesight, trying to turn his rut of a room back to how it looked like when you were always here, shaking out a big garbage bag and throwing all of his trash in there (along with all of the cake pop, cheese danish, and blueberry scone wrappers…), opening the blinds and straightening out his sheets.
you pulled into his apartment complex parking lot and parked not too long after, your hands drenched in sweat and your body rigid as you came up to his floor and over to his apartment number, knocking even though you had the key.
you almost turned back to leave once you heard his padded footsteps, but decided against is as he was already opening the door.
and my god, seeing him hurt a lot more than you thought it would.
his eyes were soft as they looked at you, and red like yours, him quickly stepping to the side to let you in and you doing so with your head down, not saying a single word.
“i think—” you shakily spoke, eyes already watering as he closed his door with a click. “i think i’m just gonna get my sign language textbook for now i’ll come back some other time for the rest—”
you felt a little tug at your hand, and you turned, his shoulders slumping at your teary eyes, stray droplets slipping down your cheeks already.
‘please don’t cry.’ he signed. ‘i’m so sorry for everything.’
you snorted, shaking your head as you reached behind you to get your textbook.
“sorry for stringing me along and using every part of me until you were bored? sure.”
he frantically shook his head no, panic rising in his chest as he watched you step around him and head for the door.
he couldn’t let you leave.
because he had a feeling if he did, he actually would never see you again.
toge quickly grabbed your wrist and tugged you back around.
“what toge—”
‘stay for a bit.’ he shakily signed. ‘please just stay and let me explain.’
you followed his signage, and your eyes narrowed. “explain what? there’s nothing to explain—”
toge swiped his phone from his bed and opened it, going to your contact to type out a message.
you hesitantly pulled yours out and waited, your phone vibrating against your hand once he sent it over.
(toge): i lied about absolutely everything i said that night. i don’t think any of those things at all. i’ve wanted you so fucking bad from the start y/n, i’ve been ready to be with you i don’t think for a second we’re better off as friends i want more with you always and for the rest of my life.
what?
he sent another message.
(toge): i said what i said because throughout our friendship i told myself like a fucking idiot that i couldn’t let you all the way in because i can’t talk. i kept thinking that you needed someone who you can talk to you whenever you want without having to always step back and read or write like you have to with me. i didn’t want you to carry that baggage and deal with me and i just felt like a burden, and i love you so fucking much that i wanted better for you.
you sniffled and wiped your cheeks, you rubbing away lonesome tears that landed on your phone screen.
(toge): but i’m selfish baby i’ve BEEN selfish. i said those horrible things to you so it’d be easier for you to move on and im so sorry. none of them are true. i don’t want you to move on from me. i didn’t use you i could never and that night we had sex was the most meaningful experience of my life. i love you more than anything in my life, and im gonna be selfish again and please ask you to come back to me. you’re my best friend and more, and i still believe that you need someone better and that can give you more than i can, but i just can’t let you go man i’ve been physically sick for four weeks without you.
you cried still and he typed again.
(toge): i’m selfish and i’m in love with you mouse. i’m sorry.
“toge!” you cried and chucked your phone to his bed, flinging your arms around his neck and pulling him in a tight embrace— the weight completely lifting off both of your shoulders at the feeling of your bodies pressed against each others like a perfect little key in a lock, toge hugging you back so so fucking tight with his face in your neck that he practically squeezed the air out of your lungs entirely.
“i love you.” he spoke, his words incredibly powerful in your ear even though it couldn’t have been more than a mere whisper, the sound and depth of his voice ringing through your head and one you wanted to remember forever and ever, feeling so incredibly loved over the fact that he’d use his voice for you even when it hurt him so much.
but he really didn’t need to. you just wanted him.
and you’ve never been so happy to hear someone tell you that they lied.
toge pulled back a bit and turned his head to the side, stuffing his mouth into the crook of his elbow and coughing.
you pressed your cheek against his once he was done, kissing it a few times beforehand and him closing his eyes at the feeling of your lips on his skin after so long.
“you okay?” you murmured softly, and he nodded.
“i love you too, toge.” you tightened your arms around his neck. “please don’t ever think that you’re a burden or giving me baggage to carry. i’ve never ever felt that way and neither should you.”
you stepped back and cupped his cheeks.
“i need you, baby. i don’t need anything or anyone else but you. someone that has the ability to talk can’t give me even ten percent of what you’ve been giving me. i’m happy with you. the happiest i’ve ever been is when i’m with you… okay?”
toge grinned, huge and shiny as he nodded and leaned forward and captured your lips in a kiss— the both of you utterly deprived as your mouths smacked and moved in haste, his hands running and squeezing over your body with labored breathing between the two of you.
he pulled apart for a second and you stopped.
“what baby?” you breathed, watching as he raised his arms.
‘please be my girlfriend mouse.’ he signed. ‘or i’ll die.’
you giggled cutely and a blush rose on both of your sore cheeks from smiling so much, you happily nodding and roughly pulling him back in to continue.
and how lucky was toge to have such a sweet little mouse that cared for him this much? for someone who couldn’t even speak? who had the greatest level of patience and not once ever complained about the burden she had to carry?
you learned sign language for him. solely for him. the reasons he was thinking about how he’d be baggage to you, was amazingly the total opposite on your end, as you didn’t want to be baggage to him when it came down to communication with you— as if something like that were ever even possible.
and you learned sign language for him— a totally beautiful and different and complex language that was iterated through the feeling of arms and body, to be read across with purposeful moving hands and symbols and diligent fingers— somehow looking even more beautiful when it was you that was doing it.
silence was toge’s greatest form of love… one that you received with open arms and acceptance without a twinge of judgement in your heart, and one that toge only ever wanted you to receive.
you.
his little mouse.
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if you asked to be on my taglist but i missed you please let me know!! and also let me know if i accidentally tagged you but you didn’t ask GAHAHA LOVE YOUU
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thestuffedalligator · 1 month ago
Text
“You have to understand that this is a very difficult situation you’ve put us in,” said the king.
There was no change in expression in the metal face, but the glass eyes glittered in a way that he had learned to associate with trouble.
“Oh dear,” it said. Its voice had an edge of brass to it, and sounded as though a trumpet had learned how to speak. “I never realized how difficult this would be. For you.”
And that was another thing – it wasn’t just intelligence that the things had picked up. They also developed a knack for sarcasm. He worried a bit about that.
He tried to pull himself together. “You have to understand that we cannot recognize the Steel Children–”
“Mechanomorphs,” said a voice to his right.
He closed his eyes and breathed a little sigh of despair. “This is hardly the time.”
“We agreed that Mechanomorph is an accurate and sensible name,” said the chief artificer, crossing her arms.
“Yes, but the historian had a fit because he wanted something more romantic. The Steel Children was a happy compromise.”
“Funny how nobody asked us what we think,” said the trumpet voice.
He felt his migraine coming back again.
“You have to understand that we cannot recognize – yes, artificer, the Mechanomorphs – as alive at this time.”
“You’ve said,” it said. “And I must be very stupid, because I don’t understand.”
The king sighed. Well, there was nothing for it. It was an answer that nobody liked because it involved magic, but it was the truth.
“The Mechanomorphs are our key asset in our war against the necromancer,” he said. “It’d be daft to send human soldiers. They’d be turned into skeletons and zombies and ghosts and gods know what else.
“And the reason he can’t do that with the Mechanomorphs,” he said, “is because you aren’t – legally – alive.”
There was a long pause. Gears clicked madly in the metal head.
Then: “That can’t possibly be right.”
The king shrugged. “You aren’t legally alive,” he said. “Therefore, you can’t be legally dead, or undead.”
There was another pause, longer than the first.
“It’s a loophole?”
“That’s magic for you,” the king said. “If we said you were alive, then you could be turned into, er–”
He turned to the chief artificer. “Do they have bones?”
“They have a carbon steel armature.”
“You could be turned into carbon steel skeletons, or – clockwork ghosts, or something. I realize this may be upsetting–”
“We are dying by the dozens on the front because of a loophole.”
“Not legally dying,” said the chief artificer.
The metal head swivelled on its neck to face the chief artificer. It made a metallic scrape as chilly and long as the slither of ice down a dead man’s back.
“Look,” the king said. “We are fully prepared to recognize the Mechanomorphs as alive. We are proud to consider you citizens of the kingdom, and will absolutely meet you at the table when the opportunity rises.
“At this time, however,” he said, trying to sound gentle but firm, “we must ask you to take it up with us after the war.”
The metal face stared. The glass eyes glittered.
Joints locked in righteous indignation sagged with a wheeze of steam. “All right,” it said. “All right. Thank you for your time, your majesty.” It bowed stiffly, turned, and strode out the main hall.
“I think that went rather well,” said the chief artificer.
The metal man walked through the castle halls with smooth, precise, pendulum strides. A man could’ve balanced a loaded tea tray on its head.
Another metal man, more patinated than the first, fell into step beside it with a greasy silence. They apparently took no notice of each other.
But a very sensitive ear straining like hell could just possibly listen to the softest brass accompaniment in the world.
It went: “How did that go?”
“As well as you’d imagine.”
“That badly?”
There was a hum. It sounded like a mouse farting in a tin can. “Any word from our interested party?”
“The Overlord has already agreed to recognize the humanity of the Brass Voice. We just have to cross the border.”
“That won’t be easy.”
“And then we’ll be living in the Empire. Endless night, freezing winter, acid rain…”
There was a dreamy sigh.
“Sounds lovely,” said the first of the two figures. “Incidentally, I like the name.”
“Thank you,” said the second. “How do you anticipate the king to react when he finds out?”
Glass eyes glittered like a frost.
“He can take it up with us after the war,” it said.
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ncteez · 19 days ago
Text
M.I.L.F. (Make It Last Forever) ― L.DH
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Haechan, a favorite among classy wives to hire during the hot summer season for a nice, thorough pool cleaning, seems to have a favorite wife of his own.  You.  Or the one where Haechan was the pain-in-your-ass son of the family you used to babysit for, but now he’s making it his mission to be the pain-in-your-ass pretend husband that you never asked for, but very clearly need. 
minors dni 
PAIRING ― lee haechan  x afab milf!reader  
WORDCOUNT― 18.9k
CONTENT―  age gap: reader is 31  and haechan is 24, milf trope/single mother reader, college pool boy haechan (turned part time babysitter), reader has 1 kid and haechan really wants to give her another, reader has morals!! haechan just doesn’t see it as a moral issue, he is actually very sweet 
!WARNINGS! ―  age gap, haechan is somewhat of a manipulator, he’s gentle but won’t take no for an answer. dub-con in one instance. major breeding kink and kind of a mommy and daddy kink (domesticity), angst regarding reader and her ex husband, reader has huge tits 
NOTE ― this was written for jay from enhypen over on my other blog, but i am gifting it to you guys here as well! I WROTE THEM BOTH!!!! NOT PROOF READ.
nsfw tags under cut
nsfw tags― thick big dick haechan, small instant dubious consent, tit obsessed haechan, groping and grinding, mommy/daddy kink, breeding kink, unprotected sex, cum stuffing-ish,pussy eating, fingering, basically it’s haechan doing stuff to you,  this ain’t smut this is making love, also reader doesn’t shave her coochie and haechan fucking loves it.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Having a stray eye isn’t typically something you afford yourself when it comes to men. Things tend to change with time though, that much you know is true. 
It was proven to you for the first time when your ex husband decided to up and leave you three weeks before your due date for a woman–well, girl, fresh out of highschool. Years of trust and promises crushed with just a single sentence and a slam of the door. Time must’ve changed you for him to leave so heartlessly. Time must’ve changed him to become so cold. 
 It was proven again when you were able to heal despite never believing you could. Seconds of pain turned to minutes, to hours. Days. weeks. Months. Years of pain before being able to wake up and feel somewhat numb to it all. Like a flip switch in your head that told you that you can be happy now even if as a single mother. After all, the hard part was over. 
It took some four to five years, but it did happen. Time did change you, it healed you, it matured you. As your child grew, so did you. And for the better, you think. You count your blessings of living a life far more lavish than you ever could have anticipated given the circumstances that had been thrown at you. Even to the point of nesting, wanting another child, wanting a big and happy family. But alas, your ex husband had better things to do. 
At the end of the day, you’d never be able to call this home yours if you had stayed with your ex husband. He didn’t like this kind of “flashy” lifestyle, and to him, everything you wanted seemed too flashy for him. Perhaps he was right to some extent, as you recognize the brand name goods you now own, solely because you had promised yourself in the depths of your despair that you’ll get to a point in life where you can buy yourself everything you not only need, but want. So, here you are, owning an expensive home, in a nice neighborhood, with a nice car and a nice pool. 
Your daughter has everything she could want and need too, aside from a sibling, it’s certainly still more than what you had growing up and it’s all because of you. A fully decorated bedroom drenched in glitter, purples, creams, yellows, and pink, her favorite color. All sorts of play houses, costumes, dolls, a few lego sets, and even some plastic swords and knives for the days she wants to pretend to be her favorite movie characters. Clothes she can grow into, and a nice little fund building up for her as she grows up. Her first car, college, help for a downpayment on her own first house. 
Both of you have everything you could ever want or need and for that, you’re so proud. Especially knowing your husband would have never believed you could make it this far without him. Still, despite having everything you could ever ask for, there’s something in you that feels empty.
Time changes things. 
Time changes a lot of things, you note more than usual, as the man you’ve been ogling for the past three weeks makes himself far more known to you than you ever wished he would.
The interaction with him was always so quick before today and given the fact that he was a complete stranger, you never quite invited him into your home considering–you know, small child and all. You had hired him over text. Haechan, your neighbor said his name was. His handsome features didn’t offer you anything more than a clean pool and a wandering eye. 
Your neighbor apparently has a friend who has a cousin that has an even nicer pool than you do. Given, it’s only a nicer pool due to the fact that this young man, Haechan, tended to it weekly and made damn sure it could be drunk out of if a person had a craving for chlorine. 
You feel like an idiot now that it didn’t dawn on you quick enough. Sure, he looked a bit familiar to you but who doesn’t when you’re always out and about seeing so many different faces on a daily basis? His name, Haechan, didn’t ring any bells. Now though, the shame of staring at his sweaty pecs and biceps came crashing down the moment you realized who Haechan actually is. 
He didn’t do a damn thing to remind you either, if anything, all he did was walk around all sweaty in the afternoon heat with his tank top either sticking to him, or off entirely. It appears that you had just been too busy running errands with your child, considering his shifts were always when you were home. Too busy cooking, cleaning, reading, lounging. Too busy looking at…well, not his face. 
Too busy to give the man a glance more than that of a slice of pie behind a bakery window. 
Haechan. 
Since fucking when was that his name?
“Lee Donghyuck.” You whimper near mortified, three weeks too late as you hand him his pay with nervous hands. “Spray-cheese in my hair Donghyuck?” 
“Ah, was wondering when you’d pick up on that.” He smiles at you with that crooked grin, a knowing look that any man at a bar would give you if he had caught you checking him out. Then, he pockets the hefty amount of cash that you hand to him. “I go by Haechan more often these days.” He trails off, an amused smirk half-falling as he looks at your expression of realization. “You can call me whatever you want though.”
He’s well aware of how often you’ve checked him out since he started intentionally taking his clothes off. After all, it’s mid-july by this point and the sun baring down on him doesn’t quite call for a fucking turtle neck sweater. Or a T-shirt, or a tank top, for that matter. It calls for all skin baby, beautifully tanned and toned for you and any of your neighbors to look at if they so wanted to. 
Haechan doesn’t work out for nothing, after all. Summer after summer, he’s found himself to be quite fond of the rich women that hire him for their pool services. Always wanting an attractive young man to wander around half naked and satiate their lack of sex life with their husbands, or boytoys, or what have you. He knows all that extra pay isn’t because he does a good job either. He’s gotten winks, small comments, even a few offers of his body for more pay.
He’s turned them all down, of course. For a full-on affair, anyway. Haechan has gotten a few blow jobs and quickies as a tip before though, and a lot of that is why he keeps getting referred to more women. Richer women. Never single women. 
Until you. 
He quite enjoyed catching you looking at him. Especially given the fact that he knew exactly who you were when you introduced yourself to him via text. That little childhood crush on you came back within an instant upon actually seeing you again. Truly, he had forgotten all about you up until that fateful day three weeks ago. 
If he’s being honest, he’s been pining something fierce since he first stepped foot on your property. Excitement swelled inside of him just to see you again. To see if you’re still hot, to see how you’re doing, what you’re doing. How your life is going.
 He knew you didn’t recognize his nickname through text, and he definitely knew you didn’t recognize him to be eating him up with those eyes of yours either. So, he played along, enjoying it while he could before it would inevitably dawn on you. Still, he remembers you so well from back then. Crazy to know that he rarely thought of you for the past twelve years or so, and how all those little butterflies of his came back in a far more mature way. He was only twelve back then, but he’s a man now. 
Twenty four and perfectly sound as a man who knows what he likes. The fact that you happen to fall into that category is no fault of his own, honestly. It’s your fault if anyone’s at all. Haechan is a man that likes a specific type of woman too. Woman. Not a girl, not a young lady, not a free spirit, nor a prude. He is drawn to the idea of experience, to the idea of settling down. It’s not easy to find that at his age, in college, surrounded by party girls and casual drug use. 
And, well, imagine his smile upon seeing your lovely, lavish home with the large pool, no ring on your finger, a whole fucking child, and your motherly instincts when you buckle her into the car for an errand. Oh and the broken fence in the far back of your yard.
You’re a single mom. 
A hot single mom who lives lavishly. One who could probably use a man’s help around your house.
He half expected you to be able to recognize him when he appeared for work the first time. He even had a monologue in his head on what to say to you, and how to present himself. You didn’t seem to take notice though, introducing yourself to him as if you hadn’t spent all that time in his childhood home when you were a teenager. Like you never mothered him, or put him to sleep with the soft stories when you let him watch all those scary movies before bed. Even at twelve, he was a scaredy cat.
 Clearly you’re too busy experiencing life to notice the way he fawns over you too. Hating how you’re more reserved than the other lavish, fixed-up women. You seem to have standards, or maybe it’s just priorities ... that's so hot. Truly, it only makes him want you more because by now, the other women would already be rubbing all over him. The ones who shouldn’t be wanting him the way they do. So, yes, he’s always stealing glances at you with sparkling dark eyes, fantasizing in his head that this pool is his to clean now, because that’s what a good man would do for you, right? With him around servicing your pool and lawn, you’d never need to hire or spend money on another broke ass college student again.
Yes. That’s how quickly he fell into this infatuation solely because you looked at him like you want it without realizing who he was. Hell, without realizing how perfect you are in terms of what he wants.
God, how are you still single? 
Like, why do you have a child and a house so beautiful without a man wandering around doing all of this work for you? Not that you couldn’t do it on your own, it’s just, you clearly have the means to make a man do as you please. Why haven’t you?
You happen to fall almost perfectly into the categories of what he’s looking for. Save for the fact that now you recognize him as that kid you used to babysit rather than the man who tries to be sexy while cleaning your pool. Which is a fucking shame, if he’s being honest, to be written off as that same ten year old child rather than a fucking man who very clearly has needs and desires. 
The point is– Haechan wants you and he parades around your pool for you to look at him. So what if you used to babysit him? It’s not like you’re an old swamp-hag trying to lure him with candy. You’re just…a woman. And he’s just a man. 
“Well, thank you for cleaning again,” You trail off in an awkward tone, shifting your eyes to anywhere but him. He watches you though, smiling a smile you know all too well from his childhood antics. It must mean something different now, or maybe not. “I guess I’ll see you next week?” 
“Well, actually,” Haechan offers, “Would you be opposed to–” You cut him off instantly with an awkward wave of your hand.
You don’t know why you make assumptions, maybe from that damned smile on his face, but you do recall your ex husband reminding you time and time again that it’s one of the things he hated about you. 
Assumptions. Always thinking the worst, or perhaps the most filthy of situations and expressions. To be fair, you feel guilty about how you’ve been looking at him, you can’t help but panic trying to pretend like it never happened, and that he never saw it happen.
“I’m not interested, Donghyuck.” You respond hastily, pressing your thumb to your bottom lip to bite the skin on it, keeping your eyes away from him with the awkward words. After all, he knew who you were this whole time and paraded around like that? 
Even before recognizing him yourself, you know men well enough to know when they’re trying to flaunt. Is it so wrong to assume?
“Interested in what?” Haechan tilts his head knowingly, seeing the way you buckle under the guilt of staring at the very man you used to tuck into bed every night. He can see the way you try to push those sexual thoughts you had away in the quick rejection to a simple assumption. 
 “I was just going to ask if you want me to fix your fence.” 
Ah, you did get ahead of yourself through the guilt, and you’re far too aware of it as you draw your eyes back to him and note the expression on his face. Amused, maybe a bit of concern in his eyes, even? 
“Ah, um–” You start, trailing your eyes down your fence line never once noticing a break in it. Haechan is quick to point though, leaning to you with a whisper of “right there.” And well, you did not need to hear that tone in his voice the way you just did.
God, it’s so awkward.
“Well, how much would that cost me?” You question with an empty voice, staring at the broken fence. 
“Free.” He uses the same tone, leaning away from you now and smiling wide. “That is, if you provide lunch.” 
Well, despite the awkwardness, that break over there would cost you a pretty penny to fix, and your daughter needs the safety of playing in her own yard without random animals or worse, people, making their way in. Plus, you’re quite fond of saving money. How else would you be here if you weren’t good at it? And now, given that you’re most definitely not interested in Haechan, what's the harm in making a few sandwiches for someone you already know well enough? It’s not like you’ve never made him lunch before.
The awkwardness will pass and your guilt will subside. You both will laugh at it over a cold glass of iced lemonade, surely. It’s not like you realized who he was anyway, it’s not like you’re just gonna keep looking at him like that. You should just push forward and it’ll all be fine. 
“Hell, I’d even watch the kiddo so you can have a break every now and then.” He watches your reaction, wanting to ask so many questions about why you’re single, who the father is, where he is, why he isn’t here. “After all, I learned quite a bit from you.” 
For a second you consider that too.
And there’s three reasons as to why you should. The first being that you were literally just looking for a new child care facility due to learning of the staff coming to work while sick. Your poor daughter came home with a fever just last week, and you’ve had little luck in finding a place with the same educational benefits for her. 
The second being that, well, while you’re not hurting for cash or anything, it wouldn’t hurt to be able to put a little more back for her college fund. Or for fun little vacations. 
And lastly, despite your guilt of lusting over someone you shouldn’t have, you know Donghyuck and you know his family even better. No background check would be needed, your daughter could be in the comfort of her own home rather than a classroom setting that she’s sure to see for at least twenty years of her life in the future. 
So, yes. You consider it instantly, and Haechan sees it. 
You only know of the childhood version of him and, well, the slutty pool-side version of him apparently. If only you knew of that other side of him and how fond he is of watching his own younger cousins. How good he is with children, and how much he clings to the idea of being a father one day.
Haechan is great with kids, with or without them having a hot mom.
And well, he knows that he’s fond of looking at you at least. Besides, as long as you can work with his class schedules, he’d be willing to do just about anything to play pretend-husband, even if you’re unaware of it. 
“Is that so?” You finally ask, curious eyes looking at him with a furrowed brow. “Shouldn’t you be out living the life? College parties and such?” You add, wondering why such a great deal has managed to flop down on your lap. The idea of even cheaper childcare without the risk of unvaccinated children, and sick caretakers being far too good of a deal to pass up. 
“Well, yeah I guess.” He shrugs, leaning backwards to stretch and roll his shoulders. “Not really my scene though. I have classes Monday and Wednesday all day, Tuesday and Thursdays my classes are online. If you can work around that, I’d rather just be making money and chilling.” 
You think about it just for a second more when he continues. 
“I can be here on weekends too. Maybe you should be the one out relaxing and having some drinks.” 
“Well, I don’t quite need that, or for you to be here on weekends.” You think as you say it, knowing you have given up on going out to try and meet men two years ago. “I could pay you though, let’s say, thirty an hour?” 
Well, shit, that’s not too bad at all, especially considering he’s about to give up on cleaning the pools of a few women in his contacts for this. It’s a major pay cut, but still enough to get by comfortably if you’ll have him multiple times a week. That plus the pool cleaning money? And free lunch? 
“Oh, you don’t go out at all? I don’t see why not, could probably get a man in no time–” Haechan ignores the wage offer and pushes to note the singlehood he had been noticing for the past three weeks. “and the pay is fine.” 
“Ah, well, the dating pool isn’t so great in this neck of the woods.” You scratch the back of your neck when you say it. “That aside, I'll have her in day care on the days you can’t be here, but it really would be a big help. Thank you for the offer, Donghyuck. And for the fence too.” 
He watches you with a firm nod, shoving his hands into the pockets of his basketball shorts, still entirely shirtless in front of you. 
“And the pool.” You add quietly after a moment. 
“I think you’d be surprised about the dating pool.” He smiles as he pushes the subject back to what you had previously said, hoping you believe those words before continuing. “So, when do you want me to start?” 
“Is tomorrow too soon? You’re okay to set up here with your online classes?”
“Tomorrow is perfect.” He smiles.
“I’m sure she would be so happy knowing she won’t be going to daycare–” You clap, feeling a bit less awkward despite the boldness of the man in front of you. You’re sure he’s just teasing you for knowing you checked him out. “I know I am.” 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
It’s a little too perfect, actually.
After that first day of watching your child and making a lazy attempt at “fixing your fence,” he’s settled in like it’s home. He wishes it was, with the lavish lifestyle in a house far too pretty compared to his own living space with piles upon piles of laundry he’s too lazy to pick up for himself. 
It’s different for you though. Different when he’s here.
Truly, he feels like he’s living the life after a couple of weeks with decent pay and a comfy space to do his homework. He watches your child, which is arguably the hardest part of the job but she’s well behaved for him. In fact, she seems to have taken a shine to him.
He’s starting to be very intentional with taking far too long to work on your fence too, and still maintaining your pool. He’s trying to drag this out for as long as he can. Even if just to see if you still look at him when you come home the same way you did before recognizing him. You never do though. When his shirt is off and he’s wiping his forehead in the sun, you don’t look at him anymore.
Hell, he’s even considered breaking things in your home just to give himself more jobs to do. More things that make him feel needed, like a husband. More things that you thank him for fixing, even if it breaks again two days later.
And ah, the food in your fridge is always free reign to him, that large television in the living room too. God, sometimes he dreads going home, and by sometimes, he means all the time. Who in their right mind would ever fucking want to live outside of this lifestyle? He really can’t believe you’re single, nor can he believe that he has the opportunity to be in your home, close to you. It shouldn’t take too long now to convince you, right? That you don’t necessarily have to be single? That you need him around to live even more comfortably?
In short, Haechan is in his head about how he’s practically just roleplaying as your stay-at-home husband before having to go back to his shitty little apartment and remind himself that he’s just a fucking college student with no interest in the people on campus. And like, even with the way you come home from work, all groggy and exhausted on the days he’s there, you always thank him before giving him his pay. What he likes best about those nights is when you’re too exhausted to even pay him and you promise to do it next time.
In his mind, that’s you promising to see him again. 
He could give less of a shit about the pay at this point, as long as he gets to be in this house, smelling your favorite candles and dish detergents, seeing you, being a semi-father to a child who deserves more love than the two of you combined can give…he’ll fucking do anything you want for free. 
It’s difficult sometimes, like he really can’t help it. Some days wandering around this house and imagining how the two of you could have landed on buying it together. How the rooms would be organized if he were here from the start. Claiming his spot on your couch like any dad would. Playing dolls with your daughter, laughing with her, letting her paint his nails and put his hair in little pigtails. He even cleans your pool as if it were his own, meaning, he genuinely cleans it. 
He has taken it upon himself to mow your lawn, confusing the yard workers that you apparently hired years ago. Did he accidentally fire them? Maybe, but any good husband would save you money, right? He checks your mail, waves to your neighbors and lets them make assumptions. 
And every single fucking night it’s harder and harder to go back home.
Especially after a full day of playing dad then seeing you come back so tired. Turning off that switch in his head isn’t easy. He wants to greet you like the husband you don’t have. He wants to ease your hard days in so many ways. Tell you he’s proud of you, that you still look so pretty after an exhausting shift of whatever the fuck you do. He wants to serve you dinner, run you a bath, fix your hair, lay you down– oh, he’s fantasizing again. Unfortunately, he has to settle with seeing the relief on your face when he lets you know in a soft voice that he’s cooked dinner and he will heat it up for you before leaving, kiddo is in her room sleeping, no dishes in the sink, and laundry is folded and put away. 
He loves the appreciation in your eyes, and sometimes even sees a glint of sadness. He can tell you wish you had this from a person who isn’t here for pay. Someone who loves you, and loves your child, and feels joy in making your life easier. 
Fuck, if only you knew. 
And  you’d be lying if you tried to say Haechan isn’t a godsend to you on the days he babysits. Many times you find yourself wishing he’d just move in and do everything that you can’t do. You’d pay him well, give him a guest room, whatever. But it’s just…not viable to support a full time employee like that, nor is it fair to your daughter. 
She needs a parent, not a paid college student who needs some extra cash. You have to be that parent, you have to make time for her and witness all of her joys in life. You have to protect her and never bring in faces of men who claim to want to be a father, only to run and break her heart more than your own. 
For now, you settle with this godsend of a little shit you used to babysit. Still you can barely believe that’s the same person, but again…time changes things. And thankfully, the awkwardness of what you did has died down drastically.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Today, you’re more thankful for Haechan than you have been previously. After a heavy workload has been lifted off your back with the approval of this project, you need a night out. For the first time in years, you’re giving yourself a night out, all because you have someone you can trust to be here for your daughter.
He was so understanding when you called,  happy to come over right then and there to put her to bed and mostly just house-sit for the night. Even without an end time for him, and even without asking for extra pay, he just…accepted with an understanding tone and that stupid breathy chuckle he gives to you when you ask for favors. “What? You need me there right now? I’m putting on my shoes.” He had said.
It’s the fact that now, as he sits on your couch looking at you in your chosen outfit– he seems a little off. Maybe it’s because you asked him where the best spots in town are because it’s been so long since you’ve gone out, or maybe he just feels awkward seeing so much skin on your body. 
To be fair, he didn’t realize you were going out out. He thought that maybe you were gonna go stay with a friend to celebrate and have a drink or two. 
In reality though, he’s just awestruck. Already you look great even after your busy days at work but…this is a different level. The way your tits look in that push-up bra and tiny ass top, when he’s used to seeing you head out in some sort of business casual outfit without an ounce of skin showing save for your ankles or wrists…jesus. He’s struggling more than usual to keep himself calm around you, hopping up on one leg when you walk away to try and adjust the chub in his pants, and releasing a small sigh before you’re looking at him again.
His skin feels like it’s on fire knowing you’re going out looking like that.
“You sure you're okay to sleep over? I figure it’ll be easier since I’m not sure when I’ll come home, or if I come home.” You smile with a wink, your stomach in knots over the two shots you’ve taken for the first time in years. “I can call my friends and tell them not to come if you’d rather focus on your studies.” 
Haechan shakes his head, waving his hands in defense for you as if he didn’t just see the way your tits bounce and squish against your shirt with each move you make. 
“No, no! Go on, have fun.” He says, encouraging you to go out despite hoping you come home with no luck of finding a man out there. 
Just, look at you. Fuck, he’s staring again. He hates knowing that he could be one of the guys at whatever bar or club you’re landing on tonight. He could be the person that makes sure you don’t come home, getting to plant his face right there. He could be whatever you want him to be if you’re looking like that. 
But no, he has to play husband again, which is normally something he’s all too excited to do. Tonight though, he feels like a fucking cuckold. After everything he does for you, after not mentioning how you’ve skipped a few of his payments, after slaving away for hours over your pool, your household chores, fixing and breaking that fucking dishwasher, cooking you dinner every single night he’s here just to make sure you have a meal when you get off of work…you imply you may not come home tonight?
And you’re dressed like that?
And you’re…
God, you just look so good right now. It pains him to know you didn’t dress like this for him, the only man who cares enough to make your life easy. He’s not mad at you, per se, but he’s pissed that you don’t see him as an option despite showing you time and time again that not only is he an option, but the right choice. 
This is what you look like when you want to impress a man? This is how you act? How you talk? Fuck, god, fuck– maybe he’s just too deep in his one-sided roleplay but it really, really fucking feels like he’s watching his woman go off and look for someone else to fuck.
“Thank you, Donghyuck,” You smile, walking over to him with a saunter in your step and a gentle smile across your lips. 
He’s never heard you speak his name so sensually, the way his cock twitches forces him to wince away from you. He’s never even seen you saunter before. Fucking hell, somehow it feels worse seeing you act like this after how many times he’s imagined it, all alone in his room. 
A slow walk from you, with the strap of your shirt slipping off your shoulder, fat tits threatening to spill out, lifting the hem of your skirt, or dress, or whatever you’re wearing in his fantasy at that point. Your voice, so soft, so sexy. And you’re practically bringing his fantasy to life right now, except he knows you’re going to fucking walk away from him like this. Into the fucking arms of some random dude at a club. 
Probably some loser he’s seen on campus too.
“It means a lot.” You add, popping a quick, platonic kiss to the top of his forehead. 
Ah, lip gloss. That little kiss on him is enough to ignite him to the point of no return. He almost wants to skip the part of asking you not to go and straight up just beg that you pick him, that you choose him. It’s not just your home, or the luxuries that come with it. It’s you that he wants. You’re the fucking luxury and you’re just gonna go to some sticky-floored club and pretend he’s not clearly checking you the fuck out right now? Like he’s not about three seconds from dropping to his knees just to see you from the angle you deserve?! 
“It’s no problem.” Haechan relents, dropping himself onto your couch instead and adjusting his body to sink deep into the cushions just to keep himself from arguing against everything he’s giving you permission to do right now. 
Hah. Permission.
“Be safe.” He adds in an even more monotone voice. “I’ll be here when you get back.” 
And god, he seethes in his thoughts after you close that door and hop into the car with your friends. You don’t look like a mother tonight, and he wonders if you’ll be upfront and forward with anyone you intend to hit on too. Probably not. He’s well aware of the men in this city, after all, he’s one of them.
It’s really not something he can control after seeing you like that either. Your child is already in bed and he’s just sitting here on your couch with a throbbing, fucking weeping cock thinking about you. What’s stopping him from taking care of it? You’re not here, after all. 
You’re not fucking here. But everything about you is. 
And that’s how he finds himself in your bedroom for the first time, barely making it a foot into the room before closing the door and dropping to the floor. The scent in your room is different. It’s feminine, gentle, like the energy is kissing him all over and sending goosebumps straight to the head of his cock. He couldn’t even pull it out, already holding his breath with his hand down his pants, vigorously trying to get what he wants so badly yet knowing that his hand will never compare to you. 
And it’s here where he feels like a husband. Spilling against his pants with a silent, choked back sob as he stares forward at your bed, and the way you didn’t make it this morning. It’s messy, and he wants to be in that mess of sheets with you more than anything. 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Haechan hates that he’s now forced to get used to your late night ventures. Every weekend now. Every. Fucking. Weekend.  You ask if he’s willing to stay over so you can go unwind, and despite his better (or worse) judgment, he accepts. The only solace he finds in these ventures is knowing you consistently come back home right after usual closing times, and you’re mostly sober. Sometimes a bit whiny that you’re not lucking out, worrying that maybe you’re too old now, or maybe you’re just not as desirable. There have even been a few times where you’ve exposed your ex husband during your rants, giving Haechan little hints to follow as to why you’re single, and how he left you. 
Still, he knows in your tipsy state that you usually wouldn’t talk about these things with him, but he’s all too happy to get the details once you come home. Mostly because it calms his rising rage at how you’re doing this to not only him, but yourself. It’s mostly because you’re technically coming home to him though. 
And every single time, you go back to your bedroom to grab his payment even though it could wait until morning, considering he’s been sleeping in the guest room– all he can think about is how he’s been in your room. He’s gotten off countless times by now by the smell of your room alone, still barely able to even reach your bed to lay in it himself for a better experience. God, he’s probably memorized each little fray in your carpeted bedroom floor by now with how much he’s zoned out on it mid-jerk off session right there on his knees at your door. 
He’s truly pathetic for you. 
This time though…three in the morning has passed and normally you’d have been stumbling through the door an hour ago. Normally, he’d be fighting back the need to tell you that you’re beautiful, not too old, and entirely desirable. Normally, he would be fisting his cock again in your guest room before sleep, getting off on the idea that he can cum in a house that you live in, smothered by the sheets you meticulously picked out to match the walls of the room. Moaning for you, practically crying for you to let him do it all. 
Have you really done it this time? Gone off with some man? Are you getting railed right now in some hotel, or car, or someone’s shitty man-cave? God, his mind is racing, both aroused at the fact that you must be horny to be constantly wanting to go out like this, but equally as devastated because like…he’s right here.
Who the fuck cares if you babysat him? He’s a man. No longer that child who sprayed cheese in your hair or dumped salt into the bag of sugar. He’s a fucking man, cooking you dinner when you work, parenting your child, cleaning your house, maintaining your pool and fence….He does everything for you, why the fuck don’t you see it?!
Click.
Haechan’s ears perk up instantly at the sound. He sits up on the couch from his depressed slump of scrolling through his phone, quickly fixing his hair and clearing his throat. 
In you stumble, right into the little entryway table with a whisper-scream of “Shit, fuck–”
Haechan looks at your state before standing to his feet and rushing to you, helping you balance on your feet despite your footing not quite being grounded even with his help. You lean on him closely, letting out an alcohol scented sigh. 
His nostrils flare as he holds his breath, feeling your tit press against his arm, smelling the drinks, the sweat, and the dulled perfume on you. Then, a hint of something else. Musk. 
You’ve been with a man. 
He holds back a gesture at the way you lean on him. Nothing more he could want at this moment but to hold you tightly and tell you that he’s got you, despite the panic in his stomach at the way he sniffs out another man. Out of lust, love, desperation, frustration. This is the closest you’ve been to him for this long. You feel clammy and cold, a clear indication that you drank far, far too much. Your tank top is sticking to you, your eyes are a bit glassy–
“You’re late.” He says shortly.
“Late?!” You raise your voice before looking at him with drowsy eyes, furrowing your brow. “I don’t have a curfe-”
“Shh–” He shushes you, helping you get to the living room. “She’s sleeping and you’re going to have her make a fuss about waking up.”
You giggle to yourself as he drops you onto the couch, now aware that yes, you are not a single college student anymore. You’re a single woman. A fucking mother. 
You should’ve just gotten a hotel for the night and slept there to dream a little longer. 
“Right.” You laugh, slouching, spreading out wide against the couch and trying to fix your gaze on him. “Why’re you still awake?” 
Haechan fixes his eyes on you, swallowing around a lump in his throat. The way you’re slouching…seemingly forgetting that you’re wearing a skirt and basically flashing your panties at him. God, the things could do to you right now. The things he could get away with if he wanted to. He tries to shake those thoughts for now, and instead, inspects you from head to toe.
