#I can’t remember my selfie tag

[totallynotagentphilcoulson]

POV you’re in a 1980s tropical neonoir but the wisecracking baseball-loving private investigator you’ve hired is a time displaced butch Cro Magnon from the Magdalenian epoch* instead of an ex Navy Seal dude.

*don’t worry this isn’t a meanly self-deprecating joke about my body hair and current lack of socially-accepted femininity. This is a joke about my heavy brow ridge and noticeable occipital bun, and hobbyist-level ability to knap lithic tools

(They/She/He [but that last one is rly just for the worksona])

[rraskolnikov]

some guy in his room

[vinmauro]

7, 9 and 17 💜💜💜

7. favorite actor of the year?

oof just one? i think it’s between phil dunster and jessie mei li for me! idk ted lasso s3 was phil’s season and i just love jessie as alina starkov.

9. best month for you this year?

september for sure! i saw motionless in white and had a fucking blast at scranton apocalypse fest!! also got to spend like a week with my best friend and her puppies. it was so nice i wanna go back 🥺

17. post a picture from the end of the year

a ziggy from a couple days ago and a selfie of me from the concert i went to in november.

end of the year asks

[8thavenueserenade]

what i looked like the last time i was on tumblr (2018) vs now (2023)

[chunksworld]

Swim

IZ*ONE Kim Minju x Male Reader | (Tags: Smut)

A/N: #BreedMinju. Thank you to Kaede for beta reading as always.

————————

You never imagined in your wet dreams, in all of the times you masturbated to her, or even that time you drunk texted her a picture of you shirtless after one too many drinks at the bar that the woman you met inside the elevator during your first day at the company some two odd years ago would be in your apartment watching some rom-com from the 90s that you are too inebriated to remember the title of. Your heart is pounding, partly because of the double serving of triple shot espresso you perhaps shouldn’t have drank this morning and partly because she looks devastatingly stunning in that white shirt that completely conceals whatever shorts she maybe wearing underneath which further accentuates those long legs of hers—

“I don’t remember the TV facing this direction, unless there’s something on my face?”

Shit.

Aside from her God-given physical features, it’s the way she can toy with your feelings and flirt with you so effortlessly that always leaves you wanting for more. Every single little interaction with her is an adventure on its own; the way she would wink at you every time you pass by her in the office, the way she would walk up to you to fix your tie while telling you how your perfume “smells like the oceanside on a summer day” —whatever the hell that means— or how she would always give you words of encouragement with that bright smile of hers during stressful days. 

It should mean something, has to mean something. Right? You can’t ask anyone for advice either, not when you’re the only two people born on this side of the century in your department. Your coworkers are either divorced or having a midlife crisis, and quite frankly, you might be having a quarter-life crisis if such a thing exists. You can’t stay professional any longer, and you are more than thankful that you’re not at the workplace right now because the thoughts swimming inside your head are absolutely not safe for work. And it’s all because of this fucking woman that’s laughing as if everything is sunshine and rainbows: Kim Minju. 

It doesn’t help that she’s the prettiest woman you know. even more so than the handful of girls you’ve hooked up with during college. Evidently, you are not the only one that shares that sentiment because you don’t miss the old way some of your older male coworkers would give her a certain, disgusting look that you wish to erase from your memories and you know she deserves better than them. She deserves someone like you, but you don’t exactly know if that feeling is reciprocated. But as to how far you can push your luck, you haven’t found out the answer to that yet—perhaps tonight is the night. 

“Are you still with me? Or did my goddess face lure you in too deep?” 

That now makes the two of you not paying attention to the movie—granted you’ve already seen it at least a dozen times during college when you were a hopeless romantic but who are you to turn down Minju when she specifically requested it? Plus, that’s not your concern at this very moment when she scoots ever so closely to you and the heat her skin radiates is enough to burn you. “Honestly, I don’t blame you if you have a crush on me. I sort of have that effect on guys.” There’s that fucking wink again, and the way she pouts her lips as if she is posing for a selfie. “I admire your resilience though, most guys would have me moaning their names on their bed already by this point.”

“Not funny, Minju.” It really isn’t, not when she’s mere inches away from you and if you were just a bit more drunk now those irresistible lips of hers would be meshed with yours now. You try to look away but you can’t, they captivate you to no end and you don’t even want to look away now—the sheen on those cherry red lips, the way they stand out against her milky white skin, the way she then bites her lower lips as to tempt you even further, the way sweat slowly drips down the side of her face and to her neck and you think they’d look good with your bite marks all over them.

Even if you look down, her succulent thighs and legs are all that will pervade your senses and you won’t be able to stop thinking about how you just want to rip whatever garments she’s wearing underneath and have her spread her legs while you eat her out like she’s your last meal on Earth. “You can’t just keep doing this for years and not expect me to make a move eventually.”

“Then what’s stopping you, hmm?” 

Minju somehow shifts even closer to you, her lips practically brushing against yours, her eyes staring deep into your soul, her hands resting on your thighs. She probes into you even deeper, much deeper than any other time and emergency sirens are popping up in your head. There have been many close encounters like this, way too many for your liking. 

The way she would wear pencil skirts on certain days and make it her mission to bend over in front of you as much as possible to show the unreal curvature of her ass—then proceeding to smirk as if she doesn’t know how much your cock wants to burst through your pants. The way she would purposely bump into you and pretend to fall so you can pull her into an inadvertent hug. 

Or when she would wear those dresses that hug her curves tightly during galas and she would give you a courtesy hug for a second longer than corporate policies would allow. Or when she kissed you during Christmas party last year and claimed that she had to do it because you two were “underneath a mistletoe.” 

It all has to end tonight, because God forbid you have to spend another night alone on your bed making a mess while you shoot ropes after ropes all over yourself thinking about her. It’s exhausting having to play these games with her when you’re 99% sure she is into you and you have to take action now before someone else does.

“Minju, I don’t think you’re ready for what I’m packing down there.” You test the waters even further, carefully studying her facial expressions while trying not to get lost in her eyes. It’s quite a difficult task when the alcohol is hitting you harder by the minute but when a sly grin appears across her face as if to challenge that statement, you know you have her right where you want her.

“Oh trust me, I know what you’re packing down there.” Minju glances downwards at your erection and your sweatpants are doing a poor job with how it’s about to poke through your pants. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be spending my Friday night here when I could be hanging out with Chaewon and Yujin.” It’s getting dangerous now, her hands traveling down your body and cupping your length through two layers of clothing.

And honestly you might as well be naked now with the way your cock reacts to her touch —your tip is leaking heavily and your breath starts to shorten. “So what’s it gonna be? You can’t tell me you have a different plan for how this night is going to end.” You can’t push back any further, you won’t push back. You take the first dip, lips pressed hungrily onto hers and she takes this opportunity to swing her legs over and straddle you on your couch—the movie in the background is long forgotten and all you care about right now is her.

You straighten yourself up and wrap your arms around her waist possessively; two years of pent up sexual frustration finally coming to an end and you make the most of it. Her lips are everything you’ve dreamed of; soft and sweet and succulent and you can’t help but think about how they slot in with yours perfectly as if you were meant to kiss her all this time. Your hands travel to her face to cup her cheeks, pushing her head deeper into yours and you notice her hands encircling around your back. 

You take a break to catch your bearings, staring deep again at her now lust-filled eyes and you get a front row seat to the facial expression you’ve been dying to see for forever now.  She moans into your mouth when one of your hands slides underneath her dress shirt to feel her smooth skin and the ridges of her abs which itself isn’t a surprise—what is surprising is the lack of bra when you travel further upwards and you come into contact with tits that you are sure is perky and round. “What a fucking slut, Minju. No bra?”

Your suspicions are confirmed when you practically rip the buttons off her shirt and throw it somewhere in your living room and your mouth waters at the sight of her breasts, they are definitely not the biggest you’ve seen but the way they sit on her perfectly shaped body with all of her curves and intricacies is more than enough to make up for it. “What’s the use of wearing one when I knew we were gonna end up like this anyways?” But before you could dive down to taste them you find your shirt being removed as well and the hunger in your eyes is mirrored by the way she’s staring down at your own pack of abs. 

“I mean if I had it my way I would’ve told you to be shirtless already with only your boxers on before I came over but you can’t have everything in life right?” She is as handsy as you, those delicate fingers mapping your chest and your stomach with every little touch as if to decipher where her lips would go later. But you absolutely cannot wait any longer, grabbing her hand and placing it on her sides while you devour her nipples. Taking her left breasts between your lips while massaging the right one and the whimper of your name that escapes her lips is downright sinful while you alternate between the two. 

You lick, slurp, and at times even get your teeth involved—just anything that can get her squirming and writhing on your lap is enough to fuel you. Even more so when she pushes your head deeper into her chest and she’s moaning “more please, fuck” in between whimpers.

Minju is one needy girl and that’s one fact that you find out quickly when she starts to grind on your hips and you can feel just how warm and wet her shorts are. You inadvertently bite on her nipples and she screams your name at the sensation. You utter a “sorry” in response but it doesn’t really matter when she gets off of you and you think you’ve absolutely screwed up. Fucking great. She stands up and you are about to give a more sincere and heartfelt apology but those thoughts are quickly washed away when she removes her shorts and then her panties.

“I want to see that cock. Now.”

You don’t waste a single moment before you proceed to do the same thing to your undergarments and the sight of her fully naked in front of you causes you to leak even more precum with your cock freely exposed to the air. Minju looks hot—which in itself might be an understatement with the way she’s fucking you with those wide eyes of hers, the way her nipples are glimmering under the lights of your living room thanks to your saliva, the way her abs contract with every breath she takes, the way those stocky thighs are slick with her essence. Forget those wet dreams because none of them could match witnessing the actual Kim Minju naked in real life in your apartment.

Minju squeals when you drag her back down towards you to make her straddle your lap again. No more games, no more foreplay, you slowly sink her down your cock and drink in her moans when she buries her face in your shoulder. She is suffocatingly tight, extremely wet but tight and you almost spill mere seconds after finally inserting your entire length inside her. You wince slightly as her manicured nails press into your shoulders and eventually your back. “Fucking—shit—If I only knew—” 

Your pace is slow and methodical, even though you want to just pound her into oblivion and have her screaming to the point your neighbors will complain the morning after. She is Minju after all and she deserves that respect, but as to how long you can control yourself you don’t know. For now, you are content to just have her in your arms and revel in this moment that you’d never thought would ever come. Just feeling how your cock molds perfectly inside her and how her small bunny hops gradually increase over time and her face becomes lost in pleasure is more than enough.

Especially when you feel every inch of her goddess-like body pressed against yours when she arches up to you; her thighs bouncing against yours, her abs grinding against yours, and those breasts pressed against your chest. “—so deep, fuck—harder!” It’s about time you take control and you do just that, you plant your feet to the ground and you grab handfuls of her asscheeks with each hand before thrusting up in time with her thrust and Minju’s gone completely delirious now. 

Gone are the coherent sentences as they are now replaced by expletive-filled chants of pleasure. She’s damn near crying on your cock, tears welling up in her eyes due to pleasure and so you pull her face away to get a glimpse of her sweat-misted face and how her eyes are unfocused. You don’t know what came over you but you feel your heart skip a beat seeing such surreal beauty up close and personal so you pull her in for another makeout session, continuing your long and hard thrusts while your tongue ravages her mouth much like your cock does with her pussy.

“Fucking hell, we should’ve done this sooner.” Another kiss on her lips, then another lick of her nipples—make that two licks, no in fact, you devour them once more. It’s becoming clearer that they’re starting to become your favorite part of her body and it’s completely justified. “ I can’t believe I had to jack off to your pictures when you were just one call away.” The woman in question doesn’t respond but she blushes, the raw honesty of your words is enough to reveal that shy and demure side of her again despite the situation you two are currently in. 

Minju just brushes her hair aside in response while looking away, taking the initiative to bounce on your cock and you let her take over once again. “W-Well I’m here now—“ A particularly hard thrust deep into a certain spot inside her has her clenching around your cock much tighter than usual, you take mental note of this “—I hope I’m as good as advertised.” Of course she is and even better than whatever scenario you were cooking up inside your head, but instead of showing it through words you just smile at her and hope that it’s enough to show your admiration and you let your body do the talking.