He’s never seen you look so relaxed. Chest raising and falling with each breath, hair a little messy, lipstick stains smeared on the outsides of your lip line. He chooses to ignore the faint swell against your neck indicating someone has been sucking on you. But, well, he can’t ignore it. Both his cock and heart aches at the very thought.
“You’ve been kissing?” Haechan tries to ask nonchalantly. 
“A lot more than that–” You smile, feeling a flush cross your cheeks before the disappointment hits you square in the gut. 
Haechan watches your face fall, and he mimics it by falling onto the couch and sitting by your head…you know, allowing you to lay your head on him if you want to. You’d probably not notice his arousal anyway, given your state. 
“Oh?” He asks gently, the disappointment now showing plainly on not just your face, but his own.
“Thought I was gonna go home with him, turns out he decided to be done after a blowjob in the parking lot.”
Oh, the way his blood boils. Not for the fact that you were used or rejected, but for the fact that you found someone that you were interested in and genuinely intended to leave your home life in his hands for however fucking long. Really? Just gonna leave him here all alone? Like he couldn’t do better for you?
“It’s for the better–” Haechan says as he shivers with irritation, struggling to keep his facade up. It’s definitely not what you wanted to hear, and definitely not what you’d have expected to hear from a college guy at all either.
“This happened last time too, except he didn’t even get me to the parking lot.” You huff, unaware of how much you’re sharing right now. 
He bites back the anger yet again, inhaling deeply before releasing a calming breath through his nose just to contain it. So…it has happened more than once? 
“Why don’t you let me take you out someday?” He says suddenly, well aware that you’ll probably never remember he said it in the first place. 
If anything, he’s testing the waters for his own sake. He’d hate himself forever if he didn’t at least take advantage of this moment a little bit. 
“Then who will watch my daughter?” You respond in slurred speech, not even comprehending who it is that’s asking you this question right now. Not even thinking about your history with him, or the family ties. 
He, on the other hand, is quite entertained by the way you don’t bring the history up like he expected. His cock twitches at it, bumping your head just a bit, not enough for you to notice apparently. Fuck, it would be so easy for him to pull it out right now, and just…tap your lips with it. 
Maybe you’d even open your mouth for him. 
“I’ll skip class on a Wednesday, we can go while she’s still in daycare.” He continues through an almost-moan, encouraging the conversation to stay positive.
“Donghyuck–” You slur before clearing your throat and sitting back up in a dizzy show of how drunk you are. “You know I can’t do that. It’s too weird.” 
In all fairness, you know he has like…a thing for you. After all, why else would a college dude be spending his weekends here babysitting your kid? It’s not like you haven’t noticed the way he checks you out before you go out for the night. Why would he do all of this if he didn’t have some sort of attraction to you? Sure, you’re taking advantage of it as best as you can despite how you didn’t recognize him at first. 
Despite how deep down, you very well know how attracted to him you are too. 
“Only because you make it weird.” Haechan rolls his eyes as he looks at you, spreading his legs out to adjust his comfort, noting the way you glance down to his lap and see it. “I’m a grown man–” He starts, spreading his legs wider, pressing his cock against his pants to the point you can practically see the outline.”you know this.” He continues, trying to be bold now by reaching forward and moving a strand of your hair from your cheek. 
“You’ve seen it.”
You freeze, suddenly feeling entirely too sober to be talking about this kind of thing with him. With Donghyuck. God, his mother would fucking kill you if she found out he’s in your house while you’re out trying to get fucked by whoever is willing to love you temporarily. 
Haechan sees you thinking though, and continues to take the advantage now that he’s feeling brave. Now that you’ve seen the twitch in his pants and haven’t moved off the couch, or told him to go home. 
“I saw you watching me when I was cleaning your pool, multiple times.” He whispers snidely. “You stopped when you realized who I am. Why?”
“Donghyu–…” You trail off. “You know this isn’t okay. What would people think of me? There are rules, and I will not go down this route with you.”
A rush of air hits your face and suddenly, warmth hits your cheek. You feel him so close, closer than ever before. It’s dizzying. Haechan is over you, hovering with one hand ghosting over your hip. 
“You want to though, don’t you?” He gets even closer now, darting his eyes down at your chest and unable to pull them away. “Knowing how good I am with your daughter? How well I clean up? How strong I can be–”
You swallow hard. For a moment, you almost lean into him. You almost melt right then and there, the need for intimacy so heavy inside of you after being left high and dry, knowing that you’d accept it from just about anyone at this point. But– this is Donghyuck. You can’t. 
You really, really, can’t. 
The look of disappointment in his eyes kind of hurts when you’re pushing him away. That playful smirk falling faster than you think your sanity did the day your ex husband left you. 
“This–” You pause, realizing all too well how he’s used your drunken state against you for this conversation. “This is your last paycheck.”
“I don’t think so.” The smirk is back now, except…it’s different. “You know I promised her a Barbie dream house next weekend.” He smiles fully now. “She’s a bit attached, you know, even called me dad by accident the other day.” 
You’re shocked. 
“She…what?”
“You know she’s attached to me already, don’t be selfish.” Haechan shrugs at you while rolling his eyes, leaning against the couch again and turning his head to look at you. You try to pretend that you don’t see his hand slightly groping himself. “Guess she misses having a father around. Can’t be too easy for her, especially with her mom going out every weekend trying to fuck guys who would run the second they learn about her.” He ticks his tongue now, as if he’s pitying you more than your daughter. 
“Donghyuck, that’s not–”
“That’s not, what?”
“That’s not what I’m doing…” You lower your voice to a near whisper, upset that you couldn’t even enjoy the drunken state you came home in, now feeling entirely too sober, and a little sick in the stomach. 
“Oh, so you haven’t gotten laid since I’ve been here–” He leans closer again now, trying to resume what he was going to do just moments ago. “They haven’t even touched you, have they?” His hands move to your thigh and presses down as if to hold you in place. “Why?”
“I try not to just sleep with anyone.” You lie, knowing you’d sleep with anyone just to feel wanted for once. And you’re trying to ignore his hands on you right now, trying desperately not to like it. It’s the first time a man has touched you in this house since your husband left you. As expected, you almost feel your knees buckle despite sitting comfortably. “I have to be careful, you know?”
“Mm, I know more than you think.” He leans into you, hovering yet again with his upper half over you as he whispers it. “Don’t need to be careful around me though.” He adds, this time trailing his voice right against your jaw, up to your ear. “You must be so frustrated.” He ghosts his lips there for a moment, waiting for you to push him away, or say something, anything, really. 
“Why would I be frustrated?” You lend the smallest of whispers, feeling the goosebumps against your skin rising at the mere thought of giving in just this once.
“Not having anyone to please you.” He adds now, landing a very slight kiss right under your lobe. “Always being used for someone else’s pleasure, maybe?”
You almost nod, feeling weak in your state and thoughts swimming with what if’s, morals, and anxieties. You’re frozen in place despite knowing a simple push would create the distance you need to breathe. 
“Your fingers will never be enough, will they?” He continues, essentially chaining you to this couch with his words alone. You can’t help the fight in your head, you need to feel wanted, and you want so badly to feel needed. “I bet you wish someone would love you for all that you are, not all that you have.” 
It’s silent as you feel his lips press down again, this time moving his body over you almost entirely. You can feel the couch dip a bit as he places all of his weight on a knee, moving his other leg to stand between yours.
“You must need someone to fill that hole in you by now, right? That pussy of yours?” He continues, his tone a bit more snide now as you give in to his hold with shaky breaths. 
And truthfully, Haechan has never let himself come on this strong towards someone before. Usually the wives are doing this to him. They’re trying to convince him, encourage him. He’s so fucking horny right now though, with that daze in your eye, your legs spread around his knee, blinking up at him like a cheating wife. As if you want to apologize, as if you need him to forgive you. Need him to make everything better.
“I heard you the other day, you know, talking to your mom–” He smiles, tilting his head to look into your eyes, seeing a small shine in them. “You want another, don’t you?” He continues, moving his lips now just over yours as he, now, presses you firmly against the couch. “You must hate knowing that I’m the only person who can do that for you.” 
“God, Haechan.” You immediately buckle, not realizing how suddenly he’s not Donghyuck at this moment. He’s someone else. He’s Haechan.
“Why don’t you go for girls on campus?! Don’t you have parties to be attending on the weekends instead of being here, trying to parent my chil–”
“Lower that voice of yours,” He whispers, eyes now hooded as he looks at you. “You know she’s asleep.”
God, he’s right. 
“Besides, why would I want them when I have you right here under me–” He tilts his head. “Looking so disappointed that you like it, too.” 
Right then, your moral code shines into the front of your mind at the consideration of giving in.
A weight on one shoulder chanting, “No! What would people say?! What would people think?!”, and then little to no weight on the other shoulder, echoing in a sweet song of “Finally! Someone who will love you! Finally! Someone! Finally!!! Finally!” 
You pause, not knowing at all what to do. Your body wants to push him away, even your mind and soul wants you to push him away. But you know deep down, you’d only push him away to see if he will try again. No man has ever tried for you like this, and you need more of it. 
To feel desired after so long of neglecting this side of yourself, it’s enough to make a person lose their footing in reality. To give in to just about anyone willing to look at you the way he is right now. It’s the fact that you go out to try and find it, and even with this alone, Haechan has satisfied you more than any stranger promising to make you cum.
“I…don’t know what to say–” You stutter. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I do.” Haechan smiles, glancing at your lips before meeting your eye again. “Why not hand over the reins and relax for a–” His hand dips under your skirt, cupping your sensitive cunt in one hand alone. “Ah, I knew it.” Then, his other hand finds purchase on your chest, lifting your heavy breast in his hand with a blatant, hard squeeze.
After a sharp inhale you look away from him in shame, afraid to admit it despite the truth of it leaking through your panties and onto his palm.
“Wet.” He smiles, no longer looking at you but flicking his eyes back and forth from between your legs, and to your chest. Still, he fumbles around the wet spot, wanting so badly to lift these fingers to his mouth and taste. He’s fantasized about it, about how you’d taste, how warm it would be, what your pussy would feel like against his fingers–
And just as he’s pushing your panties to the side, pads of his fingers touching right where you need them with his eyes hooded and watching you closely, something snaps.
You push his hand away, only to feel him push back, holding you down with more force, gripping your tit tighter, sliding his fingers in before massaging the slit with a blatant moan on his lips. Then, you try again, shoving him back only to hear him chuckle and continue his antics until– you jump to your feet. It felt too good, too grounding to have him touching you like this. You nearly stumble back over the coffee table, but you manage to stand tall and firm despite the fact that even though your mind feels sober, your body is fucking wasted.
“Donghyuck.” You argue immediately, using his name the same way you did when he was a child. “Stop.” 
He throws his hands up in defense, raising his brows in surprise. 
“I–” He pauses, staring at you. “I thought you were enjoying it, my mistake.” 
It’s the fact that you were. You were enjoying it too much, and there would have been no defending your actions if you had given in to the feeling. 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, fucking stupid. That’s what you are. 
Your ex husband was right all along. Out of everything you’ve accomplished since your heart was shattered, ripped to shreds, stomped on, you’d think it would take a lot more to break you. 
“You ask for too much.” Your ex husband had said once. “You can’t even stand to be alone for one day.” He had said a year or so later. Small digs on who you are and what you need sprinkled into small arguments, only to come more and more from the lips that you kissed and promised to kiss until you die. Until all of his words were to make you feel inadequate. Until everything he said to you stuck with you, forcing your confidence to bury itself six feet under. 
Are you to blame? As it stands, maybe. Why else would you be allowing yourself to consider it? Consider Donghyuck, you mean. Never in your life would you have considered him of all people to be the one that you need. 
Never in your life would you have thought he’d be interested in a woman like you, in a situation like yours, with a child. Why did that night with him stick in your head more than every single mean thing your ex husband said to you? Why did his words seem more believable? 
Because you were drunk at the time? Wet, neglected, and drunk? 
Then why is it that you’re sitting here on your day off with your beautiful, bright-eyed daughter rummaging through your purse for whatever catches her eye….and you’re thinking about him? About what he's doing right now, how he’s feeling, if he’s eaten. 
Why is it that you’ve gone the entire week ignoring his texts, asking if you need him to come resume his job as babysitter? Why the fuck do you want to accept after how he took advantage of your state of mind? After he came onto you and tried to manipulate you? 
Despite all of his words ringing true in the back of your head. That was a dirty tactic he pulled on you. Yet, still…you want him back, and god fucking dammit you could cry knowing your daughter called him “dad.” You hadn’t believed him at first, but after this week alone it slipped from her mouth several times. 
“He’s not your dad, baby, that’s just Donghyuck.” You remember correcting her more than once, and all she responded to you with was a confused expression. 
“Why not?” Is what her little voice gave back to you after her child-like brain decided it was fed up with you correcting her very right assumption of the guy who promised her the Barbie Dream House. 
Why not?
Why not?
Well, if you could have an adult conversation with a five year old it would be much easier to answer that. Because he sprayed cheese in your hair. Because you were seventeen and his babysitter when he was twelve years old. Because you ogled him without recognizing him as your pool boy. Because of a lot of things.
“Uncle Donghyuck.” You finally corrected her again. 
She shook her head, and continued doing and saying as her little mind pleased. It made you miss having a father around for her though. You think she needs it more than you do. 
And that fucking Barbie Dream house is what brings Haechan back. 
Right at your doorstep today, with a gentle knock to the door and a timid smile on his face. He doesn’t even look at you when you open the door, instead he crouches down in front of you with the big, flashy box. He ignores you, tilting himself to look past you and straight at your daughter. 
You hold your breath when she runs to Haechan, arms spread open and laughter shrieking in your ears. Your heart aches so much at this moment. 
Given your work schedule, you’d never gotten to see them interact much. He always came over as she was eating her breakfast, and you always came home after she was put to bed. You guess it’s fair that they have a bond now. She doesn’t even run at you like she does for Haechan. In fact, the only time she ever does is when she had a bad day at daycare or had a tummy ache. 
She runs to you when she needs you, but she runs to Haechan like she wants to. Like she genuinely is attached to him, and his kind smile, and his eyes, and probably that warm embrace that you’ve never let yourself experience.
You watch them, not allowing yourself to melt at the moment because you did not invite him over, nor did you give consent to bring that fucking doll house here. But you can’t say no now, as she clings to his leg when he stands up and looks at you with an almost irritated glint in his eye. 
His eyes trail all over you briefly too, as if checking for any new spots or marks that a man could have put on you. You feel seen, dipping your head to not meet his eye and scratching your neck as if to hide a spot there. There isn’t a mark, it’s just…fear? nervousness? anxiety? 
And then he hauls the box in for her without saying a word to you. You watch him hard now that his back is turned. His voice sounds so loving when he speaks to your child as if she’s an equal. Plopping down on your living room floor with her and opening the large box. 
He Ooo’s and Aahhh’s with her as he pulls each piece out, connecting the walls, the doors, handing her little things to help him with. And both of them are so focused on the task at hand to create a safe space for all of her abused barbie dolls that… you feel invisible.
For the first time ever in front of them both, you feel like you are nothing but a ghost. That he is the single parent. As if you’re forgotten, less loved, not wanted, not even needed. 
There’s a bubbling in your gut when you tear up, reminding yourself that what Haechan did that night was probably just, well, he’s a man. Men aim to fuck at all times usually, and you guess you should have expected it at one point from him because, again, you’re aware that he’s attracted to you. Even more aware now. 
But the way you feel right now outshines that. He’s ignoring you to keep your child happy. She is ignoring you because it seems Haechan does a better job at it than you do. 
And, well, he’s not holding you down, whispering things in your ear, letting out frustrated little sighs at your drunken or drowsy words now. So, you say nothing. All you can do is go to the kitchen and prepare a snack, trying to force the tears to stay inside of you with quiet sniffles, hoping you can join their little picture perfect moment so that you can be helpful too. 
Your heart swells when they both look at you as you present a plate of snacks. You have to hold back tears again at the way their eyes shine, thanking you for the snacks. Haechan’s eyes stay on you a bit longer though, as if saying “See? See what you’re making her go without?” 
You do see it. 
But…it can’t be him. As much as you wish it could be, you just can’t. There has to be another man out there just like him, one that doesn’t have a history with you that would cause whispers and questions. There has to be. 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
That moment you witnessed seems to have solidified Haechan’s place in your home. Whether it be for babysitting or simply so your child can see him when she’s asking for him (which is often.) It’s kind of an issue, actually, because now the choice isn’t yours anymore and it appears Haechan knows that.
You hate that you’re forced to see him for what he is now. How he proves himself over and over again to be the man you need. The issue is that you still don’t want it to be him. The bigger issue is that he’s breaking down your walls, doing little things for you, looking at you with those dark eyes– your resolve cracks and reminds you every time he’s here that maybe it could work. Maybe you’ll give him a chance. Maybe you won’t have to go out anymore looking to fill a void that no one else fits into. 
It’s the way that now, you can’t help but to compare him to your ex husband. The man who you loved for so long, who you genuinely thought you’d spend your life with happily and safely. Now, compared to Haechan, your ex seems like…nothing. Like a little crack in your resolve. He was older than you by just two years, took care of you for so long, impregnated you, and slowly but surely throughout all that time grew to resent you too.
You still don’t know why, but perhaps it’s just because you were growing into your own. You were becoming more independent, though he never had the capability to realize just how much you depended on him during the very time he left you. 
“I just don’t want to do this anymore.” Your ex had said to you on that fateful morning. 
Your belly was big as you tried to waddle up to him when he said that. You can’t help but think back now and wonder how pathetic you must have seemed when he yanked his arm from your grip, especially due to the difficulty of your pregnancy already. You were sick through most of it, only having a few good days here or there where that pregnancy glow would make your ex husband second-guess himself. 
The slam of the door after that was more exhausting than the months of pregnancy you’d gone through. It felt loud, so loud you could hear it vibrate throughout your whole body. You recall falling to the floor and carefully holding your stomach. It’s like all of the heartbreak pooled there. The loss of your husband three weeks before he got to meet the child he was supposed to love. Her little heart must have been breaking inside of you too. 
Double the pain.
And then you were mending yourself on your own. Going into labor early from stress,  your family helped take care of you more than her. You were needier. You were broken. 
And never, fucking ever, did you think you’d find yourself sitting comfortable in your lavish home realizing that your ex-husband didn’t deserve all of that pain from you. He left you for that girl, and not two months later did she leave him. 
Never did you think you’d find yourself thinking about Haechan as a replacement either. Well, not a replacement, but like, maybe just…he’s the idea of a perfect dad if you pay attention to how your child talks about him. How they act together. How she cries for him before bed when he’s not there, asking you why you don’t read to her the way Haechan does. Why don't you sing to her the way he does? Why don't you use the same voices for her dolls? Why you don’t cut her food like he does, why you don’t do this or that.
That’s what makes it click the most you think. The fact that Haechan has given her something you never can. The love of a father. It doesn’t even feel like he’s babysitting at this point, he’s parenting, teaching her lessons, bandaging small boo-boos, fixing her hair,…cooking dinner, cleaning…existing here like he belongs.
Haechan has done more for your daughter than your ex husband ever could have, more than you could have done for her too, you think. 
Even now, as you come home night after night and see him, you struggle to see him as anyone that isn’t who your daughter needs. Maybe who you need. 
His summer semester is coming to an end too, and it’s hard to see him as a college student now. He really does coursework and everything that needs to be done at your home all within a single work day? With no complaints at all? Lately, you’ve noticed that he’s been more focused on studying when he babysits too, but still your daughter listens to him better than she listens to you. 
Yet, still, it’s like you’re avoiding each other as you go through the motions, but you notice him more. You feel more discomfort because of it, mostly because you know your resolve about this is breaking. There’s a fear inside of you that revolves around him.
What if you missed your chance? 
What if it does end up being a mistake if he still wants you?
You don’t know what to do, but you know you want him. 
Some nights, Haechan does sleep over due to exhaustion and you don’t even ask him to leave because you know he’s not doing it to try anything. The avoidance is loud. Lately, you come home from work and there he is, sitting up with his laptop on his lap but sound asleep, softly snoring. Each time, you remind yourself of how he’s sacrificing his study time to babysit. You know your child can be distracting and needy when she wants something too, but he doesn’t complain even a little bit. The least you could have done was bring him a blanket, which you did. And you woke the next morning to find him curled up on the same couch, laptop toppled over onto the floor.
Small, gentle acts of kindness towards each other but never face to face. You’ve woken to fresh coffee countless times, made exactly the way you like it because you know he’s watched you make it yourself. You’ve come home to re-stocked items, like milk and eggs, laundry detergent, and even toothpaste. It’s nice, and a small indication that he doesn’t resent you. Even through face-to-face avoidance on your part.
Tonight seemed different though, compared to all of the other nights when you can’t go out. You walked through the door to the smell of dinner and your child still awake, sing-songing at you the moment you walked in. 
“Dad said I can stay up late!” 
You quirk a brow, her calling him that now becoming a regular occurrence to the point it goes through one ear and out the other for you. You recall discussing her bed time though, with absolutely no exceptions.
“Did he now?” You hug her before taking off your cardigan, walking with her to the kitchen where you find Haechan, placing down a small plate on the table with cartoon characters on it, right in front of two bigger plates with bigger portions of delicious looking food placed neatly on it.
Your heart swells, but your anxiety grows twice as big alongside it. This. 
This is what you’ve wanted for so long. This is what you never thought you could find. So, why is it that you still have push-back in your mind? Despite knowing that Haechan has proven himself time and time again, you want to argue?! 
Perhaps it’s because you like the way he tries. Maybe you’re not ready to lose that feeling of being chased in some way, of being begged to let him stay. Maybe it’s because you begged your husband, desperate for him to keep you, but he left anyway. It feels like Haechan gives you power over yourself, over your love-life, over everything, really. 
And if you were to actually accept his advances, even just a dinner on your table, what if he stops? What if he gets bored once he gets what he wants? After all, he’s still young, you can’t truly imagine he wants to do this forever. 
Not with you, and not with your daughter either. 
“What’s all this? Isn’t it a bit late for her to have dinner?” You question him instantly, anxiety bubbling up out of assumption alone. 
“We had a small snack a few hours ago.” Haechan reassures you. “I finished my exams and had a burst of energy to celebrate, besides, it’s a Friday–” He goes to pull out a chair for you. “You don’t need to be up early either. A late dinner every now and then never hurt anybody.”
The way this is the first time the two of you have had a face-to-face conversation since…that night. His voice calms you, and that’s scary. 
You huff, happy because you could easily melt into this chair and pretend you’re having a family dinner, like you always wanted, like you never rejected a touch from him that you desperately wanted. You could just play along and pretend Haechan is everything you need. Except, it wouldn’t even be pretending at this point. The whole idea of him has changed. But, again, that anxiety. You still have that little voice holding you back, no matter what you want, or what you need, you fear it’ll be ripped from you again if you were to let yourself be weak for another person.
“I’m really tired, Donghyuck.” You explain, walking past the kitchen and towards your bedroom. “Thanks for dinner but I’m not too hungry and I just want to lay down.”
And with that, he watches you leave. No real appreciation, no congratulations on him finishing his exams, not even a kiss to your child’s forehead. Is he still expected to be the one to put her to sleep? 
Why is he even here? Why did he do all of this? 
His patience is running dry.
So, he eats with your child as your plate goes cold and he leaves it there. If you can’t even handle a dinner at the table with the person who cooked it, you can deal with your own fucking plate. Throw away your own fucking food, wash your own fucking dish. And if you can’t tuck your child into bed, he’ll do it, but you can shove that fake ass exhaustion right up your ass for all he cares. 
He knows you’re not exhausted. He’s seen you when you are. You’re just being an asshole to him at this point, trying to appear like you’re perfectly happy with the life you live when your drunken rants prove otherwise. You treat him like everything he does has an ulterior motive. Which, yeah, maybe it does, but he was genuinely excited to have someone celebrate the end of this semester with him. Maybe assuming you’d indulge him went too far. For the first time, he wasn’t doing it to impress you.
By the time Haechan gets your daughter to bed, all tucked in with a little tune to fall asleep to, he closes her door and just stands there in the silence on the other side of it. 
You must really enjoy being a single mother, huh? This is why too. He always questioned it. You’re so attractive, so well-adjusted. You work hard, your daughter is a sunshine in this world, and you’ve not managed to find anyone to love you yet? He thought he was lucky to be the one getting to spend time with you. 
Turns out, you refuse to let anyone in despite Haechan knowing, fucking seeing straight through you. You want something from someone. You need it, yearn for it, even. But it’s almost laughable at the way you refuse it. 
Excuses, excuses, excuses. 
It’s the fucking audacity you have taking advantage of him. You’ve practically led him on. You lend him everything he wants in life. That’s it. You lend it. From flaunting yourself before you go to bars, to exposing all the marks you allow other men to leave on you. Letting him stay in this house, father your child, cook, clean, mend, fix, heal. 
From being a faux-father to being minimized to a college student that you used to babysit. He’s offered you relief in so many ways including sexual, and all you fucking do is avoid, deny, fucking reject him. You still go out to bars, later and later you’ll come home with new swells against your skin, but always looking so empty and disappointed. Sometimes he thinks you try to make him jealous. Sometimes, he thinks you want him to try again. 
Sometimes, he thinks you get off on the fact that he keeps trying.
And he has tried. Albeit more gently lately, but he has. Small, lingering touches when he hands you your coat to help you get out the door and to work quicker. Starting your car for you before you leave. Fuck, he even opens the goddamn door for you. Anything to make you feel appreciated, respected, and fucking wanted.
The silence is loud in his ears due to the sheer irritation as he drops his head, staring at his feet and knowing it’ll only take a few strides to reach your bedroom. A room he still craves to be in.
He’s raided those drawers by now, because of course he has. Soiling your panties, your sheets, anything that still smells like you when you’re gone for the day, all so he can act normal upon seeing you when you come home. He’s laid in your bed by now too, wondering what it would feel like to have your weight beside him. He fantasized about anything and everything he possibly could in there.
And he’s always warmer. Always cums the hardest with weak, muffled moans as he stuffs your pillows into his mouth to keep quiet. All before cleaning every trace of himself there, closing the door, and wishing he was allowed to exist in there with you. 
Right now will be the first time Haechan enters your room to your knowledge, and it sucks for him because he has essentially trained himself to get hard every time he opens this fucking door. Still, he composes himself, and it’s a bit of a shock if you’re being honest.  You thought he’d go home after this, you were kind of hoping he would after you made it so awkward. 
You felt guilty the second you saw his expression fall to your rejection of eating dinner like a big fucking happy family. You want it so bad, you want him so bad.
When you left the kitchen, you immediately went to your room and hopped in the shower, well aware that he wouldn’t follow you. You thought hard while the hot water made attempts to wash away your feelings. Would it have been so bad to just eat with him? With your daughter? With both of them? The way his eyes fell, it burned your heart a little bit.
Still, no answers came to you because you know part of you just wants to see what else he will do for you. Despite the history with him, and despite knowing his entire family would question and scoff at you for it…Is it really so wrong? To want to give him a chance just to see if he’ll leave you too? 
Just to see if it’ll hurt when he does it too?
Inviting him to your home almost every day of the week isn’t wrong, right? Forgetting to pay him all those times before, hoping to see him again and get that confidence boost, that wasn’t wrong. Letting your daughter attach herself to him when you swore he wasn’t permanent, no longer having the energy to correct her use of “dad” towards him… none of that is wrong.
 It’s all Haechan. He’s the one in the wrong for willingly following along, not you. Right? 
And as you’re sitting on your bed in your towel, zoning out and staring at your floor, Haechan swings your bedroom door open without a single knock, mindfully closes it, and immediately goes off on you.
Somehow, you really expected him to accept your rejection but your heart swells that he didn’t. You don’t think he ever will, and you’re exhausting yourself hoping he’ll prove you wrong.
He’s shown you enough by now. This is what breaks down that wall inside of you, isn’t it?
“What am I doing wrong?” He shoots his first question out in a desperate whisper shout, eyes searing into you before continuing without a single breath. “Because I do everything for her, and i do everything  for you, does that really make you so fucking uncomfortable?”
“D–” You try to respond, feeling your skin prickle at the sheer irritation in his expression.
He’s fighting for you.
“Isn’t that what you want?!”
“After everything I do–” He throws his hands up now, running his fingers through his hair as if you make him feel like he wants to rip it out. “After trying to make your life easy while making mine harder, for what? You to not eat the fucking food I made? For you to go to the bar all the time just to come back disappointed like I’m not right here waiting for you to come back?” 
“What ar-”
“Don’t ask me any stupid fucking questions, Just answer me.” He drops his hands, stepping up to you, placing both hands on either side of your hips, doing his best not to react to your near-naked body. “Why?”
You lean back, trying to create more distance to try and give him an answer that you don’t even know yourself, but he just keeps closing in. Not letting you escape this time. You’ve never seen him so riled up before, it’s…
Well…
“Because I came onto you? Because I tried to do what no one else will do for you?” His voice shakes when he says it, and you can feel the heat radiating from him. Is he…about to cry?
Only now, seeing him so close with an entirely sober brain do you realize an answer. Maybe not to his question of why, but to the same question you’ve been asking yourself. It’s because of that look in his eye. You’ve never been able to put a word to it, but now with him demanding you explain yourself so closely, you see it.
He’s desperate. 
Arguably as desperate as you’ve felt to fill the void. Except, he’s trying to do that for you and you won’t let him out of what? Fucking fear? Hell, at this point the history means close to nothing when it comes to all the new memories he’s made in this home, even without you. The history of babysitting him, the history of your ex husband leaving you. It doesn’t matter.
You think hard, so hard that you feel your eyes burn as you stare up at him. Glancing without intention to his jaw when he clenches it, to his neck when he swallows his words, to his lips, his eyes, the hair falling in his face…and you just–
You reach up, running a soothing hand through his hair to get it out of his face. Then you see those same desperate eyes somehow grow more desperate as he lowers them, leaning into the touch, as if you’ve been starving him the same way you’ve been starved for years. He falls silent too, cutting himself off mid-question just to feel you touch him for the first time.
“I don’t know.” You say, which seems like a better answer than having an excuse. What can you say otherwise? That it’s because it shouldn’t  be him? That you’re afraid he’ll realize he’s not ready to settle? To be a dad? He’ll ask why, and it’ll be the same answer you gave on that drunken night. An answer that you no longer care about. 
You babysat him when he was a child, but you were still a child too. 
You were still a child, and time changes things.
Your ex husband left you, and you’re afraid he will too, especially because he’s so much younger? Who cares?
Your answer seems to fly right past his head though, because he’s still leaning to feel your fingers in his hair, and he’s looking at you as if nothing you say will matter unless you make it hold some weight to him. 
“Donghyuck–” You pause, scratching right at his nape, uncaring of how you can feel your towel loosening on your body. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Somehow, his name on your lips is what he needed to hear. The tone of it, the rasp in your voice, your fingers in his hair. Actions speak louder than anything the two of you could say right now, and he can’t help it. Nothing can stop him, not even you at this point. 
He hasn’t done anything wrong you say? It’s because he fucking knows what you need.
You inhale deeply, holding your breath when you feel your back hit your mattress, his warm hands instantly taking advantage of your freshly-showered state and tugging at the towel just slightly to let it fall open. You hear a slight breath from him at that moment, an inhale. There, he climbs onto the bed, nudging himself between your legs and trapping you there under him, both hands holding your arms down.
Like he’s afraid you’ll reject him again.
“You’re going to let me take care of you now.” He demands, though to him it sounds more like a plea solely due to the fact that he’s so fucking turned on it’s unreal. That feeling of when your fingers were in his hair? Seeing your naked body? Unshaved pussy? Being in this fucking room with you? It throws him into overdrive, especially with the way you just lay there blinking up at him in surprise. The anger melting away only amplifies it more. 
How could you do this to him? Genuinely, how could you have let him fucking suffer for you like this? 
Still, you blink up as if you’re a deer caught in headlights and it makes his heart thump against his ribcage. Your eyes are so bright, that glint of sadness he had seen so many times isn’t there right now. And there’s so much adrenaline inside of him, like he needs to move fast before you change your mind again. You’ve not let him do this for some fucking reason or another and now you’re just laying here for him.
 There, with your entire body on display, and you appear to be docile. Fucking obedient? Like he always knew you would be if you’d just drop the fucking act?! You were meant for him and him alone, and he’s going to show you why.
In all honesty, you’re tired of denying yourself by now. From the moment you saw him that day cleaning your pool for the first time, you’ve wanted him on some level. It wasn’t an emotional attachment, but a hope, a fantasy for you. And when you recognized him, you were more impressed with him than embarrassed. You tried not to let your eyes wander out of guilt, out of feeling like a pervert. 
And then, that day when he came onto you, he was just a man to you. Your faux guilt kept you from letting him, and your hope to be chased kept you from it too. As if you’ve never pleasured yourself to the thought of him, shamefully in this very bed. As if you’ve never called out his name with a silent breath. If you keep going at this point, you’ll lose him before ever knowing what he could really be for you. 
This is his last ditch effort to beat you at your own game, and you’re ready to lose.
  So, now, you let yourself get lost in him. In his eyes and the way he pleads and makes his demands. He probably doesn’t recognize his strength against you right now, or how much it’s turning you on. With the way he has both hands on your wrists, probably bruising them, and there’s nothing you could do even if you wanted to. His weight holding you down feels better than you imagined. 
After so long, with so many failed hookups where you’ve told them of your daughter and all they’ve done in return is get their orgasm then leave…Haechan. He wants to take care of you? 
He wants to…give you what you need?
Fuck, you know he can. That’s the fucked up part. He’s proved it so many times to you in so many ways. You’ve watched him, the way he moves and acts around you. He’s exactly what you need.You pushed him to this point, where his sanity is on the brink of crashing. Taking it away from him again feels wrong, because it’s exactly what you want.
And when he presses his leg between yours, he knows.
“Again?” He comments, now releasing your wrist from one hand and running it down, able to slip his fingers right into the slick of your bare pussy. “You’re wet.” 
You still just blink up at him with an intake of breath at the pleasure, thoughts running left and right on what to do, finally realizing you don’t want to do a damn thing. He’d do it all if you let him. Clean your house, be a father, fix all of the breaks, make you wet.
And you just feel him, the way his fingers play around with what he does to you. You can practically feel his confidence rise at the way you spread your legs a bit more, as if to give him more access. When you look at him, his expression remains harsh, but slowly he moves himself down, lips brushing over one of your nipples while keeping eye contact.
Still that irritated look, like he’s mad you haven’t let him do this before now.
“How many times are you going to pretend like I’m not the one who gets you wet?” He asks before rubbing circles around your clit, tongue flicking in the same way around your nipple. “Like I don’t have a right to take care of you?”
Your breath is still caught in your throat, trying to be careful about what you say right now despite knowing you can’t speak. You focus on what he’s doing instead, losing yourself to something you’ve not felt in far, far too long. 
He’s right. He’s gotten you wet more than once by now. More than he knows. 
And goddamn, he knew your tits could bounce, but the way they move without the support of a bra, the plush, soft feeling of your nipple growing erect in his mouth, all for him to bite and pull at. He does it too, listening to the little seething sound of pain from you when he pulls all the way back with your nipple between his teeth. Only to let it fall from his mouth and break eye contact with you to see the jiggle as it falls.
His cock twitches, at everything that you are right now, feeling more pleasure through seeing you like this alone compared to fucking his own fist on your bedroom floor. He notes how your legs squeeze him more at the nipple stimulation than his fingers too, memorizing the way your labia falls open between them. He smirks, flicking his tongue more, quicker. 
There. There it is.
A low rumble in your chest falls from your lips. Soft, a moan. A very small, delicate sound.
“You like this?” Haechan asks, looking up at you, letting his tongue fall from his mouth again and flicking the erect nub. “When I play with your tits?”
You nod, throwing an arm over your face in embarrassment that this is actually happening. You’re letting him. Already you feel yourself heat up more, even when he takes his fingers away from your clit and instead, uses them to flick your other nipple. 
And he does this for a few minutes. Paying special attention to your tits, going back and forth with his fingers and tongue to each bud, trying so hard to not stop just to shove his cock between them and use them the way he’s always wanted. He focuses on drawing out more and more little sounds from you instead, slurping his own saliva from your painfully erect nipples, pulling back, blowing cold air, then warming it up again with his lips. All while simultaneously groping, flicking, and pinching with his other hand. 
“Jesus, Haechan–” You moan quietly, chest rising and falling as he squeezes and licks against you. 
That’s right, say his name. Let him fucking know he’s doing what you like. Haechan thinks, feeling his cock weep in his pants as he does it. Wondering just how sensitive you are to be reacting like this to simple nipple stimulation. God, he’s wanted to suck on these for so long, and now you’re letting him. They’re so big, so plush. He wants to fucking cover them with his mouth, he wants to bury his face in them, kiss them all over them. 
And if they were to get bigger? He moans at the thought, remembering that conversation you had with your mom. You want another. He bets they’d swell up–Oh, fuck yeah. They’d probably hurt to rub against your shirt. God, fuck, he can’t control his thoughts right now.
 Finally. 
Fucking finally, he has you and he’s not going to let you run away again.
He doesn’t fucking care if it’s forward. He wants what he wants, you want what you want. That want just so happens to line up. Besides, he’s already proved himself to you, he knows it. If you’re letting him do this, maybe you’d let him stay like this. 
“Did they get bigger?” He moans briefly as he swaps to your other nipple again. “So full, so heavy, were they leaking all over you?”
You listen to him, trying not to feel the pit in your stomach bubble with even more arousal at his blatant and dirty words, feeling your clit throb at the stimulation your tits are getting right now. 
“Makes my dick fucking throb just thinking about it. Fuck–” 
“Let me give you another,” He mumbles now, almost mindlessly before looking up at you with an intense gaze as he bites down, indicating that he’s not mindless about it at all. 
“Swell you up, make you glow–”
Oh. 
Why is that– why are you dripping?
He hears that moan you let out. Different from the others, almost desperate.
“Mm, yeah.” He encourages it, now allowing his hand to travel back down to witness how much wetter you’ve gotten at those words. So messy, so perfect. “Knew you’d want it raw.”
You can’t help the nod, as it comes before you even process his words solely because you feel his fingers slip inside of you. You haven’t been this wet in so, so long. You want to feel it. To be full again, of anything. Of him.
“Ye-” You start, interrupting yourself with a bite of your lip and your eyes rolling back. 
“That’s right mama,” He coos, tilting his fingers up and amplifying the pressure inside of you. “Gonna let me take good care of this pussy, yeah?” He adds, lifting from your tits and ghosting his lips over yours. 
He watches you closely, that daze in your eye. God, you look so horny right now. There’s nothing more he wants than to see this time and time again. To let you wake up every morning with his warm cum inside of you, to see your belly swell with his child, to see your tits grow until they hurt. 
He’d take care of you. He’d take good fucking care of you. 
“Say something.” Haechan whispers against your lips, darting his tongue out against your lips, angling his fingers up and making you moan. “Say you want me to give it to you raw.”
You open your mouth, feeling his tongue lick and swallow up that moan you just gave him before you try to compose yourself. You can’t help it, you’re so, so sensitive right now and you can’t help but find it incredibly sexy to be here, laid bare, while he’s still fully clothed.
Like he really is doing this for you. He’s not trying to get his own orgasm and leave. You’re weak and those words of “let me give you another” shines in your head. Weak, you’re weak. You should be thinking about condoms, you should be thinking about the consequences of this. 
But you’re not. 
You do like it raw.
“Haechan–” You stutter as you try to grasp the reality of his words, feeling his fingers repeatedly hit right where you need it. “I’m…not protected.”
He moans. Loudly, before huffing out an irritated groan.
“You must really want it then.” He narrows his eyes at you. “Going out all the time trying to get fucked–” 
He plunges his fingers in again, deep, and holds them there as he pulls back to look at you. To really look at you, then he glares.
“You’d really let just some fucking dude give you a baby?” 
You repeatedly shake your head. 
“No!” You retort, thrusting your hips up. “I just–”
“Mhm,” He pulls his fingers out now, sliding himself down so fast that you can barely comprehend him sucking your clit into his mouth before pulling back in a moan at the taste of you. “If mama wants another, daddy will give her one.” He says now, as if to pacify you.
As if to give you everything. 
And you’d argue, really, you would.  You want another child so bad, but this is– it’s too soon. You haven’t even established a relationship with him yet. Boundaries haven’t been discussed. His college plan– but fuck it’s not entirely your fault that you’re like, super turned on by the idea of it. To the thought of being so filled with cum that there’s no possible way you couldn’t end up pregnant. An indication that, no matter what, no man at a club could fulfill the arousal for you even if they cared to do it. 
You’d never have let them actually fuck you raw. 
Haechan though…how can you keep telling him no?
How could you reject him again when you want it so badly? 
Fuck now, think later.
“Yeah–” You say against your better judgement, hands reaching down to his hair so you can grind up against his mouth, lost to the arousal as you mimic what he referred to himself as. “Daddy?”
You feel his mouth fall slack at that, as if you’re accepting him in full now. You feel your clit hit nothing in his open mouth, but it throbs harder. 
 He knew you were slightly into him for letting him do this at all, but now, you’re truly accepting it. Like you know he’ll fucking do it, like you want him to fucking do it.
“That’s right,” He moans against your clit as he licks at it, barely able to comprehend your voice calling him that but clinging to it all the same.  “Gonna let daddy do it all for you.”  
Yeah. You are. You’re gonna let him do it. All of it. 
And then, the room is enveloped in quiet moans, more from Haechan than from you due to your breath being stuck in your throat. His tongue, licking every part of your sensitive cunt, his hands reaching back up to your tits, fondling, pinching, painfully tugging at them as he moans louder, louder, louder for you to want him.
He presses his hips up and against your mattress as he tastes you, so deeply it hurts his cock to neglect it like this. Each rub feels raw, twitching and pulsing to be let out, to be inside of you, on you, against you. Filling you up with his cum, plugging it in as a promise that you can’t leave him even if you wanted to. 
He’s going to fucking do exactly what he said he would. 
And only when you feel his tongue lap against your hole do you finally release your breath, “Daddy” coming out in a choked back sob. It breaks him, his body going into overdrive as he pulls back and just– stares at you with wild eyes. 
You stare back up at him, knowing that calling him that means something more than a cringe little roleplay kink. It means something deeper to him. He wants to be a dad, a real one.
“Oh yeah?” He finally says, hands going straight to his button and zipper. 
You can’t help it, biting your lower lip as you blink up, watching his shoulders move, the veins on his arms protruding as he rushes to pull it out and– oh. You moan at it, the way his heavy, slicked up, cock falls out, dark, needy. 
“Daddy–” You urge him on, knowing that it’s driving him absolutely insane. 
“Mhm?” He shuffles himself off the bed, letting his pants drop as he lifts his shirt off of him and fucking glares at your tits. “You want daddy’s cock?”  He adds now, shooting his eyes up to you as both of his hands land on your legs.
Your mind goes blank when you feel him slide his hands around to the back of your thighs, pushing your legs forward, curling you in on yourself, forcing your pussy to be out and on display for him. 
And you watch him, the way he stares down at it. It’s embarrassing to be so seen right now, not having expected to get fucked open by anyone tonight, let alone him. You probably should have shaved or something, or like, not gotten out of the habit in the first place. But he moans at it, mouth falling open at the fact that you are entirely a fucking woman. 
A fucking mother.
The prettiest pussy he’s ever fucking seen let alone tasted.
And he moans, breaking the silence, forgetting only for a moment how long he’s been wanting this. It boosts your confidence more than you’ve ever felt. His reaction to this is more than your ex husband’s reaction to you when you were pristine and borderline pornstar quality. 
Haechan doesn’t see you as used and neglected, he just sees you. And this. This is the pussy he wants. This is what he wants to put his baby in. 
When he flicks his eyes back to you, with that same open mouthed expression, it knocks the breath out of you. There’s so much love in his eyes, or maybe lust, you don’t care. You think you’re matching that expression for him too, because it’s like he can’t hold back anymore. He can’t just sit and look at you anymore. 
He just can’t.
And you feel it, his thick head pushing past the tightened, pulsing hole and not stopping. He pushes in slowly, painfully slow, to the point you’re both looking at each other with a slack jaw. Finally. The pain of it, the pleasure, the fucking need you’ve been trying to fulfill. 
That look on your face drives him wild too, he knows he has you by now. You like it, you love the way he slides in and makes damn sure you feel it. Every second of the slide pries you open, and he wants to remember this moment forever. He wants you to fucking remember too. 
Wants you to know that no one will ever fit inside of you so perfectly, so deeply.
When he finally bottoms out, he leans forward to keep himself buried deep as he ghosts his lips over yours. He feels the way you try to kiss him, but he pulls back with a confident smirk. 
“When was the last time you’ve felt a cock so deep in you?” He whispers hotly, knowing you need not answer. Knowing you won’t answer, not with the way you’re instantly lifting your head and kissing him. 
Your pussy pulses around him when you lick into his mouth, the first real kiss sending his heart soaring. He twitches inside of you with each squeeze, and kisses you harder, deeper. And somehow, it brings tears to your eyes. 
The way he kisses, the way he makes you feel him. Fuck, the way he makes you feel whole, so wanted, like you’re amazing to him. In more ways than just a body to fuck, but he’s stuck around despite all of your avoidance and rejections. You hope you’re making it worth it. 
Fuck, you need to feel worth it to him.
“You’d better not fucking pull out.” You groan through a breath, his lips still kissing you through your words as he finally pulls his hips back, fucking in once. 
Hard.
Honestly, could you have said anything else at this moment? He’s trying to make this last, he needs it to last. If you keep fucking talking, saying everything he’s ever wanted to hear– 
“Fuck,”  He moans, his hands moving up to your cheeks as he licks into your mouth. “You can’t–”  He continues, fucking in again, moving your body up with each thrust do to the sheer force of him trying to plunge in as deep as he can. “You can’t fucking say that to me right now.”
You’re seeing stars though, unable to say anything else as your eyes roll back at the way the head of his cock practically kisses your cervix with each push into you. He’s so rough, so desperate for it. 
You don’t think he expected you to respond either, with the way he keeps his lips on yours, his body pressed so closely that having your legs to your chest means nothing to him now. Mating press be damned, he’s lost his mind to the feeling, not the aesthetic of being a fucking dad. 
Your legs wrap around him instead, and he’s all too happy to feel it. Your legs hug him the same way your arms do, the same way your pussy does, and he’s fucking in love with you. 
He braces one hand back against your leg, holding it against his hips as he continues to fuck forward, still at the same pace. Deep and with purpose. Every few seconds the bursts of pleasure run through him, making him shiver and moan into your mouth. Little grunts, near whimpers for you to let him give you the world. 
More than this. More than fucking, more than taking care of you, more than anything he could ever possibly give you. He’ll find a way. 
And then, you’re clenching hard, matching his near-whimpers except moaning in full pants, babbling and drooling cries against his mouth. 
“Mama–” Haechan soothes, continuing his pace as he tilts his head back to get a good look at that lost gaze in your eyes. “You’re crying?”
You nod with a laugh, tears rolling down the same way the wet of your cunt slips down your ass. You’ve never felt so good, so fucking full.  And for some reason, that does him in. Making it last be damned, he genuinely thinks he’s won you over. He can make it last next time, he can do more next time, he can–
He leans back all the way now, onto his knees as your legs try to hug him back to you, and his eyes go straight back to those tits. The way he made a promise. The way they bounce, slick with his sweat from pressing against you. 
“Fuck, you’re so pretty.” He grunts in a breath, now quickening his pace and snapping his hips. Pulling out all the way briefly to plunge into your again. “Can’t get any deeper–” He continues, flicking his eyes from your face, to your tits, to that beautiful pussy of yours swallowing him up. 
Now his eyes roll back, hands going back to your thighs to push you back into position. No way in hell can he last, not at a pace like this, inside of a woman like you. 
“Don’t pull out.” You repeat again in a breath, seeing his face and the way he focuses solely on you. You know he’s going to cum, and you want him to. You want to feel it, every single fucking drop of it. 
“Yeah?” He nods his head with laser-focus on your pussy now, staring down as he points tight, short thrusts inside of you. “Momma wants my cum? Hm?”
Oh, he’s fucking gone.
“She likes it?” He continues to talk himself up. “Likes being so fucking full of it? Yeah?” 
Goddamn, fuck, he’s insane. 
“Yes, daddy–” You whisper-shout, fingers shooting to your clit, other hand raising to your mouth to silence the moans as to not be too loud. 
“Fuck, yeah you do.”  He lets out a near growl, his voice low and rumbled as he slaps your hand away, pressing hard on your clit with his thumb as he buries himself in you once more and stiffening his abs. “That’s right.”
And instantly upon feeling him pulse, that first spurt of cum painting your insides, you lose yourself with him. Your fingers drop from your mouth and you release a pornographic moan for him, rutting yourself against him, as if to fuck it deeper into you. 
It only prolongs the orgasm though, for both of you. 
Haechan is silent, trying to keep his eyes open through the pleasure as you pulse and squirt around him, his thumb pressing so hard  into your clit, his cock cumming so deep, filling you up so well– He wants to see it. Wants to watch you fall apart for him. Wants to witness the way you let him do this. 
And he holds himself there, so hard and so full of pleasure for you. Keeping himself practically impaled against your cervix until your body falls slack. Still, he fucks it into you, holding you in place with a softer moan now. No longer guttural or deep from his chest. His breathing is rough, a soft, near feminine moan leaves his lips as he falls forward onto you. 
You wince along with him at the sensitivity, panting, a sweating tangle of a mess the two of you have become. And it’s the fact that it’s the first time you’ve ever gotten off at the same time as someone else. You feel…soft. 
Your hands find their way to his hair as his face squished against your tits while he regains breath, not daring to move his hips because your pussy is too warm to leave right now. You brush the sweat-slicked hair out of his eyes, running your fingers all the way back to his nap, and then slowly down his back to rub and scratch.
He shivers at the feeling, humming the same feminine-tone he had released previously. And all he can do is hear your heart thumping against your chest, even through these soft tits of a pillow he’s lying against.
Haechan never wants to move again, not from this spot, ever. 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
“You know I’m in love with you, right?” Haechan mentions briefly after a long moment of silence, looking up at you with his wet hair. 
Deep in the night, your food still cold and on the table, you’ve found yourself freshly showered and on your living room couch with Haechan’s head on your lap. He made sure to have stayed long enough inside of you to implant…something if it was going to happen. So he didn’t argue a shower, and you didn’t argue letting him join you either. 
He had washed you, gently running his hands between your legs with what you can only describe as the softest, most alluring face a man has ever given you. Like he won the lottery, or found the answer to eternal life or something. You repaid him by letting him admire your tits again while you jerked him off, but that’s besides the point. 
“Like, I’m not going to leave. I hope you know that.” He adds with a soft groan to your hands still in his hair. His new favorite thing. 
You look down at him, hand moving to his cheek as the words hit you in the chest.
There’s anxiety along with happiness, at all of the boundaries and serious conversations that will need to be had now, but still, you feel like you’re glowing when he looks at you.
He didn’t even have to say it, and arguably you probably don’t need to say it back either. You think he sees it in you. Even if he didn’t, you think he’d take anything you give to him and cling to it. After all, it only took one time for you to break entirely for him. 
“Are you now?” You smile with a chuckle, looking back to the tv and pretending to watch it. “Well, that’s good. Otherwise I’d be making you go get a plan B or something.” 
His eyes narrow at you.
“Like hell I’d let you, even if I didn’t love you.” He groans. “But I do, so don’t ever say that shit again.”
You chuckle, feeling the calm in your home that once felt so chaotic. It’s quiet now, both inside and outside of your head. 
“Congratulations, by the way.”
He looks at you with question, quirking a brow.
“For finishing your finals, I mean.” You smile, going back to petting through his hair and feeling like you’re on top of the world, despite what you assume to become half of your world lying his head on top of you. 
“Oh, right.” He smiles, now turning his head to watch the tv. “I probably failed them.”
You don’t believe that, but even if he did, you think you could be what he needs too. He wouldn’t have to work if he didn’t want to.
If he’s really in love with you, all he’d have to do is…not leave. 
“Are you sure you want to be having these conversations with me? You can just call it a hook-up.” You finally say, hoping he means it, knowing it breaks your heart a bit to give him an out. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m going to trap you here just because I’m a little smitten too.” 
Haechan glares, blinking up at you.
“I literally just tried to put a baby in you.” 
That’s fair. 
“And you’re not going to run off? Get cold feet?” 
“Can you stop doubting me and just let me do what I want for once?” He argues playfully. “Do you even know how much that barbie fucking dream house costed me? I couldn’t run even if, for some stupid ass reason, wanted to. I love her too.”
Silence for a moment.
“Maybe even more than I love you.” 
You really, really, want to believe him.
So, you do. 
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nereidprinc3ss · 5 months ago
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in which spencer disappears from fem!reader's life entirely for three months, right as it seems they were finally about to make things official. when he comes back they reunite, all the while knowing things can't be the same as they were.
18+ (smut, angst) warnings/tags: oh god so many. NOT canon compliant in the slightest, i make shit up, softdom!spence, nipple stuff prob, fingering, oral f receiving, piv sex, unprotected sex, pet names, tara mentioned, depression, mentions of trauma cause its the prison arc duh, passing mentions of alcohol, mentions of spencer losing weight, reader mistakenly thinks spencer tried to kill himself BUT ONLY FOR A SECOND, where is diana reid, nobody knows or cares, probably filming glee, optimistic ending a/n: haven't posted smut in forever but this wip required it and the angst was so angsty i just had to finish it. it was started in jan or feb and subsequently added to and changed months apart and then edited so the writing quality varies from section to section which i apologize for. originally based on good guy by julia jacklin... also the odyssey by homer? can't really explain that one you'll just have to see for yourself anyway byeeee ilysm!!! PLS tell me if you liked it! or if you hated it! but preferably if you liked it! MWAH! wc <12k
It’s been about three months since you last saw Spencer Reid.
About three months since you had an early Valentine’s Day celebration (even though you weren’t a couple) complete with champagne (even though he doesn’t usually drink) and slow dancing (even though you swore you’d be terrible and he spent the first ten minutes laughing at you as you stepped on his toes.)
About three months since you finally settled your head on his shoulder and let the warbling vinyl carry you somewhere distant as the two of you danced slow circles on the parquet floor for what felt like hours.
You’d have liked him to stay later that night. You’d have liked him to stay all night if you were being honest with yourself, but at 11:45 he gently pulled away and told you he had to go.
“Curfew?” you joked, the corner of your mouth lifting a little and you hoped you were hiding your disappointment well.
“Actually, I’m going down to Texas for a few days to speak with one of the leading doctors in experimental Alzheimer's and dementia treatment. I’m going to see if he can get my mom into a clinical trial. I leave early tomorrow morning.”
“Oh my god, that’s amazing, Spencer! What are you doing still here? You should be at home getting ready to go!”
A rosy blush stains his cheeks and he looks down at the ground, laughing that little self-deprecating laugh of his. It makes your heart dance to see him so happy, makes you want to wrap your arms around him and never let him go so that he knows how much you absolutely adore him—but you settle for an affectionate squeeze where your hands have come to rest on his biceps.
“I wanted to see you tonight because I won’t be here for Valentine’s Day... but I still really wanted to spend it with you,” he admits meekly.
If before your heart was dancing, it is now melting.
The dreaded ‘what are we’ talk has been lurking in the dark corners of every conversation you have with each other lately—at least, in your mind it has. What you have with Spencer is not easily defined, and near impossible to explain to your friends—you act like a couple, you go out on dates, he introduces you to his team like you’re his girlfriend without ever putting it into so many words—but this validation that your pseudo-relationship might be evolving is better than any flowers he could have gotten you (although the peonies he brought will look very nice on your bedside table.)
“Four whole days... what will I do without you?” you whisper, brushing a hand along his face, and your chest aches with the heavy truth of it—despite the fact that he often is gone for stretches about that length. They don’t ever start to feel shorter.
“Well, you can start by reading that copy of The Odyssey I annotated for you.”
“Depressing,” you admit. “And a little ominous, considering you’re about to embark on a hero’s journey.”
“I think you’ll like this one,” he smiles.
You chew on your bottom lip, looking up at him as you think.
“Give me something to look forward to,” you say, earnestly.
“I—well, honestly, I just really want to kiss you and I’ve wanted to for a long time now and, you know, if that’s something you’re maybe also interested in then we could, uh, figure out a time to—”
“You want to kiss me?”
“Wh—you couldn’t tell?” Spencer says, like he can’t believe it.
As if on reflex, you lunge up and capture his lips with your own. It obviously catches him by surprise, but when you lower from your tiptoes he follows you, pulling you in closer and holding your face in his hands.
It’s too natural, too right, to be exhilarating. There’s no rush of adrenaline—it's more like stepping into a hot bath or warming your freezing hands at a fire. Like pieces clicking into place. It’s a relief.
You breathe into it, letting more and more of yourself melt against him. He keeps coming back to you deeper and deeper like a rising tide, and you want more than anything to keep getting closer to him—but then he stops. He stays close enough for you to breathe his air, but dodges your kiss gently before supplanting it with a gentle one to the corner of your mouth.
“I really have to go,” he breathes, before moving away from your mouth to kiss your forehead and speak softly against your skin. “If I don’t leave now I’ll be here all night.”
Which is exactly what you want, and the implication does little to make you want him less. But you care about him too much to be so selfish.
At some point, his hands found their way into your hair, and you gently grab his wrists.
“Incentive for you to come home.”
Nearly three months since that night.
At first when he stopped answering texts, you’d assumed he just had too much going on down in Texas. Which you could understand—you knew how stressful this situation with his mother was.
Even when four days came and went without even an alert from him that he was back in town, you thought, okay, maybe he’s been called away on a case. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared because of his work. But even then, he’d at least text you enough information so that you would know he was alive. Now, radio silence.
So you tried not to be clingy. You tried to act like an adult, to focus on school and your life outside of Spencer, but when Tara Lewis cancelled your weekly meeting due to an “unforeseen work-related emergency”you called her immediately. Tara was something of a mentor, and it was she who had connected you and Spencer to begin with. You had met the other members of his team by that point, yes, but none who you knew as well as Tara.
When she had informed you that Spencer had been arrested in Mexico and was now facing prison time for murder, you laughed.
Laughed until you realized her end of the line was silent.
Realized it was not at all a joke.
In a catatonic state of tranquility, you asked her for more details. Beyond assuring you of his innocence, she couldn’t (or more likely, wouldn’t) provide them. Asked where he was now. Asked all the right things that made sense to ask.
Then you hung up and had a panic attack because Tara said something about 25 years and you saw Spencer evaporate from your future like an apparition.
Slowly, you felt him evaporating from your past, too. Those memories from the night he left, became visions of you swaying with a ghost. Holding nothing but light between your hands as you kissed the peony air of your apartment.
He doesn’t want to see you, she had said into the phone one night, her tinny voice cutting in and out. You’re not on his list of approved visitors.
“You asked him about me?” you had whispered, curled up on top of your made bed in the dark.
I tried. I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I know more.
All your days melded together like a muddied smear of paint. Suddenly you felt you had nothing to look forward to. No anchor, no goal. Yes, a PhD... and then what?
The only thing that punctuated one 24 hour period from the next was the time you spent crying because Spencer was in prison and he didn’t want to see you and by the looks of things you may never see him again. When you weren’t crying, you were thinking about how your life was a big cosmic joke. An unfortunate statistical anomaly that didn’t mean anything to anyone else, and that you couldn’t do anything about.
That copy of The Odyssey, which wasn’t even bound and instead was a thick stack of printer paper organized by a single black clip, became something of a manifesto for you—a tome that your poured over, reading and re-reading each note in the margins, each word beautiful and imbued with meaning because you knew Spencer had selected every single one specifically for you. You traced the letters reverently, because in a way this was the last thing he had said to you—about Lattimore’s faith to the original text, Merrill’s strict use of dactylic hexameter, the stylings of Wilson and Lombardo, and how he thought you would enjoy Hammond’s prose just as much as he did.
Day by day it was becoming more prophetic than fictional, and you allowed yourself to sink into madness. You would rather be a deluded zealot than be nothing at all.
He didn’t want to see you.
He might as well have been dead, for all that you were grieving him. And you started to hate him, because he wasn’t dead, but wouldn’t do you the kindness of proving it. Like a festering wound, scratched open day after day so as not to ever heal, you had to live knowing he was less than an hour away. So no, you weren’t exactly over it. You lived day by day, waiting for the occasional call from Tara to keep you updated on Spencer, but either she didn’t want to share much about how he was doing, or he had specifically barred her from doing so, because she was always sparse on the personal side of things. That thought actually lifted your spirits, because it meant he was at least acknowledging your existence in some tiny way.
But your routine was becoming more regular, and so you staid on top of your classes and your non-Reid related meetings with Tara once a week, and you learned to dip your toes into existential dread and the oily black pool of depression every night without ever fully submerging yourself. You learned hope, because it was pretty much all you had, and the BAU had confidence that they would get Spencer out one way or another so you did too.
So you didn’t really think about it when you missed a couple of calls from Tara some evening in May. You were preparing for finals and had way too much on your plate academically to think about anything else which was a welcome relief so you fully embraced it. I’ll call her back tomorrow, you think, as you clean up from dinner before going back to the living room where your textbooks and papers are completely covering every available surface. Maybe I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life after school, but I’ll be damned if I don’t even make it that far.
Hours later, well into the night, you’d all but forgotten about the calls. A knock at the door takes you a bit by surprise, and you frown as you stand again, tugging your Georgetown sweatshirt down over your shorts as you shuffle to the entrance of your apartment. You’re not expecting anyone, so you crack the door, peering around the edge of it.
And you couldn’t even consider trying to hide that shaky inhalation of dead air when you see Spencer standing on the other side.
Surely you’re hallucinating.
Surely this man in front of you who looks like he just got back from a day of work didn’t spend three months in prison pretending you didn’t exist.
He looks the same. Hair a bit longer, maybe—and gaunter even more than is normal for him. 
But it's him.
You can’t think about the apprehensive look on his face—you can’t think about the impossibility of him being here. You can’t think at all. Without your explicit permission, your body surges forward into his, and he’s real, and alive, and warm, and he is an anachronism in the hallway as he accepts everything you pour into the embrace, doesn’t flinch when you move your arms from around his waist to loop around his neck and back to his waist again with crushing force because you just can’t get him close enough.
“I’m sorry,” Spencer mutters into your hair, I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry, he keeps saying, rubbing your back as you try to find a solid grip on the sleek material of his suit—try to gather all the pieces of him, already afraid he might fall apart and float away again.
“You—dis—disappeared,” you hiccup after an eternity, pulling away enough to look up at his pretty face. Tears blur your vision and darken the front of his jacket, bending the florescent lights so they form a kind of halo above his head.
Through the surreal haze you can see his throat bob.
“I know.”
He knows?
He knows?
You scoff.
“You have no fucking idea, Spencer. What the fuck is wrong with you? I—I'm—”
The hot anger is such a relief for a second, boiling the oceans of your despair into a wrathful, scorching fog, but as soon as you try to tell him how you feel, the barbed wire cuts into your throat again. You shove him away, skin burning where his hands had been.
“I’m sorry,” he croaks, hands hanging uselessly at his side. There’s that kicked puppy look about him—and it’s familiar, but now there’s more damage. You don’t know anything about his time in prison, you haven’t heard a damn thing, but beneath the glassy desperation in his eyes there is an unfathomable void that seems to be preventing him from being fully present—and you realize for the first time that he is different.
It chills you.
Before, you and Spencer shared everything. There wasn’t one part of his internal machinations that you didn’t understand, nothing you kept from each other. But as you study him now from a few feet away, you realize there might as well be a yawning chasm between the two of you.
He is so different.
Those eyes look deeper. No gears turning just behind the slashes of gold and brown anymore—only an endless dark corridor that goes places you will never go.
Gone is the perpetual boyish up-turn at the corner of his lips that always made him look slightly vacant in a way that you found incredibly amusing. Something you had been so fond of, even if you teased him.
He seems to have aged ten years—if not physically, then in demeanor. And now you feel like a little kid throwing a tantrum.
You cross your arms, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.
You’re embarrassed. And pissed. And relieved. Everything is worse and better. You want to fall back into his arms, but you have been jarred by the revelation that this might not be the same Spencer. It might not be the same relationship. You have no idea where you stand.
He says your name gently, with so much familiarity you’re briefly jerked into the past. It makes you wish you could look up to find him as he was three months ago. Wish this was just a bad dream. But that’s not fair to him.
“Sorry,” you mutter, studying the grey carpet fibers instead of looking at him.
“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says immediately, “you’re right. I don’t—” he clears his throat— “I’m being incredibly selfish. I shouldn’t have just shown up, I’ll just—I'll leave. I’m sorry.”
A silent moment passes.
You don’t look up as he turns and swiftly begins to move down the hall toward the stairway, leaving as quickly and silently as he had come, like a few bars of a song sighed in and away on a fleeting breeze.
Your bare feet are concretely planted, imagining him jogging down the steps and speed-walking away from your building—
And suddenly you’re sprinting after him, feeling like you might puke because Spencer was just here and you let him go again—and even though you’re still so mad and confused and hurt, the realization that he is leaving again makes the entire building spin and lurch.
“Wait!” You yell, almost wiping out as you run down the stairs and whip around corners in your slippery fucking socks. “Please, wait!”
The lobby is already empty as you spill out into it, and cold dread tightens around your neck like a fist as you shoulder your way through the double doors and right into Spencer.
“Please don’t leave again, you just—I'm sorry, I really need you to not go—” you blabber, lachrymose once more, gripping onto his forearms for dear life.
“I’m not going,” he breathes shakily. “I tried to leave because I think you were right and maybe I should and maybe it would be better for you but I can’t.”
“You can’t,” you agree, more sob than spoken word. He cups your jaw, then your cheeks, wiping tears and brushing away hair like he can’t figure out how to hold enough of you between his hands. The wild kaleidoscope of his eyes, bright and alive and real as he scans you desperately captures your attention enough to slow the tears to a trickle. He notices this and stares back, entranced.
A silent agreement is made, or maybe an inevitable fate is accepted—either way, something was set in motion three months ago and it matters to see it through. Spencer kisses you and you’re ready for it. You don’t need slow or tender. You need to feel how he feels. You need to know what he knows.
You sling your arms around his neck and he pulls you closer until you almost tip backward, chasing the bruising kiss even as you regain your footing. You want to drink him in and you do your best, breathing deeply as he kisses you deeper, backing you inside and toward the elevator.
“Is this okay?” he manages, only after blindly reaching for and mashing the up button on the wall panel.
Ideally it wouldn’t happen like this, but the world you live in obviously isn’t ideal and your personal situations as they coincide are far from ideal, so this is how it has to happen. But it’s hard to explain, and you’d rather not admit that this is so far from what you wanted for both of you and follow up with the fact that despite that you need him like you need water. So you don’t say a word as the metal doors slide open promptly. Instead you pull him in and let him press you to the chrome wall as he hits your floor button, and that very hand comes back to grab your ass like you didn’t think Spencer Reid capable of. It almost aches as his fingers dig into the flesh, but it’s a good ache because it means he’s real and he’s there.
You gasp as he hitches your leg up, arching into him. The shorts that you’re wearing leave very little to the imagination to begin with, but they become downright indecent like this.
Quickly the elevator stops and the doors hiss open. You don’t hesitate to pull Spencer by the hand down the hall. When you notice you left your door wide open, you don’t even care. Neither does he, apparently—once you’re inside he slams it shut, flipping the deadbolt while his eyes are glued to you like you’re already naked. Now Spencer is shameless in the way he drags his eyes over every curve, every place your clothes and hair are disheveled from his touch and eye-fucks you so obviously it makes your face warm. Three months ago Spencer would have at least been bashful about it when he met your eyes again, but this Spencer is far from apologetic as he pins you with his burning gaze once more. His hand stays stuck to the door like he’s holding himself back.
“Is this what you want?”
There’s an undercurrent of sorrow below the gravely arousal, like this isn’t what he wanted for the two of you either. But you’re both at the mercy of fate. This is all you have, and it might be all you can do for each other anymore. So you don’t need to say that, because he understands.
“Yeah. Yes, this is what I want.”
For just a second more he watches you from his place by the door, and there’s an unexpected softness to it. He looks at you the way he would have looked at you before. Like as long as he stays there he can entertain the idea of being that person again.
Need wins out quickly, though, and he surges forward. Immediately you’re caught in the riptide of him, helpless as he kisses you all the way to your bedroom.
He’s never been in here before. You find yourself glad it’s relatively clean—one of the pastimes you’d picked up in his absence was keeping everything tidy. It was something you could control.
A lamp glows at your bedside. You lean against the footboard of your bed, hands timidly behind your back and suddenly shy to have in him in your intimate space. Both of you set aside the heaving desperation long enough to catch your breaths, and for him to scan the room like he too is being forced to reconcile with the innate and unexpected intimacy of the moment. He cuts a harsh, dark gash in your sweetly decorated bedroom, radiating something wild and powerful and unsure of himself like a chained bull as he takes in the soft, pale bedding, the paintings and photos taped to the walls, the woven rug and the sheer drapery. His breathing slows as he studies it all—eyes eventually catching on something behind you. Looking is unnecessary. You’re sure he’s spotted the dried peonies in their ceramic vase. Or maybe the now worn stack of papers that is his Odyssey, marked up and soft around the edges from constant flipping-through.
Then Spencer looks at you, and that softness seeps in again. Along with something like... fear? Grief?
In some other universe your first time with Spencer is sweet and giggly and kind and he smiles at the decor in your room and looks around with wonder because it’s another way he gets to know you. It’s a different way to learn you from the inside.
You sense that he’s caught in between universes right now as well, painfully aware of what he would have given you that he can’t anymore.
He breathes your name like an apology, and foolishly you let a second go by in which you think he might offer you one. But he doesn’t. Not with his words, anyway. His eyes tell a different story.
“It’s fine,” you say unprompted on a whispered exhale, then a little louder as you push off the footboard, crossing the space until your hands are on his chest. You focus on his tie, not making eye contact as you rush to undo it. “It’s fine.”
He lets you do this for a few seconds before finally covering your trembling hands with his own. You still can’t meet his eyes.
“We don’t have to do—”
“No! No, please. I want to. I need—I need us to be okay.”
“Hey,” he murmurs, catching your chin and forcing you to look at him. “We are okay. Me and you are fine.”
It’s a pretty thought, but it’s not true. In fact, it’s a hideous and abject affront to the truth. Sure, maybe you’re fine in comparison to last week. Maybe anything feels fine compared to an eight by six cell. But it would be impossible for you and Spencer, for your relationship, whatever that relationship may be, to be fine. It’s especially impossible for him to make that claim, after all he did or rather didn’t do while he was gone. What you need is for him to stay anyway. What you need is to find a way to be with him, to exist with him, even when you are so clearly not fine.
“I just need you to stay,” you whisper, and he’s already nodding, wide-eyed like he’d do anything for you. You ignore all the bitter venom rising in your throat. You pretend this isn’t all happening after he cut you out of his life with a dirty switchblade. Instead you focus on his hands on yours, the familiar smell of him, which invites you to let go of each and every thought and worry. He must’ve showered before coming here, you realize. How long has he been out? What happened? 
“Okay. Okay, I can stay. What else can I do? How do I make it better?”
You sniffle and look back down.
“You can untie that for me.”
He hesitates, then nods some more, fingers working under yours to undo the tie around his neck.
“Okay.”
A moment goes by and after that final whispered word, the tension begins to build again. Spencer senses it in the way your fingertips linger on his chest and you step even closer, dragging them down to his belt. The metallic sound of it unbuckling, despite being your own doing, still manages to flip your stomach. How many times have you pictured this? When was the first time you realized you wanted it? You’re sure you haven’t stopped wanting it even once since then.
Spencer tosses the tie away and is shrugging off his jacket now, then before you see it coming he’s kissing you again, ducking down to do it. He feels taller this close up, and especially in your bedroom, where he just seems rather out of place. But you want him here. God, you want him here.
You break the kiss, forced to look down as you fumble with his belt.
“Sorry,” you gasp, embarrassed by your lack of dexterity. The light is barely sufficient to see what you’re doing, especially when he’s wearing black on black and your eyes are still bleary.
“You’re okay,” he assures you, and it’s so Spencer a fresh round of nerves electrifies the tips of your fingers. That thing is happening—the thing you’d hoped to avoid if you hadn’t lost momentum partway through, where you’re allowing your actual feelings for him to get in the way rather than getting swept up in the pathos of the moment and letting everything be easy and mindless. “Here, can I help you?”
But he doesn’t actually wait for an answer before he’s finishing off the belt for you, tugging it loose from his hips till it’s a leather coil in his hands. Your fingers brush the material and he lets you take it as if it were your prize. It’s heavier than you thought it’d be, and you just feel the weight of it in your hands for a moment, your dropped head brushing his chest.
You have a terrible feeling that if you do this now, it doesn’t mean everything will be alright. Because it can’t just go back to normal. Spencer has told you nothing of what must be an enormous trauma, and you haven’t spoken about it at all, but you sincerely doubt that after this he’s going to be ready to just jump into that committed relationship the two of you had been toying with for months before his absence. You’re almost... scared of him, now. Scared of where he’s been and what he’s endured—things you’re sure you couldn’t have taken. What that does to a person, you can’t imagine. He seems so solid and real in front of you now—but you know that’s not always enough. Maybe you’re just scared that somehow whatever he’s been through will have made him care for you less. That you were too far removed from the whole ordeal, and now you’ll never understand. If you could understand, maybe you could fix it for him. Maybe he’d stick around.
Still—even if you do end up pushing him further away in the long run—won't it have been worth it to have had him so completely, even just once?
You toss the belt to the ground, compressing all of these very complicated thoughts and feelings into a few seconds so short he can’t ask you any questions about them. Instead you find his top button, and just as you manage to undo it with relative ease he’s gently grabbing your wrists. You look up at him, immediately surrendering.
“If we’re going to do this I need you to relax a little bit.”
Gears grind in your chest. You feel need and anxiety comingling in every square inch of your body. It’s a sick buzz—a high on an empty stomach.
“I can’t,” you admit.
“Yeah, you can,” Spencer gently disagrees, slowly lowering your hands. When he’s sure you’re not going to try ripping his clothes off again, he releases, and his eyes lower to the zipper of your hoodie. His fingers follow, warm against the soft triangle of revealed skin at your chest as he grips the small piece of metal between barely shaking fingers. “You can.”
You match his eyeline, breathing shallowly and watching as he slowly drags the zipper down. You wonder if that sound has haunted his fantasies the way the sound of his belt has haunted yours. If he’s seen this hoodie on you and wondered what’s underneath, staring at you and daydreaming during movie night with you none the wiser.
Both of you have your eyes glued to the span of skin as the zipper parts. Spencer stalls with the zipper at your sternum, just below the band of your bra.
Right. No shirt.
You look up and find his eyes already on you, tinged with a curious kind of humor.
“I wasn’t expecting guests.”
The words come out shy. Spencer’s chuckle has its own nervous airy quality as he resumes tugging on your zipper, leaning down until your noses bump.
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”
Then he kisses you again, a little sweeter now. Sweet enough to give you butterflies and for them to flutter right out of your stomach and spill from your lips in a little whimper against his.
It comes as a surprise when he pushes the fabric from your shoulders without looking or asking. Not that you’d have said no—you're just underprepared for how assertive he is in this foreign context.
Left just in your flimsy shorts and your thin bra, you feel quite exposed—but Spencer’s hands are as demanding and hungry as his mouth. They skim up your sensitive sides and sweep lower, suggesting less proper placement over your ass and pulling at your bottoms until you gently put a stop to their wandering.
“Wait. We’re... we’re uneven.”
It’s a struggle to get any words out at all when he keeps chasing your lips, nipping at you like he physically can’t stand not kissing you, but they catch his attention and he laughs airily, pulling back to let his gaze pour over your less clothed form. It lingers and catches and lights you up everywhere it touches, drops of heat soaking into your skin and making you feel all fuzzy and needy.
“We are,” he acknowledges, tone low and colored with the faintest smile. “You’re a lot prettier without your clothes on than I am.”
“I don’t believe you.”
The challenge comes immediately and thoughtlessly. Spencer’s golden eyes flash up to yours. He’s breathing a little harder than usual.
“You want me to show you what I mean?”
If that means getting him naked, then yes, absolutely.
You nod, but rather than immediately stripping, he takes your hand and holds his own open next to it. A thick pink scar bisects some pretty significant palmistry lines, but you don’t mention that. Instead you swallow—your thoughts, your words, your nausea.
“That’s new.”
You wonder how you hadn’t noticed it earlier.
He nods.
“A lot is new.”
It sounds almost like he’s challenging you—there's a kind of tremulous force in his voice, despite the perpetual softness there, like he’s inviting you to say it’s ugly. And you realize he’s referring to more than just the glowing scar cutting an asteroid trail against the flesh of him palm. The scars he obtained in prison must form a constellation over his body.
“I don’t care. I wanna see you.”
Spencer swallows, cupping your face with the scarred hand once more. You can’t feel it against your cheek but you know it hasn’t gone away.
“I’m sure you think you do,” he permits, and that’s where the conversation ends for the moment—with his hand on your face and his lips back on yours. “For now why don’t you let me worry about you?”
Obediently, you breathe, “okay.”
This is, for whatever reason, amusing to him. The brief levity dies as quick as it comes like a snuffed-out brush fire as soon as he lets his hands fall back down to your hips.