You’re noticing how tired she’s becoming being on top so you don’t waste any more time and pick up the pace while still letting her guide the way. It’s silence between the two of you aside from the sounds of passionate lovemaking and that is just enough to push you two closer to the edge. You feel her clench tighter around you again and likewise you can feel your balls throbbing in anticipation too. It’s been a stressful week at work and there’s no better place to unload than inside her welcoming pussy. You’re just as close to her as reaching your orgasm and it’s becoming extremely difficult not to do anything but to burst inside hers. 

Forget the lovemaking, you lift her up by her asscheeks and stand up from the couch and you immediately feel her limbs coil around your body as she gasps at the sensation of being fully seated by your cock. You start to thrust up again, this time more relentlessly without the restrictions of the couch and she’s leaking even more now and you can actually feel her juices stream down your cock and you know she’s extremely close. “D-Don’t stop, please. Don’t you ever fucking stop!” She’s bouncing much higher than before, almost completely unsheathing your length before she crashes back down on it again and now she’s actually crying in pleasure. 

“Hnnghhh! Fuck! I can’t, I can’t—” There was certainly no way she was going to last any longer. “—G-Gonna cum on your cock!” And a few more of those wild thrusts is all it takes to set her off, going limp and forcing you to grab hold of her even tighter so she doesn’t slip off—a task given difficult given how much sweat is emanating both of your bodies but you don’t care especially when all of those juices causes you to slip out of her for a minute and you don’t care about the mess you two are making on the floor at this very moment when you’re about to follow her with your own orgasm. 

“Such a fucking good girl for me, Minju.” You slide back inside her, this time it’s easier thanks to the lubrication she provided and you can’t help but grit your teeth and close your eyes. It’s too much, all of this. What transpired tonight and what it means for your future. It’s all too much to handle and you can’t hold it any longer. You’re about to give her the biggest load you’ve ever given anyone.  “You deserve all of this, I’ve wanted you so fucking bad.“ All she can do is nod as she is still sensitive from her own orgasm but with the way she’s wrapping her arms around you tighter she wants it as badly as you do. “Gonna fucking cum inside.”

“Please! I want your hot—hnggh—I want your cum. Please. When a beautiful woman like her gives you such a permission you don’t waste it, you hold her tight as you begin to pump ropes after ropes of cum in her pussy with every deep thrust. You don’t want to stop cumming, can’t stop cumming—your legs going weak and forcing you to sit down on the couch while you continue to unload deep inside Minju. It feels fucking euphoric, feeling your load drip back down to your cock and balls as that seemed to drain the soul out of you. 

You’ve been holding back from the moment you first saw her all those years ago and there’s no better feeling than this, not even a promotion could rival how addicting having sex with her feels and you want more. You want to continue diving into the ocean that is Kim Minju even if it means drowning, nothing else matters but her.

As if to try to coax more cum out of you, Minju continues to grind her hips while kissing you. This time it’s much more slow and gentle while you lay her on the couch and hover on top of her. It’s beautiful how her hair, though disheveled, cascades down her shoulders and fans out on the cushion below. 

Her limbs are still wrapped tight around you, your softening cock starting to harden while you begin to fuck her once more—you’re making a mess of the couch with how you’re fucking your cam back into her but it doesn’t matter when she’s going to be filled again. “You still have enough cum for me? I’m surprised.” 

You place kisses on her neck this time, making sure to leave marks dark enough that no amount of foundation can conceal it once Monday comes around. Surprisingly she doesn’t protest, perhaps she does want everyone to find out about you two. “Guess I didn’t do a good job of draining you, huh?” You respond by fucking her harder into the couch, feeling the furniture creak and move with every thrust and you render her speechless once again. 

Lean down to capture those bouncing tits in your mouth and continue to work her to another orgasm which wasn’t difficult to accomplish considering how sensitive she still is. It didn’t take long to set you off either and you unload whatever remaining load you have, which is still plenty considering you almost passed out with how much you left inside her just ten minutes ago.

She urges you to sit up on the couch again and she gets off of it to kneel down in front of you before then taking your flaccid cock in her mouth to clean you off. The sight is pornographic, the way she shows off your combined juices on her tongue before making a show of swallowing it all. “Hmm, we taste good together. I don’t mind having some more of that.”

Minju gets off her knees to sit down right beside you and the way her naked body glistens under the natural light outside your apartment is an unparalleled sight that has your heart swooning and doing backflips. “Well, I’m free this entire weekend.” And perhaps shooting your shot when all of this has already happened is quite a ridiculous predicament to be in but you don’t want to be selfish after all. Surely a girl like her has plenty of suitors you’re not aware of and you don’t want to tie her down especially when nothing is official yet.

“I guess I could be convinced.”

Those ten seconds of silence felt like an eternity. But it was all worth it the moment she gives you that smile that makes your heart race even faster. And despite kissing her for what seems like a million times already, this one has special weight. As if to tell the world that the most beautiful woman you have ever known and perhaps will ever know is now yours and there’s nothing that could change that. Screw all of those disgusting old men with their mid-life crisis because your quarter-life crisis just ended in the most satisfying way possible.

You’re embarrassed by the way you whine the moment you don’t feel her lips on yours anymore but you are quickly consoled the moment she stands up and turns around to flaunt that perfectly shaped ass of hers. Suddenly, blood rushes to your cock again as if you didn’t cum twice already. 

“Come on, take me to your bedroom.” Minju eyes you like a piece of meat once again when she pulls you up to your feet. 

“There’s one more hole you forgot to fill.”

[lewisvinga]

doctor! doctor! | lando norris x fem! reader x oscar piastri !

summary; the average life of a med student dating not one, but two f1 drivers

fc; various girls on pinterest

warnings; cursing, suggestive comment

taglist; @namgification @louvrepool @locelscs @thehufflepuffavenger1

notes; requested ! as a nursing major, i <3 anything to do w the reader being in the medical field ! also didn’t realize for the messages lando is just ‘lando’ so pretend his contact is ‘lan<33’😭😭😭

masterlist !

yourusername uploaded to their story !

[caption 1; my boys sending me selfies so i don’t lose my mind today 🧡🧡] [caption 2; reason why i’m losing my mind; my first med school exam🤓]

landonorris replied to your story !

landonorris u literally graduated top of ur class, u can do this 🧡🧡🧡

yourusername why’d i have to be so passionate abt this career 😔

landonorris bc ur super duper smart !

landonorris osc and i miss you!! ( he won’t admit it but he’s sad you’re not w us😒 )

yourusername i miss my boys too ☹️ ( he does this every time )

landonorris he wants to act so cool 🙄🙄

yourusername well tell him spring break is in 2 months and i’ll be able to attend at least one (1) race this semester 😕

landonorris as much as i wish you can see us more often, you gotta go help save lives !

yourusername and i gotta study so i can go save lives !😣

landonorris: good luck ! liked by yourusername !

oscarpiastri replied

oscarpiastri that latte looks sick😯

yourusername stfu i know ur sad that i’m missing so many races this season😒

oscarpiastri lando told you ?

yourusername yes u don’t have to act all cool or whatvr 🙄

yourusername my spring break is in 2 months, i’ll be able to go to a race then !😁

oscarpiastri 2 months TOO LONG💔

oscarpiastri and go study u have an exam in 3 days 🙄🙄

yourusername STOP I’M TRYING TO AVOID IT

yourusername nvm just remembered i dont know anything, i’ll facetime u and lan later? okay???

oscarpiastri already waiting !

liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris, and others !

yourusername: a week filled with clinicals, studying, cheering for my favorite boys, and more studying !

tagged; yourbestfriend, friendone, friendtwo, oscarpiastri, landonorris

landonorris: oscarpiastri look at our girl studying to be a future life saver 🥹🥹

oscarpiastri: soooo smart, future dr. l/n🧡

yourusername: i love & miss you both sm☹️

landonorris: doctor! doctor! i’m injured and i need help!

yourusername: not a doctor yet lan

landonorris: shhh play along

oscarpiastri: don’t he’s being mean to me

landonorris: LIAR!!

oscarpiastri: why’d u get black coffee u never do

yourusername: bold of u to assume i didn’t get a latte after trying yourbestfriend americano

yourbestfriend: you’re studying to be a DOCTOR, how do u not like black coffee

yourbestfriend: dawg who let us study to be doctors 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣

yourusername: LMFAOOO

friendone: stay healthy guys , ur future doctors are currently making tiktoks instead of studying

friendtwo: like studying wasn’t making u lose ur mind too !!

username: y/n studying to be a doctor is so sick

username: ur the coolest wag

username: bro i’m a nursing student and i’m dyinggggg idk how u do med school

yourusername: me neither tbh

username: imagine studying to be a DOCTOR and BOTH of ur bfs are f1 drivers, that’s actually insane

username: i wanna be u

yourusername uploaded to their story !

[caption 1; my loves 🧡always cheering for you both 🫂🧡] [caption 2; time for clinicals 😣 ( will watch race highlights after sigh )]

yourusername uploaded to their story !

[caption 1; finally in my happy place after weeks and weeks of studying and clinicals 🤍🤍] [caption 2; my pretty boys 🫶 can’t wait to be a doctor and see them in the er from doing stupid shit🧡🧡🧡 ( stop jumping on the bed before one of you hurt your head PLEASE) ]

[grenadineghost]

some things i found today

[always-just-red]

I wanted a slightly suggestive fluff with the twins if that's alright👁️👄👁️

A scenario in which they're finally done with Sylus's tasks for the day and get to spend some time with MC

CRYINGGG anon I low-key did deviate from the brief but I had this idea and I just ended up running with it. I hope you enjoy, regardless! I went into this ambivalent towards Luke and Kieran but something just possessed me honestly. Also dragged Sylus into it because there's no way in hell I wasn't subjecting him to this dynamic!! 😇 (I made MC here separate from canon MC for plot reasons, but if you want a fic with the twins and canon MC, just let me know!)

Onychinus' Finest

Luke and Kieran x Reader

Summary: All in a day's work for Sylus's loyal and committed worker bees crows

Genre: fluff & shenanigans

Warnings/Additional tags: MDNI (not smut but it's a lil spicy and I'd rather play it safe tbh), f!reader, nonMC!reader, platonic Sylus x reader, humour, swearing, suggestion, kisses, the twins are just obsessed with your legs honestly and who could blame them

| Word count: 2.1k | Masterlist |

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Love and Deepspace. All work is my own, so please don't repost or plagiarise!

Your call connects almost instantly.

“What?” Sylus hisses from the other end, and you get the impression he’s disappointed.

“Oof,” you groan, smiling, “what’s the matter, boss? Waiting on a call from a certain Deepspace Hunter?”

There’s silence in your ear, but not far from you, Kieran snickers. Your smile broadens. “You have three seconds,” Sylus seethes, with the precarity of a pot that could boil over at any moment, “to tell me what I want to hear.”

Three seconds is a bit of a push. You’re sat on a desk and Kieran is tapping away at the computer beside you, the light of the screen catching the sharp features of his mask; he looks like something from a horror story. You nudge his knee with your foot. He glances at you.

Wrap it up, you signal with a twirl of your forefinger.

His mask tilts downwards, almost imperceptibly, and you know he’s glaring at you from behind it. He flashes his middle finger back and you chuckle, watching him return to his work. “Files should be on their way shortly,” you explain to Sylus, because you know when to stop pushing your luck. “Ever’s upped the security on these damn computers. The device that guy sold you didn’t do shit.”

It’s also now pieces of a device, shattered against the floor from when Kieran had thrown it down and stepped on it in frustration. You’re not gonna mention that.

Sylus sighs impatiently, but there’s a hint of regret. “I knew there was something off about that deal. Do you think he tipped them off?”

You glance around the room and it’s littered with bodies. Not dead! Just… unconscious. At least, most of them, you think. “Yeah…” you muse. It was a lot more security than there should have been in a high-rise office in the middle of the night. “You might be onto something there, boss.”