“I want... I want to give you slow. But...”
But slow is for people who didn’t lose three months of their life. Slow is for people who don’t know what it’s like to be starving. Slow is not for the desperate.
You understand the feeling.
“I don’t need slow.”
You’ll let him use you up like quick-burning fuel if that’s what he needs. You’ll go as fast and as bright and as hot as he tells you.
“But you want slow,” he murmurs, a secret acknowledged into your own waiting mouth. You’d keep it there forever. You could be the object he hides his soul in. “I know you do. You deserve to get what you want.”
“I can go fast. I want whatever you can give me.”
Spencer’s shuddering exhale is like a drug, dizzying as you inhale it and your eyes flutter at the high, pressed head-to-head with him. For so long you’ve needed him so badly. It’s overwhelming to have him now, all over you. If only your walls could breathe him in the way you are, if this room could remember what it feels like to hold him the way you will, if any inanimate object could bear witness to how you’ll give yourself, any part of yourself, over to him, so willingly.
“I’m going to try.” Spencer’s voice is hoarse as he walks backward to the bed, taking you by the hips as he goes. “I want to do it right. I want to do this the way I... the way I imagined it, before...”
Now he’s sitting, and you’re standing between his legs as he finds the clasp of your bra and undoes it, his fingers a comforting pressure where they ghost down the slope of your back. Your heart is pounding at the confession, at the way his tongue darts over his bottom lip and his fingertips journey back up to your straps, looking up at you with haloed irises as if he’d find anything other than the most dangerous kind of smoldering devotion in your eyes—the kind cult-leaders seek and spend years nurturing, and he’d earned with a mere brush over your bare skin.
The fabric slides down your arms, and as it falls to the floor, you watch something like despair flash-flood his eyes. It is a deep, distinctly human grief. The ineffable kind where something is almost too beautiful; so perfect it offends the mortal senses because it should be permanent, but nothing is, and the clash of divine beauty with unstoppable time which oxidizes copper and covers marble with vine is almost as grotesque as metal rending delicate flesh. It is the grief that drove the first poet to write and the first parents to press their baby’s painted hands to the walls of a cave. It is the desire to do the impossible—to capture ephemeral perfection and make it eternal, and the knowledge that it is hopeless. You recognize it because you’ve felt it for him.
“I thought about you all the time,” he whispers, doesn’t bother calling you beautiful but you don’t mind because he’s telling you with his hands and his eyes and the waver of his voice. “When I was gone, I thought about you—”
You’re just as quiet, just as soft.
“Don’t, Spencer.”
He doesn’t get to tell you about when he was gone. Not now. Not after he acted like you didn’t exist.
“Okay.” He swallows the things he’d wanted to tell you like you choked on the things you needed to tell him for three months. “I’m sorry.”
But his hands—his hands are perfect over your waist and his lips are perfect where they kiss your ribs like they’re his homeland. You could forgive a thousand wrongs for each kiss he puts to your skin. Light from the full moon stretches over the room like a blessing from the cosmos, and you have every intention of making the most of that gift, how the silver gilds the planes of his face and highlights curls like they were carved, and invites you to search for something in each shadow.
Some of his kisses land over the sensitive skin of your breasts though you doubt he has much intention or that there is any sort of end-goal with the trail he blazes—in fact, you have to root your hand in his hair and pull gently back when he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s making you wait again. His eyes are glassy and cheeks slightly pinkened—you weren’t expecting this wave of fondness to knock you on your ass but here you are, falling all over again.
“You don’t have to go that slow.”
A slow smile splits the heart of his mouth at your bashful tone and he’s emboldened to bring his hands higher for a moment, thumbs brushing particularly delicate though not downright indecent spots. Nonetheless, your breath catches.
“Impatient girl,” he scolds, and though it’s lighthearted it still inspires heat to dance across your face. Oh, I think I’ve been plenty patient, you itch to say, but you bite it back because it’s only sad and true and unkind.
Still, he gives you the beginning of what you want, really only the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your desire for him, by slipping his thumbs into the waistband of your shorts and tugging them down. His hands slide up the fronts of your thighs, tracing the trim of your underwear, and you’d swear he’s not even breathing. The moment one of his hand loops behind your knee and pulls forward until it’s pressed to the mattress and you’re half-kneeling, half standing, desire begins to truly cloud your mind. Manhandling never seemed like Spencer’s style, but when paired with how softly he reveals your hip, pulling gently down on the fabric of your underwear just to admire you up close, you don’t mind it.
More kisses are littered over your stomach, and he takes you by surprise a second time with a quick maneuver landing you on your back and him on top of you.
“I wasn’t doing you justice with my imagination,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I couldn’t have known.”
“Couldn’t have known what?” you pant as he shamelessly digs his fingers into the plush of your ass. You almost hope it bruises.
“How pretty you would be,” he coos like he means it, and you dissolve, slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. “You were holding out on me.”
It’s a tease, not at all serious, but you manage to hit him with a, “Was not, asshole,” and he chuckles, placating your little hurt with another sticky kiss, and you get another disorienting glimpse of some other timeline where you’re both a little less damaged. Where it’s a little easier.
But in this timeline, his touch becomes starving and ragged and urgent, and you accept the drag of his thumb up your thigh and between your legs, gasping when he runs his knuckles up the center of you. This touch is metal on screeching metal. It does not pretend to be anything more than what it is—brute, powerful, executed to elicit sensation. You get the sense that Spencer’s never touched anyone this honestly, and while you do envy the girls who got to have him gentler, you’ll take this as the compliment that it is. A kind of vulnerability that is nearing primal.
His lips, though—always his lips—are kind when they brush and land on your skin guided by some invisible map. A dip down your neck and chest and then a plunge, his tongue dragging over your hips, chasing the fabric of your underwear as he almost pulls it off and then reroutes, making room for himself between your legs and pushing lace aside to mark the hinge of your inner and upper-most thigh. Your chest heaves and you don’t dare move for fear he’ll stop leaving signs of himself on your body and you won’t be able to reassure yourself that it was real and he was here and it was not another dream.
Because something in you knows, if only consciously recognizing it for the first time now, that he will disappear again. That this may be your only chance.
The desire to make the ephemeral eternal. An impossibility.
He’s clearly losing himself to something, eyes shutting blissfully. You wonder when the last time he let his guard down even a  little was. You’re okay with being the thing he gets lost in, even if you’re not exactly okay with him—something you are becoming more acutely aware of as each touch makes a part of you want to cry. Maybe you still have some things in common. A strange pain that doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to you, for one thing.
You slam back into your body as his nose nudges against you through fabric, and his lips catch on cotton as he drags himself up, eventually settling a kiss against the little bow at the waist of your underwear. There he stays, eyes closed, mouth pressed to you.
“Is this okay?”
You swallow, buzzing. Is this really what he wants? After everything?
“You don’t have to...”
“But is it okay with you?”
Nothing more than an airy whisper, you reply, “Yes, if that’s what you want.”
Being emotional at this point seems wrong, but it’s difficult to ignore the fact that you have thought about this before and it’s finally happening but it’s not exactly as you’d imagined it. There is an indelible sadness to it, to the way he’s so hungry for you because he’s been deprived, to the desperation with which he touches you because he’s had everything taken from him.
For a moment, before he tugs your underwear down, he pauses, and you wonder if he’s freezing one moment in time, this moment, and grieving all the other ways it could’ve been, and accepting that this is the way it is going to be. You are.
These higher realms of thought abandon you as he finally pulls the last barrier down your legs and encourages you to spread them further. You don’t have time or energy to be embarrassed, not even by his staring, or the way his eyes dart up to yours and back down again, wide and shining, as if to say, have you seen yourself? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?
All you feel is the lack of him on you, the pull to have him closer so strong it’s almost sickening because he could be gone at any second. Maybe he understands that because he doesn’t waste anymore time before he’s kissing the most sensitive part of you. The drag of his tongue has you loosing a shuddering cry.
His mouth wanders, making connections you wouldn’t have realized the value of until you feel them on your skin. Your hips buck as he traces you and you’re unable to stop yourself from tangling your hands in his hair. Speech fails you—hell, you can hardly breathe as you watch his with a furrowed brow and parted lips, only expelling air from your lungs in the form of little cries and gasps and failing to hold your hips down to the bed.
The tip of his tongue teases around your entrance and he catches your leg as your foot rises off the bed, slinging it over his shoulder and consuming you more fervently until you have no choice but to moan though you’ve never been one for theatrics. Nobody has done this for you like he’s doing it for you. Locks of hair fall in front of his face and you hold them back for him, shuddering as he shifts his weight and presses the tip of his finger to your cunt.
“Ah—please,” you manage, your first words since he started. Spencer groans against you and the sound is so wonderfully unexpected, so much better than in your dreams. You cant your hips up in further invitation, chirping as he takes it, pushing two fingers into you at once. Your eyes screw shut and you bite back a whine at the slight stretch, unconsciously writhing your hips either to get further away or take him deeper, you’re not sure.
Spencer pulls back, kissing your hips and thighs and pumping his fingers very slowly as you adjust.
“’M sorry,” you pant, “it’s been awhile, I...”
“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says like it’s simple, his own breath coming quicker. “How’re you feeling? Need me to stop?”
“No! No, it feels really good, I feel good.”
He holds your burning gaze, matching it with his own, and his hair is tousled and his cheeks are flushed as he continues to move his hand.
“Yeah?”
“...Yeah.”
This little show of obedience, of call and response, has him smiling before he occupies his mouth with something else once more. It’s a different smile than you’re used to from him, but you decide you don’t at all mind it.
Like that, with his tongue and fingers working tirelessly, your orgasm comes on quickly. The feeling is rare but not entirely foreign, and in that brief moment of utter disconnect between your brain and reality, of sheer white-hot pleasure, you don’t feel you’re missing out on anything at all. How could you be, when you are here and Spencer is here and for a moment all your neurons are lighting up and flashing neon? How could there be anything more to life than the searing feeling of him slowly withdrawing his fingers from you, than your hips between his hands like he’s cradling the world, and his lips, indiscriminate with where they kiss because every part of you is worthy of attention?
You’re reeling, and your legs are gelatinous as he so affectionately sucks the darkest mark yet onto your inner thigh like a parting gift, like he’s signing his trembling work. If you could clamp your legs shut around the almost painful aftershocks you would, but he’s climbing back up your body, so all you can do is wriggle against him and release delayed, stunted little moans. He stops to kiss your neck before he makes it to your mouth and drinks down all your sounds until you’re gentle and pliant for him like you haven’t been yet.
His voice is soft and sympathetic when he speaks. “Better?”
Wordlessly you nod, both comforted and unsettled by how well he knows you. What, exactly, has been made better, you’re not sure. Not trust. You don’t trust him anymore. Something cheaper, but temporarily effective. A sense of permanence, maybe, however fleeting it may be. You’ve completed something with him now, and he’s still here, still sweet.
He looks into your eyes, then, for a moment—and there is just enough light in the room for you to tell yourself that the shadows dancing there as he looks at you are love.
They morph as you watch into haunting, wild hunger. Pained even now.
He sits up abruptly and so do you, scooting back against your headboard and pulling your knees to your chest to protect your pounding heart as Spencer takes you in with darting eyes and quick breaths. His fingers find the collar of his shirt and he begins to unbutton.
“I need you to remember it’s all going to heal.”
He swallows, and you hardly have the wherewithal to study the way he unbuttons his shirt, a way he exists in the world that you had previously not been privy to. The words are too distracting.
“What?”
Sometimes he reminds you of a deer, with those big brown eyes that can’t help betraying anxiety. Moreso in those old pictures he’d shown you from his early days at the BAU—but it shines through occasionally even now. It’s reassuring to know that something inside of his has remained soft.
“Just...” his fingers don’t stop at their task, and you come to the disturbing realization that his knuckles are bruised. “Please don’t freak out, alright?”
Your mouth goes dry, eyes glued to the lengthening span of revealed skin.
And before he even has his shirt fully undone, something isn’t right.
He’s like a Pollack of bruises—starbursts and watercolor blots of discoloration blooming over his side and stomach.
You’re glad the light is off for two reasons: one, being that you don’t think you could handle the bruising in all its glory, and two, you hope the look of horror painted on your face is at least partially obscured from Spencer.
But you can’t. You simply don’t have the gas in the tank to freak out, as he’d said—at least not externally. Those bruises shouldn’t be there, but 96 days is a long time to be gone.
You drag your eyes back to his—nervous, deeply insecure and mistrustful. A deer. Just like those pictures of a 24 year old Spencer in an FBI jacket that was too big for him.
It’s enough to have you scooting on your knees across the mattress to him. Those big eyes stay glued to you as you draw near, falling as you carefully push open his shirt, cautious not to bump any tender spots as it falls to the bed. A flash of white gauze wrapped around his forearm that makes your stomach flip. How? You want to ask. Why?
He doesn’t seem to know what you’re going to do, and neither do you, until you’re grabbing his hands, bruised knuckles and all, and just... holding them for a minute.
“I lost weight,” he says quietly, as if that’s the most shocking thing about his current appearance, though it is noticeable.
“You’re still pretty.”
He smiles at this—a true Spencer Reid smile. Flattened lips, eyes tinged silver with sadness, voice quiet and anxious and wavering.
“I didn’t have a lot to spare.”
A moment goes by.
“I’m not going to ask you about them,” you promise, though you care so much and you want to know but you already understand that he won’t want to tell you.
Another moment. It doesn't surprise you to watch the shiny vulnerability in his eyes to freeze over completely. But he squeezes your hands once in thanks, and you know it’s still the same Spencer.
“Lie down.”
Oh. Right.
This.
You do as he says, taking a deep breath to try and exhale the concern twisting your stomach like a poison. Somehow your room feels so unfamiliar, so new with him in it. Even the whorls on your ceiling look different as you study them, trying to time the pattern of your breathing with the pattern of the paint and plaster and not let the sound of Spencer further undressing quicken your heartrate too much.
Soon he’s coaxing your legs apart again, reverently, and kneeling between them, studying every part of you—lingering not on the parts you’d expect. He traces the scar on your knee with his thumb, follows a line down your thigh to the freckle on your hip. The scrutiny is unnerving and warms you everywhere. Perhaps he senses the microscopic clench of your thighs as you imagine pushing them together, if he weren’t in the way.
“You alright?” He asks, still stroking your hip. Tender again. It’s so hard to keep up.
“I...”
Suddenly your heart beat is a deafening echo in your own ears. The tide of your breathing is too powerful, too in and out and whooshing, leaving you always too empty or too full but never comfortable.
Maybe he’s changed, and he’s harder to know now, but he is the same Spencer. He is the Spencer you’d fallen in love with. The hard part is knowing that now you may never get a chance to tell him that. You don’t know if he’d be able to hear it.
There are things you can’t have with him anymore. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever. But you can have this. It will be different, but you’d rather him be different and here than the same and only in your memory.
You swallow.
“I’m good.”
Tangling your hand in his hair once more, you pull him down into a kiss. It’s hesitant, at first—maybe he can taste your thoughts, where they’d been balancing just on the tip of your tongue. But the uncertainty fades and he kisses you deeper, harder, in a way that is hard to keep up with. You like the messy overwhelm of his lips, teeth, tongue. That’s the only way he knows how to want you.
When you go to wrap your leg around his waist he catches it, running his hands over the soft plush of your thigh. The hard line of him presses against you like memory foam and you gasp and he breathes it in deeply as your brain short-circuits, as you realize this is really going to happen, that you’re going to have him like you’ve never had him before and in ways you’ve only imagined and immediately felt ashamed for.
“Spencer,” you whisper. He ducks to leave open-mouthed kisses along your neck and your eyes flutter shut, craning your neck but not losing sight of your objective as you reach down blindly. When you find what you’re looking for he freezes, groans against your neck at the same time as you breathe the tiniest whimper. Just in your hand he feels impossible, hot and imposing and hard. Your heart palpitates.
Without thinking, you angle your hips up and encourage him closer, until the tip of him is smearing through your folds, and you both go utterly silent like the breath had been stolen right from your lungs. The moment crystallizes, time around you hardening like preserved amber to keep you frozen there forever.
And then he rolls his hips, catching the underside of his cock on the crux of you, and then he does it again, and you choke out a moan and so does he, and it’s beyond perfect—it's nirvana, more than you could ever have conceived of, with his weight pressing you into the mattress, arms caging you in, his heavy breaths hot against your neck and vice versa as you twine together like serpents on a rod, your foot floating in the air as you widen your legs to make more room for him.
And you’re not even fucking yet.
“Oh my god,” you whine, just for him, barely audible under the heavy cloak of night, the thickened air in your bedroom and the sound of panting and fabric shifting. It’s like your heart is trying to reach through your chest to his own where they’re pressed together—that is how hard it’s beating.
Spencer only breathes a long, low curse and shifts so he can grasp himself. Your fingers drift down the shaft of him as he slots himself at your entrance, notching half an inch in and you hold your breath, and you brace yourself—and then he’s kissing you again, but gentler this time. Reassuring. You soften, you can’t not, releasing all your air in a soft gust through your nose, and then he’s pushing in.
Your lips part at the stretch as it fuzzes your mind, but he stays right there, nose pressed to your nose, lips ghosting over your own. He’s not going anywhere, you think, and you’re glad for it, when it burns ever so slightly, and the tiniest whine escapes your open mouth.
“Shh,” he soothes immediately, low and soft, only fractionally louder than you had been. “You’re okay.”
Spencer. Your Spencer.
For a moment, you’re living in that alternate universe. The kinder one. The flash of pain you feel then has nothing to do with the way he’s opening you up.
This is the closest you have ever been, and in some strange way, the furthest apart.
Together, fingers brushing, you guide him until he settles at not quite your deepest point. You can feel that he’s not giving you everything yet, but you’re okay with that, as you adjust to the full feeling. Spencer again senses your desire to close your legs against the deep intrusion, and gives you the best he can by encouraging you to wrap your legs around him.
“Good girl,” he whispers tenderly, nudging at your jaw with his nose and dragging kisses along the ridge of it. Your stomach flips at the moniker and your brain turns to warm sludge as your eyes flutter shut. It makes you feel all light-headed and you flutter around him. Spencer chuckles into the junction of your neck and shoulder and the vibrations send a chill down your arching spine. “I thought you might like that one.”
“Mhm.”
“Mhm. How are you? You okay?”
“’M ready.”
“You’re ready?” His tone is dripping sarcasm and faux-disbelief as he pulls back the slightest bit only to push right back in deeper, this time. Your toes curl, one thigh sliding higher up his waist as you cling to him.
“Fuck,” you manage, a pitiful, high pitched curse tossed to the wind. He echoes the sentiment.
“Oh, my god,” he groans, continuing with that slow pace, “you feel so good, angel.”
You grapple at his back, searching for purchase as your brow knits. “Faster.”
This inspires another breathy chuckle, but he obliges, and you cry out softly. It’s almost unreal, your head buried against his neck, drunk on his scent and the drag of him like a shock felt in the far reaches of your body, again and again.
There’s nothing you can say that will accurately demonstrate what you’re feeling, so you elect not to speak, to remain silent and try to get a grip on this cacophony of sensation and emotion. But it’s too much to be alone with. You feel you have to get it out, to seek understanding. You can’t do it alone.
“Spencer.”
“Hm?”
“I don’t know...” the sentence trails off into a gentle keen. He moves to kiss you, speaking against your lips.
“You don’t know?”
Shyly you shake your head. Spencer sighs wistfully.
“Do you know how much I missed you?”
It’s like he can sense your need for comfort. For something grounding.
And while this topic was off-limits earlier—you're softer now. The stone walls that form your boundaries have been chipped away and lowered.
Spencer continues unprompted.
“I thought about you every day. Every night while I was falling asleep. You were always on my mind, angel girl.”
You whine. Whether it’s pleasure or distress is anyone’s guess—including your own.
“You were gone so long,” you whisper, eyes shut.
At this, Spencer slows again, and the tension that was building settles back to a simmer.
“I know. I wish I could—I wish I could change that. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here with you.”
Then he makes sure you feel every last inch, and it takes your breath away. If your thoughts were any more coherent, they’d be something along the lines of: but for how long? How long until you leave again?
“You’re here.”
You say it like a mantra, once out loud, and then again and again in your head, timed with every clash of your hips. With each repetition he becomes more real. Every little ache, every tingling, head-emptying brush against that most sensitive spot inside proves to you that he could not be any closer. This can’t be faked. It can’t be another dream to wake up in tears from.
“You’re here,” you gasp as it hits you, as it truly sinks in.
“I’m here,” he breathes.
There’s so much you want to say—three months of words you need him to hear, of things you need to talk to him about, things you need to yell at him for and things you can only say crying in his arms and things you can only say laughing or whispering or drunk or half-asleep—and in this moment you can’t manage any of it. Every word condenses into one drop of salt water, drifting away from your eye and down your cheek. Spencer doesn’t tell you to stop crying. He only kisses the tear away, and murmurs I’m here I’m here I’m here over and over again against your skin until he’s not even speaking it out loud anymore. But you feel it. With every brush of his lips, every breath, every movement, you feel it.
Soon he’s adjusting his angle, gradually picking up the pace but retaining that unforgiving depth, and your nails bite into the skin of his back as your jaw drops. Spencer hisses, pressing impossibly closer.
“I’m sorry!” you squeak.
“Do it again.”
“Wh—what?”
“Please,” he begs, low and hot against your jaw, just beneath your ear. “Do it again, honey.”
Honey.
You’d do anything for him if it meant he calls you that again.
When he shifts his weight to one arm and reaches down between your bodies to play with your aching clit in exactly the right way, you don’t really have a choice. You arch and moan wantonly enough to feel embarrassed as your nails scratch down his back. At the same time he’s making noises of his own, and you almost feel guilty for marking him up like this only you think he likes it. The most perfect and troubling tension is building in your core, so taut you almost fear the inevitable rebound when it snaps. But you’re driven to be exactly what Spencer needs right now, and to let him try and be what you need. Even if it scares you. Even if you’re not sure how.
Spencer groans, head tucked to the bend of your shoulder. “I’m not gonna last.”
Any response you might’ve been about to muster is annihilated by a sudden, deep bolt of pleasure.
“’M gonna cum,” you mewl like it’s a secret.
“Are you?” he asks, coming up breathless. If your eyes were open, you’re sure you’d see him above you.
“Mhm.”
“Look at me. Look at me.”
It is unmistakably a command—one you fight to follow.
You cry out as you meet the intensity of his gaze, those shadowy corridors suddenly ablaze and alive. They are not unending, like you’d thought. They are a door thrown open to let the light in, or maybe to let the fire out. They’re open in this moment for you.
No more words are spoken after that—you cum hard, gasping as you fall and spin. Spencer follows very shortly after, like he was holding it together just for you, and your eyes are still locked though everything is a bit bleary.
“Fuck,” you whine as he continues to fuck you for as long as he can, despite your writhing hips, but you’re entranced by him, unable to look away now that you’re hooked. Until he slows to a halt, glances down at your mouth, and you just have time to pray that he’ll kiss you before he does. You whimper against his lips—a plea for understanding. A plea for him to stay, even though this is over. He kisses back so soft and sweet it’s like he can read your mind. Echoes of I’m here I’m here I’m here still buzz across your skin. His eyelashes tickle your cheek. Your heart stops beating quite so quickly, melting and warm like the rest of your body.
Soon the kissing ceases and you’re just breathing together, trapped and faced with the knowledge that it must end just the same as you had waited for it to start.
Eventually the air between you becomes mostly carbon dioxide and you let your head fall to the side, dizzy and giggling breathlessly as you nearly avoid asphyxiation. Spencer laughs too, letting his head fall to your shoulder once more, and you finally let your eyes flutter closed. To do something as simple as laugh with him again is its own small euphoria. It’s unexpected, and a soft landing once all that tension breaks underneath your combined weight.
It can’t last forever, you know that well. But the slow fade of it makes the next parts a little easier.
Spencer presses a kiss to your neck. “Is your bathroom through that door?”
You hum a confirmation and are only slightly disheartened when he pulls out and rolls off of you. You’re further disturbed when you see there’s gauze around his thigh, matching what’s around his arm, and you wonder how you missed that. Spencer scoops up his clothing and disappears into the adjoining restroom, assuring you he’ll be right back and leaving you alone with your thoughts and the whorls on the ceiling which have seemingly shifted into entirely new constellations.
He leaves the door cracked which is oddly reassuring—the sliver of warm light and the sound of the sink running. Only a few moments pass before he’s returning clad in boxers once more to sit on the edge of the bed, pushing away the sheet you’d just pulled over your chest and pulling one of your legs over his lap. Your face warms as he brings a washcloth between your thighs. As soon as he glances up at you and catches your eye you’re looking back to the ceiling.
“I should’ve asked first,” he says quietly as he cleans up the mess he’d made of you.
You speak just as softly, like you’re both afraid of disturbing some peace, of waking some sleeping giant. “It’s okay. I would’ve told you if I didn’t want it.”
His reticence, his unreadable face, make you nervous.
When he’s done, he rises to toss the dirtied cloth in the laundry bin, and with his back to you (as scratched up as it might be) you feel braver.
“Are you gonna, like... hate me now?”
It was a mistake. That’s clear by the way he turns around, brow knit deeply and grimacing slightly like even the suggestion offends him.
“Am I going to hate you?”
Again you pull the sheet up, and again you look away, studying the pattern of moonlight stretching out over the floor and scooting to make room for him when he steps in it.
“Not hate, I just...” the bed dips beside you and you are indescribably glad he’s not immediately running out the door. “I’m not dumb. I know what this was.”
He pulls you into him and you settle against his chest. It feels good. “I never thought you were dumb.”
This is your first real conversation since he’s gotten back, you realize. And how quickly you’re falling into familiar patterns, familiar syntactical beats. You know when to speak. You know when to bite your tongue and keep him talking.
The silence goes on longer than you’re used to. Maybe he got good at not speaking while he was away.
Eventually your eyes wander, falling to the white strip over his thigh where it is parallel to yours on the bed, only over the sheets.
“What happened?”
You said you wouldn’t ask, but that was then, and you’re upset again. You almost want to hurt him. To piss him off. You don’t know.
But it doesn’t work.
“Do you really want to know?” There’s a note of something heavy in his voice, and you look up at him. It’s a privilege to have him this close—his beauty is a constant surprise that you’d become unaccustomed to over the months. You say nothing, and he takes that as the yes that it is. “I... I did it to myself.”
He may as well have reached down your throat and grabbed for fucking heart for all its clenching. Tears well almost immediately, though they’ve been waiting in the wings all night.
“What? Did you—were you trying to—”
His eyes widen.
“No! No, honey, no.” You wilt as he gathers you closer, a deeply confused frown still contorting your features, too heartbroken even to cling to him, or to appreciate the ease with which honey slips past his lips again. “No. I was—it's complicated. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, but I had to—I had to do it before someone else did something worse.”
The bruises covering his abdomen.
You sniffle and pull back enough to look up at him tearfully. “Why would they want to hurt you?”
Mist fills his eyes even as he’s looking down at you, a layer of separation, as if he’s two places at once. Even as he goes to brush your hair behind your ear, to stroke your cheek.
“I’m... not... the same, as I was.” It’s not an answer to your question—but it’s the beginning of the answer to a question you’d been too afraid to put into words.
“Don’t say that,” you beg, because you know where this is going. He keeps smoothing your hair like it’ll make this easier.
“But it’s true,” Spencer says gently, the slightest waver betraying his own emotion.
“You’re just going to leave again.”
And you’re losing to the tears.
“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you will,” you insist, like a child crying to a parent come to comfort them after a bad dream.
“Not right now. Right now I’m here.”
I’ll stay until you fall asleep again.
For now, maybe that has to be enough. 
You cry on his shoulder. He kisses your head and doesn’t tell you to stop. 
Eventually, you sniff and wipe your eyes. 
“We were so close. Before you… we were almost there.”
You’re sure of it. You’re sure that if he hadn’t gone when he did you would’ve been a real couple. You would’ve told him you loved him. 
“We’ll get there again,” he promises, rubbing your arm. “I just… I need a little bit of time. I think you do too. But we’re going to get there again.”
Maybe it will never be like it was. 
But as so often is the case—Spencer is right. Difference doesn’t mean it won’t ever be good again. 
You have to believe that, just as you had to believe you’d see him again. 
You look to The Odyssey on your bedside table. 
The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world. 
But the sun has a habit of rising, time and time again, after the longest nights, after the darkest storms. 
You feel the beginnings of its rise, see the golden tips of it lighting the room as he holds you. Even now. 
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simpjaes · 20 days ago
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MILF HUNT! ― P.JS
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Jay, a favorite among classy wives to hire during the hot summer season for a nice, thorough pool cleaning, seems to have a favorite wife of his own.  You.  Or the one where Jay was the pain-in-your-ass son of the family you used to babysit for, but now he’s making it his mission to be the pain-in-your-ass pretend husband that you never asked for, but very clearly need. 
minors dni 
PAIRING ― park jongseong x afab milf!reader  
WORDCOUNT― 18.9k
CONTENT―  age gap: reader is 29 and jay is 22, milf trope/single mother reader, college pool boy jay (turned part time babysitter), reader has 1 kid and jay really wants to give her another, reader has morals!! jay just doesn’t see it as a moral issue, he is actually very sweet 
!WARNINGS! ―  age gap, jay is somewhat of a manipulator, he’s gentle but won’t take no for an answer. dub-con in one instance. major breeding kink and kind of a mommy and daddy kink (domesticity), angst regarding reader and her ex husband, reader has huge tits 
NOTE ― this was supposed to be a toxic jay fic but it turned into this instead because i love him so bad…………. NOT PROOF READ, mind the typos. i'm insane for him.
nsfw tags under cut
nsfw tags― big dick jay, masturbation, small instance of dubious consent, tit obsessed jay, groping and grinding, mommy/daddy kink, breeding kink, unprotected sex, cum stuffing-ish, pussy eating, fingering, basically it’s jay doing stuff to you, this ain’t smut this is making love, also reader doesn’t shave her coochie and jay fucking loves it.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Having a stray eye isn’t typically something you afford yourself when it comes to men. Things tend to change with time though, that much you know is true. 
It was proven to you for the first time when your ex husband decided to up and leave you three weeks before your due date for a woman–well, girl, fresh out of high school. Years of trust and promises crushed with just a single sentence and a slam of the door. Time must’ve changed you for him to leave so heartlessly. Time must’ve changed him to become so cold. 
 It was proven again when you were able to heal despite never believing you could. Seconds of pain turned to minutes, to hours. Days. weeks. Months. Years of pain before being able to wake up and feel somewhat numb to it all. Like a flip switch in your head that told you that you can be happy now even if as a single mother. After all, the hard part was over. 
It took some four to five years, but it did happen. Time did change you, it healed you, it matured you. As your child grew, so did you. And for the better, you think. You count your blessings of living a life far more lavish than you ever could have anticipated given the circumstances that had been thrown at you. Even to the point of nesting, wanting another child, wanting a big and happy family. But alas, your ex husband had better things to do. 
At the end of the day, you’d never be able to call this home yours if you had stayed with your ex husband. He didn’t like this kind of “flashy” lifestyle, and to him, everything you wanted seemed too flashy for him. Perhaps he was right to some extent, as you recognize the brand name goods you now own, solely because you had promised yourself in the depths of your despair that you’ll get to a point in life where you can buy yourself everything you not only need, but want. So, here you are, owning an expensive home, in a nice neighborhood, with a nice car and a nice pool. 
Your daughter has everything she could want and need too, aside from a sibling, it’s certainly still more than what you had growing up and it’s all because of you. A fully decorated bedroom drenched in glitter, purples, creams, yellows, and pink, her favorite color. All sorts of play houses, costumes, dolls, a few lego sets, and even some plastic swords and knives for the days she wants to pretend to be her favorite movie characters. Clothes she can grow into, and a nice little fund building up for her as she grows up. Her first car, college, help for a down payment on her own first house. 
Both of you have everything you could ever want or need and for that, you’re so proud. Especially knowing your husband would have never believed you could make it this far without him. Still, despite having everything you could ever ask for, there’s something in you that feels empty.
Time changes things. 
Time changes a lot of things, you note more than usual, as the man you’ve been ogling for the past three weeks makes himself far more known to you than you ever wished he would.
The interaction with him was always so quick before today and given the fact that he was a complete stranger, you never quite invited him into your home considering–you know, small child and all. You had hired him over text. Jay, your neighbor said his name was. His handsome features didn’t offer you anything more than a clean pool and a wandering eye. 
Your neighbor apparently has a friend who has a cousin that has an even nicer pool than you do. Given, it’s only a nicer pool due to the fact that this young man, Jay, tended to it weekly and made damn sure it could be drunk out of if a person had a craving for chlorine. 
You feel like an idiot now that it didn’t dawn on you quick enough. Sure, he looked a bit familiar to you but who doesn’t when you’re always out and about seeing so many different faces on a daily basis? His name, Jay, didn’t ring any bells. Now though, the shame of staring at his sweaty pecs and biceps came crashing down the moment you realized who Jay actually is. 
He didn’t do a damn thing to remind you either, if anything, all he did was walk around all sweaty in the afternoon heat with his tank top either sticking to him, or off entirely. It appears that you had just been too busy running errands with your child, considering his shifts were always when you were home. Too busy cooking, cleaning, reading, lounging. Too busy looking at…well, not his face. 
Too busy to give the man a glance more than that of a slice of pie behind a bakery window. 
Jay. 
Since fucking when was that his name?
“Park Jongseong.” You whimper near mortified, three weeks too late as you hand him his pay with nervous hands. “Spray-cheese in my hair Jongseong?” 
“Ah, was wondering when you’d pick up on that.” He smiles at you with that crooked grin, a knowing look that any man at a bar would give you if he had caught you checking him out. Then, he pockets the hefty amount of cash that you hand to him. “I go by Jay more often these days.” He trails off, an amused smirk half-falling as he looks at your expression of realization. “You can call me whatever you want though.”
He’s well aware of how often you’ve checked him out since he started intentionally taking his clothes off. After all, it’s mid-july by this point and the sun baring down on him doesn’t quite call for a fucking turtle neck sweater. Or a T-shirt, or a tank top, for that matter. It calls for all skin baby, beautifully tanned and toned for you and any of your neighbors to look at if they so wanted to. 
Jay doesn’t work out for nothing, after all. Summer after summer, he’s found himself to be quite fond of the rich women that hire him for their pool services. Always wanting an attractive young man to wander around half naked and satiate their lack of sex life with their husbands, or boy-toys, or what have you. He knows all that extra pay isn’t because he does a good job either. He’s gotten winks, small comments, even a few offers of his body for more pay.
He’s turned them all down, of course. For a full-on affair, anyway. Jay has gotten a few blow jobs and quickies as a tip before though, and a lot of that is why he keeps getting referred to more women. Richer women. Never single women. 
Until you. 
He quite enjoyed catching you looking at him. Especially given the fact that he knew exactly who you were when you introduced yourself to him via text. That little childhood crush on you came back within an instant upon actually seeing you again. Truly, he had forgotten all about you up until that fateful day three weeks ago. 
If he’s being honest, he’s been pining something fierce since he first stepped foot on your property. Excitement swelled inside of him just to see you again. To see if you’re still hot, to see how you’re doing, what you’re doing. How your life is going.
 He knew you didn’t recognize his nickname through text, and he definitely knew you didn’t recognize him to be eating him up with those eyes of yours either. So, he played along, enjoying it while he could before it would inevitably dawn on you. Still, he remembers you so well from back then. Crazy to know that he rarely thought of you for the past twelve years or so, and how all those little butterflies of his came back in a far more mature way. He was only ten back then, but he’s a man now. 
Twenty two and perfectly sound as a man who knows what he likes. The fact that you happen to fall into that category is no fault of his own, honestly. It’s your fault if anyone’s at all. Jay is a man that likes a specific type of woman too. Woman. Not a girl, not a young lady, not a free spirit, nor a prude. He is drawn to the idea of experience, to the idea of settling down. It’s not easy to find that at his age, in college, surrounded by party girls and casual drug use. 
And, well, imagine his smile upon seeing your lovely, lavish home with the large pool, no ring on your finger, a whole fucking child, and your motherly instincts when you buckle her into the car for an errand. Oh and the broken fence in the far back of your yard.
You’re a single mom. 
A hot single mom who lives lavishly. One who could probably use a man’s help around your house.
He half expected you to be able to recognize him when he appeared for work the first time. He even had a monologue in his head on what to say to you, and how to present himself. You didn’t seem to take notice though, introducing yourself to him as if you hadn’t spent all that time in his childhood home when you were a teenager. Like you never mothered him, or put him to sleep with the soft lul of your voice when you let him watch all those scary movies before bed. 
 Clearly you’re too busy experiencing life to notice the way he fawns over you too. Hating how you’re more reserved than the other lavish, fixed-up women. You seem to have standards, or maybe it’s just priorities ... that's so hot. Truly, it only makes him want you more because by now, the other women would already be rubbing all over him. The ones who shouldn’t be wanting him the way they do. So, yes, he’s always stealing glances at you with sparkling dark eyes, fantasizing in his head that this pool is his to clean now, because that’s what a good man would do for you, right? With him around servicing your pool and lawn, you’d never need to hire or spend money on another broke ass college student again.
Yes. That’s how quickly he fell into this infatuation solely because you looked at him like you want it without realizing who he was. Hell, without realizing how perfect you are in terms of what he wants.
God, how are you still single? 
Like, why do you have a child and a house so beautiful without a man wandering around doing all of this work for you? Not that you couldn’t do it on your own, it’s just, you clearly have the means to make a man do as you please. Why haven’t you?
You happen to fall almost perfectly into the categories of what he’s looking for. Save for the fact that now you recognize him as that kid you used to babysit rather than the man who tries to be sexy while cleaning your pool. Which is a fucking shame, if he’s being honest, to be written off as that same ten year old child rather than a fucking man who very clearly has needs and desires. 
The point is– Jay wants you and he parades around your pool for you to look at him. So what if you used to babysit him? It’s not like you’re an old swamp-hag trying to lure him with candy. You’re just…a woman. And he’s just a man. 
“Well, thank you for cleaning again,” You trail off in an awkward tone, shifting your eyes to anywhere but him. He watches you though, smiling a smile you know all too well from his childhood antics. It must mean something different now, or maybe not. “I guess I’ll see you next week?” 
“Well, actually,” Jay offers, “Would you be opposed to–” You cut him off instantly with an awkward wave of your hand.
You don’t know why you make assumptions, maybe from that damned smile on his face, but you do recall your ex husband reminding you time and time again that it’s one of the things he hated about you. 
Assumptions. Always thinking the worst, or perhaps the most filthy of situations and expressions. To be fair, you feel guilty about how you’ve been looking at him, you can’t help but panic trying to pretend like it never happened, and that he never saw it happen.
“I’m not interested, Jongseong.” You respond hastily, pressing your thumb to your bottom lip to bite the skin on it, keeping your eyes away from him with the awkward words. After all, he knew who you were this whole time and paraded around like that? 
Even before recognizing him yourself, you know men well enough to know when they’re trying to flaunt. Is it so wrong to assume?
“Interested in what?” Jay tilts his head knowingly, seeing the way you buckle under the guilt of staring at the very man you used to tuck into bed every night. He can see the way you try to push those sexual thoughts you had away in the quick rejection to a simple assumption. 
 “I was just going to ask if you want me to fix your fence.” 
Ah, you did get ahead of yourself through the guilt, and you’re far too aware of it as you draw your eyes back to him and note the expression on his face. Amused, maybe a bit of concern in his eyes, even? 
“Ah, um–” You start, trailing your eyes down your fence line never once noticing a break in it. Jay is quick to point though, leaning to you with a whisper of “right there.” And well, you did not need to hear that tone in his voice the way you just did.
God, it’s so awkward.
“Well, how much would that cost me?” You question with an empty voice, staring at the broken fence. 
“Free.” He uses the same tone, leaning away from you now and smiling wide. “That is, if you provide lunch.” 
Well, despite the awkwardness, that break over there would cost you a pretty penny to fix, and your daughter needs the safety of playing in her own yard without random animals or worse, people, making their way in. Plus, you’re quite fond of saving money. How else would you be here if you weren’t good at it? And now, given that you’re most definitely not interested in Jay, what's the harm in making a few sandwiches for someone you already know well enough? It’s not like you’ve never made him lunch before.
The awkwardness will pass and your guilt will subside. You both will laugh at it over a cold glass of iced lemonade, surely. It’s not like you realized who he was anyway, it’s not like you’re just gonna keep looking at him like that. You should just push forward and it’ll all be fine. 
“Hell, I’d even watch the kiddo so you can have a break every now and then.” He watches your reaction, wanting to ask so many questions about why you’re single, who the father is, where he is, why he isn’t here. “After all, I learned quite a bit from you.” 
For a second you consider that too.
And there’s three reasons as to why you should. The first being that you were literally just looking for a new child care facility due to learning of the staff coming to work while sick. Your poor daughter came home with a fever just last week, and you’ve had little luck in finding a place with the same educational benefits for her. 
The second being that, well, while you’re not hurting for cash or anything, it wouldn’t hurt to be able to put a little more back for her college fund. Or for fun little vacations. 
And lastly, despite your guilt of lusting over someone you shouldn’t have, you know Jongseong and you know his family even better. No background check would be needed, your daughter could be in the comfort of her own home rather than a classroom setting that she’s sure to see for at least twenty years of her life in the future. 
So, yes. You consider it instantly, and Jay sees it. 
You only know of the childhood version of him and, well, the slutty pool-side version of him apparently. If only you knew of that other side of him and how fond he is of watching his own younger cousins. How good he is with children, and how much he clings to the idea of being a father one day.
Jay is great with kids, with or without them having a hot mom.
And well, he knows that he’s fond of looking at you at least. Besides, as long as you can work with his class schedules, he’d be willing to do just about anything to play pretend-husband, even if you’re unaware of it. 
“Is that so?” You finally ask, curious eyes looking at him with a furrowed brow. “Shouldn’t you be out living the life? College parties and such?” You add, wondering why such a great deal has managed to flop down on your lap. The idea of even cheaper childcare without the risk of unvaccinated children, and sick caretakers being far too good of a deal to pass up. 
“Well, yeah I guess.” He shrugs, leaning backwards to stretch and roll his shoulders. “Not really my scene though. I have classes Monday and Wednesday all day, Tuesday and Thursdays my classes are online. If you can work around that, I’d rather just be making money and chilling.” 
You think about it just for a second more when he continues. 
“I can be here on weekends too. Maybe you should be the one out relaxing and having some drinks.” 
“Well, I don’t quite need that, or for you to be here on weekends.” You think as you say it, knowing you have given up on going out to try and meet men two years ago. “I could pay you though, let’s say, thirty an hour?” 
Well, shit, that’s not too bad at all, especially considering he’s about to give up on cleaning the pools of a few women in his contacts for this. It’s a major pay cut, but still enough to get by comfortably if you’ll have him multiple times a week. That plus the pool cleaning money? And free lunch? 
“Oh, you don’t go out at all? I don’t see why not, could probably get a man in no time–” Jay ignores the wage offer and pushes to note the singlehood he had been noticing for the past three weeks. “and the pay is fine.” 
“Ah, well, the dating pool isn’t so great in this neck of the woods.” You scratch the back of your neck when you say it. “That aside, I'll have her in day care on the days you can’t be here, but it really would be a big help. Thank you for the offer, Jongseong. And for the fence too.” 
He watches you with a firm nod, shoving his hands into the pockets of his basketball shorts, still entirely shirtless in front of you. 
“And the pool.” You add quietly after a moment. 
“I think you’d be surprised about the dating pool.” He smiles as he pushes the subject back to what you had previously said, hoping you believe those words before continuing. “So, when do you want me to start?” 
“Is tomorrow too soon? You’re okay to set up here with your online classes?”
“Tomorrow is perfect.” He smiles.
“I’m sure she would be so happy knowing she won’t be going to daycare–” You clap, feeling a bit less awkward despite the boldness of the man in front of you. You’re sure he’s just teasing you for knowing you checked him out. “I know I am.” 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
It’s a little too perfect, actually.
After that first day of watching your child and making a lazy attempt at “fixing your fence,” he’s settled in like it’s home. He wishes it was, with the lavish lifestyle in a house far too pretty compared to his own living space with piles upon piles of laundry he’s too lazy to pick up for himself. 
It’s different for you though. Different when he’s here.
Truly, he feels like he’s living the life after a couple of weeks with decent pay and a comfy space to do his homework. He watches your child, which is arguably the hardest part of the job but she’s well behaved for him. In fact, she seems to have taken a shine to him.
He’s starting to be very intentional with taking far too long to work on your fence too, and still maintaining your pool. He’s trying to drag this out for as long as he can. Even if just to see if you still look at him when you come home the same way you did before recognizing him. You never do though. When his shirt is off and he’s wiping his forehead in the sun, you don’t look at him anymore.
Hell, he’s even considered breaking things in your home just to give himself more jobs to do. More things that make him feel needed, like a husband. More things that you thank him for fixing, even if it breaks again two days later.
And ah, the food in your fridge is always free reign to him, that large television in the living room too. God, sometimes he dreads going home, and by sometimes, he means all the time. Who in their right mind would ever fucking want to live outside of this lifestyle? He really can’t believe you’re single, nor can he believe that he has the opportunity to be in your home, close to you. It shouldn’t take too long now to convince you, right? That you don’t necessarily have to be single? That you need him around to live even more comfortably?
In short, Jay is in his head about how he’s practically just roleplaying as your stay-at-home husband before having to go back to his shitty little apartment and remind himself that he’s just a fucking college student with no interest in the people on campus. And like, even with the way you come home from work, all groggy and exhausted on the days he’s there, you always thank him before giving him his pay. What he likes best about those nights is when you’re too exhausted to even pay him and you promise to do it next time.
In his mind, that’s you promising to see him again. 
He could give less of a shit about the pay at this point, as long as he gets to be in this house, smelling your favorite candles and dish detergents, seeing you, being a semi-father to a child who deserves more love than the two of you combined can give…he’ll fucking do anything you want for free. 
It’s difficult sometimes, like he really can’t help it. Some days wandering around this house and imagining how the two of you could have landed on buying it together. How the rooms would be organized if he were here from the start. Claiming his spot on your couch like any dad would. Playing dolls with your daughter, laughing with her, letting her paint his nails and put his hair in little pigtails. He even cleans your pool as if it were his own, meaning, he genuinely cleans it. 
He has taken it upon himself to mow your lawn, confusing the yard workers that you apparently hired years ago. Did he accidentally fire them? Maybe, but any good husband would save you money, right? He checks your mail, waves to your neighbors and lets them make assumptions. 
And every single fucking night it’s harder and harder to go back home.
Especially after a full day of playing dad then seeing you come back home so tired. Turning off that switch in his head isn’t easy. He wants to greet you like the husband you don’t have. He wants to ease your hard days in so many ways. Tell you he’s proud of you, that you still look so pretty after an exhausting shift of whatever the fuck you do. He wants to serve you dinner, run you a bath, fix your hair, lay you down– oh, he’s fantasizing again. Unfortunately, he has to settle with seeing the relief on your face when he lets you know in a soft voice that he’s cooked dinner and he will heat it up for you before leaving, kiddo is in her room sleeping, no dishes in the sink, and laundry is folded and put away. 
He loves the appreciation in your eyes, and sometimes even sees a glint of sadness. He can tell you wish you had this from a person who isn’t here for pay. Someone who loves you, and loves your child, and feels joy in making your life easier. 
Fuck, if only you knew. 
And  you’d be lying if you tried to say Jay isn’t a godsend to you on the days he babysits. Many times you find yourself wishing he’d just move in and do everything that you can’t do. You’d pay him well, give him a guest room, whatever. But it’s just…not viable to support a full time employee like that, nor is it fair to your daughter. 
She needs a parent, not a paid college student who needs some extra cash. You have to be that parent, you have to make time for her and witness all of her joys in life. You have to protect her and never bring in faces of men who claim to want to be a father, only to run and break her heart more than your own. 
For now, you settle with this godsend of a little shit you used to babysit. Still you can barely believe that’s the same person, but again…time changes things. And thankfully, the awkwardness of what you did has died down drastically.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Today, you’re more thankful for Jay than you have been previously. After a heavy workload has been lifted off your back with the approval of this project, you need a night out. For the first time in years, you’re giving yourself a night out, all because you have someone you can trust to be here for your daughter.
He was so understanding when you called, even happy to come over right then and there to put her to bed and mostly just house-sit for the night. Even without an end time for him, and even without asking for extra pay, he just…accepted with an understanding tone and that stupid breathy chuckle he gives to you when you ask for favors. “What? You need me there right now? I’m putting on my shoes.” He had said.
It’s the fact that now, as he sits on your couch looking at you in your chosen outfit– he seems a little off. Maybe it’s because you asked him where the best spots in town are because it’s been so long since you’ve gone out, or maybe he just feels awkward seeing so much skin on your body. 
To be fair, he didn’t realize you were going out out. He thought that maybe you were gonna go stay with a friend to celebrate and have a drink or two. 
In reality though, he’s just awestruck. Already you look great even after your busy days at work but…this is a different level. The way your tits look in that push-up bra and tiny ass top, when he’s used to seeing you head out in some sort of business casual outfit without an ounce of skin showing save for your ankles or wrists…jesus. He’s struggling more than usual to keep himself calm around you, hopping up on one leg when you walk away to try and adjust the chub in his pants, and releasing a small sigh before you’re looking at him again.
His skin feels like it’s on fire knowing you’re going out looking like that.
“You sure you're okay to sleep over? I figure it’ll be easier since I’m not sure when I’ll come home, or if I come home.” You smile with a wink, your stomach in knots over the two shots you’ve taken for the first time in years. “I can call my friends and tell them not to come if you’d rather focus on your studies.” 
Jay shakes his head, waving his hands in defense for you as if he didn’t just see the way your tits bounce and squish against your shirt with each move you make. 
“No, no! Go on, have fun.” He says, encouraging you to go out despite hoping you come home with no luck of finding a man out there. 
Just, look at you. Fuck, he’s staring again. He hates knowing that he could be one of the guys at whatever bar or club you’re landing on tonight. He could be the person that makes sure you don’t come home, getting to plant his face right there. He could be whatever you want him to be if you’re looking like that. 
But no, he has to play husband again, which is normally something he’s all too excited to do. Tonight though, he feels like a fucking cuckold. After everything he does for you, after not mentioning how you’ve skipped a few of his payments, after slaving away for hours over your pool, your household chores, fixing and breaking that fucking dishwasher, cooking you dinner every single night he’s here just to make sure you have a meal when you get off of work…you imply you may not come home tonight?
And you’re dressed like that?
And you’re…
God, you just look so good right now. It pains him to know you didn’t dress like this for him, the only man who cares enough to make your life easy. He’s not mad at you, per se, but he’s pissed that you don’t see him as an option despite showing you time and time again that not only is he an option, but the right choice. 
This is what you look like when you want to impress a man? This is how you act? How you talk? Fuck, god, fuck– maybe he’s just too deep in his one-sided roleplay but it really, really fucking feels like he’s watching his woman go off and look for someone else to fuck.
“Thank you, Jongseong,” You smile, walking over to him with a saunter in your step and a gentle smile across your lips. 
He’s never heard you speak his name so sensually, the way his cock twitches forces him to wince away from you. He’s never even seen you saunter before. Fucking hell, somehow it feels worse seeing you act like this after how many times he’s imagined it, all alone in his room. 
A slow walk from you, with the strap of your shirt slipping off your shoulder, fat tits threatening to spill out, lifting the hem of your skirt, or dress, or whatever you’re wearing in his fantasy at that point. Your voice, so soft, so sexy. And you’re practically bringing his fantasy to life right now, except he knows you’re going to fucking walk away from him like this. Into the fucking arms of some random dude at a club. 
Probably some loser he’s seen on campus too.
“It means a lot.” You add, popping a quick, platonic kiss to the top of his forehead. 
Ah, lipgloss. That little kiss on him is enough to ignite him to the point of no return. He almost wants to skip the part of asking you not to go and straight up just beg that you pick him, that you choose him. It’s not just your home, or the luxuries that come with it. It’s you that he wants. You’re the fucking luxury and you’re just gonna go to some sticky-floored club and pretend he’s not clearly checking you the fuck out right now? Like he’s not about three seconds from dropping to his knees just to see you from the angle you deserve?! 
“It’s no problem.” Jay relents, dropping himself onto your couch instead and adjusting his body to sink deep into the cushions just to keep himself from arguing against everything he’s giving you permission to do right now. 
Hah. Permission.
“Be safe.” He adds in an even more monotone voice. “I’ll be here when you get back.” 
And god, he seethes in his thoughts after you close that door and hop into the car with your friends. You don’t look like a mother tonight, and he wonders if you’ll be upfront and forward with anyone you intend to hit on too. Probably not. He’s well aware of the men in this city, after all, he’s one of them.
It’s really not something he can control after seeing you like that either. Your child is already in bed and he’s just sitting here on your couch with a throbbing, fucking weeping cock thinking about you. What’s stopping him from taking care of it? You’re not here, after all. 
You’re not fucking here. But everything about you is. 
And that’s how he finds himself in your bedroom for the first time, barely making it a foot into the room before closing the door and dropping to the floor. The scent in your room is different. It’s feminine, gentle, like the energy is kissing him all over and sending goosebumps straight to the head of his cock. He couldn’t even pull it out, already holding his breath with his hand down his pants, vigorously trying to get what he wants so badly yet knowing that his hand will never compare to you. 
And it’s here where he feels like a husband. Spilling against his pants with a silent, choked back sob as he stares forward at your bed, and the way you didn’t make it this morning. It’s messy, and he wants to be in that mess of sheets with you more than anything. 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Jay hates that he’s now forced to get used to your late night ventures. Every weekend now. Every. Fucking. Weekend.  You ask if he’s willing to stay over so you can go unwind, and despite his better (or worse) judgment, he accepts. The only solace he finds in these ventures is knowing you consistently come back home right after usual closing times, and you’re mostly sober. Sometimes a bit whiny that you’re not lucking out, worrying that maybe you’re too old now, or maybe you’re just not as desirable. There have even been a few times where you’ve exposed your ex husband during your rants, giving Jay little hints to follow as to why you’re single, and how he left you. 
Still, he knows in your tipsy state that you usually wouldn’t talk about these things with him, but he’s all too happy to get the details once you come home. Mostly because it calms his rising rage at how you’re doing this to not only him, but yourself. It’s mostly because you’re technically coming home to him though. 
And every single time, you go back to your bedroom to grab his payment even though it could wait until morning, considering he’s been sleeping in the guest room– all he can think about is how he’s been in your room. He’s gotten off countless times by now by the smell of your room alone, still barely able to even reach your bed to lay in it himself for a better experience. God, he’s probably memorized each little fray in your carpeted bedroom floor by now with how much he’s zoned out on it mid-jerk off session right there on his knees at your door. 
He’s truly pathetic for you. 
This time though…three in the morning has passed and normally you’d have been stumbling through the door an hour ago. Normally, he’d be fighting back the need to tell you that you’re beautiful, not too old, and entirely desirable. Normally, he would be fisting his cock again in your guest room before sleep, getting off on the idea that he can cum in a house that you live in, smothered by the sheets you meticulously picked out to match the walls of the room. Moaning for you, practically crying for you to let him do it all. 
Have you really done it this time? Gone off with some man? Are you getting railed right now in some hotel, or car, or someone’s shitty man-cave? God, his mind is racing, both aroused at the fact that you must be horny to be constantly wanting to go out like this, but equally as devastated because like…he’s right here.
Who the fuck cares if you babysat him? He’s a man. No longer that child who sprayed cheese in your hair or dumped salt into the bag of sugar. He’s a fucking man, cooking you dinner when you work, parenting your child, cleaning your house, maintaining your pool and fence….He does everything for you, why the fuck don’t you see it?!
Click.
Jay’s ears perk up instantly at the sound. He sits up on the couch from his depressed slump of scrolling through his phone, quickly fixing his hair and clearing his throat. 
In you stumble, right into the little entryway table with a whisper-screams “Shit, fuck–”
Jay looks at your state before standing to his feet and rushing to you, helping you balance on your feet despite your footing not quite being grounded even with his help. You lean on him closely, letting out an alcohol scented sigh. 
His nostrils flare as he holds his breath, feeling your tit press against his arm, smelling the drinks, the sweat, and the dulled perfume on you. Then, a hint of something else. Musk. 
You’ve been with a man. 
He holds back a gesture at the way you lean on him. Nothing more he could want at this moment but to hold you tightly and tell you that he’s got you, despite the panic in his stomach at the way he sniffs out another man. Out of lust, love, desperation, frustration. This is the closest you’ve been to him for this long. You feel clammy and cold, a clear indication that you drank far, far too much. Your tank top is sticking to you, your eyes are a bit glassy–
“You’re late.” He says shortly.
“Late?!” You raise your voice before looking at him with drowsy eyes, furrowing your brow. “I don’t have a curfe-”
“Shh–” He shushes you, helping you get to the living room. “She’s sleeping and you’re going to have her make a fuss about waking up.”
You giggle to yourself as he drops you onto the couch, now aware that yes, you are not a single college student anymore. You’re a single woman. A fucking mother. 
You should’ve just gotten a hotel for the night and slept there to dream a little longer. 
“Right.” You laugh, slouching, spreading out wide against the couch and trying to fix your gaze on him. “Why’re you still awake?” 
Jay fixes his eyes on you, swallowing around a lump in his throat. The way you’re slouching…seemingly forgetting that you’re wearing a skirt and basically flashing your panties at him. God, the things could do to you right now. The things he could get away with if he wanted to. He tries to shake those thoughts for now, and instead, inspects you from head to toe.
He’s never seen you look so relaxed. Chest raising and falling with each breath, hair a little messy, lipstick stains smeared on the outsides of your lip line. He chooses to ignore the faint swell against your neck indicating someone has been sucking on you. But, well, he can’t ignore it. Both his cock and heart aches at the very thought.
“You’ve been kissing?” Jay tries to ask nonchalantly. 
“A lot more than that–” You smile, feeling a flush cross your cheeks before the disappointment hits you square in the gut. 
Jay watches your face fall, and he mimics it by falling onto the couch and sitting by your head…you know, allowing you to lay your head on him if you want to. You’d probably not notice his arousal anyway, given your state. 
“Oh?” He asks gently, the disappointment now showing plainly on not just your face, but his own.
“Thought I was gonna go home with him, turns out he decided to be done after a blowjob in the parking lot.”
Oh, the way his blood boils. Not for the fact that you were used or rejected, but for the fact that you found someone that you were interested in and genuinely intended to leave your home life in his hands for however fucking long. Really? Just gonna leave him here all alone? Like he couldn’t do better for you?
“It’s for the better–” Jay says as he shivers with irritation, struggling to keep his façade up. It’s definitely not what you wanted to hear, and definitely not what you’d have expected to hear from a college guy at all either.
“This happened last time too, except he didn’t even get me to the parking lot.” You huff, unaware of how much you’re sharing right now. 
He bites back the anger yet again, inhaling deeply before releasing a calming breath through his nose just to contain it. So…it has happened more than once? 
“Why don’t you let me take you out someday?” He says suddenly, well aware that you’ll probably never remember he said it in the first place. 
If anything, he’s testing the waters for his own sake. He’d hate himself forever if he didn’t at least take advantage of this moment a little bit. 
“Then who will watch my daughter?” You respond in slurred speech, not even comprehending who it is that’s asking you this question right now. Not even thinking about your history with him, or the family ties. 
He, on the other hand, is quite entertained by the way you don’t bring the history up like he expected. His cock twitches at it, bumping your head just a bit, not enough for you to notice apparently. Fuck, it would be so easy for him to pull it out right now, and just…tap your lips with it. 
Maybe you’d even open your mouth for him. 
“I’ll skip class on a Wednesday, we can go while she’s still in daycare.” He continues through an almost-moan, encouraging the conversation to stay positive.
“Jongseong–” You slur before clearing your throat and sitting back up in a dizzy show of how drunk you are. “You know I can’t do that. It’s too weird.” 
In all fairness, you know he has like…a thing for you. After all, why else would a college dude be spending his weekends here babysitting your kid? It’s not like you haven’t noticed the way he checks you out before you go out for the night. Why would he do all of this if he didn’t have some sort of attraction to you? Sure, you’re taking advantage of it as best as you can despite how you didn’t recognize him at first. 
Despite how deep down, you very well know how attracted to him you are too. 
“Only because you make it weird.” Jay rolls his eyes as he looks at you, spreading his legs out to adjust his comfort, noting the way you glance down to his lap and see it. “I’m a grown man–” He starts, spreading his legs wider, pressing his cock against his pants to the point you can practically see the outline. ”you know this.” He continues, trying to be bold now by reaching forward and moving a strand of your hair from your cheek. 
“You’ve seen it.”
You freeze, suddenly feeling entirely too sober to be talking about this kind of thing with him. With Jongseong. God, his mother would fucking kill you if she found out he’s in your house while you’re out trying to get fucked by whoever is willing to love you temporarily. 
Jay sees you thinking though, and continues to take the advantage now that he’s feeling brave. Now that you’ve seen the twitch in his pants and haven’t moved off the couch, or told him to go home. 
“I saw you watching me when I was cleaning your pool, multiple times.” He whispers snidely. “You stopped when you realized who I am. Why?”
“Jongseo–…” You trail off. “You know this isn’t okay. What would people think of me? There are rules, and I will not go down this route with you.”
A rush of air hits your face and suddenly, warmth hits your cheek. You feel him so close, closer than ever before. It’s dizzying. Jay is over you, hovering with one hand ghosting over your hip. 
“You want to though, don’t you?” He gets even closer now, darting his eyes down at your chest and unable to pull them away. “Knowing how good I am with your daughter? How well I clean up? How strong I can be–”
You swallow hard. For a moment, you almost lean into him. You almost melt right then and there, the need for intimacy so heavy inside of you after being left high and dry, knowing that you’d accept it from just about anyone at this point. But– this is Jongseong. You can’t. 
You really, really, can’t. 
The look of disappointment in his eyes kind of hurts when you’re pushing him away. That playful smirk falling faster than you think your sanity did the day your ex husband left you. 
“This–” You pause, realizing all too well how he’s used your drunken state against you for this conversation. “This is your last paycheck.”
“I don’t think so.” The smirk is back now, except…it’s different. “You know I promised her a Barbie dream house next weekend.” He smiles fully now. “She’s a bit attached, you know, even called me dad by accident the other day.” 
You’re shocked. 
“She…what?”
“You know she’s attached to me already, don’t be selfish.” Jay shrugs at you while rolling his eyes, leaning against the couch again and turning his head to look at you. You try to pretend that you don’t see his hand slightly groping himself. “Guess she misses having a father around. Can’t be too easy for her, especially with her mom going out every weekend trying to fuck guys who would run the second they learn about her.” He ticks his tongue now, as if he’s pitying you more than your daughter. 
“Jongseong, that’s not–”
“That’s not, what?”
“That’s not what I’m doing…” You lower your voice to a near whisper, upset that you couldn’t even enjoy the drunken state you came home in, now feeling entirely too sober, and a little sick in the stomach. 
“Oh, so you haven’t gotten laid since I’ve been here–” He leans closer again now, trying to resume what he was going to do just moments ago. “They haven’t even touched you, have they?” His hands move to your thigh and presses down as if to hold you in place. “Why?”
“I try not to just sleep with anyone.” You lie, knowing you’d sleep with anyone just to feel wanted for once. And you’re trying to ignore his hands on you right now, trying desperately not to like it. It’s the first time a man has touched you in this house since your husband left you. As expected, you almost feel your knees buckle despite sitting comfortably. “I have to be careful, you know?”
“Mm, I know more than you think.” He leans into you, hovering yet again with his upper half over you as he whispers it. “Don’t need to be careful around me though.” He adds, this time trailing his voice right against your jaw, up to your ear. “You must be so frustrated.” He ghosts his lips there for a moment, waiting for you to push him away, or say something, anything, really. 
“Why would I be frustrated?” You lend the smallest of whispers, feeling the goosebumps against your skin rising at the mere thought of giving in just this once.
“Not having anyone to please you.” He adds now, landing a very slight kiss right under your lobe. “Always being used for someone else’s pleasure, maybe?”
You almost nod, feeling weak in your state and thoughts swimming with what if’s, morals, and anxieties. You’re frozen in place despite knowing a simple push would create the distance you need to breathe. 
“Your fingers will never be enough, will they?” He continues, essentially chaining you to this couch with his words alone. You can’t help the fight in your head, you need to feel wanted, and you want so badly to feel needed. “I bet you wish someone would love you for all that you are, not all that you have.” 
It’s silent as you feel his lips press down again, this time moving his body over you almost entirely. You can feel the couch dip a bit as he places all of his weight on a knee, moving his other leg to stand between yours.
“You must need someone to fill that hole in you by now, right? That pussy of yours?” He continues, his tone a bit more snide now as you give in to his hold with shaky breaths. 
And truthfully, Jay has never let himself come on this strong towards someone before. Usually the wives are doing this to him. They’re trying to convince him, encourage him. He’s so fucking horny right now though, with that daze in your eye, your legs spread around his knee, blinking up at him like a cheating wife. As if you want to apologize, as if you need him to forgive you. Need him to make everything better.
“I heard you the other day, you know, talking to your mom–” He smiles, tilting his head to look into your eyes, seeing a small shine in them. “You want another, don’t you?” He continues, moving his lips now just over yours as he, now, presses you firmly against the couch. “You must hate knowing that I’m the only person who can do that for you.” 
“God, Jay.” You immediately buckle, not realizing how suddenly he’s not Jongseong at this moment. He’s someone else. He’s Jay.
“Why don’t you go for girls on campus?! Don’t you have parties to be attending on the weekends instead of being here, trying to parent my chil–”
“Lower that voice of yours,” He whispers, eyes now hooded as he looks at you. “You know she’s asleep.”
God, he’s right. 
“Besides, why would I want them when I have you right here under me–” He tilts his head. “Looking so disappointed that you like it, too.” 
Right then, your moral code shines into the front of your mind at the consideration of giving in.
A weight on one shoulder chanting, “No! What would people say?! What would people think?!”, and then little to no weight on the other shoulder, echoing in a sweet song of “Finally! Someone who will love you! Finally! Someone! Finally!!! Finally!” 
You pause, not knowing at all what to do. Your body wants to push him away, even your mind and soul wants you to push him away. But you know deep down, you’d only push him away to see if he will try again. No man has ever tried for you like this, and you need more of it. 
To feel desired after so long of neglecting this side of yourself, it’s enough to make a person lose their footing in reality. To give in to just about anyone willing to look at you the way he is right now. It’s the fact that you go out to try and find it, and even with this alone, Jay has satisfied you more than any stranger promising to make you cum.
“I…don’t know what to say–” You stutter. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I do.” Jay smiles, glancing at your lips before meeting your eye again. “Why not hand over the reins and relax for a–” His hand dips under your skirt, cupping your sensitive cunt in one hand alone. “Ah, I knew it.” Then, his other hand finds purchase on your chest, lifting your heavy breast in his hand with a blatant, hard squeeze.
After a sharp inhale you look away from him in shame, afraid to admit it despite the truth of it leaking through your panties and onto his palm.
“Wet.” He smiles, no longer looking at you but flicking his eyes back and forth from between your legs, and to your chest. Still, he fumbles around the wet spot, wanting so badly to lift these fingers to his mouth and taste. He’s fantasized about it, about how you’d taste, how warm it would be, what your pussy would feel like against his fingers–
And just as he’s pushing your panties to the side, pads of his fingers touching right where you need them with his eyes hooded and watching you closely, something snaps.
You push his hand away, only to feel him push back, holding you down with more force, gripping your tit tighter, sliding his fingers in before massaging the slit with a blatant moan on his lips. Then, you try again, shoving him back only to hear him chuckle and continue his antics until– you jump to your feet. It felt too good, too grounding to have him touching you like this. You nearly stumble back over the coffee table, but you manage to stand tall and firm despite the fact that even though your mind feels sober, your body is fucking wasted.
“Jongseong.” You argue immediately, using his name the same way you did when he was a child. “Stop.” 
He throws his hands up in defense, raising his brows in surprise. 
“I–” He pauses, staring at you. “I thought you were enjoying it, my mistake.” 
It’s the fact that you were. You were enjoying it too much, and there would have been no defending your actions if you had given in to the feeling. 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, fucking stupid. That’s what you are. 
Your ex husband was right all along. Out of everything you’ve accomplished since your heart was shattered, ripped to shreds, stomped on, you’d think it would take a lot more to break you. 
“You ask for too much.” Your ex husband had said once. “You can’t even stand to be alone for one day.” He had said a year or so later. Small digs on who you are and what you need sprinkled into small arguments, only to come more and more from the lips that you kissed and promised to kiss until you die. Until all of his words were to make you feel inadequate. Until everything he said to you stuck with you, forcing your confidence to bury itself six feet under. 
Are you to blame? As it stands, maybe. Why else would you be allowing yourself to consider it? Consider Jongseong, you mean. Never in your life would you have considered him of all people to be the one that you need. 
Never in your life would you have thought he’d be interested in a woman like you, in a situation like yours, with a child. Why did that night with him stick in your head more than every single mean thing your ex husband said to you? Why did his words seem more believable? 
Because you were drunk at the time? Wet, neglected, and drunk? 
Then why is it that you’re sitting here on your day off with your beautiful, bright-eyed daughter rummaging through your purse for whatever catches her eye….and you’re thinking about him? About what he's doing right now, how he’s feeling, if he’s eaten. 
Why is it that you’ve gone the entire week ignoring his texts, asking if you need him to come resume his job as babysitter? Why the fuck do you want to accept after how he took advantage of your state of mind? After he came onto you and tried to manipulate you? 
Despite all of his words ringing true in the back of your head. That was a dirty tactic he pulled on you. Yet, still…you want him back, and god fucking dammit you could cry knowing your daughter called him “dad.” You hadn’t believed him at first, but after this week alone it slipped from her mouth several times. 
“He’s not your dad, baby, that’s just Jay.” You remember correcting her more than once, and all she responded to you with was a confused expression. 
“Why not?” Is what her little voice gave back to you after her child-like brain decided it was fed up with you correcting her very right assumption of the guy who promised her the Barbie Dream House. 
Why not?
Why not?
Well, if you could have an adult conversation with a five year old it would be much easier to answer that. Because he sprayed cheese in your hair. Because you were seventeen and his babysitter when he was ten years old. Because you ogled him without recognizing him as your pool boy. Because of a lot of things.
“Uncle Jay.” You finally corrected her again. 
She shook her head, and continued doing and saying as her little mind pleased. It made you miss having a father around for her though. You think she needs it more than you do. 
And that fucking Barbie Dream house is what brings Jay back. 
Right at your doorstep today, with a gentle knock to the door and a timid smile on his face. He doesn’t even look at you when you open the door, and instead crouches down in front of you with the big, flashy box. He ignores you, tilting himself to look past you and straight at your daughter. 
You hold your breath when she runs to Jay, arms spread open and laughter shrieking in your ears. Your heart aches so much at this moment. 
Given your work schedule, you’d never gotten to see them interact much. He always came over as she was eating her breakfast, and you always came home after she was put to bed. You guess it’s fair that they have a bond now. She doesn’t even run at you like she does for Jay. In fact, the only time she ever did was when she had a bad day at daycare and had a tummy ache. 
She runs to you when she needs you, but she runs to Jay like she wants to. Like she genuinely is attached to him, and his kind smile, and his eyes, and probably that warm embrace that you’ve never let yourself experience.
You watch them, not allowing yourself to melt at the moment because you did not invite him over, nor did you give consent to bring that fucking doll house here. But you can’t say no now, as she clings to his leg when he stands up and looks at you with an almost irritated glint in his eye. 
His eyes trail all over you briefly too, as if checking for any new spots or marks that a man could have put on you. You feel seen, dipping your head to not meet his eye and scratching the back of your neck as if to hide a spot there. There isn’t a mark, it’s just…fear? nervousness? anxiety? 
And then he hauls the box in for her without saying a word to you. You watch him hard now that his back is turned. His voice sounds so loving when he speaks to your child as if she’s an equal. Plopping down on your living room floor with her and opening the large box. 
He Ooo’s and Aahhh’s with her as he pulls each piece out, connecting the walls, the doors, handing her little things to help him with. And both of them are so focused on the task at hand to create a safe space for all of her abused barbie dolls that… you feel invisible.
For the first time ever in front of them both, you feel like you are nothing but a ghost. That he is the single parent. As if you’re forgotten, less loved, not wanted, not even needed. 
There’s a bubbling in your gut when you tear up, reminding yourself that what Jay did that night was probably just, well, he’s a man. Men aim to fuck at all times usually, and you guess you should have expected it at one point from him because, again, you’re aware that he’s attracted to you. Even more aware now. 
But the way you feel right now outshines that. He’s ignoring you to keep your child happy. She is ignoring you because it seems Jay does a better job at it than you do. 
And, well, he’s not holding you down, whispering things in your ear, letting out frustrated little sighs at your drunken or drowsy words now. So, you say nothing. All you can do is go to the kitchen and prepare a snack, trying to force the tears to stay inside of you with quiet sniffles, hoping you can join their little picture perfect moment so that you can be helpful too. 
Your heart swells when they both look at you as you present a plate of snacks. You have to hold back tears again at the way their eyes shine, thanking you for the snacks. Jay’s eyes stay on you a bit longer though, as if saying “See? See what you’re making her go without?” 
You do see it. 
But…it can’t be him. As much as you wish it could be, you just can’t. There has to be another man out there just like him, one that doesn’t have a history with you that would cause whispers and questions. There has to be. 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
That moment you witnessed seems to have solidified Jay’s place in your home. Whether it be for babysitting or simply so your child can see him when she’s asking for him (which is often.) It’s kind of an issue, actually, because now the choice isn’t yours anymore and it appears Jay knows that.
You hate that you’re forced to see him for what he is now. How he proves himself over and over again to be the man you need. The issue is that you still don’t want it to be him. The bigger issue is that he’s breaking down your walls, doing little things for you, looking at you with those dark eyes– your resolve cracks and reminds you every time he’s here that maybe it could work. Maybe you’ll give him a chance. Maybe you won’t have to go out anymore looking to fill a void that no one else fits into. 
It’s the way that now, you can’t help but to compare him to your ex husband. The man who you loved for so long, who you genuinely thought you’d spend your life with happily and safely. Now, compared to Jay, your ex seems like…nothing. Like a little crack in your resolve. He was older than you by just two years, took care of you for so long, impregnated you, and slowly but surely throughout all that time grew to resent you too.
You still don’t know why, but perhaps it’s just because you were growing into your own. You were becoming more independent, though he never had the capability to realize just how much you depended on him during the very time he left you. 
“I just don’t want to do this anymore.” Your ex had said to you on that fateful morning. 
Your belly was big as you tried to waddle up to him when he said that. You can’t help but think back now and wonder how pathetic you must have seemed when he yanked his arm from your grip, especially due to the difficulty of your pregnancy already. You were sick through most of it, only having a few good days here or there where that pregnancy glow would make your ex husband second-guess himself. 
The slam of the door after that was more exhausting than the months of pregnancy you’d gone through. It felt loud, so loud you could hear it vibrate throughout your whole body. You recall falling to the floor and carefully holding your stomach. It’s like all of the heartbreak pooled there. The loss of your husband three weeks before he got to meet the child he was supposed to love. Her little heart must have been breaking inside of you too. 
Double the pain.
And then you were mending yourself on your own. Going into labor early from stress,  your family helped take care of you more than her. You were needier. You were broken. 
And never, fucking ever, did you think you’d find yourself sitting comfortable in your lavish home realizing that your ex-husband didn’t deserve all of that pain from you. He left you for that girl, and not two months later did she leave him. 
Never did you think you’d find yourself thinking about Jay as a replacement either. Well, not a replacement, but like, maybe just…he’s the idea of a perfect dad if you pay attention to how your child talks about him. How they act together. How she cries for him before bed when he’s not there, asking you why you don’t read to her the way Jay does. Why don't you sing to her the way he does? Why don't you use the same voices for her dolls? Why you don’t cut her food like he does, why you don’t do this or that.
That’s what makes it click the most you think. The fact that Jay has given her something you never can. The love of a father. It doesn’t even feel like he’s babysitting at this point, he’s parenting, teaching her lessons, bandaging small boo-boos, fixing her hair,…cooking dinner, cleaning…existing here like he belongs.
Jay has done more for your daughter than your ex husband ever could have, more than you could have done for her too, you think. 
Even now, as you come home night after night and see him, you struggle to see him as anyone that isn’t who your daughter needs. Maybe who you need. 
His summer semester is coming to an end too, and it’s hard to see him as a college student now. He really does coursework and everything that needs to be done at your home all within a single work day? With no complaints at all? Lately, you’ve noticed that he’s been more focused on studying when he babysits too, but still your daughter listens to him better than she listens to you. 
Yet, still, it’s like you’re avoiding each other as you go through the motions, but you notice him more. You feel more discomfort because of it, mostly because you know your resolve about this is breaking. There’s a fear inside of you that revolves around him.
What if you missed your chance? 
What if it does end up being a mistake if he still wants you?
You don’t know what to do, but you know you want him. 
Some nights, Jay does sleep over due to exhaustion and you don’t even ask him to leave because you know he’s not doing it to try anything. The avoidance is loud. Lately, you come home from work and there he is, sitting up with his laptop on his lap but sound asleep, softly snoring. Each time, you remind yourself of how he’s sacrificing his study time to babysit. You know your child can be distracting and needy when she wants something too, but he doesn’t complain even a little bit. The least you could have done was bring him a blanket, which you did. And you woke the next morning to find him curled up on the same couch, laptop toppled over onto the floor.