Another sigh from Sylus. You watch Luke as he finishes looting— wait, no— checking the last of the security guards for anything helpful. He’s found a phone and he’s staring down at it, head tilted, reminding you of Mephisto. You briefly wonder what came first: the crow masks or the crow-like behaviour. Maybe you’ll ask Sylus one day.

Luke lifts the phone, holding it at arm’s length, and you realise he’s taking a selfie. He pivots until you and Kieran are in the background, and you lean into the frame, making a peace sign with your free hand. The moment is captured. Luke tosses the phone over his shoulder and it hits the floor with a crack.

“Are you all alright?” Sylus checks, and you know his eyes are burning with frustration, even though you can’t see them. He wears a mask too— most of the time— it’s just a little more figurative than yours or the twins’. You’re an expert at reading past them by now.

“Yeah,” you say, “we signed up for this, remember? You’ve got the best of the best, right here.” You glance between Luke and Kieran. “Well, the best of the best and her sidekicks.”

“Hey!” Kieran interjects. “You wanna have a go on this computer?”

“No,” you lilt back sweetly. What’s he gonna do— make you? Sure enough, he goes back to tapping away, his head sagging slightly, and you can tell he’s pouting.

Luke has wandered closer to the pair of you. “How much longer?” he whines, throwing himself into a wheely chair, setting it on a slow collision course with Kieran’s. You stop it with your leg.

“Shut up,” Kieran snaps. “At least I’m doing something.”

“I can do something,” Luke retorts. He captures your ankle, pulling it away from the leg of his chair, and rests a hand on your shin.

“Something isn’t in the mood right now.” You lift your foot from his grasp, inching it up his lower abdomen, and he groans as you plant it against his chest. “So unprofessional,” you tut.

You’d stifled your phone against your chest, but you can hear a deep voice leaking out of it. “Say that again, boss?” you request, bringing it back to your ear.

“How long is this going to take?” Sylus repeats.

“Not long. You know what they say, though…” You meet the eyes of Luke’s mask. Your tone drops: “All good things to those who wait.”

Luke’s chair squeaks, rolling back as you push him away with a soft kick.

“Fine,” Sylus murmurs, “Mephisto is with me. Stay on the line, and send the files through when you can. I’ll check them before you leave. If they knew we were coming, there’s a chance that—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get the picture,” you interrupt. You get Kieran’s attention again, then gesture between the computer and the phone. The beak of his mask dips as he nods.

Luke has used your lapse of focus to draw himself close to you again. He takes your ankle once more and guides it to rest in his lap, one hand tight— holding you in place— and the other deftly undoing the buckles on your boot. After a few clinks, he pulls it from your foot, the leather dragging down over your skin and leaving it cold. He throws the boot at his twin’s leg.

Kieran huffs as it tumbles to the floor. He doesn’t look away from the computer, but you know he wants to. Now that’s professional.

Decidedly committed to another priority, Luke draws shapes on your lower leg, his finger grazing over your shin and ankle. He’s staring down, fixated, and maybe they aren’t shapes— maybe they’re letters. Every stroke of his finger is deliberate. You could ask what he’s writing, but you really don’t care so long as it’s more than a word or two.

If it is, he doesn’t have the patience for it. His fingers walk higher, stopping only as they reach your knee. The fabric of your dress is draped over your leg and he pushes it aside, letting it slink closer to the floor. He looks up at you, head angled like a question.

“Any progress?” Sylus asks.

You’re holding your phone between your ear and your shoulder, both hands splayed on the desk beside you so you can lean slightly back. “Getting there,” you say, lips curving. You’re not looking at the computer.

You could swear you hear Luke laugh, but it’s ever so faint. He rests his whole hand on you, warming your lower leg with broader strokes, and whatever he wrote has been erased. Your breath catches as his touch moves above your knee, and it’s a tiny sound; no-one would notice.

Kieran’s mask turns towards you. “Oh, come on,” he sighs. “No fair.”

It’s an intimate art: seeing behind a mask. You have to notice everything.

“So hurry up,” Luke answers, his voice heavier than the last time he spoke. His chest rises and falls with every breath, just a little slower, a little deeper.

Kieran rolls his eyes—you guess, from the listless way his attention goes back to the screen— and you detect a huff. “Not fair,” he says to himself. He repeats it as he punches keys with his fingers: “Not fair. Not fair.”

Luke shakes his head gently: a fond exasperation rather than anything serious. He rolls his chair closer until he’s framed by your legs, then lifts your ankle to rest on his shoulder. His fingers curl, the pads of them brushing over the top of your foot idly, but it tickles, so you try to pull away. He grasps your ankle again. “Nuh-uh, kitten,” he teases.

It’s one of your favourite in-jokes; you laugh. Sylus can still hear you, and you’re glad he doesn’t know it’s at his expense. “Something funny?” he asks. Maybe he does know.

“Yeah,” you say. He could string you upside-down with his Evol and you’d still never tell him what.

Luke is chuckling to himself, and the sound changes as he lifts his mask just enough to free the lower half of his face. It’s not the first time, but it sobers you instantly. He turns to press his lips to your ankle, leans in— kisses further up. Leans in again— his mouth moves higher.

“Why so wriggly?” he speaks into your knee. “Stop.”

“You stop,” you counter, reaching forward to grab one of the horns peeking out of his hood. You use it to pull him away. Make him look at you. “Your little book on conquest doesn’t work on me.”

His lips widen into a smirk.  

“What book?” Sylus’s voice echoes.

You smirk as well. “Ask your pet hunter.”

You’re interrupted by a thud and your head spins. Kieran is standing up, slapping the top of the computer in frustration. “C’mon, work!” he urges. “So freakin’ slow.”

“Ah, ah, ah.” You shoo him away from the computer like you would a too-friendly pigeon from your lunch.

He flaps back in answer, his hand engaging yours in a brief slap-fight before he backs down. He slumps into his chair, defeated. “It’s almost there,” he groans, folding his arms. “Hey, Luke? Wanna swap?”

“No.”

“Do it,” you prompt.

Luke’s head rolls begrudgingly. “Yes ma’am. Jeez.” He plants a warm kiss on your leg again before clambering out from underneath it, pulling his mask back down over his face.

Another moment later and Kieran is in front of you instead. “You ok?” you wonder out loud.

“Bored.” He rests his head sideways on your thigh. His fingers find your bare lower leg and he runs them up, down, up, down, but it’s soft and purposeless. Soon, his head lifts— thin, red eyes staring up at you. The gaze doesn’t waver as he leans back in his chair and starts to unfasten your other boot.

“She’s gonna get cold,” Luke quips from the computer.

“Nah. She’s not.”

Your skin prickles as Kieran pulls away your boot, like a reflection of his brother, but tortuously more slow. He lets the cool air of the room set in. “Huh,” he corrects himself. “Maybe she is.”

You get the sense you’re being punished; both of them are petty. You’re pettier, though. “Sylus?” you speak into the phone.

“Mmm?”

“Did I ever tell you about the time that Kieran— ah!”

In a heartbeat Kieran has lifted his mask— not enough, but enough— and planted a kiss above your knee. His hand is around your leg, pushing it further from the other, and you can’t help but gasp again.

“What are you…” Sylus starts to ask, but then he changes his mind. “No. I don’t want to know.”

“You sure, boss?” you chuckle breathlessly. “It might surprise you.”

“Nothing would surprise me at this point, sweetie. Those files had better be on their way.”

You tear your gaze away from Kieran to glance over at Luke. He’s sat, propped on an elbow, his chin in his palm, and he’s definitely not looking at the computer. He sits up straight under your scrutiny. Turns to the screen. After a few more drums of the keyboard, he gives you a thumbs up.

“Got it,” Sylus chimes in, no doubt perusing the files already. “Nothing seems amiss. Nice work.”

“Thanks, boss,” you grin. “I’ve been working very, very hard.”

The phone is snatched from your hand. “She has, sir!” Kieran speaks into it. He stands, putting it on speaker before setting it down beside you. “I think she deserves the night off.”

There’s a crash as he shoves the computer from the desk, and Luke leans back, swinging his feet up onto the now empty space. He lifts his mask marginally to put two fingers to his lips, whistling in celebration. There’s a slow clap for good measure, too.

Kieran bows to him with a flourish. Then to you; you bow your head back.

“I’m hanging up,” Sylus states plainly.

“Ok,” you chirp, distracted. “I hope she calls you soon, boss!”  

“I don’t… I’m not…” your leader stutters. He reconsiders. “Thank you. Don’t think, however, that I’m—”

He doesn’t get to finish the warning, threat, or whatever else it was. Luke’s finger stands proudly on the phone, still connected to the ‘end call’ button. “What?” he dismisses as you and Kieran look at him. “I slipped! If boss asks, you saw me slip.”

“I did see it,” Kieran nods.

“I saw it too,” you add solemnly.  

There’s silence for a single moment, and there’s never silence with you three around. It lasts as long as it usually does.

You all burst into laughter.

[totallynotagentphilcoulson]

No idea if these are outlet exclusive or not but either way these are, like, the most comfortable carpenter jeans I’ve ever had AND aesthetically hit my personal sweet spot of “post-Vietnam War civilian hunting camo finally branching out from reusing WW2 frogskin, pre-hyper photorealistic instead of clearly still hand drawn plant imagery of the 2000s”

[fillinforlater]

Two Selfies and a GIF

Male Reader x Naoi Rei

Length: 2341 words

Tags: lovers on vacation, teasing and tempting, public sex, blowjob, overstimulation, face fuck, gagging, standing sex, anal, sweat, body appreciation, anal creampie, thrill of maybe getting caught

TW: sex in a public space, also barely any editing

Inspiration: an ask from quite some time ago

(A/N: I hope this fic makes you say Holy Moly. @writerpeach because he wanted another Rei piece lol)

“Another sunny day! <3 Hope to see you all soon~”

You jump from your bed. Most of the time, you have no clue where the feeling of deja vu comes from, but this one is still palpable. A year ago, you were on vacation with Rei on some warm, small island nation, blessed with endless sunshine and she sent a similar selfie with a similar caption. Her hair was still brown back then, if your memory serves you right. 

Unlike last time however, you can’t dig straight into her cute pussy. Rei is not on the bed beside you, although that’s where she took the picture. In fact, she’s not even in the hotel room anymore. You check the washroom a final time before looking back down on your phone.

“Where are you?”

“By~ the~ pool~”

The phone has yet to disappear in the pockets of your shorts when you’ve already stormed out of the empty hotel room and towards the elevators. Alright, she said something about going to the pool, you remember, but you didn’t even notice that she took the selfie earlier. Hopefully this won’t end in a chase of never ending teases because you missed the moment she was horny and right next to you. 

You jump out of the elevator and across the lobby, both staff and visitors confused by your hurried, hectic behavior given the calm, vacation atmosphere. Your urgent need to feel your girlfriend's body, to see that face, adorned by beautiful blonde hair, with thick lips and a lewd glint in her eyes, it’s easily overtaking your desire of being perceived as normal. 

“By the pool isn’t accurate enough,” you puff and pant while your eyes go over the many, many pools and parasols and people. It seems Rei isn’t in the water or on one of the loungers, so you once again reach for your phone—just to be greeted by a couple of private messages.

“Still need you to fill these cheeks~ or did you mean my other cheeks?!”

The wink, the tongue bite, the v-pose. She can never post this picture or else all those horny fanboys would blow infinite loads to it (not like they aren’t already doing it; don’t kid yourself). It’s sexy, tempting, only meant for you. You know what she wants, what she needs, what you promised her, yet she continues to play with you.

Until suddenly, another message. A third selfie? Even better.

“I hope you remember where this is~”

The changing booths by the pool. The unmistakable brown walls and baby blue curtains. Rei has complained about their design choice on the day of your arrival, now she’s there doing tik-tok-instagram-dance-challenge-thingys, flaunting what you’ve been craving. Needless to say you sprint there as fast as possible, disregarding all the warning signs about slipper tiles or blissfully ignorant tourists. 

You’re on your way to bliss, and nothing will stop you.

Rei sticks out among the few people in the area. Her tall figure, her blonde hair, not a second later and you get a hold on her shoulders and drag her into the next booth. The Japanese girl doesn’t even seem fazed. 

“There you are,” she sultrily says, eyes on yours through the mirror wall. Good heavens, you forgot about that thing. It’s going to be so much fun. With a single swoop you close the curtain and take a closer look at Rei’s fuckable body through the mirror.

“You look to good not to fuck,” you groan and pinch her cheeks, looking at her duckface, mesmerized by how plump her lips are, how good they will feel. Rei winks again and your hand is already past the waistband of your shorts. “Get on your knees, now.”

Rei’s smile is horny when she pulls down your shorts while getting on eye level with your cock, which jumps free and barely, sadly misses her face with the removal of your briefs. Rei spits in her hand and pumps you, focused on every inch of your hot rod. Suddenly, before any annoyance can urge you to do it yourself, she puts you on her lips. A heavy push that sends you back against the wall later, you're inside her and have to bite a lip to not groan out every profanity known to mankind. 

Feel her tongue swirl around your cockhead while an expression of determination forms on her face. You can see that she is already planning ahead on how to make this the best head she’s ever given you. Rei has an amazing bitch face, but it also fills you with thread. You have to surrender to her mouth, her lips, her tongue—now her hands that grab your hips and then—

“Oh, fuck, ouh fuck!”

Rei slams her head back and forth, your cock going in and out almost fully with every single repetition, while she gags and slobbers on every centimeter she forces into herself. A bizarre thing, face fucking herself on you, for your pleasure, yet you are about to wince for mercy. Rei’s mouth is perfect, but it’s all too fast, without warning she grinds the top, then the back of her tongue on your sensitive slit. You leak, you hiss, you struggle to stand or think.

“Re-Rei, t-too much, fuck.”

Rei pops you free from her lips, but they look eager to go back to it and apply even more pressure on your cock. She firmly holds the base of your dick and glares at you.

“Then do it yourself, pussy. Fill my cheeks already.”

It’s like she’s given you the controller to a video game back; though this is vastly superior than anything you have ever played. You pull at her hair, force her to cry out before flailing backwards against the opposite wall of the booth. This time you lay your cock on her lips on your own merit. 

“I’ll make you take that back.”

Pry her slutty mouth open, hope she is ready for impact and make her entire body convulse when you slam your pelvis into her face. The feeling of her tight, gagging throat is a lot different when you're in control, not better, not worse, though you like that Rei can take your roughness so well.

You close your eyes and begin to thrust, rarely giving her time to breathe, never giving yourself time to rest. The generously wet expedition into Rei's throat both feels like finding something new and being at home. A familiar warm feeling and alien sounds, your girlfriend's deepthroats are one of a kind.

Rei is opportunistic, her tongue now out of her mouth, receiving hits by your balls as you continue to fuck her face. It's one of those days apparently, when she is for some damn reason completely enamored with your sac. Maybe she likes the hisses that escape your lips because of the extra stimulation, maybe she is just impatient and wants what's inside of them.

When her already generously big and round cheeks are the biggest and roundest, you finally pull out and let her cough out the pool of saliva, two smaller pools underneath her eyes are also letting loose. You smack her purple-blue lips with your stiff length.

"I thought you could take it," you laugh at a set of coughs by Rei.

"I, hng, thought you'd fill my cheeks.

"Loser."

"Okay, get up."

Cheeky grin on her lips, Rei pushes herself off the ground and you push up something of your own, her tight crop top. You struggle to get the white fabric over her bountiful tits, but she is quick to help you by stretching out her arms high in the air. After a couple of tugs, you see the two massive melons bounce freely—or not. Two laughably tiny patches of silk, connected to each other and Rei’s neck form a bikini that is definitely too sexy for this pool, for any pool. 

“You really wanted to go out there wearing this?” you question, a finger already hooked in one of the patches.

“No, that’s why I’m still here~”

“Then it’s confiscated.”

A single pull and the bikini top falls off as if spider webs held it together. Now they are free, Rei’s magnificent melons, round like her cheeks, soft like her thighs, the nipples stiff like you. Before you give them a squeeze however, you surprise your girlfriend by roughly yanking up her skirt to above her hips. Rei yelps and loses her balance, but one of her hands finds safety on the mirror, mirror on the wall.

“Very unlike you to not go straight for my chest,” Rei teases, her voice still stable though her stand becomes a lot less stable when you get behind her and plant her firmly in front of the mirror. Now she needs both hands to not fall over with how you manhandle her light yet astoundingly thick frame. 

“They will get enough appreciation later.” Put emphasis on these words by nibbling her ear. She trembles in excitement.”I want to hear you say it again.”

“Say what again?” Rei once more teases, as you hook a finger into the flimsy excuse of a thong she’d call a stylish bikini, ready to reveal both her aroused entrances. “Oh, that. 

“I need you to fill my ass cheeks with your sticky load, pretty please.”

So fake, so lewd, yet so incomparably preposterous. The moment her bikini bottom falls down her long legs, Rei presses her bottom against your cock and it takes barely any effort for you to get it inside her. Talking about bottom, you're close to bottoming out, but Rei’s cute yet also growling cry has you scrambling to find something to gag her. You’re still in public, she can’t be that loud. All you find is the pathetic bikini, which you shove into her pretty little mouth. 

“I’m going to fuck you good, but keep it down,” you groan into her ear and give in to the risky, yet irresistible desire to plow her ass. Rei is trying her best, munching and soaking the green in her mouth rather than screaming out your name. You’ll buy her a new, better bikini after this anyways. If she’d ran around in that thing for more than a minute, then you’d need to fuck her the rest of your vacation and that would be—wait, would you even mind that?

You’d do it like this all day long, her wrists in your grasp, her body slightly tilted towards the mirror while you watch her tits bounce with every thrust into her tight back entrance. Rei is at your mercy, only upright because you want to. Each inch you pull out has her scrambling for footing, but you gladly give them back to her, into her, to the point where exactly this has her knees buckling. 

“Fuck you’re so… suffocating,” you mumble, the heat from your crotch spread up to your head long ago. The same goes for Rei: a hand on her freely jumping tits confirms it. Her eyes roll into the back of her head when you roll a nipple in between two lazy fingers. It’s not much, but you swear it made her even tighter and less stable. 

You lift a leg of hers, feel the sweaty meat of her full thigh make your hand sink deep. It reminds you of a pillow, a comfortable bed—now a waterbed because her orgasm is wet. Rei surrenders her beautiful back onto your chest, eyes closed, mouth ready to voice her pleasure but she has to keep it shut. Outside are people, laughing, gossiping, going about their lives. And in here, you recklessly pound in the still sensitive Rei.

It’s incredible how she still relaxes around you, how easy it is to fill her with a girthy cock. Honest to God, it has you tripping, forward, against the cold mirror. Rei spits out her bikini-gag when her hard nubs touch the reflective surface. You’d stop her ensuing moans from escaping her mouth, but you have to hold onto her thigh and breast. There are just not enough hands to touch every perfect part of her body—and her lips are definitely on that list.

Your orgasm is nigh, hence why you thrust frantically, the claps of a nye pelvis on nye ass now also louder than any background noise if someone is close enough. You can already hear the murmurs from behind the curtains. Someone whispers about hearing weird sounds—you have to bust before you get busted.

Rei’s fishnet-covered foot crawls up a wall. Fucking is now easier, so you put in the final gear and reach for her hips to to smash her back into you. Everything is too loud, too lewd; Rei’s expression, your expression, your combined groans, all the sweaty and love juice trailing down your legs—

The connection of your cock in her ass as if explodes on the final thrust you can muster up. Rei’s anal cavity is stretched and now stuffed to the fullest to the point where pulling out will cause a mess of cataclysmic proportions. You have to stay inside her for longer, plug up the cum filled hole as it sluttily clenches around your sensitive cock. 

“Fuck, that was perfect,” Rei groans, her body limp between you and the mirror. You look at her and smile for a second. That round face, adorable, makes for great selfies and family pictures. Mere moments ago, it was drooling and moaning uncontrollably. The duality of Rei.

“Yeah, but how the fuck do we clean this up?” you ask, hands mindlessly on your girlfriend's chest.

“I don’t know, I haven't planned for this scenario. I thought you’d fuck my face and I could swallow it all and then you could fill my ass in the hotel room.”

“Well, we can still do that, but we now need to get out of here.” You try to think for a second before your eyes fall on the fallen bikini thong on the floor. You stop massaging Rei’s breasts and instead reach for her pussy, wet and flushed. “By the way, what was your goal with that ‘bikini’?”

“O-oh, you really don’t like it?”

“It’s just that I wouldn’t be able to help myself but fuck you if you wore that. It’s way too revealing. I don’t want anyone seeing the pussy I fuck and the ass I fill and the tits I fondle—”

“So you want no one seeing me?” Rei moans softly when you rub her clit.

“Yes, cause I love you so fucking much, Rei.”

“Ts, looooser~”

[miraclewoozi]

DON'T SWEAT IT. - l.jh

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you.

pairing; lee jihoon x fem!reader.  content; fluff / gym crush au / strangers to lovers / kinda idiots to lovers / smut towards the end (MINORS DNI). w/c; just a breezy 18k- and some change? warnings; swearing, this is only proof read once because if i read it again i was going to lose my mind. please let me know if i've forgotten any. smut tags under the cut ( not sure that this counts as a warning but a heads up: the gym weight units, whenever mentioned, are in kilograms not lbs because i’m british and the metric system, am i right? sorry if there are any other british-isms, i try really hard to avoid them/catch them on a proofread but there are inevitably some that have slipped through the net.  )

note; gym-selfie jihoon, you will never not own my ass. ( screaming internally this is the first fic i've written since my dan + phil youtube era. i don't know what i'm doing. this has been in my wips for about two months. it's a bit all over the place. that's. literally just me. bon appetite. <3 )

smut warnings: making out, grinding, fingering (f rec), oral (f rec), blowjob started/implied (at the end), protected sex (be safe out there gang), little bit of biting, no huge power dynamics? reader & jihoon are both switches (and simps), some use of pet-names (good girl/baby).

—————

He first sees you around lunchtime on an otherwise unassuming Sunday. 

As you walk in, the gym is wonderfully quiet. A handful of regulars mill about, making full use of the rare freedom of the machinery. One of the club’s personal trainers is marching an impossibly steep incline on a treadmill. It could just be any other weekend session in this criminally over-equipped and under-used gym: the town’s worst kept secret. But when the door slams shut behind you, his head jerks up; it, in this moment, is the loudest sound in the room. It’s sort of the only one he hears at all.

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you as he sits with dumbbells rested against his thighs. He catches his breath as he wonders who you are, if you’ve ever been to this gym before, why he doesn’t recognise you. Are you a new potential regular, maybe? Or just visiting the area and making good use of the cheap pay-as-you-go rates? Maybe, he considers, lips turning downwards in thought… maybe you’ve been coming here for a long time and he’s somehow just always been so in his own head that he’s never noticed.

The last, he thinks, is sort of unlikely. No. He would definitely remember a face like yours.

His heart rate slows more than he usually lets it as he finds himself watching you fill up your water bottle at the fountain, taking a long sip on your way over to one of the stairmasters. His brain blanks out when he realises that he’s not just looking anymore, he’s sort of staring, and swallows the saliva on his tongue hard, looking back at the mirror. He doesn’t want to be that guy. He isn’t that guy – he just got distracted by the loud noise, and this is exactly why he checks the damn battery on his headphones before he leaves the house. 

The only problem is that now, he can’t remember how many sets he’s done. He lies back and stares straight into a slightly sketchy light-fixture, neglecting to pick up the dumbbells that he put aside for his next set of pushes. Jihoon adjusts the position of his shoulders against the bench, arches his back off it slightly, digs his heels into the spongy floor beneath them and pushes the ones still in his hands until failure. 

Today, he finishes his routine and leaves the gym without allowing himself so much as another glance your way.

He neglects to notice that your eyes are avoiding him right back. 