Small, gentle acts of kindness towards each other but never face to face. You’ve woken to fresh coffee countless times, made exactly the way you like it because you know he’s watched you make it yourself. You’ve come home to re-stocked items, like milk and eggs, laundry detergent, and even toothpaste. It’s nice, and a small indication that he doesn’t resent you. Even through face-to-face avoidance on your part.
Tonight seemed different though, compared to all of the other nights when you can’t go out. You walked through the door to the smell of dinner and your child still awake, sing-songing at you the moment you walked in. 
“Dad said I can stay up late!” 
You quirk a brow, her calling him that now becoming a regular occurrence to the point it goes through one ear and out the other for you. You recall discussing her bed time though, with absolutely no exceptions.
“Did he now?” You hug her before taking off your coat, walking with her to the kitchen where you find Jay, placing down a small plate on the table with cartoon characters on it, right in front of two bigger plates with bigger portions of delicious looking food placed neatly on it.
Your heart swells, but your anxiety grows twice as big alongside it. This. 
This is what you’ve wanted for so long. This is what you never thought you could find. So, why is it that you still have push-back in your mind? Despite knowing that Jay has proven himself time and time again, you want to argue?! 
Perhaps it’s because you like the way he tries. Maybe you’re not ready to lose that feeling of being chased in some way, of being begged to let him stay. Maybe it’s because you begged your husband, desperate for him to keep you, but he left anyway. It feels like Jay gives you power over yourself, over your love-life, over everything, really. 
And if you were to actually accept his advances, even just a dinner on your table, what if he stops? What if he gets bored once he gets what he wants? After all, he’s still young, you can’t truly imagine he wants to do this forever. 
Not with you, and not with your daughter either. 
“What’s all this? Isn’t it a bit late for her to have dinner?” You question him instantly, anxiety bubbling up out of assumption alone. 
“We had a small snack a few hours ago.” Jay reassures you. “I finished my exams and had a burst of energy to celebrate, besides, it’s a Friday–” He goes to pull out a chair for you. “You don’t need to be up early either. A late dinner every now and then never hurt anybody.”
The way this is the first time the two of you have had a face-to-face conversation since…that night. His voice calms you, and that’s scary. 
You huff, happy because you could easily melt into this chair and pretend you’re having a family dinner, like you always wanted, like you never rejected a touch from him that you desperately wanted. You could just play along and pretend Jay is everything you need. Except, it wouldn’t even be pretending at this point. The whole idea of him has changed. But, again, that anxiety. You still have that little voice holding you back, no matter what you want, or what you need, you fear it’ll be ripped from you again if you were to let yourself be weak for another person.
“I’m really tired, Jongseong.” You explain, walking past the kitchen and towards your bedroom. “Thanks for dinner but I’m not too hungry and I just want to lay down.”
And with that, he watches you leave. No real appreciation, no congratulations on him finishing his exams, not even a kiss to your child’s forehead. Is he still expected to be the one to put her to sleep? 
Why is he even here? Why did he do all of this? 
His patience is running dry.
So, he eats with your child as your plate goes cold and he leaves it there. If you can’t even handle a dinner at the table with the person who cooked it, you can deal with your own fucking plate. Throw away your own fucking food, wash your own fucking dish. And if you can’t tuck your child into bed, he’ll do it, but you can shove that fake ass exhaustion right up your ass for all he cares. 
He knows you’re not exhausted. He’s seen you when you are. You’re just being an asshole to him at this point, trying to appear like you’re perfectly happy with the life you live when your drunken rants prove otherwise. You treat him like everything he does has an ulterior motive. Which, yeah, maybe it does, but he was genuinely excited to have someone celebrate the end of this semester with him. Maybe assuming you’d indulge him went too far. For the first time, he wasn’t doing it to impress you.
By the time Jay gets your daughter to bed, all tucked in with a little tune to fall asleep to, he closes her door and just stands there in the silence on the other side of it. 
You must really enjoy being a single mother, huh? This is why too. He always questioned it. You’re so attractive, so well-adjusted. You work hard, your daughter is a sunshine in this world, and you’ve not managed to find anyone to love you yet? He thought he was lucky to be the one getting to spend time with you. 
Turns out, you refuse to let anyone in despite Jay knowing, fucking seeing straight through you. You want something from someone. You need it, yearn for it, even. But it’s almost laughable at the way you refuse it. 
Excuses, excuses, excuses. 
It’s the fucking audacity you have taking advantage of him. You’ve practically led him on. You lend him everything he wants in life. That’s it. You lend it. From flaunting yourself before you go to bars, to exposing all the marks you allow other men to leave on you. Letting him stay in this house, father your child, cook, clean, mend, fix, heal. 
From being a faux-father to being minimized to a college student that you used to babysit. He’s offered you relief in so many ways including sexual, and all you fucking do is avoid, deny, fucking reject him. You still go out to bars, later and later you’ll come home with new swells against your skin, but always looking so empty and disappointed. Sometimes he thinks you try to make him jealous. Sometimes, he thinks you want him to try again. 
Sometimes, he thinks you get off on the fact that he keeps trying.
And he has tried. Albeit more gently lately, but he has. Small, lingering touches when he hands you your coat to help you get out the door and to work quicker. Starting your car for you before you leave. Fuck, he even opens the goddamn door for you. Anything to make you feel appreciated, respected, and fucking wanted.
The silence is loud in his ears due to the sheer irritation as he drops his head, staring at his feet and knowing it’ll only take a few strides to reach your bedroom. A room he still craves to be in.
He’s raided those drawers by now, because of course he has. Soiling your panties, your sheets, anything that still smells like you when you’re gone for the day, all so he can act normal upon seeing you when you come home. He’s laid in your bed by now too, wondering what it would feel like to have your weight beside him. He fantasized about anything and everything he possibly could in there.
And he’s always warmer. Always cums the hardest with weak, muffled moans as he stuffs your pillows into his mouth to keep quiet. All before cleaning every trace of himself there, closing the door, and wishing he was allowed to exist in there with you. 
Right now will be the first time Jay enters your room to your knowledge, and it sucks for him because he has essentially trained himself to get hard every time he opens this fucking door. Still, he composes himself, and it’s a bit of a shock if you’re being honest.  You thought he’d go home after this, you were kind of hoping he would after you made it so awkward. 
You felt guilty the second you saw his expression fall to your rejection of eating dinner like a big fucking happy family. You want it so bad, you want him so bad.
When you left the kitchen, you immediately went to your room and hopped in the shower, well aware that he wouldn’t follow you. You thought hard while the hot water made attempts to wash away your feelings. Would it have been so bad to just eat with him? With your daughter? With both of them? The way his eyes fell, it burned your heart a little bit.
Still, no answers came to you because you know part of you just wants to see what else he will do for you. Despite the history with him, and despite knowing his entire family would question and scoff at you for it…Is it really so wrong? To want to give him a chance just to see if he’ll leave you too? 
Just to see if it’ll hurt when he does it too?
Inviting him to your home almost every day of the week isn’t wrong, right? Forgetting to pay him all those times before, hoping to see him again and get that confidence boost, that wasn’t wrong. Letting your daughter attach herself to him when you swore he wasn’t permanent, no longer having the energy to correct her use of “dad” towards him… none of that is wrong.
 It’s all Jay. He’s the one in the wrong for willingly following along, not you. Right? 
And as you’re sitting on your bed in your towel, zoning out and staring at your floor, Jay swings your bedroom door open without a single knock, mindfully closes it, and immediately goes off on you.
Somehow, you really expected him to accept your rejection but your heart swells that he didn’t. You don’t think he ever will, and you’re exhausting yourself hoping he’ll prove you wrong.
He’s shown you enough by now. This is what breaks down that wall inside of you, isn’t it?
“What am I doing wrong?” He shoots his first question out in a desperate whisper shout, eyes searing into you before continuing without a single breath. “Because I do everything for her, and i do everything  for you, does that really make you so fucking uncomfortable?”
“J–” You try to respond, feeling your skin prickle at the sheer irritation in his expression.
He’s fighting for you.
“Isn’t that what you want?!”
“After everything I do–” He throws his hands up now, running his fingers through his hair as if you make him feel like he wants to rip it out. “After trying to make your life easy while making mine harder, for what? You to not eat the fucking food I made? For you to go to the bar all the time just to come back disappointed like I’m not right here waiting for you to come back?” 
“What ar-”
“Don’t ask me any stupid fucking questions, Just answer me.” He drops his hands, stepping up to you, placing both hands on either side of your hips, doing his best not to react to your near-naked body. “Why?”
You lean back, trying to create more distance to try and give him an answer that you don’t even know yourself, but he just keeps closing in. Not letting you escape this time. You’ve never seen him so riled up before, it’s…
Well…
“Because I came onto you? Because I tried to do what no one else will do for you?” His voice shakes when he says it, and you can feel the heat radiating from him. Is he…about to cry?
Only now, seeing him so close with an entirely sober brain do you realize an answer. Maybe not to his question of why, but to the same question you’ve been asking yourself. It’s because of that look in his eye. You’ve never been able to put a word to it, but now with him demanding you explain yourself so closely, you see it.
He’s desperate. 
Arguably as desperate as you’ve felt to fill the void. Except, he’s trying to do that for you and you won’t let him out of what? Fucking fear? Hell, at this point the history means close to nothing when it comes to all the new memories he’s made in this home, even without you. The history of babysitting him, the history of your ex husband leaving you. It doesn’t matter.
You think hard, so hard that you feel your eyes burn as you stare up at him. Glancing without intention to his jaw when he clenches it, to his neck when he swallows his words, to his lips, his eyes, the hair falling in his face…and you just–
You reach up, running a soothing hand through his hair to get it out of his face. Then you see those same desperate eyes somehow grow more desperate as he lowers them, leaning into the touch, as if you’ve been starving him the same way you’ve been starved for years. He falls silent too, cutting himself off mid-question just to feel you touch him for the first time.
“I don’t know.” You say, which seems like a better answer than having an excuse. What can you say otherwise? That it’s because it shouldn’t  be him? That you’re afraid he’ll realize he’s not ready to settle? To be a dad? He’ll ask why, and it’ll be the same answer you gave on that drunken night. An answer that you no longer care about. 
You babysat him when he was a child, but you were still a child too. 
You were still a child, and time changes things.
Your ex husband left you, and you’re afraid he will too, especially because he’s so much younger? Who cares?
Your answer seems to fly right past his head though, because he’s still leaning to feel your fingers in his hair, and he’s looking at you as if nothing you say will matter unless you make it hold some weight to him. 
“Jongseong–” You pause, scratching right at his nape, uncaring of how you can feel your towel loosening on your body. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Somehow, his name on your lips is what he needed to hear. The tone of it, the rasp in your voice, your fingers in his hair. Actions speak louder than anything the two of you could say right now, and he can’t help it. Nothing can stop him, not even you at this point. 
He hasn’t done anything wrong you say? It’s because he fucking knows what you need.
You inhale deeply, holding your breath when you feel your back hit your mattress, his warm hands instantly taking advantage of your freshly-showered state and tugging at the towel just slightly to let it fall open. You hear a slight breath from him at that moment, an inhale. There, he climbs onto the bed, nudging himself between your legs and trapping you there under him, both hands holding your arms down.
Like he’s afraid you’ll reject him again.
“You’re going to let me take care of you now.” He demands, though to him it sounds more like a plea solely due to the fact that he’s so fucking turned on it’s unreal. That feeling of when your fingers were in his hair? Seeing your naked body? Unshaved pussy? Being in this fucking room with you? It throws him into overdrive, especially with the way you just lay there blinking up at him in surprise. The anger melting away only amplifies it more. 
How could you do this to him? Genuinely, how could you have let him fucking suffer for you like this? 
Still, you blink up as if you’re a deer caught in headlights and it makes his heart thump against his ribcage. Your eyes are so bright, that glint of sadness he had seen so many times isn’t there right now. And there’s so much adrenaline inside of him, like he needs to move fast before you change your mind again. You’ve not let him do this for some fucking reason or another and now you’re just laying here for him.
 There, with your entire body on display, and you appear to be docile. Fucking obedient? Like he always knew you would be if you’d just drop the fucking act?! You were meant for him and him alone, and he’s going to show you why.
In all honesty, you’re tired of denying yourself by now. From the moment you saw him that day cleaning your pool for the first time, you’ve wanted him on some level. It wasn’t an emotional attachment, but a hope, a fantasy for you. And when you recognized him, you were more impressed with him than embarrassed. You tried not to let your eyes wander out of guilt, out of feeling like a pervert. 
And then, that day when he came onto you, he was just a man to you. Your faux guilt kept you from letting him, and your hope to be chased kept you from it too. As if you’ve never pleasured yourself to the thought of him, shamefully in this very bed. As if you’ve never called out his name with a silent breath. If you keep going at this point, you’ll lose him before ever knowing what he could really be for you. 
This is his last ditch effort to beat you at your own game, and you’re ready to lose.
  So, now, you let yourself get lost in him. In  his eyes and the way he pleads and makes his demands. He probably doesn’t recognize his strength against you right now, or how much it’s turning you on. With the way he has both hands on your wrists, probably bruising them, and there’s nothing you could do even if you wanted to. His weight holding you down feels better than you imagined. 
After so long, with so many failed hookups where you’ve told them of your daughter and all they’ve done in return is get their orgasm then leave…Jay. He wants to take care of you? 
He wants to…give you what you need?
Fuck, you know he can. That’s the fucked up part. He’s proved it so many times to you in so many ways. You’ve watched him, the way he moves and acts around you. He’s exactly what you need. You pushed him to this point, where his sanity is on the brink of crashing. Taking it away from him again feels wrong, because it’s exactly what you want.
And when he presses his leg between yours, he knows.
“Again?” He comments, now releasing your wrist from one hand and running it down, able to slip his fingers right into the slick of your bare pussy. “You’re wet.” 
You still just blink up at him with an intake of breath at the pleasure, thoughts running left and right on what to do, finally realizing you don’t want to do a damn thing. He’d do it all if you let him. Clean your house, be a father, fix all of the breaks, make you wet.
And you just feel him, the way his fingers play around with what he does to you. You can practically feel his confidence rise at the way you spread your legs a bit more, as if to give him more access. When you look at him, his expression remains harsh, but slowly he moves himself down, lips brushing over one of your nipples while keeping eye contact.
Still that irritated look, like he’s mad you haven’t let him do this before now.
“How many times are you going to pretend like I’m not the one who gets you wet?” He asks before rubbing circles around your clit, tongue flicking in the same way around your nipple. “Like I don’t have a right to take care of you?”
Your breath is still caught in your throat, trying to be careful about what you say right now despite knowing you can’t speak. You focus on what he’s doing instead, losing yourself to something you’ve not felt in far, far too long. 
He’s right. He’s gotten you wet more than once by now. More than he knows. 
And goddamn, he knew your tits could bounce, but the way they move without the support of a bra, the plush, soft feeling of your nipple growing erect in his mouth, all for him to bite and pull at. He does it too, listening to the little seething sound of pain from you when he pulls all the way back with your nipple between his teeth. Only to let it fall from his mouth and break eye contact with you to see the jiggle as it falls.
His cock twitches, at everything that you are right now, feeling more pleasure through seeing you like this alone compared to fucking his own fist on your bedroom floor. He notes how your legs squeeze him more at the nipple stimulation than his fingers too, memorizing the way your labia falls open between them. He smirks, flicking his tongue more, quicker. 
There. There it is.
A low rumble in your chest falls from your lips. Soft, a moan. A very small, delicate sound.
“You like this?” Jay asks, looking up at you, letting his tongue fall from his mouth again and flicking the erect nub. “When I play with your tits?”
You nod, throwing an arm over your face in embarrassment that this is actually happening. You’re letting him. Already you feel yourself heat up more, even when he takes his fingers away from your clit and instead, uses them to flick your other nipple. 
And he does this for a few minutes. Paying special attention to your tits, going back and forth with his fingers and tongue to each bud, trying so hard to not stop just to shove his cock between them and use them the way he’s always wanted. He focuses on drawing out more and more little sounds from you instead, slurping his own saliva from your painfully erect nipples, pulling back, blowing cold air, then warming it up again with his lips. All while simultaneously groping, flicking, and pinching with his other hand. 
“Jesus, Jay–” You moan quietly, chest rising and falling as he squeezes and licks against you. 
That’s right, say his name. Let him fucking know he’s doing what you like. Jay thinks, feeling his cock weep in his pants as he does it. Wondering just how sensitive you are to be reacting like this to simple nipple stimulation. God, he’s wanted to suck on these for so long, and now you’re letting him. They’re so big, so plush. He wants to fucking cover them with his mouth, he wants to bury his face in them, kiss them all over them. 
And if they were to get bigger? He moans at the thought, remembering that conversation you had with your mom. You want another. He bets they’d swell up–Oh, fuck yeah. They’d probably hurt to rub against your shirt. God, fuck, he can’t control his thoughts right now.
 Finally. 
Fucking finally, he has you and he’s not going to let you run away again.
He doesn’t fucking care if it’s forward. He wants what he wants, you want what you want. That want just so happens to line up. Besides, he’s already proved himself to you, he knows it. If you’re letting him do this, maybe you’d let him stay like this. 
“Did they get bigger?” He moans briefly as he swaps to your other nipple again. “So full, so heavy, were they leaking all over you?”
You listen to him, trying not to feel the pit in your stomach bubble with even more arousal at his blatant and dirty words, feeling your clit throb at the stimulation your tits are getting right now. 
“Makes my dick fucking throb just thinking about it. Fuck–” 
“Let me give you another,” He mumbles now, almost mindlessly before looking up at you with an intense gaze as he bites down, indicating that he’s not mindless about it at all. 
“Swell you up, make you glow–”
Oh. 
Why is that– why are you dripping?
He hears that moan you let out. Different from the others, almost desperate.
“Mm, yeah.” He encourages it, now allowing his hand to travel back down to witness how much wetter you’ve gotten at those words. So messy, so perfect. “Knew you’d want it raw.”
You can’t help the nod, as it comes before you even process his words solely because you feel his fingers slip inside of you. You haven’t been this wet in so, so long. You want to feel it. To be full again, of anything. Of him.
“Ye-” You start, interrupting yourself with a bite of your lip and your eyes rolling back. 
“That’s right mama,” He coos, tilting his fingers up and amplifying the pressure inside of you. “Gonna let me take good care of this pussy, yeah?” He adds, lifting from your tits and ghosting his lips over yours. 
He watches you closely, that daze in your eye. God, you look so horny right now. There’s nothing more he wants than to see this time and time again. To let you wake up every morning with his warm cum inside of you, to see your belly swell with his child, to see your tits grow until they hurt. 
He’d take care of you. He’d take good fucking care of you. 
“Say something.” Jay whispers against your lips, darting his tongue out against your lips, angling his fingers up and making you moan. “Say you want me to give it to you raw.”
You open your mouth, feeling his tongue lick and swallow up that moan you just gave him before you try to compose yourself. You can’t help it, you’re so, so sensitive right now and you can’t help but find it incredibly sexy to be here, laid bare, while he’s still fully clothed.
Like he really is doing this for you. He’s not trying to get his own orgasm and leave. You’re weak and those words of “let me give you another” shines in your head. Weak, you’re weak. You should be thinking about condoms, you should be thinking about the consequences of this. 
But you’re not. 
You do like it raw.
“Jay–” You stutter as you try to grasp the reality of his words, feeling his fingers repeatedly hit right where you need it. “I’m…not protected.”
He moans. Loudly, before huffing out an irritated groan.
“You must really want it then.” He narrows his eyes at you. “Going out all the time trying to get fucked–” 
He plunges his fingers in again, deep, and holds them there as he pulls back to look at you. To really look at you, then he glares.
“You’d really let just some fucking dude give you a baby?” 
You repeatedly shake your head. 
“No!” You retort, thrusting your hips up. “I just–”
“Mhm,” He pulls his fingers out now, sliding himself down so fast that you can barely comprehend him sucking your clit into his mouth before pulling back in a moan at the taste of you. “If mama wants another, daddy will give her one.” He says now, as if to pacify you.
As if to give you everything. 
And you’d argue, really, you would.  You want another child so bad, but this is– it’s too soon. You haven’t even established a relationship with him yet. Boundaries haven’t been discussed. His college plan– but fuck it’s not entirely your fault that you’re like, super turned on by the idea of it. To the thought of being so filled with cum that there’s no possible way you couldn’t end up pregnant. An indication that, no matter what, no man at a club could fulfill the arousal for you even if they cared to do it. 
You’d never have let them actually fuck you raw. 
Jay though…how can you keep telling him no?
How could you reject him again when you want it so badly? 
Fuck now, think later.
“Yeah–” You say against your better judgement, hands reaching down to his hair so you can grind up against his mouth, lost to the arousal as you mimic what he referred to himself as. “Daddy?”
You feel his mouth fall slack at that, as if you’re accepting him in full now. You feel your clit hit nothing in his open mouth, but it throbs harder. 
 He knew you were slightly into him for letting him do this at all, but now, you’re truly accepting it. Like you know he’ll fucking do it, like you want him to fucking do it.
“That’s right,” He moans against your clit as he licks at it, barely able to comprehend your voice calling him that but clinging to it all the same.  “Gonna let daddy do it all for you.”  
Yeah. You are. You’re gonna let him do it. All of it. 
And then, the room is enveloped in quiet moans, more from Jay than from you due to your breath being stuck in your throat. His tongue, licking every part of your sensitive cunt, his hands reaching back up to your tits, fondling, pinching, painfully tugging at them as he moans louder, louder, louder for you to want him.
He presses his hips up and against your mattress as he tastes you, so deeply it hurts his cock to neglect it like this. Each rub feels raw, twitching and pulsing to be let out, to be inside of you, on you, against you. Filling you up with his cum, plugging it in as a promise that you can’t leave him even if you wanted to. 
He’s going to fucking do exactly what he said he would. 
And only when you feel his tongue lap against your hole do you finally release your breath, “Daddy” coming out in a choked back sob. It breaks him, his body going into overdrive as he pulls back and just– stares at you with wild eyes. 
You stare back up at him, knowing that calling him that means something more than a cringe little roleplay kink. It means something deeper to him. He wants to be a dad, a real one.
“Oh yeah?” He finally says, hands going straight to his button and zipper. 
You can’t help it, biting your lower lip as you blink up, watching his shoulders move, the veins on his arms protruding as he rushes to pull it out and– oh. You moan at it, the way his heavy, slicked up, cock falls out, heavy, needy. 
“Daddy–” You urge him on, knowing that it’s driving him absolutely insane. 
“Mhm?” He shuffles himself off the bed, letting his pants drop as he lifts his shirt off of him and fucking glares at your tits. “You want daddy’s cock?”  He adds now, shooting his eyes up to you as both of his hands land on your legs.
Your mind goes blank when you feel him slide his hands around to the back of your thighs, pushing your legs forward, curling you in on yourself, forcing your pussy to be out and on display for him. 
And you watch him, the way he stares down at it. It’s embarrassing to be so seen right now, not having expected to get fucked open by anyone tonight, let alone him. You probably should have shaved or something, or like, not gotten out of the habit in the first place. But he moans at it, mouth falling open at the fact that you are entirely a fucking woman. 
A fucking mother.
The prettiest pussy he’s ever fucking seen let alone tasted.
And he moans, breaking the silence, forgetting only for a moment how long he’s been wanting this. It boosts your confidence more than you’ve ever felt. His reaction to this is more than your ex husband’s reaction to you when you were pristine and borderline pornstar quality. 
Jay doesn’t see you as used and neglected, he just sees you. And this. This is the pussy he wants. This is what he wants to put his baby in. 
When he flicks his eyes back to you, with that same open mouthed expression, it knocks the breath out of you. There’s so much love in his eyes, or maybe lust, you don’t care. You think you’re matching that expression for him too, because it’s like he can’t hold back anymore. He can’t just sit and look at you anymore. 
He just can’t.
And you feel it, his thick head pushing past the tightened, pulsing hole and not stopping. He pushes in slowly, painfully slow, to the point you’re both looking at each other with a slack jaw. Finally. The pain of it, the pleasure, the fucking need you’ve been trying to fulfill. 
That look on your face drives him wild too, he knows he has you by now. You like it, you love the way he slides in and makes damn sure you feel it the way he does. Every second of the slide pries you open, and he wants to remember this moment forever. He wants you to fucking remember too. 
Wants you to know that no one will ever fit inside of you so perfectly, so deeply.
When he finally bottoms out, he leans forward to keep himself buried deep as he ghosts his lips over yours. He feels the way you try to kiss him, but he pulls back with a confident smirk. 
“When was the last time you’ve felt a cock so deep in you?” He whispers hotly, knowing you need not answer. Knowing you won’t answer, not with the way you’re instantly lifting your head and kissing him. 
Your pussy pulses around him when you lick into his mouth, the first real kiss sending his heart soaring. He twitches inside of you with each squeeze, and kisses you harder, deeper. And somehow, it brings tears to your eyes. 
The way he kisses, the way he makes you feel him. Fuck, the way he makes you feel whole, so wanted, like you’re amazing to him. In more ways than just a body to fuck, but he’s stuck around despite all of your avoidance and rejections. You hope you’re making it worth it. 
Fuck, you need to feel worth it to him.
“You’d better not fucking pull out.” You groan through a breath, his lips still kissing you through your words as he finally pulls his hips back, fucking in once. 
Hard.
Honestly, could you have said anything else at this moment? He’s trying to make this last, he needs it to last. If you keep fucking talking, saying everything he’s ever wanted to hear– 
“Fuck,”  He moans, his hands moving up to your cheeks as he licks into your mouth. “You can’t–”  He continues, fucking in again, moving your body up with each thrust do to the sheer force of him trying to plunge in as deep as he can. “You can’t fucking say that to me right now.”
You’re seeing stars though, unable to say anything else as your eyes roll back at the way the head of his cock practically kisses your cervix with each push into you. He’s so rough, so desperate for it. 
You don’t think he expected you to respond either, with the way he keeps his lips on yours, his body pressed so closely that having your legs to your chest means nothing to him now. Mating press be damned, he’s lost his mind to the feeling, not the aesthetic of being a fucking dad. 
Your legs wrap around him instead, and he’s all to happy to feel it. Your legs hug him the same way your arms do, the same way your pussy does, and he’s fucking in love with you. 
He braces one hand back against your leg, holding it against his hips as he continues to fuck forward, still at the same pace. Deep and with purpose. Every few seconds the bursts of pleasure run through him, making him shiver and moan into your mouth. Little grunts, near whimpers for you to let him give you the world. 
More than this. More than fucking, more than taking care of you, more than anything he could ever possibly give you. He’ll find a way. 
And then, you’re clenching hard, matching his near-whimpers except moaning in full pants, babbling and drooling cries against his mouth. 
“Mama–” Jay soothes, continuing his pace as he tilts his head back to get a good look at that lost gaze in your eyes. “You’re crying?”
You nod with a laugh, tears rolling down the same way the wet of your cunt slips down your ass. You’ve never felt so good, so fucking full.  And for some reason, that does him in. Making it last be damned, he genuinely thinks he’s won you over. He can make it last next time, he can do more next time, he can–
He leans back all the way now, onto his knees as your legs try to hug him back to you, and his eyes go straight back to those tits. The way he made a promise. The way they bounce, slick with his sweat from pressing against you. 
“Fuck, you’re so pretty.” He grunts in a breath, now quickening his pace and snapping his hips. Pulling out all the way briefly to plunge into your again. “Can’t get any deeper–” He continues, flicking his eyes from your face, to your tits, to that beautiful pussy of yours swallowing him up. 
Now his eyes roll back, hands going back to your thighs to push you back into position. No way in hell can he last, not at a pace like this, inside of a woman like you. 
“Don’t pull out.” You repeat again in a breath, seeing his face and the way he focuses solely on you. You know he’s going to cum, and you want him to. You want to feel it, every single fucking drop of it. 
“Yeah?” He nods his head with laser-focus on your pussy now, staring down as he points tight, short thrusts inside of you. “Momma wants my cum? Hm?”
Oh, he’s fucking gone.
“She likes it?” He continues to talk himself up. “Likes being so fucking full of it? Yeah?” 
Goddamn, fuck, he’s insane. 
“Yes, daddy!” You whisper-shout, fingers shooting to your clit, other hand raising to your mouth to silence the moans as to not be too loud. 
“Fuck, yeah you do.”  He lets out a near growl, his voice low and rumbled as he slaps your hand away, pressing hard on your clit with his thumb as he buries himself in you once more and stiffening his abs. “That’s right.”
And instantly upon feeling him pulse, that first spurt of cum painting your insides, you lose yourself with him. Your fingers drop from your mouth and you release a pornographic moan for him, rutting yourself against him, as if to fuck it deeper into you. 
It only prolongs the orgasm though, for both of you. 
Jay is silent, trying to keep his eyes open through the pleasure as you pulse and squirt around him, his thumb pressing so hard  into your clit, his cock cumming so deep, filling you up so well– He wants to see it. Wants to watch you fall apart for him. Wants to witness the way you let him do this. 
And he holds himself there, so hard and so full of pleasure for you. Keeping himself practically impaled against your cervix until your body falls slack. Still, he fucks it into you, holding you in place with a softer moan now. No longer guttural or deep from his chest. His breathing is rough, a soft, near feminine moan leaves his lips as he falls forward onto you. 
You wince along with him at the sensitivity, panting, a sweating tangle of a mess the two of you have become. And it’s the fact that it’s the first time you’ve ever gotten off at the same time as someone else. You feel…soft. 
Your hands find their way to his hair as his face squished against your tits while he regains breath, not daring to move his hips because your pussy is too warm to leave right now. You brush the sweat-slicked hair out of his eyes, running your fingers all the way back to his nap, and then slowly down his back to rub and scratch.
He shivers at the feeling, humming the same feminine-tone he had released previously. And all he can do is hear your heart thumping against your chest, even through these soft tits of a pillow he’s lying against.
Jay never wants to move again, not from this spot, ever. 
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
“You know I’m in love with you, right?” Jay mentions briefly after a long moment of silence, looking up at you with his wet hair. 
Deep in the night, your food still cold and on the table, you’ve found yourself freshly showered and on your living room couch with Jay’s head on your lap. He made sure to have stayed long enough inside of you to implant…something if it was going to happen. So he didn’t argue a shower, and you didn’t argue letting him join you either. 
He had washed you, gently running his hands between your legs with what you can only describe as the softest, most alluring face a man has ever given you. Like he won the lottery, or found the answer to eternal life or something. You repaid him by letting him admire your tits again while you jerked him off, but that’s besides the point. 
“Like, I’m not going to leave. I hope you know that.” He adds with a soft groan to your hands still in his hair. His new favorite thing. 
You look down at him, hand moving to his cheek as the words hit you in the chest.
There’s anxiety along with happiness, at all of the boundaries and serious conversations that will need to be had now, but still, you feel like you’re glowing when he looks at you.
He didn’t even have to say it, and arguably you probably don’t need to say it back either. You think he sees it in you. Even if he didn��t, you think he’d take anything you give to him and cling to it. After all, it only took one time for you to break entirely for him. 
“Are you now?” You smile with a chuckle, looking back to the tv and pretending to watch it. “Well, that’s good. Otherwise I’d be making you go get a plan B or something.” 
His eyes narrow at you.
“Like hell I’d let you, even if I didn’t love you.” He groans. “But I do, so don’t ever say that shit again.”
You chuckle, feeling the calm in your home that once felt so chaotic. It’s quiet now, both inside and outside of your head. 
“Congratulations, by the way.”
He looks at you with question, quirking a brow.
“For finishing your finals, I mean.” You smile, going back to petting through his hair and feeling like you’re on top of the world, despite what you assume to become half of your world lying his head on top of you. 
“Oh, right.” He smiles, now turning his head to watch the tv. “I probably failed them.”
You don’t believe that, but even if he did, you think you could be what he needs too. He wouldn’t have to work if he didn’t want to.
If he’s really in love with you, all he’d have to do is…not leave. 
“Are you sure you want to be having these conversations with me? You can just call it a hook-up.” You finally say, hoping he means it, knowing it breaks your heart a bit to give him an out. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m going to trap you here just because I’m a little smitten too.” 
Jay glares, blinking up at you.
“I literally just tried to put a baby in you.” 
That’s fair. 
“And you’re not going to run off? Get cold feet?” 
“Can you stop doubting me and just let me do what I want for once?” He argues playfully. “Do you even know how much that barbie fucking dream house costed me? I couldn’t run even if, for some stupid ass reason, wanted to. I love her too.”
Silence for a moment.
“Maybe even more than I love you.” 
You really, really, want to believe him.
So, you do. ・・・・・・・・・・・・・・ please remember to like and reblog! feedback would be lovely too, of course ; 3 ; i'm not below begging.
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melminli · 8 days ago
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BANG BANG BANG
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summery - thanos was always just such an easy person to argue with. you really hated the guy and that was something that was never going to change, even if your life was on the line and it fucking was.
pairing: (thanos) choi su-bong x fem. reader
word count: 1.8k
contains: violence, death, dark content - just usual squid game stuff really
prev. l next.
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"I ask for your attention. The first game will begin shortly. Each player will have their picture taken, then they will follow the staff onto the pitch."
You eyed the confusing and pastel-colored building you were standing in as you listened to the instructions. It wasn't too loud although, there was a bit of whispering from the crowd, the line to the photo booths was pretty organized as well. That was until you suddenly noticed a commotion from a corner, and look who was at the center of it. You just rolled your eyes when you saw the purple-headed guy standing casually between his fans and looked away annoyed after he winked at you charmingly.
Thanos didn't let your subtle rejection bother him. He called out your name and gestured with his fingers to indicate that there was an empty spot next to him - you know, for the group photo. "Hey, you can join the photo, too. Come on."
You continued to ignore his voice and moved forward as the gap between you and the others in front of you widened. Eventually, the loud voices faded into the background, and it was your turn to take the photo. However, while you stood in front of the camera and looked at the smiley face before you, all sense of happiness vanished. If only you weren't so desperate for money, you wouldn't feel compelled to remain in this strange place surrounded by these people.
The flash went off without you even realizing it and caught the absent look on your face. You continued to follow the moving queue like a grazing animal following its herd, lost somewhere in your thoughts until suddenly a person grabbed you by the shoulder.
You instinctively started to defend yourself with widened eyes. "What the hell dude?!" you screamed silently in a panic until you saw the grinning perpetrator in front of you. "Su-bong? What's your problem, I told you to stay away from me asshole, are you stupid?" you grunted angrily and tried again to catch up with the person in front of you so as not to block the way any further.
Thanos just shrugged his shoulders disinterestedly while he casually climbed the stairs behind you. "You really talk a lot, so don't hold it against me when I tune most of it out," he replied, which made you walk a little faster and made him pick up a little more speed to keep up with you.
"Hey, wait a second, woman!" he called out and followed you. "Besides, you know what? You should just call me Thanos, everyone does - it's the name I go by, you know? Not that I expect someone like you to understand the creative thought behind it, but come on. At least try."
You raised your palm to stop his flow of words and perhaps also to put up an imaginary wall between the two of you. "You can explain it however you want, but that's not your name, it's stupid and I'm definitely not going to call you that." you laughed at him. "Only someone like you could watch every single Marvel movie there is and then identify with the ugly mega villain, really."
That's why I'm not listening, he thought to himself, running his tongue through his teeth in annoyance. "Can you like not be a bitch for a second? You're killing the mood," he spoke out before leaning over the railing and shouting. "The mood is dying!"
"Shut up!" you whispered aggressively as you dragged him away by the arm and rubbed your face in frustration. "What did I do wrong in life besides being born to deserve this..."
Su-bong shook his sleeve from your grip as he sighed himself. "Don't be so dramatic. Are you really still angry about that thing with -"
"Yes," you answer without hesitation, not needing to know how he finished his sentence. Why? Because ever since you knew him, this guy had only made decisions that made you angry. When you thought of the reason that finally broke the camel's back, you had to stop yourself and take a deep breath. "Whatever, someone like you isn't worth it," you declared and then walked with several others through some gate, into the open. No, you were still surrounded by walls, even if they disguised themselves as the sky and clouds.
"Welcome to the first game. All players, please wait a moment on the field. I repeat -"
You continued to look around and noticed people entering from two more entrances. Thanos stood in front of you to block your view. "Are you seriously ignoring me right now? You women are all the same."
You only confirmed his statement with your silence and by averting your gaze from him. Before he could object any further, the gates suddenly closed behind you and the voice from the loudspeakers started talking again. "The first game is called: Green Light, red Light."
A game for children? You repeated perplex in your head and tuned out the voice explaining the rules of the game. You often played this game as a child anyway, you knew how to play it. Do we really earn money by playing this?
"Listen to me! Listen carefully, everyone!" A man suddenly shouted out, attracting the attention of the crowd by trying to explain that losing in this innocent game would mean death.
Unconsciously, your heart began to beat faster as various thoughts raced through your mind. What is this crazy guy talking about? You get killed if you lose? What nonsense. But on the other hand, there must be a catch, who else would give out money for something like this? Maybe -
"Don't worry, that guy just has a few screws loose." Su-bong's voice suddenly spoke out next to you as he turned his index finger next to his head to visualize it. "I can see that there are a million completely unnecessary thoughts running through your little head right now because you always have this funny look on your face when you do," he explained and you just tried really hard not to pay attention to him. He just had to make life difficult for you.
Your eyes wandered again and you looked at the disbelieving faces of the others, who were also just looking at the front man strangely. I'll just be careful and see what happens. Someone will probably lose and then we'll see if it's true or not, simple as that.
There was an announcement that the game was about to start and you saw the stopwatch at the front set to five minutes. You took a deep breath and finally, the robot girl moved to look away. "Red light, green light."
Your concentration was fixed on watching her movements so that you could stop at the right moment. You didn't want to rush, but the time pressure was real. You found yourself glancing at the time too often and subconsciously started to count the seconds you had left. You usually weren't a person who could work under such circumstances, but you had to manage the whole thing somehow. You really didn't want to lose, especially not be the first to do it.
"Freeze! Don't move!"
Shut the fuck up. This guy was seriously getting on your nerves. Your eyes were looking forward while you just stood still and then, a bee flew in front of you. Stay away you stupid thing, you thought as the distance between the insect and your face grew smaller and smaller.
A female voice next to you finally spoke out. "Is this guy on drugs?" She asked when the strange man started to scream again, you didn't know if it was that which caught the bee's attention or her sweet perfume that was suddenly being carried through the wind in your direction, but it didn't matter. You were just glad that it wasn't your problem anymore. Though, you couldn't breathe a sigh of relief since you didn't dare breathe at all when that creepy doll was turned in your direction. The thing looked like it could shoot lasers out of its eyes at any second or something.