—————

You smile at him for the first time on a Tuesday. Not the following one – a week and a bit later.

Seungcheol is with him tonight. Jihoon prefers to train alone nine times out of ten: this is a truth widely acknowledged, accepted and respected among his friends. Gym time is his down time, his equivalent of movie marathons and comfort food, of face masks and glasses of wine. But it’s not a hard rule: occasionally, someone will ask to tag along and use one of his guest passes, and Jihoon very rarely says no. There are two reasons. One, he isn’t actually rude, contrary to approximately eighteen running jokes in the group-chat. But also, it adds a little bit of variety to his otherwise very set-in-stone regimen, and mixing it up doesn’t hurt. Like tonight, for example. Seungcheol is pulling him into the studio off the main gym floor, his own gym bag packed with boxing pads and gloves for them to play with.

Variety.

Jihoon grumbles a little at the idea, at first. He has a very love-hate relationship with cardio, favouring a simple steady-state run over everything else, and it just feels a bit against his moral code to use gym time for something like this. However, he comes to discover very quickly that smacking Seungcheol’s hands is very therapeutic; Jihoon knows he’s maybe getting a little too into it when his friend asks if they can switch around, grimacing and shaking out his wrist after a particularly beefy punch. 

He agrees, albeit reluctantly, tugging off the gloves he’s wearing and pulling on the pads instead.

This half of the activity is considerably less enjoyable for Jihoon; he starts to cool down and loses his flow almost straight away and after about thirty seconds, his breathing is back to normal and he feels ready to go again. Even so, he does what he needs to do to be a good workout partner, and goes one step further into ‘good friend’ territory as he allows Seungcheol to vent about the bad day he had at work in-between hits, offering murmurs and looks of disgust when it feels appropriate. Suddenly, the impromptu request to come to the gym tonight makes much more sense, as does the slightly bizarre choice of activity, but Jihoon tries not to ask about it in too much detail.

They swing at each other for a few more rounds apiece, working up a healthy sweat and getting out a few frustrations as the hour wears on. On the last set, Jihoon switches out Seungcheol’s hands for a punching bag, putting a lot more of his weight behind every hit and really tiring himself out. By the end, his hair sticks to his forehead and his cheeks have flushed bright red; he only stops when he gets that weird, metallic taste in the back of his mouth that says he’s probably overdone it. Again.

“Hit the shower?” Seungcheol asks breathlessly as he finishes his last set of Russian twists and lies down flat on the floor, equally sticky and flushed all over. 

Jihoon pats his face dry with his towel, shaking his head. “You go ahead. I’ll have one at home.” 

He doesn’t give Seungcheol much of a chance to respond, already cleaning down anything he’s touched or managed to sweat on and riding out the high of the endorphins flooding his veins. Secretly, he hasn’t had a cardio session this high energy or this satisfying in a long time. He isn’t going to readily admit to that though.

“Nah, I’ll do the same,” Seungcheol agrees. He starts packing the gear he brought with him into his bag and they leave together after, heading towards the exit. 

That’s when he sees you again. 

He doesn’t notice at first; you’re stowing your things into one of the higher lockers, and you have your headphones slung around your neck as he walks past. It’s the sound of a song he vaguely recognises through your speakers that makes his head snap over from the conversation he’s in the middle of. They walk past at the moment you drop down from your tiptoes, and you flash a small (but insanely pretty) smile at Jihoon.

By the time he manages to process this fact, he’s already walked past you and you’re headed over into the main gym area, so even though he turns around to try and catch your eye, all he sees is your retreating figure. He stumbles over his own feet, not looking where he’s going, and just barely catches himself on Seungcheol’s upper arm before he actually does fall over. His older friend glances down at his bicep before he adopts a look that Jihoon has seen many, many times before: just never directed at him. His cheeks heat up further and he looks away.

“What was that?” Seungcheol asks, one eyebrow so far up his forehead that it’s disappeared almost entirely under his soggy hair. He looks so smug, so incredibly entertained. Jihoon wants to smack that expression off his face, immediately.

“Nothing,” Jihoon rushes, managing not to act on the violent thought even though he wants to. He clears his throat. “No-one. I-... they’re new, I think. I don’t know.”

Seungcheol lets out a soft laugh, pushing the door open for them both to leave through. “Yeah,” he scoffs, eyes glimmering with something Jihoon doesn’t think he likes the look of. “Nothing, my ass.”

—————

Three days later, he hears you speak for the first time.

Granted, you aren’t speaking to him – at least, not at first. But that’s not really what matters.

It’s late, and it’s a Friday night. Fridays are usually Jihoon’s days rest days, but sitting around his apartment had him feeling impossibly twitchy, with far too much energy to burn and no way to do so without leaving the house. And he knows that he needs to take days off, now and again. He knows that they’re good for recovery and that it’s healthy to take time to himself that involves not lifting weights. But what he also knows is that if he doesn’t manage to shake the weird buzzing feeling in his muscles, in his joints, in his veins, he’s never going to get to sleep. So, here he finds himself at almost 10PM, walking down the street to get to the gym.

To begin with, he doesn’t know (or really care) who it is that’s coming up behind him. He can hear quite clearly that the mystery person is on the phone, and that they’re in the middle of what seems to be a rather heated argument: his brain latches onto occasional words, phrases, curses. Every now and again, their voice drops to a deep, frustrated mutter and he cringes slightly, making a point to keep his eyes forward and down so as not to draw attention to the fact that this presumably private conversation has become everything but.

He touches his entry fob to the sensor on the door as he arrives and pushes it open. Jihoon uses the opportunity to stand still, to glance back at whoever it is that’s walked behind him for the past four and a half minutes, and his eyes come to land on you. He falters, noting how your eyes are a bit glassy and your cheeks are stained with what he can safely assume are tear-tracks. In this moment, he wants to run; he doesn’t want anything to do with that, and he certainly doesn’t want to hear any more of your call. It’s none of his business, and he feels plenty weird enough already with what he has overheard. But, for some unknown reason, he stays in place.

“No – no, you don’t get to-...” you hiss into your phone. “It was our fucking anniversary, you asshole.” Jihoon’s face tightens at that, lips drawn between his teeth and his eyes blowing slightly wide. You pass through the door in front of him, flashing a small smile as you go. Another smile, he thinks to himself, but he’d be an idiot to compare them in any way; this one is so dramatically dissimilar to the first, he thinks it could almost have come from a totally different person. 

Unfortunately, there’s nothing ‘insanely pretty’ about it this time. Your smile is tight-lipped and exhausted, slightly apologetic. Maybe even forced. He does try to return a warmer one to you, but he doesn’t know if you notice. 

“Look, I’m at the gym – we’re not doing this right now. I’ll call you later.” You hang up the phone with the kind of sigh that groans in the back of your throat.

A small part of him wants to take this moment and use it to ask if you’re all right, but an even larger part of him doesn’t. It isn’t because he doesn’t care. In a weird way, considering this is only the first time he’s clearly heard your voice and he knows absolutely nothing about you, he does care. But there are a few things that stop him. Not only are you a near-complete stranger, not only would he have no idea what to say to you if the answer happened to come out as a ‘no’, not only is he already coming over a little bit clammy at the thought of having a conversation with you… Jihoon isn’t stupid. He knows from the sound of your voice and the way you’re rather aggressively typing a message into your phone that it’s a ridiculous question.

You’re walking into the gym at 10 o’clock on a Friday night, your eyes literally brimming with tears. Of course you’re not all right.

He’s still standing in the open doorway mulling all this over, but Jihoon only realises when a gust of wind slaps over his calves and sends a draught not only through the reception area, but up the length of his spine. He comes inside fully as you close the locker you’re using – he notices, but he isn’t sure why, that it’s the same one as last time – and throws his things into the one he always uses. Two below and one to the left of yours.

It’s quiet tonight: just the pair of you and one middle-aged guy. Jihoon recognises him as the friendly man who seemingly knows everyone who comes in here – including you, apparently, judging by the way he strikes up a short but energetic conversation. When the other guy walks away, you clamp your headphones back over your ears and return to what you were doing before, occasionally bobbing your head or moving your lips in time with whatever it is that you’re listening to. Jihoon steals little glances at you now and again when you’re in-between sets, watching how you breathe deeper, how your skin glows with sweat as you tap your fingertips against your thighs.

He almost drops the bar he’s holding when you catch his eyes in the long line of mirrors. He turns away, swallowing hard, completely missing how your own gaze lingers.

Jihoon becomes so obsessed with not being caught looking at you again that he doesn’t even notice when you disappear off the gym floor completely. It’s only when he pulls his headphones off at the end of his session and glances around that he registers your absence: your third companion is long gone, and he assumes you must have snuck out without him noticing too. He settles the speakers back over his ears before pulling on an old zip-up, flicking the hood over his head to shelter him a little better once he gets outside. But he’s in no rush to get home so he takes his time, resting his bag between his abdomen and the lockers, replying to a few messages and clicking his tongue at some of the nonsense being spewed into the group-chat. 

He isn’t sure exactly how long he’s standing there for, but he does know precisely what pulls him back to the world outside of the device in his hands.

To begin with, he doesn’t notice you approach, lost completely in his screen. He doesn’t hear your footsteps, or the way you politely clear your throat to announce your presence so he can move out of the way. He misses your moment of realisation that he’s listening to music and has no idea that you’re standing three feet behind him. He doesn’t even see you walk up next to him, your hair still damp from your shower and sitting loose over your shoulders.

It’s only when you try to reach over him to grab the last of your things that he snaps out of his trance. The fragrance of your body wash hits him first, and oh boy, does it hit him. Sweet, and delicate. Then, he gets something beautifully fruity: it’s not a perfume (it doesn’t smell like a perfume), but it’s you. Your shampoo, maybe? A conditioner? He can’t tell. Whatever it is, the combination of fragrances has him feeling like he’s been slammed into by a damn freight train. He drops his bag to the floor, freezing for a second, and then finally moves away just as the little door swings open. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says hurriedly, tugging his hood down and pulling his headphones off completely. “I didn’t even think you were still here.” He can’t shake the smell of you, nor the feeling of your warm frame leaning so close to his own. God, why is his heart pounding like he’s just finished a round of sprints? Why can’t he breathe?

“No – hey, no, don’t be,” you rush, shaking your head. You finally succeed in pulling your coat free and start trying to get it on; Jihoon wonders if you often struggle to find your sleeves like this, if you’re always chasing them around like a puppy after its own tail. He does it too, sometimes. He gets it. It’s cute. “It’s okay. I was trying not to disturb-... I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine,” he tells you. For the first time, he’s able to smile back at you properly. 

Why is it so hot in here, all of a sudden? Do they shut off the air conditioning after hours or something? He’s breaking out in a sweat.

“Call it even?” you suggest shyly, extending out a hand now you’ve managed to get both arms through your sleeves. He looks down at your fingers for a second before reaching to shake your hand once, a semi-firm grip securing the ‘deal’. (He feels a bit like he’s been electrocuted after, but he tries not to make that too obvious).

It goes awkwardly quiet for a moment then, and Jihoon wishes deeply that he had it in him to say something. Anything. But his brain has gone completely empty and apparently, all he knows how to do is stand completely still like a fucking statue. He shifts his gaze from you, to the wall behind you, to the carpet beneath his shoes, all the while tugging at the collar of his sweatshirt as if it might bring him a tiny breath of fresh air. The gentle sound of you clearing your throat has him looking back at your face again though; he assumes for a second that this is maybe you about to announce taking your leave. All the while, he’s cursing himself out in his own head for being totally inept, and he’s not entirely sure that it isn’t written all over his face.

“Alone, today?” you ask, idly fiddling with your zipper and succeeding in taking him by surprise. He really didn’t think you were going to continue this. And yet…

“Hm?” he questions. 

You swallow before answering. “You… the last time, you were with a friend?” you explain, and now it’s your turn to look away. He wonders if you’re a little warm too, if he’s right in what he was thinking about the air-conditioning. 

“Oh. Right.” 

He nods. An annoying train of doubt in his mind wants to know why you’re asking about Seungcheol; if maybe it was him that you smiled at the other night, even though he knows your eyes weren’t looking up at the man he brought with him. He thinks maybe he should be used to these turns in conversation by now – you certainly wouldn’t be the first person to ask if one of his friends is available, after all – but somehow, he isn’t, and he has a slightly bitter taste in the back of his mouth as he goes on.

He really didn’t have ‘you being interested in one of his best friends’ on his bingo card for tonight, that’s for sure. 

“Yeah. I think he’s with his partner, or… I don’t know. I don’t really bring other people, often. That was a one-off.”

You nod silently and Jihoon can’t quite get a read on what that means. He wonders if you’re upset at the revelation of Seungcheol’s partner, or maybe that he doesn’t tag along to every session. Or maybe, maybe, you were just being polite, and you don’t really care what his friend is up to that means he isn’t here. But whatever it is that you’re feeling, you do far too good a job at hiding it; he’s suddenly very overcome with the desire to run, again, except this time he might just bury his head in the sand too for good measure.

“How much were you deadlifting, just then?” you ask in the lull, just as he thinks he might have perfected the best way to say goodbye that doesn’t make him come across as even more of a tool than he probably already has. It throws him off kilter, but somehow, he manages to answer you in reasonable time.

“Oh, God… uh, one… 160?” He says uncertainly. “That’s not… I can do heavier-...” In his mind, he slaps his forehead. “Wait, no, that’s-... I mean, it’s true, but I didn’t mean-...”

You bite back your smile as he talks himself in a circle but Jihoon is too flustered to notice, convinced that he now sounds like every arrogant gym rat on the planet. God, he’s given himself the ick.

“I guessed you could,” you say. 

Oh boy, this freezes him. Mid-thought, mid blink, mid-breath: he’s completely stuck. What does that mean? What does that mean? He only just manages to unstick his now suddenly dry tongue from the roof of his mouth, looking at you with surprised, confused eyes and parted lips. There aren’t any words on them, though. Like a deer in headlights, he just… stares.

“I mean, okay. Come on.” Your eyes visibly drop as you look him over, gaze lingering at his shoulders, his biceps, his waist. “You can get another twenty on that at least, right?”

He doesn’t know how to explain what’s happening to him, but if he thought he was burning up before? It was nothing compared to this, now. And there’s no way you haven’t noticed how everything from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears has suddenly started staining scarlet. He bows his head and pinches his lips tight, wrestling away the train of thought that appears as you drag your bottom lip between your teeth momentarily, still eyeing his arms. God, he’s never felt so overwhelmed in his life. 

“Something like that, yeah,” he strains. He’s trying so hard to be nonchalant, even though he knows all of his personal bests by heart. Deadlift, 195kg. He hit it a few weeks ago: a couple of days before he first saw you.

“Mm. You can tell.”

Jihoon tries to shake off the compliment, but he fails. In equal measure he wishes you’d stop (he doesn’t know how much more blood can rush to his cheeks before he keels over) and never wants you to stop talking. It’s all going straight to his stomach, though, and he doesn’t remember having felt this specific brand of nervous and excited and stupidly shy since he was in high school.

He can hardly keep up. This is the danger zone.

Maybe it’s a bad idea that he says the next thing that comes into his head in a desperate attempt to change the conversation away from how much he can pull. But somehow, his voice doesn’t break when he asks, “are you parked far away?”

What? It’s dark outside, and this part of town isn’t exactly known for its upstanding citizens and pretty flowerbeds.

“Oh,” you say, eyes a little wide. “I’m-... just staying close-by. I walked here.” The space between his eyebrows must crease a little too quickly because you immediately hurry to speak again. “Really. It’s like… not even ten minutes. All main streets. It’s nothing.”

“Ten minutes longer than I’d walk around here at night on my own,” he says lightheartedly. In tone, at least. He’s actually completely serious.

You laugh at that; he lets out a chuckle, too. Now, Jihoon doesn’t believe in fairies but he thinks that if they were real, they’d giggle just like you do. 

With a smile still on your face, you say, “what? A strong guy like you? Come on, now.”

Do you have to keep doing that? Fuck, he’s absolutely done for.

He tilts his head forwards, eyes closed, trying so hard to stop the muscles in his cheeks from lifting in a grin that it becomes a workout in and of itself.

“I mean it,” he says, taking what he hopes is a subtle breath to settle the fluttering in his chest. The next thing he knows, he’s leaning one shoulder against the lockers, a little reminiscent of every douchebag in every teen movie ever made. If he doesn’t think about it too much, he won’t cringe into oblivion until he gets home and replays this interaction over and over in his head instead of going to sleep. “Maybe I’ve just lived here too long. I might be jaded, but it’s still true.”

“How long is too long?” you ask.

“All my life,” he tells you.

“No way?”

“Mm.” A beat. “What about you?”

“I’m just staying with a friend, right now.”

“Oh, right.” He falls quiet again as he remembers the first time he saw you, remembers making the list in his head of all the possible reasons he hadn’t seen you before. The second was true, then.

Why does that feel like the worst possible scenario? He decides not to unpack that here.

“Maybe-...” you start, glancing down at your hands, which have been twisting in front of you for a few seconds now. Your chest inflates, filled with the words you’re about to speak, but only a breath comes out when you shake your head instead of saying them. “No, don’t worry. Scratch that.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, because he thinks that whatever you were about to suggest, there’s not much he would have said no to. He feels like it’s only fair to give you another chance to say it.

But you don’t.

“Yeah, it’s nothing.” You pause. “I… should probably get going.” He glances over your shoulder at the clock mounted on the far wall, squinting to see the time. 11:45.

“Shit. Yeah, me too,” Jihoon agrees. He didn’t realise it had gotten so late, so fast: he’s hardly ever out at this time. Lord, he already knows it’s going to be an open inquisition when he gets back to his apartment. His neighbours, Soonyoung and Seokmin, are about to have a fucking field day. 

But it’s already long past the time he usually goes to bed, so he asks his next question anyway. He still can’t shake the thought of you walking back on your own at this hour. “Do-… you need a ride?” 

He’s not sure if you actually consider it, or just wait a moment before you answer just to be polite. Either way, you end up shaking your head.

“It’s okay. I’ve-… got a call to make, so.” Your voice is a little quieter, lips tweaking up into a regretful half-smile, and Jihoon curses in his own head. How had he forgotten about that? “Thank you, though. Really.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says. “Just… get back safe.”

You smile and nod, taking a step towards the door and Jihoon does the same. He reaches the exit first and holds it open for you; when you’re both out in the street, he suppresses a shiver and looks in the direction of where he left his car earlier. Feeling the full force of the cold, it crosses his mind to ask again if you’re sure about walking home, but you’re already pulling a beanie down over your still damp hair and tapping something into your phone, so he doesn’t say anything.

“I’ll see you around, uh-…” you start to say, only looking back up when you falter, realising that this is the first time you’re about to use his name and it occurs to you both, at the same time, that you haven’t done this part, yet.

“Jihoon,” he introduces himself, lips quirking into a side-smile. His gaze is expectant and you respond to it perfectly. 

“Y/n,” you introduce yourself. 

“See you around, y/n.”

You split off in the opposite direction to where he’s heading. Before he clamps his headphones over his ears for the short walk up to his car, the last thing he hears is the retreating sound of a dial-tone. 

—————

He doesn’t see you then for two whole weeks. 

For the first couple of days, he only idly notices; it’s not a big deal — it’s not like you’re always there when he is, and he’s sure it’s the same vice versa. But he notices your absence, nonetheless. By the end of the first week, he casually wonders if you’ve had a change in schedule. Maybe you’re on a different working pattern, something that means you can’t be there on Monday and Thursday evenings and at 11:45am on Sundays. 

It’s not weird. He only knows this because prior to that first conversation, acknowledging you as you crossed paths by the free-weights became part of his routine. It’s fine that he sort of misses those little interactions, isn’t it?

Maybe you’ve decided to start training ridiculously early in the morning instead? He tried that once. Never again. It then occurs to him, in the middle of a self-enforced rest day as he sits in the dark nursing a headache, that perhaps you’re not well. He sort of wishes he’d had the guts to ask for your number the last time he saw you, now: he thinks he’d check in, see if you were okay, ask how work was going or something. 

Deep down he knows he’d probably actually just be staring at a blank text thread with a ‘casual’ message typed, tweaked a few hundred times, and ultimately unsent. But that’s fine. It’s the thought that counts. 

The next time he sees you isn’t even in the gym, at all. It’s a Sunday afternoon — he finished his morning session, went home, showered, and headed back out into town after some lunch with a few errands to run. He finds himself spoiled with the luxury of a spare few hours to kill and dips into his favourite coffee place, thrilled beyond belief to find that it’s not obnoxiously busy and that there’s only one other person in the queue waiting to be served. 

Oh, he thinks when he looks up from his phone and sees a vaguely familiar set of headphones sitting on top of a definitely familiar mane of hair, standing right in front of him. Oh, shit. It’s you.

Jihoon goes back and forth with himself over it but ultimately decides he probably doesn’t know you well enough to just say hello out in the wild like this, so even though the urge to do so strikes, he holds himself back. It’s agonising, though. He really wants to. 

You step forward to order and he’s typing out a reply to a message in his, Seokmin and Soonyoung’s three-way group chat, in which he’s literally been fighting for his life as of late. He made the mistake of mentioning you in passing a few days ago and ever since, he’s had to vehemently deny that he has developed his first gym crush, insisting that actually, he’s just made a friend. They don’t believe him, because of course they don’t. That would be far too reasonable. Seokmin says that Jihoon wouldn’t be blushing just from saying your name if you were really ‘just a friend’. Soonyoung argues Jihoon wouldn’t have mentioned you at all.

“I’m so sorry — bear with me, just-…” your voice is quiet but Jihoon hears you apologising to the cashier in front of you, and it snaps him clean away from the tiff he’s having with the men who live in his building. He glances up and you’re elbow-deep in the bag over your shoulder, red in the face with your bottom lip pulled between your teeth. He turns his head slightly and sees the small hand-written sign that says the card machine isn’t working, and they’re cash only, today. 

He can hazard a guess at your predicament. 

After another few seconds of you trying to find whatever it is you’re looking for in your bag, he starts feeling bad for you. This, right here, is his own worst nightmare. Should the roles be reversed, he thinks he would’ve just turned around and walked out. It’s exactly why he doesn’t bother with backpacks and satchels day-to-day: if it doesn’t fit in his pockets, he doesn’t take it out with him. The system isn’t perfect but it has saved Jihoon a decent amount of public distress. 

But the roles aren’t reversed, and he has his wallet already in his hand, so… he only gives himself a few seconds to wonder if it’s appropriate before he does the stupid thing anyway.

“Don’t worry — I’ve got it,” he says, stepping around you, pulling out the cash to pay for your order. You’re dumbstruck when you look  at him, head tilted to the side. The person stood behind the counter glances at you, then at him, and back at you; you don’t see this, however, because your eyes haven’t left Jihoon’s face since he appeared — as far as you’re concerned — out of thin air.

“I can’t ask you to…” you start to protest, but your hands have stopped fishing around and he’s moving the cash further towards the barista, who hesitates just a second longer. 

“You’re not asking. I’m offering. I’ve got you.” He says this with such finality that you quite literally can’t argue with him. The lady behind the counter accepts the cash and you nod, shyly, mouthing a thank you. He orders his own drink — an Americano, nothing exciting — and you both go to stand at the other end of the counter while you wait.

“Hi,” you finally say, and Jihoon can’t help but give a small chuckle. 

He doesn’t have anything hugely witty or creative in his arsenal, though, so he comes back with a matching, “hey.”

“How… have you been?” you ask. 

“Can’t complain, really,” he says. “Are you okay? I haven’t seen you around for a few weeks.” Oh, God — the second the words are out of his mouth, he wishes he could take them back. Why did he have to add that last part? Why didn’t he just leave it at the question? 