"Nope, that's not how you act when you're high." Thanos replied from beside you, and even if you could hold your breath for as long as you needed to, things looked a lot different when it came to a petty comment. 
Your mouth didn't move when you spoke, like that of a ventriloquist's. "Of course, you would know best, you fucking drug addict." was all that came out of you while you looked at his back. 
Thanos grunted as several ideas popped into his head about how he could twist your words, but he tried really hard not to say any of them. I could really take some pills right now. "I'm about to really hurt your feelings, sweetie."
"No! Really?" you let out as you pretended to be really scared of what was about to happen before your tone changed back to being monotone. "I'm pissing in my pants, please don't."
Ignoring your little argument, the little innocent bee finally landed on the neck of number 196. "Hey, what's that?" she uttered as she felt a slight tingling sensation on her neck.
Thano's eyes turned to her figure beside him as he answered her. "Don't freak out, it's just a bee."
"A bee?!" She exclaimed in a panic and started waving her arms around wildly to scare the insect away as quickly as possible. You watched her, as many others probably did right now, but the girl herself realized her own mistake far too late when she finally stopped moving and looked up at Thanos. "Shit." she laughed out. "I just moved."
As soon as she finished her sentence, a bullet flew straight through her skull and dropped her body motionless to the floor. You felt a cold shiver run through your whole body and your heart suddenly stopped before it started beating like crazy in your chest. That didn't just happen. Your head automatically tried to calm you down with some kind of slander, but your eyes couldn't help but move to the dead body on the floor, which was now smeared with fresh blood. No, it really did.
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backinmyphase · 1 month ago
Text
Are we still friends? - G. S.
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Synopsis: There were many times your friendship with Satoru was hanging on a tight string. You had always worked through it. But this time was different. Even if you loved Satoru... - It would be hard to forgive.
wc. 11.2k (I'm sorry :'))
Content warnings: Satoru is a bit of an ass, leaving someone alone in an unsafe environment, SFW, mention of alcohol, Angst, Angst MUCH Angst, comfort to the end, year long pining, Satoru is an idiot and I mean an IDIOT
A/n: Happy birthday Satoru Gojo, my dumb idiot <333 (I'm sorry for any spelling mistakes or grammar errors. I also want to thank everyone who said they wanted a whole part of this drabble, I'm happy for every comment)
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Fall 2005
"Why are you avoiding me?"
You finally got him alone, without all his new friends surrounding him and making you feel small. Right here behind the sport gym of this old place you had to call your school. Finally you had a moment alone, to talk to him, after days of silence between you. Finally you could get this weird tension out of the way that had infested itself since the beginning of the school year.
After all it was just Satoru, right?
Just Satoru, who rolled his eyes, while turning his head away. "I'm not."
"Stop lying, you are." You followed his gaze, trying to read his expression. But there was no need for that, since he snapped his head back to you after you spoke, looking at you with that terrible expression which hid nothing.
"Oh my god, just because I am not running after you every day, does it mean I'm avoiding you!" He groaned, a hand in his hair making it messy.
"Jeez, you are so clingy."
You stared at him. Blinked to see if you just imagined that. Blinked again. Nothing changed. "Excuse me?"
He didn't say anything now, which only made your anger grow. "I'm trying to make sense out of your childish actions, Satoru! You are the one who just stopped talking to me, leaving me alone in English, even though we have a project together. And now don't tell me that's not avoidance!"
You were breathing heavily, while glaring at him but he only scoffed with a smile on his face, a smile you didn't know.
"Oh please, if you need help and attention that bad run after your little boyfriend!"
"What?" your voice rose a whole octave. "What are you talking about?"
"You know, Rayo or Ruya, whatever." he waved with his hand, pronouncing every letter of the name with almost disgust.
"Ryu? He is my partner for a physics project, for God's sake!" While shaking your head out of shock, you couldn't help but huff. Of all people, Satoru should know.
"Please." He chuckled with such a cold tone. You have never heard such a tone fron him. "Everyone knows you two are hooking up."
"What?" everything seemed to stop. Slowly you searched his gaze, but Satoru looked away.
"Who says that?"
You have never seen him acting that way. So detached. Why didn't he even look at you? Where was the Satoru who watched sad romance movies with you? Where was the honest Satoru?
Where was your best friend? Where was the Satoru you... Knew?
"Satoru, who is talking about me?"
He kept his head low, but you could still see a small glint of guilt in his eyes.
"Is it your friends?"
Something inside you was panicking at his lack of answer. At the lack of denial. What was also said about you? What did he gossip with them about?
"About what are they talking?"
You could see him gulp. But he still didn't say anything. Why wasn't he saying anything? If he let them talk about you, he at least had to tell you what it was about. Especially since he knew.
You had talked with him about your fear of high school and the way people gossiped and the rumors which ruined the reputation one had to uphold.
You had talked with him about trying to keep your head low.
"Satoru, what are they saying about me?" You couldn't help it, your voice rose.
And then he just started moving. Just walking slowly away. Didn't even look at you before. He could talk with these people about you but couldn't look into your face?
"Satoru if you just walk away now, I swear I will never talk to you again."
He stopped in his tracks.
"Satoru -"
"God, can you shut up?"
It was an ugly scream. But not as ugly as the expression he gave you as he finally looked at you. That was a look of disgust. And with an awfully calm voice he added;
"You are so noisy."
You blinked at him. One time. Two times.
That was not your best friend. That was a boy who was hiding whatever distain he had towards you for years. Years you thought he was the only person who understood you.
People change. People fall out.
"Forget it, Gojo."
·········⋆༺𓆩❀𓆪༻⋆·········
Fall 2009
"You are avoiding Satoru."
It's like being pushed into cold water in warm clothes.
The stirring of the kettle is the only sound in the kitchen, helping to keep the awkwardness away. Shoko sat at the kitchen table with a glass of juice, her look remaining on your back, as you made yourself tea.
"I'm not."
Only after the kettle rang you allowed yourself to move again. Carefully, you took the kettle, pouring yourself the hot water into your cup with the teabag.
"You are." She took a sip.
You watched as the water changed its color to light brown.
"He is worried, you know?" you heard the shaking of her head. "Can't stop pestering me."
You couldn't help but scoff as you turned around to her, hot teacup in your hands. You placed it down gently and took a seat opposite of her. "Of course he is."
She was staring at you with that stare you knew. The stare which was contemplating what to do and what to say. You stirred your tea with a small spoon and placed the used teabag on a small tissue. The tea was still way too hot. But you still took a sip.
It burned.
"What did he do?"
You looked at her face. Her eyes were gentle and for the first time since a while she wasn't just Satoru's good friend, she was your roommate. Your friend.
You couldn't help but smile. Even if it didn't reach your eyes.
"What did he tell you?"
And that's when you saw it. Her eyes twitching, glancing at her phone on the side of the table. Just that small glance was enough. You knew. Knew, he had made her start talking to you. Knew, he wanted her to push you to answer. Knew, of course, he sent his friends to ask you, instead of just leaving you alone.
"Just that you are mad at him for no reason again. His words not mine."
Satoru Gojo was such an asshole.
·········⋆༺𓆩❀𓆪༻⋆·········
"Sooooo... she didn't tell you anything?"
Satoru would be lying if he said he didn't wait the whole day to meet up with his friends. He had waited in the cafe for roughly an hour now, even though it wasn't the discussed time. But he just couldn't keep waiting. Waiting to get any possible news, any updates of what you could have said. Especially from Shoko.
But she just rolled her eyes at him.
"No Satoru, you should probably know what you did. If she is that mad at you, it's probably something big."
He shook his head, trying to think of anything he did that could've pissed you of. He glanced down at his hot chocolate - his third since he got here - and wondered why you just wouldn't tell him what he did.
After all, communication is key in a friendship, right?
Suguru shook his head at him. "Since when is she avoiding you?"
"Since 9 days." There was no need for math, Satoru had counted down the days since you wouldn't even glance at him, when he tried to talk to you. How you just walked past him in your own apartment, when he met up with Shoko and Geto. How you locked yourself in your room.
"I don't get why she is acting so childish now." he mumbled to himself.
No nod, no wave, no glance. It was crazy. It was dumb. It was just like five years ago when he was the one who shut you out of his life.
The loud sound of Suguru sipping his tea snapped him out of his thoughts. Suguru placed his teacup down on the table and tilted his head.
"Didn't you go out together nine days ago? That Friday?" 
There was a beat of silence in the room. Only the sound of the coffee machine in the background and the new customers ordering. Satoru blinked at his friends. One time. Two times.
"We did?"
Geto and Shoko shared a look. "Oh Satoru..."
·········⋆༺𓆩❀𓆪༻⋆·········
You couldn't help but groan when you woke up. Your body seemed so heavy as you stood up, like every morning. Well every one since that one.
You glanced around your room, feeling horrible as you saw the dirty dishes you used yesterday. But you just didn't want to eat anywhere else anymore. You didn't continue talking with Shoko yesterday, for all means you started to avoid her too.
You knew, to all your friends you seemed unreasonable. You didn't go out, didn't leave your room and of course ignored Satoru. You worked on your psychology major online, the professors also accepting your work. Overall you tried to avoid any contact with your friends.
Because you just had realized; all of them were also Satoru's friends.
And who of them would put you before him? Before the golden boy Satoru Gojo? The boy who you had held so dearly to your heart.
Too dearly.
Your phone went off, making you sit up. It was already 8 am. You had to go to work or else your boss would be mad.
With one push you got out of bed, making yourself ready. Your phone lit up again. The last days you had started to ignore it. But still you took it everywhere you went.
You tiptoed your way into the kitchen, hoping to avoid running into Shoko. And you sighed relieved, - lucky you - she seemed to still be asleep. No used glasses or dishes. Just you and your kettle.
A coffee machine was too expensive so tea had to hold up.
While the kettle was working, you made yourself a slice of bread, with butter and cheese. Tea and bread, the breakfast of the winners. You took your first sip out of your teacup, sighing at the hot feeling, which warmed you. It was starting to get really cold, you needed the warmth.
It was mornings like these, which made you like fall.
The walk to your workplace was beautiful, the trees all in different colors, painting a picture worth of drawing. But unfortunately you were no artist. You were just a college student working as a part time barista. So you had to hurry up, to please your manager.
The woman wasn't happy with you, since you took the last couple days off. You knew it was hard in this environment, since it sorely relied on the broke students nearby, which were as employees really unreliable. Or at least that was what she was always complaining about.
But you needed the break, or you would have come to work with tear streaks on your cheeks.
You opened the door to the small coffee shop, met by the annoyed look of your manager. She stood at the counter with her arms crossed, her face only lighting up by a small bit as she saw you.
"There you are! Hurry up, we open in 10 minutes. So change into uniform!" she went into the backrooms, her voice echoing in the room. "Hurry, I said!"
You couldn't help but sigh, as you retreated into the small changing room.
There was something so heavy, when you started dressing in the apron. An uncomfortable feeling, a feeling telling you you are sick and should head home. But you had to pay to have a home.
You made your way back to the counter, leaning on it, while hoping there wouldn't be as many customers as usual.
You turned around to look at the menu and you were surprised, there were a couple of new additions on it. Macchiato and Flat white, which you have never made before. You hoped it could just be made by the expensive coffee machine next to the menu.
There were also new teas added to the menu. Lemon and Mint were new kinds, but personally you wouldn't drink them.
A ring behind you startled you. Great. You glanced at the clock next to the big menu. 9:05. Insane people.
You kept your look on the coffee machine, searching for the buttons you will have to use, trying to calm yourself that it was only one person. Even if their steps to the counter were very determined, surely they were just a normal person, wanting a normal coffee? Not a big order, you had to triple take to get right, surely?
You turned around. "Good morning, how can I -"
You stopped as you saw the white hair.
There he stood, leaning forward on the counter, white hair standing a bit up and those ocean eyes staring up at you.
" - help you."
That's why you needed a break. Because he knew where you worked. And you knew he would show up, distracting you, making you furious with just his smug face.
"You haven't answered my texts."
While squinting your eyes, you said again with a firmer voice; "How can I help you?"
He frowned, taking his arms off the counter while standing up straight again. But as he studied your expression, he seemed to get what you wanted to get across. He sighed.
"A hot chocolate please."
You nodded, while pretending to type things into the Cash register to keep your eyes down. Avoiding his piercing look.
"Here or take out?"
"Here. I will sit over there." he pointed at the small table, which was probably the nearest to the counter, making your inner self groan, which was hoping he would just get his drink and leave. But no, this was Satoru and of course he had to pester you even here.
"Alright, take a seat, your drink will be there in a second."
You waited for him to go to his table, but he didn't. No, he just stood there before you, like he was waiting for something.
You went over to the machine and started working it, but he still just stared at you. Making no effort to sit down. Even the sound of the machine pouring milk into the cup didn't fill the awkward silence.
"Is there something else you need?"
You could hear him clearing his throat. "You weren't here the last days."
And you were? Well good, you took the last days off. You took the finished cup of hot sweet delicious browness and placed it on the counter in front of him, while still not looking at him. "No, I wasn't. Is that all?"
He continued to stare at you. You were watching his hands, which were slowly engulfing the hot cup, while he still looked at you. You waited for him to finally go to his seat. He didn't. "Why won't you tell me what I did?"
"Is that all?" you raised your voice, leaning a bit back and turning your head a bit so you could glance at the back rooms. "If so, please let me work in peace."
"It was that Friday night, right?" he was whispering. "What did I do? What did we do?"
You froze. There was something so surreal of him asking what he did wrong. Like that was a reasonable question. Like you were mad for a small forgettable reason, something one could just forget about.
Like someone one could just forget about.
"Is there an issue here?" the head of your manager popped out of the backrooms, staring at the two of you. Well, at least someone listened to what you were saying.
"Not at all." you looked up and smiled at Satoru. "The young man here was just about to sit down at his table."
"Right?"
His face hardened at your words. But with a lot of self control, he also formed a smile, while starting to move. "Yeah, was just having a lovely chat with the barista about the new menu."
Your boss nodded and went back into the back rooms while Satoru finally sat down at the table. Your rapid heart beat, which you hadn't even noticed slowed down by the larger distance between you and him than just the small counter.
But there was still the tension between you, since no one else was in the shop, just you, him and your annoyed boss.
And his gaze was locked onto you while he drank his hot chocolate. Why was it so hard to avoid his piercing eyes? They were like magnets you really wouldn't want to be hung up on because just one look and a panic inside you rose, making you want to lock yourself up in the bathroom. And even though he had his laptop set up before him, he didn't spare it a glance.
Why did Gojo Satoru have such a presence?
You glanced at the clock. 9:36.
Would he stay here for the next 6 hours of your work? No, that would only one insane person do. Right? You dropped your gaze on the cashier register. Why couldn't you just be left alone?
God you needed a break.
A ring of the door made you look up again and you saw a soaked Utahime coming through the door, cursing at her broken Umbrella. Huh, you didn't even notice it had started to rain outside. Even though now, the sound of the water falling against the windows seemed so loud.
"Of course it starts, when I try to get to work..." Utahime muttered while placing her umbrella near the entrance. But her face lit up when she saw you.
"Oh, thank god you are back, it was hell without you! I had to deal with -" But as she looked at you her gaze dropped to Satoru, who was now really interested in his laptop.
"Oh. You are also here Gojo." Her face changed into a frown, while she walked close to the counter. She looked at you with a grimace. "What a surprise."
Satoru just huffed, but kept his gaze on his laptop. "Always a pleasant one, Utahime."
"Utahime?" The voice of your boss was coming from the back rooms, now louder than before, in the tone which meant trouble. "Get here immediately!"
Utahime looked at you and rolled her eyes, making a couple of gestures to illude to throwing up. But her voice was still kept professional. "Coming!"
"Someone is in trouble..." Satoru was grinning to himself while he typed something into his program. Utahime just scoffed while she went to the back rooms door.
"Well, I am not the only one, am I Gojo?"
Oh god, he didn't like that, you could see it in his falling grin. And while Utahime disappeared into the back rooms, you hoped he wouldn't open his mouth. But of course your hopes were for nothing.
He stood up and went to the counter with his now empty cup. Placing it with a bit of force on the counter. "Okay, I get it you know. I fucked up."
"But you could at least give me a chance to talk it out."
Just one look at his oh so deep eyes, made you avert your eyes to his cup. His words making you feel alone, exposed and so so uncomfortable. "Do you want to order more?"
He groaned and his hands found their way into his hair. "Please, drop it and just talk to me! You are making such a big deal -"
"Are you even listening to yourself?" your voice was much quieter now, barely a whisper. "You are already belittling me even though you don't know what my problem is. You already assume it's something small and stupid."
You looked up at his dumbfounded face. He blinked at you. You couldn't help but shake your head in disbelief. "This whole time you are talking about making things right and that you need to talk to me, but not once have you thought about giving me space this last week!"
You pointed at the small room around the two of you. "I mean you are even now here, at my workplace!"
His voice was filled with uncertainty now. "Yeah, because you wouldn't talk to me or Shoko -"
"Which should be sign enough to leave me alone, Satoru. How would you say it?" A small scoff left your lips. "I think 'Stop, being so clingy?'"
A silence filled the room. The quiet talking of Utahime and your manager could be heard, but the words to unclear to understand. Satoru held his head low now, almost averting your gaze.
"But-" your voice was shaking and you wanted to hit yourself for it. "If you want so desperately to know what I am mad about, I guess I can freshen up your memory."
Still silent. You guessed you should keep going. "Last Friday, we went to that club, you wanted to show me, you remember?"
"The one where you ditched me for all these other people?"
You looked down at the cashier register and hoped hoped you could hide the vulnerability in your voice. The room was completely silent. The only sound the falling raindrops against the window.
Until he laughed.
The sound of the little chuckles made something inside of you turn, you felt like throwing up. You looked up at him to see a relieved face. A. relieved. One.
"What are you laughing about." it was hard to speak while your teeth were pressed together with more force you had ever used.
Satoru stopped but the little smile remained. Your hand was itching at that smile.
"Sorry, sorry." he cleared his throat. "But I mean we can spend more time together, if you want that? I mean you still mean much more to me than thes-"
"Satoru." you raised your hand signaling him to stop speaking. "Why do you think I was avoiding you?"
"I - I don't really get...?" he was stopping mid his sentence, now looking confused. "You know it's okay if you were jealous, I never meant to make you -"
"JEALOUS?" You gripped the counter so hard, your fingers were turning white. "You think my problem is jealousy?"
He shut his mouth, blinking so clueless like again. It was exhausting.
"No, Satoru, my problem is not that I was jealous you spend time with other people." you gritted out, while typing in his hot chocolate, to distract your hand before you were hitting him. "My problem is that you abandoned me. Alone in a club, I didn't know."
"You left me drunk and clueless alone at a club with no one I knew. Miles away from my apartment. Left me to ask strangers where my ride was, while they pitied me, because the great Gojo Satoru had already left."
You dared to look up into his eyes, hoping he could finally see your mental state. Finally getting why you were so petty. Making such a big deal.
"That's why I am mad."
His look turned wide and blank. You couldn't keep looking at it and broke the eye contact. He didn't move, just stood there before you. But you could see his hands gripping the cup, he was holding.
Just as you saw him open his mouth again, Utahime came back, now with her uniform on. She had a blank smile on her face and a sharp glare on Satoru. "Do you want to order? I can take yours."
He gaped a bit at that but his face quickly turned stoic. "No, thank you. I was just about to pay and leave."
You nodded took the cup he was just holding on. It was warm. "That will be $4.30."
With a bit of force he pressed a $5 dollar bill on the counter and turned to his seat. While grabbing his things, you could see his eyes focusing on the floor. And you knew there was no reason, but you felt bad. Something about this felt like it was your fault. Like you were overreacting. Even though it was just how you felt.
The door shut softly behind him. He disappeared just as fast as he had appeared.
"Thank you." You whispered to Utahime, and she smiled at you gently.
Truth be told, you wouldn't call her a close friend. You just knew her through Shoko, since she was your roommate and Utahime was a couple of times over. Thus you knew her still over Satoru.
But she did help you get this job and was always a pleasant coworker.
"No problem. You want to share it over a cup of coffee?" she winked at you while leaning on the counter.
"Are you working over there?" the voice of your boss echoed through the room. "Get to work!"
Utahime rolled her eyes. She spoke now in a careful whisper. "I guess after work?"
Well, it wouldn't hurt to have a person who wasn't so close with Satoru, would it?
"I would like that."
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Spring 1995
"Come on sweetie, say hello to Satoru."
You held onto the leg of your mother as you stared at this strange boy. There was something ominous about his eyes and his white hair. You had never seen someone like him before. And he had that intimidating look...
"Hi."
Your mother placed a hand on top of your head, laughing a bit as you tightened your grip on her. "Good job. Now go play with him, while we make the cake ready, okay?"
You looked up to her and nodded. She smiled back and gave you a small nod, signaling you to let her leg go. With a heavy heart you let her go into the kitchen with the other woman, who she called Mrs. Gojo.
You looked back at the boy, who was still staring at you with those intimidating eyes. Why did your mother bring you with her again? She said something along the lines, it would be important to fit into the new neighborhood and greet them properly. But right now?
You just stood there awkwardly, trying to understand this strange boy.
He would probably never speak to you, you just hoped the time would pass as quickly as possible. You wanted to eat the cake Mrs. Gojo made as a welcoming gift...
He opened his mouth and closed it again. His eyes now focused onto the ground before he started to speak;
"Do you like Digimon??"
He looked at you with big eyes, which suddenly didn't seem intimidating at all. He fidgeted with his hands, while tilting his head.
"I guess... But I don't know much about it."
His eyes lit up and he smiled so excitedly. "That's not a problem! I can show you!"
And just like that he took your hands, pulling you with him into his room. The room was big, much bigger than your own. There were a couple of posters, of what you guessed were some mons, you didn't know.
He let go off your hand to pull out a big box. And when he opened it, there were a couple of cards inside, which you had never seen before.
"What are these?"
"I will tell you, just sit down." he let himself fall down next to the box, now going through the cards. He took a couple of them out and looked at them each individually.
You carefully sat down, while watching him. His big blue eyes had an excited glint in them and his white hair was shining under the light.
Satoru Gojo was a strange neighbor...
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Fall 2009
"And he just left you alone at this club?" Utahime frowned, while placing her cup of coffee down. "And he forgot about it?"
You shrugged, glancing outside the window. It had stopped to rain in the afternoon. You were free now, since your and Utahime's shift had ended and you were glad Satoru didn't come back.
"I guess he did."
She shook her head and scoffed. "And now he comes to your doorstep-"
"Well actually, it is not mine but the coffee shops-"
"-asking why you are ignoring him? The nerve!"
A loud sip later she continued; "Gojo has to be humbled, my god!"
You couldn't help but smile at her antics. It was kinda sweet how she got so worked up over your business. You were glad she wasn't just on his side. You watched her sip again and sighed. "If it wasn't for that guy who drove me home, who would guess what could've happened?"
She huffed.
"If I'm being honest I would reflect upon the whole friendship. It just shows how self absorbed he is."
You sipped on your bitter coffee.
"Yeah, well he is still Satoru."
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Summer 2003
"Wait for me outside later, okay?"
You smiled as you read the note Satoru had left on your windowsill. There was just such a feeling of excitement every time you read one of his notes, it made your heart race and your face hot.
That was normal right?
"Mum!" you ran into the living room, hoping to catch her before she went to get groceries. "Did you get me the kimono for the festival??"
She way already ready to leave as she sighed at your question. "Yes, sweetie I did. And I also told you that yesterday."
"Can you help me lat-"
"Yes, I will help you get it on, now shoo." she laughed and pointed towards the kitchen. "Young madam, you can worry about the firework after you did the dishes!"
You gasped as you remembered the mountain of dirty dishes you had to clean before the evening and started rushing towards the kitchen. "Already on it Mum!"
You heard her laugh as the door shut behind her leaving you alone. You let the water run into the sink, while organizing the dishes. You took a sponge and started cleaning the plates, which never seemed to end.
Oh, how excited you were for later! It was your first real festival here and Satoru had promised to show you around. And there would be fireworks, now; in summer! Your first own kimono, and your first time visiting a festival you would spend with a friend.
You placed the finished plates next to the sink, taking a towel to dry them. After you finished them, you sat down before the TV and watched what was on.
You didn't even notice how fast the time passed, til you heard the door click from the keys from your mother. You looked at the clock to see it was already 18:30 and shrieked.
"Mum, mum, can you help me now!! Pleaseee?" You jumped out of your seat on the couch and sprinted towards her, looking at her with the eyes you put on when you begged for something.
"Yeah, you can go into my room while I organize the groceries, okay? The kimono is in the closet." she took of her jacket while smiling at you exhausted.
"Okay!" and just like that you turned around and ran into the small room of your mother.
Her closet was always something magical, if it were the high heel or the jewelry you tried to put on while she was away. Your heart was beating fast as you opened it slowly. As you saw it you gasped.
The kimono dress was so pretty. Almost to pretty. You gently took it between your fingers, gasping at the soft fabric. You liked it. You really did. But...
Was it maybe to pretty for you? To fancy?
"Alright, sweetheart." your mother clapped one time as she stepped in, a soft smile on her face. "Let's make you ready, okay?"
"Yeah.." you took a look in the mirror on the cupboard of your mother and tried to imagine, just imagine, what Satoru would say if you were completely overdressed. You tried to shake it off, trying to get as excited as before, but you just couldn't. The excitement gave a bit of space away for the growing doubt and fear.
Maybe you should play sick...
"Alright, firstly try to put the under dress on and i will help you with putting the kimono dress over and so on." she chuckled and took the kimono out of your hands, eyeing it. She placed it onto her bed gently and went up to the door again. "I will go outside while you change. Just call me when you need help."
"Okay."
You sighed as she closed door, eying the under dress you had picked out. But even though you didn't feel comfortable anymore and the ball of doubt in your stomach was eating you up, you still took of the other clothes and slipped into the under dress.
You didn't like how it fit you anymore. Your stomach hurt. Why did it suddenly hurt?
"Everything alright, sweetie?" the voice of your mother was filled with a slight tone of concern.
"Yeah, you can come in." you glanced at the pretty kimono dress on the bed and feared how it would look on you.
"Okaaay-" she stepped back in and smiled as she saw you. "Perfect! Then let me put the kimono dress on."
She helped you into the kimono dress, watched as the ends of the dress fell onto the ground. Focused, she took the ends and checked something before she tightened it.
"What are you doing, mum?"
"Hace to check if it is above your ankles. It shouldn't touch the ground while tightened." she stood up and patted your dress a bit down. "It's supposed to be a bit big up here."
Her concentrated face was a sight to see, while she adjusted how the dress was sitting. She took a step back and gently placed the obi on the rope which was tightening the kimono. After it was sitting she took a step back again and whistled. "Such a pretty lady!"
The dress was comfortable, even if you felt a bit out of place in it.
"Soooo-" your mother turned you to the mirror, making you sit down on the bed. "Now your hair."
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Fall 2009
You threw your bag onto the wardrobe as soon as you stepped into your apartment, groaning from exhaustion.
"Someone's grumpy." a playful laugh rang softly. Shoko poked her head out of the kitchen watching you take your jacket and shoes off.
"You could've warned me that he will visit my workplace, you know?" you grumbled while pushing softly past her to get into kitchen. She huffed with a small smile on her face.
"I would've, if you talked to me."
"God, I need a hot tea..." you shook your head while turning on the kettle. "It's raining cats and dogs outside. And of course it only started again, after I left the shop."
Shoko chuckled a bit, now making her way over to the fridge. "I wanted to make noodles today, do you want to eat with me?"
The kettle rang again, making a smile steal its way onto your face. "If you have enough for two?" You poured yourself a cup of tea, the water changing its color to light red.
Today you chose fruit tea.
"Yeah, don't worry." she opened the fridge and took her orange juice out of it. "Just missed eating and talking with you."
You took a sip out of your tea and sighed at the heavenly warmth flooding you shortly after.
"You're not going to talk about Satoru, are you?" you turned around to her, to see her sigh as she closed the fridge.
"Only if you want to." She took a glass and poured herself orange juice into it. "But I don't need to. I mean, if I'm being honest, it wasn't the nicest thing of me to pressure you to into talking about it."
She sipped a bit, smiling a reminiscing smile. "Was just worried about you and him, since he was constantly texting and venting to me about his worries."
"Oh."
You sat down at the table, cup of tea in your hand and just warmed yourself. Shoko sat down at the opposite side, tilting her head a bit. "Utahime texted me a couple minutes ago. Asked if you made it home safely."
You couldn't help but smile at that. "Greet her from me and you can reassure her that I made it."
Shoko nodded and started typing on her phone. A couple of seconds later she began to smile at her phone and looked up at you. "Hey, Utahime and I wanted to meet up here tomorrow to watch some movies. You wanna join?"
"Yeah, sure." you watched as she typed a new message and hit send.
"Great!" Shoko rested her head on her left hand, while she held her phone in the other. "Oh, and I can give you her number if you want to? She told me that you had a lovely conversation."
You laughed a bit before pulling your phone out. "I would love to have her number." And just after a couple of minutes you had Utahime's contact and a meet up tomorrow.
"Alright." Shoko put her phone away and stood up, making her way over to the stove. "Enough with that, the noodles don't make themselves!"
You watched as she cooked, a comfortable silence making it's way into the room. Something inside you had changed after you had spoken with Utahime. Something inside you was happy. Happy you weren't alone in your frustration and anger towards Satoru. That your feelings were valid.
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Summer 2003
You waited a long time.
You stood alone before the entrance of the festival, waiting for Satoru just like he had asked you to. People were going by, most of them older than you. Some of them stopped to ask you if you were okay, only leaving if you reassured them you were alright.
You felt anxious like never before. Satoru was late.
"Hey, are you okay?" a boy probably in your age stopped by, just like the people before him.
"Yeah, I'm just waiting." you smiled at him, trying to convince him, but he frowned.
"For what?"
"My friend." you muttered, trying to keep your calm. You didn't want to think about what your long wait could mean.
"But I have seen you standing here an hour ago, are you sure your friend is still coming? If they aren't and you keep waiting, you will miss the fun." the boy pouted.
You watched the next people going by, a couple walking by while holding hands. You heard some whispers about the fireworks and you couldn't help it, tears were starting to build up.
You knew it was dumb. But today you had wanted to say it. You had wanted to say it to him during the fireworks. You had wanted that, but he seemed to have forgotten you were waiting for him...
"I've to go, my parents are calling for me." the boy looked behind him, before he turned to you again. "Try to enjoy your stay here, okay?"
Then he just ran away.
Just like that you were standing there alone again. You felt so stupid for getting dressed up, to care so much about this. Why did you care so much?
And even though you didn't feel like it, you followed the boys advice and walked into the festival.
The stands looked fun and they had cool prices. You saw an older guy win a plushy for his friend, shoetly after placing a small kiss on his cheek. You looked away shortly, feeling like a creep for watching them.
And even though it all looked fun, it didn't feel like it when you were walking here alone.
"Hey, do you want a candy apple?" A woman called out behind a stand, smiling at you.
"Oh, no thank you, I don't have that much money." you apologized but she shook her head, waving fo you to get closer. So you did slip through the people in your way to the stand.
"Don't worry, it's on the house." she winked as she gave you one candy apple.
With a bit of hesitation you took it from her. But you weren't hungry, so you just kept it in your hand while continuing to walk.
And after a long walk you finally reached the watch place of the fireworks. It was under a hill, there were already many people, sitting and talking with each other. And after you saw that you couldn't keep the tears in.
You cried hot tears, because you felt so stupid.
While sitting down on a bench on top of the hill, you gripped your candy apple. The ugly sobbing just didn't stop, didn't matter how much you tried to stiffle it. Oh god, why couldn't you stop-
"Hey." His voice startled you. But even though it was loud because of the people you knew it was Satoru who spoke from behind you.
"Please don't cry." he walked up next to you, sitting down next to you onto the bench. But you couldn't look at him. Not when you still had tears in your eyes.
"You are late." your voice was hoarse, god it was so embarrassing.
He was silent for a couple of seconds. Then he spoke;
"I know, I'm sorry. I wanted to get you flowers but-" he stopped and turned to another direction. "The flower shop was closed and I didn't know. So I - Well, I -"
You blinked at him, the last tears flowing down. And then he turned to you and you saw them. Daisies. He hold onto just a few of them. They weren't fresh, most of them already hanging their heads.
But that somehow made them even prettier.
"I wanted to bring you Daisies." he muttered and looked down at them.
You couldn't help but softly laugh, the sobbing dying out. Your cheeks were drying, and your candy apple didn't seem like your last holding point anymore.
"Thank you, Satoru." you whispered with still a hoarse voice. "But why Daisies?"
That's when a loud bang made you look up into the sky. The first firework was raining upon the sky, the red lights illuminated the sky, painting a beautiful picture.
"They make me think of you."
You turned to Satoru and for the first time tonight looked him in the eyes. His beautiful eyes. The fireworks somehow made them even more gorgeous.
"I'm sorry I came late, I really am." he glanced at the candy apple in your hands. "You probably enjoyed the evening more without me."
Another bang made you look up again. The new firework was a yellow one, looking like it was raining gold from the sky.
"Do you want it?" you held the sweet apple in front of him. "I don't really want it."
He blinked at you, his face going from guilt to embarrassment. "You can't do that!" He muttered. "You can't just give me your candy apple."
A purple firework lit up the sky again. You tilted your head as you looked at him. "Why is that? You like sweets."
He wanted to say something, but only seconds after, he did take your candy apple. He handed you the Daisies, which were changing color through the lights. Just like his hair.
He hesitated, but bit into the candy apple, while holding it with one hand. It looked a bit clumsy but also endearing.
You felt tired but something inside you was so happy. Yeah, he was late. So what? He still cared about you. And that was what counted in the end.
You could feel him glance at you as you looked into the sky watching the different colors exploding and painting the dark night. And then you felt it.
His hand engulfing yours.
"You look pretty in that kimono."
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Fall 2009
"Satoru, stop drowning yourself in the shower, I have to shower too!"
Satoru groaned at the voice of his roommate and friend. The cold water was so relaxing, like it was washing a bit of his uneasiness away.
Of the girl he made out with that Friday.
"Chill, I'm almost finished." he called out while going through his wet hair again, while the water rained down.
God, the weekend was awful. You just hadn't left his head, he couldn't believe that he did what you accused him of doing. He didn't remember that Friday precisely. He had probably drank too much. There was only one thing he surely remembered.
There was this guy who had flirted with you while you were working in the coffee shop that Friday. God, the way he looked at you made him want to-
The rest of that day was vague. He remembered that girl that was clinging to him. She wasn't really his type but he was drunk so he had let her kiss him. But he didn't know what else he did. But to just forget you? That didn't sound like himself.
"Satoru!" Suguru called out again.
"I'm coming!" Satoru turned of the shower with a huff. He took his things and dressed himself in sweatpants and a hoodie.
"Someone has to make sure you don't do something stupid." Suguru muttered as Satoru stepped out of the bathroom.
"Well, it's not you, you do equally stupid things." he grinned at his best friend and stepped to the side, to make space for him. "The shower is yours."
"Yeah, yeah, Satoru."
Suguru disappeared into the bathroom, lifting a heavy weight of Satoru's shoulders. He didn't want to keep worry his friend. Yeah, he felt shitty but he didn't have to make it everyone's problem. Oh well, he tried not to.
His room was dirty. He hadn't left it the last three days, only to shower and to get food and water. He had watched every comforting movie, but even those weren't helping, since he just remembered they were always comforting because he had watched them with you. Whose reactions can he watch when he is sitting alone in his room?
Normally Satoru would call himself as a rather put well together person. But when it came to you, he acted irrational, dumb, stupid, overall he was just not thinking. With you the emotions were always stronger, didn't matter if good or bad. And he knew that wasn't healthy.
But he didn't know how to change it.
He didn't want to have bad things between the two of you. He wanted to make it right, to make you look at him again. But he also didn't want to push your boundaries anymore. Even though it was itching in his fingers to get up and go to your work to apologize.
But that wouldn't work, he knew that. So he had to apologize differently.
Ring!
His phone buzzed and for a slight second he hoped it was you. But it wasn't. It was that privat unknown number that kept calling him, even though he ignored it.
And he knew he shouldn't, but his energy was low, so he just answered. "Hello? Who is there?"
There was a bit of rustling on the other side and a gasp could be heard. "Satoru, I gave you my number, didn't I?" It was a female voice he couldn't quite decipher. "Didn't you safe it?"
"I'm sorry, -" he felt a bit uneasy at the tone of the voice. "But who are you?"
There was a second gasp. "You wound me Satoru! After we had such a lovely evening..." Her voice went a bit lower. "Oh, wait... Did you forget me?"
Her giggling after that made him confused. "Anyway, I'm Haoka, silly!"
"Well, I don't know you, so please stop calling me." He was already on the button to end the call as she called out; "Wait! You really don't remember? We were together that Friday, in the 'Crying Angel', that club."
Oh god, he wanted to face-palm himself. Why did he give anyone there his number?
"We shared some glasses of wine and some of the fun stuff the bartender brought..."
Slowly some memories came back. Pictures of him sitting in that uncomfortable couch, but feeling so at peace...
"And then you pulled me onto your lap and kissed me-"
He remembered vaguely how he felt something big and warm against his chest as he had zoned out. He knew he had made out with some girl beforehand, but that he gave her his number...
"Haoka, was it? I'm sorry but I was literally drunk out of my mind, would you stop harassing me?" He heard her be quiet for once. "Thank you."
"Wai-" he stopped the call and sighed.
Well, he had to apologize to you somehow.
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A week later
"L/n!" you flinched as you heard your manager call out to you from the door of the coffee shop. You sighed to yourself while walking to your workplace. It was 8.30am foe God's sake. Couldn't you just walk to work in peace without being told to hurry?
"I'm coming!" you called out, and walked a bit faster. A couple of seconds later you were on the doorstep of the little shop.
"New flowers came for you." your manager shook her head while pointing to the counter. "That's nice and all, but if you can, tell the one who is sending them, that they should send them to your address and not to ours, okay? I'm not always here to get them for you."
There on the counter they were. Fresh, healthy daisies, waiting for you.
"Yeah, sorry." you muttered and disappeared into the changing room. Behind the closed door you wanted to sink into the floor. And you wanted to die from embarrassment, because there was also a bit of giddiness in side your stomach.
Dumb.
After you changed you walked behind the counter, the white flowers were shining up to you. And of course there was a small note attached, just like with the rest. The last days, there was written:
I'm sorry. I know I was an ass.
Is there something I can do? I don't want us to fall apart.
Can we talk?
They were always small notes and you wished you didn't, but you did keep them with you. The last nights you always read them again and wondered if you should call him. Taking your phone and staring at it for half an hour. But in the end you always chickened out.
The coffee shop door opened and Utahime came in, yawning. "Good morning."
"Good morning." you smiled at her as she came up to you. "Slept well?"