“Yeah — about that,” you breathe, ducking your head to conceal the heat that’s spreading over your cheeks. “You know how I said I was staying with that friend?” He nods, and you continue. “I was waiting for some stuff to get sorted out with an apartment and it all finally got resolved, so��� I’ve been moving my stuff over to a new place.”

Jihoon feels his heart sink for a moment, but he keeps his expression pleasant and engaged. His fingers threaten to give him away as they fiddle with the aglet on the drawstring of his sweatpants. 

“Sounds tiring,” he says lightly, and you laugh again, nodding. It’s odd, having his heart taking residence low in his stomach and somehow also in his throat, all while hammering away at a mile a minute. All the caffeine in the world couldn’t have this effect on him. “Is it going okay so far?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “It’s a process, but… it’ll be worth it.”

The barista behind the counter announces herself by clearing her throat and slides your drinks across the marble surface with a little glimmer in her eye. Jihoon picks them both up, extending yours out to you. There’s a pause (in which he swallows a large helping of self-doubt) as he glances to the door, working through several combinations of his next words in his mind before he looks back at you. 

“Do you… maybe have ten minutes to sit with these?” He asks. You light up immediately, not even checking the time on any of your devices, nor the wall clock behind your head. He doesn’t let himself think about why it makes him giddy that you’re accepting the offer, just like that.

“Yeah — yeah, sure.” You smile, walking through the lines of tables and sliding into one of the big, comfy chairs by the window. He unzips his jacket and slings it over the arm of the other chair before settling in himself, his long fingers wrapping around the to-go cup. The drink warms his perpetually cold palms and he sighs sweetly.

“You must be excited to get into the new place, then?” he asks after taking a sip, letting it heat him up from the inside. It could be argued that this job is already being taken care of, but Jihoon is not about to go there.

“Oh, God yes.” You nod, relaxing back in the seat with your own cup. Jihoon subconsciously leans a little forward in tandem. “It’s been fun staying with my friend, but…” You pause, lips slightly parted, before going on. “Okay, a warning: I’m a terrible person for this, I know. She’s done me a huge favour, letting me stay there — but I can’t deal with how untidy she is. It’s driving me nuts.”

A chuckle bubbles in Jihoon’s chest, cheeks starting to ache as his smile grows and grows. It hasn’t fallen since he sat down opposite you, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, any time soon. “That bad?” he asks.

“You have no idea,” you groan, covering your face with one hand. He wishes you hadn’t — he thinks you look quite lovely when you’re all lit up like this. “She doesn’t clean her dishes after she eats — she piles them up in the sink for like, three days. I don’t think she’s used the vacuum the entire time I’ve been there. I keep finding wrappers and packets and mismatched socks everywhere —” 

His snort of laughter rolls off the back of his throat rather ungraciously and he settles back into his chair. You gently bump his ankle under the table with your foot, beaming at him. “I’m serious! I can’t live like this, Jihoon. I can’t!”

The more you speak, the less he can control the fits he’s descended into, and his abs start to ache after a while; there’s desperation in your voice but it’s just wrapped up so cutely in your lighthearted frustration and decoratively tied together with your sunshine smile… he can’t help it — he’s in pieces. It’s okay though, because you’re laughing too: it makes him think of fairies again, and he can picture you with dainty, intricately patterned wings under the soft lighting in the café. He wipes the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand as he starts to calm down, taking a few deep breaths all the way into his stomach.

“You’re so much stronger than I am,” he says.. “I couldn’t deal with that.”

“You know, I had a feeling you’d be a clean person, too,” you say, sipping at your coffee again. “I mean… I’ve never seen you use the gym showers, so I wasn’t sure, but…”

“Hey,” he says, mock-defensively. “I don’t trust the locks, okay? I shower at home!”

Your cup is lifted to your mouth and he can only see you from the nose upwards, but by the creases at the corners of your eyes, he knows you’re concealing a smile behind it as you nod back at him.

Ten minutes turns to twenty and then somehow becomes thirty — Jihoon starts feeling like you’re someone he’s known for years, and not just the person he accidentally ended up paying attention to in the gym just a couple of weeks ago. He bounces off you and you bounce off him. Both of you have long-since finished your drinks, too: there’s no real reason for either of you to still be here.

Except the obvious. 

“So, the apartment,” Jihoon says, leaning forwards again with his elbows resting on his knees. “Is it…?” He makes a few circular gestures with his hands with which he tries to imply something to the effect of ‘local’, or ‘nearby’, but he can’t quite bring himself to say that out loud. You seem to catch on though. Somehow.

Then again, you did say — a few subject changes ago — that Jihoon is on your wavelength. Maybe that’s it.

“About… a fifteen minute walk from here? Give or take,” you say, and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead so fast it’s like they’re on strings, being controlled by someone else. He doesn’t realise for a few seconds, by which point he isn’t even sure how to relax them. 

“No way?” he says, trying to feign nothing more than an idle interest. Obviously, he’s soaring. 

“Yeah. I’ll want to get back training soon, too, so there’s some incentive to get this done quickly. I miss it,” you tell him.

Jihoon comes out with what he says next without thinking. His mouth is moving before fully engaging his brain. It’s the coffee jitters. Apparently.

“Well, if you need any help with anything, I’ve got a car.”

“You’re too sweet,” you say. “I really couldn’t put you out like that, but…”

“You wouldn’t be,” he assures you with a shrug. “If I’m not working or in the gym… I’m never really that busy. It’s up to you, but-… I’d be happy to.”

You bite the inside of your lip for a moment, apparently mulling this over, before wiggling in your seat to pull your phone out of the front pocket of your jeans. You unlock the device and hand it over on a ‘new contact’ screen. 

Jihoon goes completely stupid: he thinks his brain stops functioning as he takes it to put his number in — for a moment, he’s staring dumbstruck, struggling to even remember the order of the digits now he’s under pressure, but it comes back to him eventually. His thumbs dart across the screen and he checks, double checks and triple checks that he’s typed it right before placing it back in your waiting palm. 

His fingertips brush against yours and it tickles, sending small shockwaves up his arms and straight into his chest. You smile down at your phone before glancing up at him.

“You need an emoji,” you tell him, and he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Huh?”

“Everyone in my contacts has one — I’ve been doing this since I was in high-school. You need to pick one, too.”

“Oh, uh-…” Jihoon swallows, and for some reason he’s completely forgotten every single little emoticon option there is. He draws a blank. “I can’t — you pick one for me. I don’t know.”

You narrow your eyes at him for a second, pouting your lips as you seem to scroll through the endless options. Now and again, you look up at him, as if trying to see what best fits him before you continue your search. He waits. And waits. And waits. He’s about to throw in an admittedly useless suggestion of some sort of boring animal when you turn your phone around to show him what you’ve chosen.

Jihoon, the contact name reads. And there’s the little angel face next to it.

“Oh, come on,” he says, blushing deeply. “You can’t be serious.”

“I totally am,” you say proudly, turning it back and pressing to save it. He hides his face in his hands. “If you won’t pick your own, you get what you’re given. You did this to yourself.”

“Wow,” he chuckles weakly, sliding his hands up into his hair and raking it back off his face. Your eyes move quickly across every inch and boy, does he notice. You shrug in response and test it, sending the same little emoticon to him. He blushes harder when it comes through and he saves your number into his own phone before placing it face-down on the table. 

More than an hour after buying your coffee, Jihoon stretches his arms above his head and checks the time on his watch. He frowns slightly, not sure how the afternoon got away from him so fast, and lets out a sigh.

“I think I need to get going,” he says reluctantly. Leaving you is absolutely the opposite of what he wants to do, actually. Alas, “I have some friends coming over tonight.”

“Yeah — yeah, of course,” you smile, leaning to one side to pick your bag up off the floor. “No worries.”

You both move to stand up and he throws his coat over his arm, leading the way out. He holds open the door for you to leave first, then follows you outside into the afternoon sun. 

“It was really nice to see you,” you say, turning to face him. 

“You too,” he agrees. “Text me if you need anything, okay? But actually do. Don’t just say you will?”

You laugh sweetly. Fairies. His ears might have actually caught fire this time. “Okay, okay. I promise. I’ll text you — thank you.” There’s a pause, but only a tiny one. “And for the coffee, too.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he insists, waving it off. You shake your head. He thinks your hands are twitching when you stuff them into your pockets but he can’t be sure. Your breath definitely stutters, though. 

“No, really. Um… next one’s on me?” 

He blinks, and blinks again. Next one? The next one? He feels like he’s malfunctioned and been forcibly rebooted. The next one? 

“I-…” he starts, his throat dry. “Yeah, okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” You nod, smiling with — what he doesn’t realise is — relief. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah — I’ll see you, y/n.”

—————

Jihoon has no choice but to admit defeat to the group chat that night when Seungcheol and Jeonghan come over for a takeout.

Within minutes, his oldest friend is asking about the girl from the gym — he’s been just as relentless as Seokmin and Soonyoung in quizzing Jihoon, except it’s slightly harder to deny to Seungcheol because he did witness, first-hand, the way you had his friend tripping over his own feet with a single smile. At first, Jihoon tries to shrug it off. Play it down. Change the subject. He doesn’t mention that he’s actually spoken to you since he and Cheol trained together, or that he accidentally bumped into you and paid for your coffee, or that you stayed talking with him for as long as you did. He definitely doesn’t say that you exchanged phone numbers. 

He absolutely won’t confess to being smitten. 

All Jihoon willingly admits to is that from what he’s seen of you around, you seem nice, and with a roll of his eyes he does agree that he thinks you’re attractive. He gets a bit of a glare later in the evening when  Jeonghan asks if he’s thought about where he wants to take you on your first date, and Jihoon tells him to stop asking stupid questions and eat his chicken before he eats it for him. But all in all he thinks he evades the worst of it pretty well. For now, anyway — he knows their pestering isn’t going away any time soon. 

Especially not when, on their way out, Seungcheol leans close and whispers that whatever is going on with his gym crush, it suits him. Jihoon jabs him on the arm and the two men leave, laughing brightly.

It’s about an hour after his friends have gone home, having washed the dishes and cleaned up his apartment that Jihoon is sitting on his living room floor doing a few lower body stretches before he turns in for the night. He finds himself tapping into your text thread — not for the first time this evening — and skimming over the short conversation you had earlier. You messaged him when you got back to your friend’s place to thank him for the third time, and Jihoon replied back telling you that if you didn’t stop being silly, he was never going to respond to you again. Your reply came in the form of a “:(“ and his was a simple “:)”. That was it, but he’s been thinking about the exchange ever since. 

He’s not sure why. Nor is he certain what about that has him looking down at the messages and grinning like a fool in his apartment, alone, at 10:30pm on a Sunday night. He could probably take a stab in the dark at what it means, though. He rubs at the back of his neck with one hand as he changes conversations and types out a short message with the other. 

jihoon: fine. you’re right. 

seokmin: ?

soonyoung: probs true, does need context

jihoon: about the gym girl. you’re right. 

soonyoung: OH

seokmin: Hahahahahaha

seokmin: Yeah, you’re definitely the last to know, dude

soonyoung: fr even chan and hansol know atp lmao 

jihoon: they what?

jihoon: how do they know?

jihoon: they don’t go to my gym! i haven’t seen them in weeks!

soonyoung: because we told them????? 

seokmin: So, we might have told everyone

jihoon: blocking both of your numbers immediately.

seokmin: Hey! We’re just glad you’ve accepted it

seokmin: When do we get to meet her?

jihoon: blocked.

Well, great, Jihoon thinks as he fights the urge to lay face down on the floor and let the laminate cool his searingly hot cheeks. 

At least he’s admitted it now. 

He’s vaguely confirmed in writing that maybe he has a bit of a thing for you — it’s out in the open and at minimum, two of his friends know that it’s real. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Fingers. Whatever. No doubt by morning, all of his friends will have found out. The point stands that he hasn’t confessed to something like this since he was approximately sixteen years old, so whatever you’re doing to him, whatever this… is, it matters. 

So, he asks himself, standing up off the hardwood floor and stretching his spine, arms locked behind him and pushed back as far as they can go. He turns off all the lights, checks the front door, goes through the motions to get himself ready for bed. So… what the fuck am I supposed to do now?