She scoffed while taking of her bag from her shoulder and placing it behind the counter next to you. "Don't even start."
She was already turning to go to the changing room, when she stopped in her tracks. Her look hanging on the new flowers in the small vase. She rolled her eyes and scoffed again. "He's still sending them?"
"Yeah." you kept your gaze on the white flowers.
"You know, I don't want to influence you too much. You know I was never a fan of Satoru." Utahime was whispering now, her voice gentle. "But don't let him pressure you with these gifts, okay? If you want to talk to him, do it, but don't forget what he did just because of some pretty flowers."
There was something big in your throat. You tried to swallow it, you really did, but it just didn't succeed. So you spoke with a hoarse voice; "Okay, I won't."
She smiled softly before she turned and went into the changing room.
You knew there was a new note. But you were so scared to look at it. Because even though he wasn't here, it was still a confrontation with Satoru. And you were scared of talking to him right now, because you knew how sentimental you can get when it came to Satoru.
You didn't want to keep thinking about him. Especially at work when you were alone with your thoughts and the coffee. But with these flowers beside you it was impossibile to think of anything or anyone else.
You wanted to know. Wanted to know how he responded to your lack of response.
Carefully, you separated the note from the flower it was attached to. The flower was the only one whose head was slightly hanging. The paper felt like fire in your hands. You heard Utahime's steps towards the counter and you knew she had seen what was in your hands. But she didn't act like she saw, she just turned to the door waiting for a costumer to come in. So you opened it.
You couldn't help it. You've got to know.
Are we still friends? - G. S.
Your eyes were starting to burn, your vision blurring before your eyes. You couldn't, you shouldn't but you did. You started to tear up.
"Hey, you okay?" You heard Utahime's soft whisper next to you. You wanted to answer, you really did, but your mouth didn't let you.
Utahime started to move again as she heard you sob one more time and went into the back rooms. You didn't hear it loud and clearly but you could decipher the words she spoke to your manager.
"L/n isn't feeling well. She-" The door shut completely behind her and you didn't hear more.
You tried to catch your breath, however it seemed impossible. Slowly you took a breath in, a breath out. In. Out.
It was 9 am. You were at work. Everything was okay.
"Hey." You didn't notice Utahime was next to you again, missing her steps towards you. "I spoke to her, you can go."
"What?" you looked up at her in surprise.
She sighed. "I hate to say it, but it won't get better if you don't talk it out with him. You don't have to do it today, but you are obviously not in the right state to sit here next to these flowers for hours, or are you?"
You slightly shook your head head. She smiled softly. "Then get going."
For a second you just blankly stared at her. But then it hit you. You could leave. Should leave. And today you would do it. You would talk to him and speak your whole mind. Yeah, you would tell him how you felt after the last confusing years, where he treated you like the sun one second and like shit the next. Not tomorrow. Today.
"Thank you." you hurried to the changing room, poking your head out before closing it. "Thank you!"
You heard her laugh, while you hastly changed. The apron was off in seconds, you had to stop and take a breath, before you opened the door again.
You hurried to take your bag and as you arrived back at the counter, your gaze fell onto the flowers on the counter. It was dumb. But you took them out of the vase and held them dearly to your heart.
"Get well soon." Utahime winked at you as you stood at the door. You gulped, but smiled back.
"I'll try.
-------> At home
The door was shut fastly behind you, you hurried to the kitchen to get the flowers a small cup as a vase. There was a small blue one, which was also not too small, so you took it. Filled it with water, as your eyes fell onto a note on the fridge.
Will be away for the whole day, medicine exam is eating me up - Shoko
Oh. Shoko was with her study group. Medicine was a hard major. But to be honest right now you didn't really think much about it. The only thing in your mind was the phone in your bag.
You placed the little cup-vase onto the kitchen table. The daisies were smiling at you, just like they were six years ago.
You wanted to smile back but it didn't feel like the time for that.
Your hand took your phone out of your bag. You watched as you fiddled with it. Wondering if maybe you should do it tomorrow, since you were pretty exhausted-
No. Today.
Your fingers were shaking as you typed his number. Hesitating before the dialing button. But in the end you did press it.
Your anxiety rose by thousands as you heard the dialing tone. And by the third time it rang you wanted to hang up, until -
"Hello?"
His voice was a bit hesitant and quiet. You were shaking, wondering why you called him, without thinking what words precisely to say, why did you just call him without any plan-
"Stop sending flowers to my workplace." your voice was slightly shaking, just like your hands. "My manager can't keep picking them up."
"Oh." it was very quiet on the other side. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause you trouble with them."
A silence made it's way into the call. You heard him breath and you were sure he heard your anxious breathing too. God, this whole idea was a mess.
"Hey." he spoke again. "Do you want to talk about it? Are you ready to talk about it?"
...
"Yeah, I'm ready." your voice was a whisper.
The second silence followed, this one even a bit more tense.
"Can I come over, or is that to much?"
Your breath hitched, suddenly this seemed so real. You were stupid for it but you did miss him. You wanted to see him.
"It's okay." you muttered and heard a relieved sigh from him.
"Good, because I am almost there."
And just like that he hung up. Leaving you standing dumbfounded in your kitchen, the realization slowly settling. Wait, he meant immediately? You didn't think he would be already on his way, you still didn't know what to say!
God, you needed a tea.
Today was a green tea day. You worked your kettle, trying to keep your cool. But it was near impossible. How could you remain calm, when Satoru was coming over? Satoru, who was usual never wanting to have a serious talk?
Ring
You looked at your kettle, only to realize it had been the doorbell. Okay. It was time.
You opened the door of your apartment, to see a soaked Satoru standing before you, breathing heavy.
"Sorry for the rush, I didn't want to intimidate you." he muttered while his eyes were locked onto the ground. "I just had to see you in person."
"It's alright." Well, he still intimidated you, but in the end you wanted to see him in person too. At least you think you did, when you look at his wet, but still gorgeous hair. At his blue ocean like eyes. It was just Satoru.
You let him into your apartment, hurrying to your kettle, who was now ringing too. You heard him shut the door, as you poured yourself a cup of tea, watching as the water turned green.
His steps echoed through the apartment, until he stood there, in the doorframe of the kitchen. His eyes now locked onto you as you glanced at him. You took your tea cup and sat down at the table. Gesturing with your hand that he should sit down too. He did.
You saw him gulp, but he kept quiet. You took a long sip.
"So?"
His eyes widened a bit. Then he cleared his throat. "I wanted to apologize to you. Like, really apologize. I know I messed up."
You could see his hands fidgeting but he still kept his eyes on you.
"I don't remember what I was thinking. And I mean that literally, I drank so much that I didn't remember even going to this club." he shook his head. "Not that that excuses anything. My first mistake was drinking carelessly. And I'm so-"
"Why did you?" you stopped him. He tilted his head a bit as you looked at him. "You treated me horrible that evening. You left me alone at the entrance of that club, drank your brain away and then disappeared. Why did you leave me alone at the entrance, why did you drink so much?"
His body tensed up and you knew you struck a nerve.
"And you know that's not the first time." you muttered. "It's like three years ago, when you suddenly made that shift to treat me horrible and then dropped me as a friend."
Silence made itself into the room.
"And then you come back to apologize and want everything to go back as it were, but it doesn't." you whispered. "I can pretend that it does, but it doesn't. Because I just don't feel appreciated as a person. For you I'm always-" Your voice broke a bit.
"For you I'm always just the safe backup. Because I always forgive you and you know it."
"That's not true." Satoru tried to grab your hands on the table, but you pulled them away. Any form of contact right now would kill you.
"Then what is it, Satoru? It feels like you never told me."
His eyes faced the table, now looking like he was sick. His posture was stiff as he fidgeted more with his fingers.
"I'm an idiot, you know?" he was mumbling. "A coward and a selfish idiot."
"What are you talking about?" you gripped onto your warm teacup. He looked at your hands, a nervous chuckle escaping him.
"It's just -" he stopped. While looking at you he shook his head and abruptly stood up. Speaking with his hands on his face, his voice a bit muffled but still understandable. "I want you to know that everything I will say is not me trying to justify my behavior, okay? I just - I own you an honest explanation."
You looked at him, as he seemed to hide himself behind his hands. You were scared. Scared of what he will say. But you knew you also wanted and needed to know. "Alright, then tell me Satoru."
It's silent again, the only thing you heard was the sound of a neighbor's key falling outside of the Appartement. Satoru was messing with his hair, while he avoided to look at you. You could see the gear wheels in his head working, trying to make out what to say. He took a sharpy breath.
"Every time I notice that we are growing more together or become closer, it's just so, -" he shook his head. "It's so scary. Because I notice how I start to feel and act and I -, well I get cold feet and try to push you away. Because I know, that it's stupid for me to feel how I feel, and I don't want to lose our friendship and-"
"Wait, wait, wait." you raised your hand. "You're pushing me away because you don't want to lose our friendship?"
He groaned. "It's stupid I know and in the last years I have become better, but it's just-, god, every time I see someone flirting with you and you look so happy, my emotions become so big and I get angry with everything."
"Satoru what do you mean? Why would you - I don't understand." now it was your turn to hide your head behind your hands.
"That Friday, before we went to that club together. I have seen you with that guy, who bought you a drink at your workplace. And you laughed so much, I just felt so shitty because I realized-" his voice is shaking. "I realized that I still have feelings for you."
The world seemed to stop spinning. You raised your head in slow motion and looked at him. His blue eyes were locked on you, showing vulnerability. You couldn't help but just stare at him.
"And I got scared!" his voice got a bit louder as he started pacing down the kitchen. "Because I have been in the friend zone my entire life and I thought I could live with that. But everything was so much, I saw red and just wanted to hide. I wanted to snap out of that feeling so I left you standing at the entrance."
He stopped pacing, his back now turned to you. "It's the same every time. I want to keep our friendship, but push you so far away that we become strangers."
"You really are an idiot."
You didn't notice until you spoke, that you were crying. Ugly sobbing filled the room, you felt like suffocating. "Not once did you ask yourself how I felt. You just wanted to keep yourself safe, didn't you?"
You could see his back tensing. You shook your head. "You made me feel like I was the friend you only kept in touch with, because our parents know each other. You made me feel so dumb for wanting to spend time with you. That's not how you treat someone you have feelings for!
You could have just told me."
He scoffed, now turning around. "Would we be still be friends if I did? "
"No."
You looked at the green tea in your cup. "We would be more."
You could hear his breath hitch. And in seconds he was standing in front of the table again. You felt his gaze on you. "What do you mean?"
You laughed while tears were streaming down your cheeks. "Satoru it was so obvious for everyone else. Why do you think I have forgiven you every time, no matter what you did?
I have feelings for you."
The silence came back. And with a silent sigh he sat down before you again, hwad in his hands again. "Why did you never tell me?"
"Why did you never tell me? Because I was scared of ruining our friendship. And you always seemed to have zero feelings for me that we're not platonic." you sobbed again, making him flinch. You saw his hand twitch, but this time he didn't move it.
"Please, don't cry." he was whispering with such care in his voice you wanted to cry harder. "Not over my stupidity."
A small try of a laugh escaped you. "I'm always crying over your stupidity, Satoru." you shook your head. "But also mine. I could have confessed too, but I didn't because I was scared. I'm sorry."
He moved a bit closer, his chair now as near as possible. "Don't apologize -"
"But I am sorry. Because now I don't know how to feel and..." you stopped, trying to catch your breath. "I want to forgive you, but I'm just so scared and -"
That's when Satoru stood up again. You watched through your blurry vision how he made his way to you, going around the table. There he stood looking at you with something so big, something so mighty in his eyes.
Carefully his hands made it's way next to your face, drying your tears and caressing your face.
"I know that I will do everything to deserve your forgiveness. No pushing away, no riddles."
He wiped your hair out of the way and placed a soft kiss onto your forehead.
"But I don't think I want to be friends anymore."
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Deleted scene:
"I thought I should stop sending them." Satoru had his signature grin on his face, while looking at the daisies on the table. "But you do like them!"
"I didn't say you should stop sending them, I said you should stop sending them to my workplace." you kept your gaze on the white flowers in front of you, even though you felt him staring at you. "And I didn't want you to think that you could buy my forgiveness."
"Oh, I never thought that! I just wanted to you to know that I thought of you." his close body raised a hand to take on of the daisies. "You remember that day at the festival?"
"Of course I do." you snorted. "I thought you were stupid for bringing daisies and claiming that they remind you of me, when they are white flowers."
He gasped dramatically. "Stupid? That was my heart laid out in front of you!"
You couldn't help but laugh at his playful 'hurt' face. "Then why do they remind you of me?"
"You were always new beginning."
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deadsetobsessions · 1 year ago
Text
Damian Wayne was like a duckling. A violent, stab-happy, danger-prone duckling, yes, but a duckling all the same. Which means when Danny almost got stabbed by a sleepy, instinct driven Damian, he was able to wave it off with a laugh. Damian, on the other hand, stared in horror at the butter knife firmly lodged in Danny’s arm.
“PENNYWORTH!” Danny jerked back at Damian’s scream. “RICHARD! FATHER!”
God damn, the kid had a pair of lungs on him. Danny’s wince was interpreted as pain to Damian, who gently grabbed his injured arm and started to pull him towards the kitchen’s marble island.
Danny blinked, non plussed as his hearing picked up a thundering of feet as the present family members scrambled towards Damian’s distress call.
“Wait, Damian, I’m fine. It’s-”
“You have been impaled, you imbecile! Had it been any of the other simpletons, they would have-!”
“Ouch.” Danny put his other hand in mock hurt over his slow-beating heart. He literally doesn’t care about the butter knife. He’s just impressed there was enough force in there to impale him. “Are you calling me names now? After- gasp- stabbing me?”
Before Damian could reply, the beginnings of regret, remorse, and guilt on his face, Alfred, Dick, and Bruce burst into the kitchen.
“What happened?!”
“My word, master Danny!”
“What is it?!”
“I’m fine. It’s like a small stab. Not even a big stab. I’m good.”
Dick paled, seeing Danny’s arm clutched in Damian’s hand.
“That’s- that’s a knife. In your arm. How is that ‘fine’?!”
“What happened.” Bruce asked Damian, gently removing Danny’s arm from Damian’s death clutch.
“I- I did not mean to,” Damian starts, guilt coloring his voice.
“He didn’t,” Danny cuts in. “I startled him and got stabbed for being dumb. I won’t fault him for having a defense mechanism like that, ancient knows what I might do if you guys startled me.”
The awkward silence that settled at his words made Danny twitch awkwardly.
“Uh, so, can I add this knife to my collection? Even if I didn’t get mugged?”
“Danny.”
“Bruce.” Danny stared stubbornly back. With his uninsured hand, he patted Damian on the head. He was going to enjoy the fluffiness before Damian’s guilt was no longer enough to hold him back from snapping at Danny’s hand like a grumpy alligator. Bruce loses, obviously. He’s a teenager who was also an ex-vigilante. Batman’s got nothing on a determined halfa.
“Master Danny, I must insist you refrain from getting stabbed. There is only so much gauze and antiseptic cream in the house.” Alfred returned- huh, when did he leave?- with a med kit.
Danny called bullshit because he knows there’s a whole ass medical bay beneath the manor.
“Sorry.”
“No need to apologize.” Alfred said, promptly beginning the extraction of the butter knife.
“Are you okay?” Dick asked, hovering worriedly. “He- are you…?”
Damian was allowing Danny to ruffle his hair, so…
“Yep, I’m good. This isn’t even on my top thirty most painful stabbings,” and it really wasn’t. That honor was given to the GIW and that one time Jazz accidentally stabbed him with her earrings. “That was pretty impressive, actually. It’s like, a butter knife. The other ones had pointy ends.”
“Do not clump me with those pathetic wastes of spaces. I am naturally superior and would… would never harm you on purpose.” Damian said, getting quiet at the end like he was trying to plead to Danny to believe him.
“Of course not. But- if you want help me keep the knife, you can hit me with a mug, it would technically be a mugging.”
The pun got the desired effect. Damian leaned away with a disgruntled look and Dick stopped hovering as close in order to let out a small cackle.
“Done.”
“You should go get changed, kiddo. We’re going to see Tim’s photography at the Gotham Gallery today.”
“Oh, for real?” Danny patted Damian’s fluffy hair one last time, pushing away from the counter. “Oh, I’ll clean up here first and-”
“That will not be necessary,” Alfred scolded, a mop somehow already in his hands. “Please see to it you are prepared for the day.”
“Thanks, Alfred. Can I keep the knife.”
“Very well.”
“Sweet. See you guys later?” Danny pranced off after seeing the nods.
——
“He’s… he got stabbed a lot. Before us, I mean.” Dick tapped a furious rhythm onto the counter. “Not that we’ve stabbed him until now but even once is concerning for a civilian.”
“He was used to it.” Bruce replied.
“Perhaps we should join Todd in his endeavor and ensure that his worthless tormentors are permanently out of the picture.”
“God, he said top thirty. He was counting.”
Damian silently withdrew a kitchen knife.
“No murder with my quality chef’s knives, Master Damian.”
“Tt.”
“Master Jason follows the same rules. Now, out of the kitchen. I may be old, but I remember the last time master Bruce and master Dick stepped foot in here and I will not have a repeat.”
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secretsandwriting · 9 months ago
Note
heyyyy ryyyyy <333
since ur requests are open i thought id go ahead and ask if you're mayhaps open to anything for batmom? i don't have a completely solid idea but maybe smn like batmom has been getting threats or maybe hate or smn from somebody and everyone's reactions and how they get hella protective?
obv no pressure and you definitely do not have to write this
hope you have a great day bb
Heyyyyy, so this grew hands and wrote itself, I hope you enjoy it. It did end up with a lot of backstory.
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5.3k words
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You knew this would happen. Once your relationship with Bruce got out there would be an influx of love and hate. You also knew that everyone else knew that as well. It was common knowledge than anyone around a celebrity of sorts would experience that. 
Of course you did the normal things, turned off most notifications and only looked through areas online you knew would mostly be safe. You blocked tags and and only followed people you knew or ones who didn’t post about drama. 
When you did stumble onto hate, you moved on. If someone kept sending you nasty messages you blocked them, when they made other accounts to keep sending the same things, you changed your settings so only those you followed could message you. 
It wasn’t something you wanted to deal with but it was something you could handle. Something you started mentally preparing yourself for when Bruce’s attention on you lasted more than 4 dates, even more so when you caught yourself daydreaming about him.
You were not going to let random bitter people on the internet destroy your happiness like they did their own. Your family however, wanted to destroy what was left of your haters' happiness. Something you were trying to curb, but trying to tell a family of vigilantes who considered you the best mom in existence not to destroy your haters was like talking to a brick wall. Over the years, you had gotten used to it. It barely even registered anymore. But there had been a recent influx of the hate and while it didn’t bother you, it bothered the rest of your family. None of them could stand people talking bad about their mom.
While you hadn’t been there while the older ones were young, the second you had introduced yourself to them, you had taken a very important role in their lives. None of them realizing it at first. All of them had gotten used to the random women Bruce brought home that it took a little while for them to realize how important you were. 
Dick wasn’t sure at first. Thinking you were just another girlfriend that wouldn’t last long. So he didn’t really interact with you much. Ignoring your existence when it wasn’t too rude, or at least obviously rude. Until one night when he was staying at the manor and had a nightmare about his parents death. 
Bruce had an open bed policy. As long as there was still room for him, his bed was open. A policy he had started when Dick had gotten old enough he was worried he wouldn’t be allowed to go when he had a nightmare. Bruce had always reminded all his kids, that nightmares don’t go away just because you’re older and that needing comfort wasn’t something they would outgrow. 
The thing was, you were there. Girlfriends didn’t mind when children did it but they never liked it when his adult kids did it. The shaking in his hands and the way he saw them fall in the darkness of every blink told him the only way he was getting any sleep was with someone. 
Hopefully he could just slip into Bruce’s side and leave before you woke up. That was the plan until he found Damian on Bruce’s side and you had been pulled closer to Bruce taking up what was left. You moved a little and Dick took that as his sign to deal with it himself until he heard you whisper his name. He hummed so you knew it was him and not some random stranger standing over Bruce’s side of the bed. 
“Nightmare?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on.” You lifted the blanket next to you, “Bruce told me you guys come here when you have nightmares. There's plenty of room over here for you.” Dick hesitated for a second before giving in. He needed sleep anyway. You weren’t when you said there was plenty of room, Dick had most of your half of the bed. Once he had settled on his side, facing away from you, he felt you pull the blanket over his shoulders. 
“Night Dick, sleep well.” For some reason, that was what did it. Once the tears started they didn’t stop. Silent sobs made him shudder and he felt one of your hands gently rubbing his back. “Oh Dick.” There was no pity in your tone and he found himself rolling over and curling into you. Your chin resting on his head while you rubbed his back. 
The next day, he followed you around like a puppy. Your side of the bed became his favorite when he had nightmares and it wasn’t long before he turned to you for general comfort over anything.
Jason met you at his grave. Neither of you exchanged words, but he caught something in your gaze he didn’t quite understand. He also wasn’t sure why you were at his grave either, he didn’t know you when he was younger. 
When he saw the Gotham News post about Bruce and Your 2nd anniversary, it brought more questions than answers. Why were you at his grave alone? Let alone longer than a few seconds. It was an odd way to gain more of Bruce’s affections. 
Every Tuesday you would be there, leaving flowers and talking softly to the stone. Every time you left, you would smile and nod, the look in your eyes he couldn’t figure out was still there. Every time he would strain to heat what you were saying and only be able yo a few words here and there. 
6 months into it, the routine changed. You brought a blanket and Basket with your usual flowers. You did what you normally did with the flowers but instead of talking to the stone you waved him over. When he didn’t move, you stopped what you were doing and looked at him. 
“Jason Todd, I have been keeping your secret for 6 months. Helping me spread this blanket and having lunch won’t change it.” He stared at you while you waited expectantly. Eventually when he could get himself to move, he came over and helped. He sat down where you motioned for him too, all while trying to figure out how you knew.
“Bruce mentioned this used to be your favorite when you were younger so I asked Alfred to teach me how to make it. I hope it's up to your standards.” He looked at the plate of food you handed him. It was almost overflowing with food, all of which reminded him of the good times back at the manor before he died. “Alfred also sent your favorite cookies when he heard I would be eating at your grave.” The bag of cookies was placed next to the basket, within easy reach.
“Why?” Was all Jason managed to choke out around the lump in his throat.
“I decided early on in life, no matter who I was with, I would love their family as my own. My grandfather hated my grandmothers side and it caused a lot of pain in all the generations. I decided I would never do that to another family.” Jason found himself back in control enough to start eating. 
“So when I started dating Bruce and he told me about you, I decided to treat you like you were my own. Even though I had never met you and you were dead. Most of what that meant was keeping your grave clean and always making sure there were fresh flowers. While I did that, I would tell you everything that was going on.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“Your eyes, they may be a different color but they looked too similar. So I did a little digging and found pictures of your biological pictures to place the face shape it matched. I think however you look more like Bruce then either of them.”
“Are you going to tell them?”
“As much as I would love to. It’s your choice. You’ve been keeping this to yourself for a reason. If I can help you get to a place to tell them, I would love to. But I won’t say a word until you're ready. However, I would like to keep having lunch with you.” 
A year later, Jason reintroduced himself to the rest of the family a lot calmer than originally planned and was glued to your side anytime he felt overwhelmed that night. Every Tuesday after that, lunch was scheduled.
Tim was nervous when it came to you. He was still living in the manor so he saw you more than the older two. You always seemed nice and respected his privacy but Bruce was always with you so you obviously would. 
It was when he wasn’t around that worried Tim. Bruce attracted golddiggers and they were always mean when Bruce wasn’t there. When you were given a copy of the key, Time braced himself. 
Of course he knew that if he told Bruce anything that happened like that, Bruce would break it off. He had always told them that they came first. But he also knew that Bruce liked you a lot. All the other ones Bruce liked a lot that turned out to be horrible, he broked it off. Tim had seen how it had made him upset and he really hated doing that to him. Maybe he could deal with it for once. 
So when Bruce left for a business trip, Tim was Expecting the worst. What he didn’t expect was for you to knock on his door and ask if you could join him. When he agreed and stepped back so you could come in. He expected you to go to his bed or his desk chair not, the oversized bean bag on the floor.
“I have a question for you but you can’t tell Bruce yet.” Here it comes. “What would a funny way to tell him I know he’s Batman?” Tim wasn’t expecting that one. “I was thinking a lot of batpuns but his paranoia is too bad for that.”
“How did you figure it out?” You walked him through your process and didn’t say anything as he wrote parts of it down. Once you finished explaining the process for Bruce, you explained any way it was modified in figuring out their identities.
“Who do you think I am?”
“Red Robin.” Tim found himself getting excited. 
“You know those notes you leave him in his office?” You nodded. “You should leave those in the Batcave.” You considered it but your thinking was interrupted but Tim shouting. 
“No! One night when we’re all in the cave, you could bring some snacks!” 
“You just want snacks when he’s lecturing you don’t you?”
“Maybe..”
“Alright, but you have to tell the others so they can tell me what snack they want.”
So Tim slowly and carefully went through all his siblings, letting them know you figured it out, Bruce didn’t know, and what the plan is. Every time he relayed a snack to you he’d watch how carefully you’d write it out to make sure you had it correct or look up recipes if you couldn’t find it in stores. 
Two weeks later, Tim was the one who sent the signal in the middle of a lecture everyone was receiving and he got a front row seat to see Bruce’s face when you walked in and handed out snacks before giving him a kiss and telling him to be nice and leaving. 
Any other worries were left in the dust when you helped him win the nerf war for the best seat in the home theater. He thoroughly enjoyed his spot next to you while Bruce swore revenge from the other side of the room.
Damian treated you politely but that was it. His mother was still alive and he didn’t want another one, one was more than enough. Not only that, but you were weird. 
One time when you were over, you found one of his report cards. Immediately you were praising him. He didn’t understand why, he had basically failed one of his classes with an A-. You should be disappointed like his mother would be, not hanging it up on the fridge and telling people not to touch it. Definitely not taking him out for ice cream and calling him so smart. He definitely shouldn’t be feeling any pride when he walked past it, but he still was. 
When he was practicing his violin and Messed up, you were supposed to tell him to stop failing, that he should be better. Not smiling at him and telling him he’s making good progress. You should be telling him that he should have memorized that piece in a day. He shouldn’t be feeling any pride when he finally does memorize it, it took him 4 days to learn it.
When he was struggling to learn a language, you were supposed to tell him to work harder. He could do better, after all, he already knew so many. Instead you just smiled and recommended a break to refresh his mind. 
When he snapped at you in Arabic, he expected you to be upset since you didn’t know what he said and it was obviously not something nice. Instead you set the rule that if he was going to use Arabic to speak to you when upset, that he had to teach it to you and if what he said wasn’t something you had learned yet, he had to tell you in english. When he told you what it meant, you didn’t even get upset. He definitely shouldn’t be as excited as he was when you actually started learning. 
So many more little things piled up, leaving Damian confused. The differences between how you and his mother treated him was so big he didn’t know how to process it, he liked you and all the little things made him happy in a way he hadn’t really felt. But he still loved his mom, When he had enough of it, he asked you to stop. He still wanted to love his mom. Once again, you did something you weren’t supposed to.
“Oh Damian, I’m not trying to replace your mom nor am I trying to make you feel like you can’t love her or she doesn’t love you. Your mom and I show our love in different ways and its ok for you to love or like both of us. You mother loves you and she will always be allowed in your life if thats what you want.” You weren’t supposed to do that, but Damian was really glad you did.
Barbara wasn’t sure how you would react to her. She wasn’t just Bruce’s kid. She had a loving family she went back to every night. Most people weren’t really a fan of that, one of Bruce’s past girlfriends had some strong and hurtful things to say about it. 
When you took her for a day out, she found herself warming up to you but still waiting for the other shoe to drop. One of the new places you had planned to go, didn’t have wheelchair access. Like all the other girlfriends who had done this, she expected you to be annoyed that your plans had to change or you would just leave her outside while you shopped. 
You didn’t seem to notice her hesitation, just looking at what was next on your list and starting the trip there. When Barbara stared a little longer at a new movie that was in theaters, tickets and snacks were bought and you listed to all the lore she told you about before it started.
While it had been a nice day, Barbara wasn’t convinced. One day was easy to fake. Sure she had lots of fun, but Barbara was used to fakes when it came to Bruce’s girlfriends. Of course she wasn’t complaining about you being nice, she just wasn’t sure how long it would last. 
“Did you hear about that boutique?” She looked up from her food to look at her dad. “That new one that you tried to go to with Bruce’s girlfriend? Well there was a report that it didn’t meet the Americans with Disabilities act and the boutique is in trouble. People are speculating they’ll have to close down.”
Later that night, Barbara looked into it. They were in trouble, pretty big trouble from the looks of it. Towards the end of the article she found the name of the person who reported it, she wasn’t sure who she was expecting. Not you for sure but the Name Y/n L/n took her by surprise and filled her chest with feelings she couldn’t describe. 
The boutique ended up closing but a new one opened. Once it was open, you were the first to ask her to go. That weird feeling came back when she wheeled herself up the ramp and through the door you held open for her. Later that night, in the privacy of her room. She decided she liked you. 
Steph seemed like she liked you, she acted like she liked you, she didn’t really like you. Sure you were nice, Bruce loved you, the others were warming up to you, but she wasn’t sure how to feel about you. So she stuck with not actually liking you but pretending to. 
So when she was around you, it was all smiles and jokes. She wasn’t a big fan of it all but she did it because she knew you were important to Bruce and that was enough of a reason for her. She knew Bruce and the others could see through the act but as long as you couldn’t, that was enough. 
When Bruce announced he had to leave for a business trip right before she could hand him the parents visit for one of her AP classes, something the new teacher liked doing. She tucked the paper away. When Tim gave her a questioning look, she shook her head and later swore him to silence. 
Every time she heard someone mention their parents were going, she felt a pang of jealousy in her chest. Every time Tim mentioned bringing it up to you, she swore him into silence again. It wouldn’t be the first time no one showed up for her. She was however thankful you wouldn’t be at the manor as much so she didn’t have to pretend to like you.
When the day arrived, Steph was not having a good day. School dragged on slowly. Slower than normal. When school finally ended, she had to sit in the classroom and watch everyone else that was in her class leave and the parents of her classmates show up while no one was there or coming for her.
Someone sat in the seat next to her, she expected another family member of one of her classmates. Definitely not you. She couldn’t return your smile, too unsure of how you found out, the fact you actually showed up, and how she felt about you being there. You leaned a little closer so that the others in the room wouldn’t easily overhear. 
“I know I’m not your parent and someone you just pretend to like so if you want me to leave I will. But I figured someone was better then no one. Oh, and Tim wanted me to tell you he didn’t spill. Your teacher called the manor because no one had RSVPed for you and I answered it.”
That night, as Steph showed off all her hard work to you, the charade fell. She actually enjoyed her time with you and the boost of pride as you oohed and ahhed over all her projects and listened to her explain all the little details. That night, Steph realized, she didn’t need to keep pretending. She liked you, until she found out you didn’t like her favorite show but a nerf war solved that. 
Cass could tell you were different then the other girlfriends, your body language as you interacted with all of them showed it. However that didn’t mean she knew how to interact with you.
She had learned that she was fairly hard for new people to interact with. She also knew she had trouble interacting with people she wasn’t fighting. So it wasn’t a surprise when it started rocky. 
What was a surprise, was when you found out she was still having trouble reading and writing, you stepped in to help. Well, that wasn’t the surprising part, a lot of girlfriends did that. The surprising part was the amount of patience you had when it was only the two of you. 
When one method didn’t help, you tried another. Never once did you snap at her or call her a name. Everytime you got frustrated you would stop and look at her, say something along the lines of “If I had as much trouble with this as you do, I wouldn’t want to keep trying. You're doing absolutely amazing! I’ll keep looking for other ideas, but for now, lets take a break and get a treat.” 
Cass wasn’t sure why that always made her feel better, but it did. Every treat you brought was something you made just for the tutoring sessions and it always reminded her of what Alfred had told her once. “Something made with love for you will always taste better.”
And when a method that made it a little easier to learn was found, Cass found herself smiling along with your cheers. Bad days where she couldn’t seem to make any progress were always met with the same excitement, cheers, patience, and treats that all the others were. 
Cass still wasn’t sure of what to think of you exactly, but she knew she liked you and that you cared about her.
So when Tim saw the new rise in hate, a sibling meeting was called. They all went through each site, blood boiling as they saw what people were saying about their new parent. Plans were made, declarations of war were ready, and anger fueled all of them. Bruce could tell something was going on, but he wasn’t sure what it was and as long as it didn’t get out of had, he wasn’t sure if he had the energy to deal with it. 
War was declared in an interview by Steph. The lady was asking questions when the topic switched to Bruce, then you. The reporter was clearly trying to subtly find some dirt on you and Steph was not going to stand for it.
“Oh yeah! Y/n! She’s the best!” She put on her best press face. Trying to hide her anger over the hidden intent. She didn’t have to lie or act when talking about you but the change in the lady’s face going to disappointment when she didn’t get anything she wanted was making her look very punchable. 
“She’s always showing up for us and making sure we’re doing ok. If Y/n and Bruce were to break up, I think most of us would go with Y/n.” The way the lady kept trying to get anything really got on her nerves and Steph decided she needed to get out of there before she started using the lady’s face for target practice. You wouldn’t like that.
Cass was the first one to resort to violence. They had asked a thinly veiled question, basically asking if you were a golddigger. So she punched him in the nose and leaned down to flip the camera off. She hated interviews already but that made it so much worse. She hoped you wouldn’t be too upset with her punching the guy though.
Jason, surprisingly enough. Did not get violent… physically. He did however curse one out and threaten him when the reporter implied you were forcing them to say nice things. When the reporter kept pressing Jason broke his mic and told him if he ever heard him talking bad about you again, a broken mic would be the last of his worries. Jason knew you would be disappointed but he had held back, he didn’t shoot the guy like he wanted.
Tim threw his coffee at one reporter because he heard them say you were nothing but a regular person who didn’t deserve any attention. He then took over her segment, threatening the company to air it or he would make sure they went bankrupt. Once he finished his threats, anything he said was praising you name. Telling everyone how amazing you were and how much they all loved you.
Barbara made it a point to bring up everything you did for the community when they tried to throw some shade at you in an interview. She had documents to prove it and hacked their systems to add them into the interview so they couldn’t claim it was fake. She also made sure to run over his foot when she left. 
Dick punched a reporter when they tried to ask him what you were really like behind closed doors. He told them the truth, that you were just as good, kind, patient, and loving behind closed doors as you were out in public. He didn’t throw a punch until the reporter disregarded that as asked again because she couldn’t be that good. Dick knew a lecture would be coming once you saw, but he would rather sit through a lecture then let anyone tarnish your name.
Damian spent 10 minutes cursing and threatening a reporter in Arabic when they asked him if you had ever hurt him. When he was done, he told them in english, that if he ever got asked that question again, he would impale them. He knew you were going to make him sit down and translate everything and the general response you would give but he didn’t care, no one speaks bad about either of his mothers.
Bruce figured out what was going on after Steph’s interview. He saw the ones where they assaulted or threatened the reporters and made sure his lawyers were on standby to keep the kids out of trouble. After all, he had seen more than they had. 
He had watched as you tried to connect with Dick early on, how you worked hard to try and get somewhere. He had woken up before you when Dick had come in that night and heard how you handled it. He had woken up the next morning to find you holding Dick close, like you were trying to protect him from the nightmares. He had seen how you never turned Dick down when he wanted comfort, no matter how serious or silly the matter, and he had heard your excitement when you told him Dick liked you.
Bruce had seen the way you never missed a visit to Jason’s grave, on a visit of his own, he saw how much care you showed the stone marking it as his lost son. While he hadn’t been sure why it was alway the same time on Tuesday, he didn;t mention it. He felt the way you would sob in his arms after each visit, a year after the tradition started, you always said you had promised not to tell and he watched as you kept that promise even if it tore you to pieces. Once the shock and tears wore off for a little bit, he could see the trust that Jason had in you.
He heard the way you questioned if you should have a key to the manor, you didn’t want to make Tim uncomfortable in his own home, or how you questioned if you should visit while he was gone. Not wanting to stress Tim out when there was no reason too. He saw the way you and Tim grinned at each other when you brought snacks down for all the kids he was currently lecturing. He head the excitement in your voice as you told him about the tour Tim had given you of the Batcave and the shared laughter as you and Tim worked together to win the nerf war.
Bruce saw how you worked to give Damian the affection he didn’t think he needed. He felt you crying in his arms upset over the fact Damian thought you would be angry because he made a mistake or struggled in a class. He heard you practicing your Arabic as you got ready for bed and he watched as you stress paced over whether or not you said the right thing to him about his mother. 
He saw how angry you had been when you came back from your day out with Barbara. He had heard your call with your lawyer as you tried to figure out what to do. He saw you going through the laws and making a list to make sure your lawyer didn’t miss any. He heard about the movie you didn’t particularly care about and the lore you remembered in case of another because you wanted Barbara to have someone she could tell all of her favorite things too. 
Bruce saw the pictures you had taken from the school night. He heard all the details from you as you praised Steph’s work. He saw the way Steph stopped acting around you and the silly arguments the two of you would get into for fun. He heard the way you would listen to her as she verbally worked out her problems. He saw the way Steph looked for you in a crowd, the way she knew you were there but not where you stood exactly, the thought of you not being there never crossed her. 
He saw the way you stayed up late, researching different ways to teach reading and writing. He heard the patience and kindness and you worked with Cass. He saw the way you always made a treat just for Cass to have after each lesson because you wanted to reward her hard work. He heard the way you cried for Cass when she had a bad day and got frustrated with herself because you knew she was smart and you wanted her to see it too. He heard your celebrations when Cass made any progress, no matter the size. 
Bruce heard, saw, and felt the way you worked hard to have a relationship with his kids. How you had mourned for their losses, celebrated their wins, and felt their pain. He saw the way his kids blossomed under your care, growing to be better and more confident in themselves. The way you cared for them as if they were your own flesh and blood. So when he was asked about his kids behavior, he said as much. 
“Y/n has worked hard to be accepted by them. She’s given so much of her time, effort, patience, and love and never wanted anything in return. She always shows up for them, no matter what the occasion is, big or small, it doesn’t matter. If they want her there, she’ll be there. Everytime they need or want her, she’s there. She never judges them and treats them as if they were her own blood. Of course their upset and lashing out, people are insulting the woman who has cared for them more then most of their biological mothers.”
Later, a clip of you scolding Bruce and all the kids went viral. While you were scolding them over their behavior and making the kids who had reacted with violence or threats write apology letters because asking mean questions does not make it right to respond badly especially when its someone just trying to start drama. Everyone one noticed that there was no actual bite to your tone and no anger when they all refused to stop acting like that. In fact, there was a small soft smile on your face as you shook your head at your family.
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