—————

Come Monday evening, he’s about ready to hit the roof.

As far as bad days go, Jihoon thinks he’s in the running for one of the worst ever. He slept awfully, tossing and turning through the night despite the usual winning combination of freshly washed bed sheets and his white noise machine drowning out the occasional disturbance from the street below. He wakes up two minutes before his alarm is due to go off, only to discover he fell asleep before plugging his phone in to charge overnight, and it’s sitting at a very risky 13%. The gel he uses to keep his hair off his face at work has gone weird and only does half a job, strands tumbling back in front of his eyes the second he goes to leave his apartment, very nearly forgetting his keys. Then, to really put the cherry on top, he sees that — at some point between getting home yesterday and now — someone has scraped his car while parking up next to him. There’s a large scratch right down the passenger side, with no note nor reliable CCTV in his apartment’s parking lot to confirm who it was, and of course, the space is currently empty. 

All this before he even gets to work.

He fundamentally knows that starting the week off with a bad attitude will only lead to a really shitty remainder, but when Vernon sends his routine ‘Monday Motivation’ booster message — “you’re going to have a great day, today!” — into the group chat, Jihoon responds with a crude photo of his middle finger, right in front of the massive scuff on the bodywork of his Hyundai. Jeonghan replies with an ‘oof’, Wonwoo with a ‘yikes’, and Joshua, ever the comedian, sends a picture of Garfield lying face-down captioned ‘Mondays’ that nobody replies to. All responses feel kind of appropriate. But he pockets his phone without sending anything else, sighing again; he locks the car and checks the handle just in case before he finally heads into the building.

It’s going to be a long day. He just has to get through it.

Things don’t necessarily improve. He ends up in and out of meetings all day, so when 5 o’clock rolls around and he’s on his way out the door, he’s feeling a bit like he’s done nothing of actual value. Just, for some reason, thinking about you and tapping out a catchy beat on the top of his desk as he pretends to pay attention to useless presentation after useless presentation. But it’s still somehow been exhausting on his brain and on the drive back to his apartment, Jihoon feels so drained that he contemplates skipping the gym altogether and going straight to bed. This internal argument takes up most of his journey, but it does keep him occupied during the rush-hour traffic if it does nothing else. 

Nothing has ever been fixed by ruining a perfectly good routine, however — so no sooner than he’s back in his apartment, he changes out of his button-down and trousers and into his regular gym gear. His protein shaker is ready on the counter for when he’s home again, the lights are off, his bag is on his shoulder and the door is locked. He pushes against it a few times, checking out of habit, despite the fact that his only neighbours on this floor are Soonyoung, Seokmin and an elderly couple with a cat they’re not technically supposed to have. Nobody tells, though, because Boots has become everyone’s emotional support animal. The only actual security threat is Seokmin maybe stealing something from his fridge, but he’s only ever satisfied after the third test anyway. 

A quick warmup and a few easy stretches later, Jihoon sets about his business. Mondays are for training legs (and often, as a result, incapacitating himself for the rest of the week), and these workouts are always some of his most intense.

So intense, in fact, that he’s sweating buckets and cherry red when he steps away from the squat rack, tugging up the hem of his t-shirt to dry his face, a brief flash of his toned abdomen on full view. He’s just about catching his breath when he glances in the mirror, and his knees nearly give out when he sees you walking in. You lock eyes and smile at him in the reflection as you start to walk towards him.

It’s not just any smile, but he’s way too flustered to notice.

He spins around to face you, mortally embarrassed that you definitely just saw that, but in a weird way… kind of elated? You drop your headphones to sit around the back of your neck to greet him as you get closer. He pushes his hair back off his forehead and tries to act as cool as he can, but Jihoon suddenly becomes incredibly aware of everything about himself in this moment: his posture, how his arms hang by his sides, the exact positioning of his feet. The fact that he’s breathing pretty deeply, that his pulse is so loud in his ears that he can see your lips moving but can’t quite hear what you’re saying.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit — you’re talking. Focus. He needs to focus. 

“Sorry — what was that?” he asks, eliciting a soft laugh from you.

“I like your shirt,” you repeat, a fraction clearer. Jihoon glances down at himself, at the same sweatpants and tight black workout top he wears in here several times a week, and looks back at you with a raised eyebrow. God, he lets himself think for half a second, entertaining his own stupidity with the idea that you’re finding this as hard as he is, too. Maybe I’m not alone in this. 

“Oh?” he says. “Um — thank you?”

“How’d it go with your friends last night?” you ask, hardly skipping a beat, and he’s a little thankful that you skim over his poor attempt at gratitude for a compliment he isn’t sure he deserves. Instead, his confusion wraps itself around the fact that you actually remembered what he was doing last night. Hell, even he’d forgotten in the heat of the day he’d had, but you remembered. He’s sweating over it a little and briefly wonders what the chances are of the gym floor opening up and swallowing him whole.

Slim, he decides. But not zero. 

There’s hope.

“Yeah — yeah, it was nice,” he says, internally kicking himself for overthinking this so much that he’s apparently lost his ability to speak. In the space of 24 hours, he’s gone from giggling over coffee with you to completely weak just at the sound of your voice. It should be easier here, if anything — this is home turf for him. His comfort space. He supposes the tight fit of your gym clothes accentuating your hips and thighs isn’t helping matters, and neither is the wide neckline of your own t-shirt exposing your throat and a collarbone. But still. He’s not a teenager. He should be able to handle a little bit of skin. 

He clears his throat, rolling his head side-to-side. Focus. “Sorry — I’m-… I just didn’t expect to see you back here so soon.”

“Yeah,” you chuckle. “I-… couldn’t stay away. Missed it a little too much.”

“I get that,” he concurs, willing his eyes not to drop down your frame to a newly exposed area of skin just around your waist, your t-shirt riding up as you adjust your bag on your shoulder. “It’s good to-… have you back, anyway.”

“Good to be back,” you agree. “Hey — can you leave that set up for me, when you’re done? I’m on legs today, too.”

Jihoon doesn’t want to say that he knows Mondays are your leg days, as well, so he doesn’t. Even if it is true. He wonders if you would find it odd that he’s remembered. “Sure,” he says with a small smile, which you return. Just as you’re about to walk off to drop your things into a locker, he pipes up again. “I mean — hey, if you wanted a spot, or to-… do, you know… anything…”

“Are you asking me to train with you?” you ask, eyes bright and smile wider than he thinks he’s ever seen it. This is torture. He’s not even lifting anything and his heart is about to burst out of his fucking chest — God, maybe this was a bad suggestion.

“I-…” he starts, but he lets the breath out of his lungs and shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah. I am.”

“Give me two minutes,” you agree, hurrying off to put your stuff away and fill up your bottle.

He manages to squeeze another set of squats in before you get back, which is sort of a miracle seeing as how his knees have gone completely weak ever since you arrived. He’s scrolling through his playlist as you cross the gym floor on your way back to him, but he looks up and smiles as you approach. 

“You go ahead — I’ve just finished.”

He knows he’s really fucking done for when, after the first round, you add plates onto the bar to out-lift him. All before he’s even positioned himself behind you to be a good spotter.

Jihoon doesn’t go down without a fight though, and things get a little competitive from there. Both of you throw some of your favourite (see: most agonising) exercises into the mix over the course of the hour, taking it in turns on the equipment and creating a session that just about has him able to move by the time you’re finished. You talk to each other when you’ve got the breath to do so, otherwise focussing on your workout with more intensity than either of you remember training with for a long time. 

And so what if he has to turn away from you once or twice to compose himself when breathless whines spill from between your lips on your last few reps, the sheer effort of the movements pushing your muscles to their absolute limit? So what if he feels his entire body run a thousand degrees every time you sweetly encourage him to manage just one more? So what if his palm stays tingling for fifteen seconds every time you high-five him for a set well done?

You slide out of the hamstring curl machine with a deep breath and legs like two sticks of jelly at the end of the session, and he holds a hand out to steady you as you regain your ability to weight-bear.

“You okay?” he asks, and you nod, patting what’s exposed of your chest and neck with your towel. 

“Yeah. Yeah — just… fuck.” You laugh, laying your hand over the top of his and squeezing. Only for a second — not even, only for a breath — and really just to let him know that you’re okay to stand on your own, but Jihoon feels a bit like he’s been electrocuted straight up his arm all the same. “You don’t come to play, do you?”

“Says you,” he scoffs, only now moving his hand from your upper arm. “I was wrong about you — you’re insane. Clinically insane.” 

Using the paper towels he went to gather while you were finishing up, he wipes the machine clean as you stretch out your now slightly exercise-swollen thighs. 

“I was just gonna finish up on one of the stairmasters,” you tell him, taking a long sip of your water. His eyes widen to the point of comedy, eyebrows high on his forehead. You snicker at his horror, the rim of your bottle hovering tantalisingly over your bottom lip. “What?”

“That’s-… got to be a form of masochism,” he says, exhausted just at the idea of marching up the never ending staircase even for a minute. You almost choke on your mouthful of water, only just swallowing it in time before a sudden, uncontrollable laugh erupts from your chest. 

“How?!” you ask, covering your mouth with your hand. Just like yesterday, the urge to pull your arm away, to reveal your hidden smile strikes him. He doesn’t act on it, but he wants to.

“What do you mean, how? Why would you put yourself through that after what you’ve just done?” It’s completely lighthearted, and the rush of heat on your cheeks intensifies at the cocktail of shock and awe in his gaze.

You shrug your shoulders once. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just better than you.” The way the tip of your tongue teasingly sits between your teeth as you grin at him sends bullets of adrenaline through his veins and Jihoon runs his hand over his face.

For about three seconds, he tells himself he isn’t going to take the bait. He’ll lose, he’ll admit it — he’ll put his hands up and say you’re absolutely, definitely better than he is, if it means he doesn’t have to push through a round of cardio after surpassing every single one of his physical limits. But God, he thinks you look completely irresistible standing there challenging him like this, your hands on your hips. His eyes don’t leave yours and yours don’t leave his; both of your chests stutter, just a little bit, and he can see your smile grow in his periphery.

How the fuck is he supposed to walk away?

“Ten minutes,” he concedes, matching your footsteps as you start to walk backwards towards his least favourite line of equipment in any gym, ever. “And you’re definitely getting the next coffee, now.”

——————

That Friday, you finally text him again.

His muscles have just about returned to a working state and Jihoon is quite proud to say that he has regained the ability to sit down without needing something to hold onto. He got home from work, showered the day away and has just settled down into the sofa to start on the book Wonwoo has been on his ass about reading when his phone vibrates on the side table. He reaches over for it, trying to figure out which of his friends might be trying to get hold of him early evening on a Friday, and already going over excuses in his head as to why he can’t go out to do whatever they’re inviting him to. But when your contact name flashes up on the screen, every single thought disappears from his brain.

y/n: hey :)

y/n: just out of interest, how good are you at assembling furniture?

He furrows his brows at this. There’s a very obvious answer, which is that he’s not. He doesn’t want to reply saying so, though, so he goes for what he thinks is the next best thing.

jh: well…

jh: what are you trying to put together?

y/n: a bed :(

y/n: today’s your rest day, right?

y/n: can i bribe you with dinner after? :)

Oh? His brain stalls, fingers hovering over the keypad. He can literally see your face forming a little pout before growing into a hopeful grin in his mind’s eye. He doesn’t see how he could ever say no. 

jh: apparently yes, you can.

jh: text me the address? i’ll leave in 5.

He changes out of his basketball shorts and hoodie in record time, abandoning Wonwoo’s book on his couch in favour of attempting to look at least somewhat presentable for you. He tugs on a pair of jeans that he hasn’t touched in about 6 months and one of his nicer t-shirts instead, even going as far as to spritz aftershave on the column of his throat. You’ve sent him your address and he makes to leave, doing his regular essential item pat-down on his way out the door. He puts your new apartment into his phone as he crosses the parking lot, stupidly delighted to discover it’s only 7 and a half minutes away from where he lives, and settles into his car with a series of deep exhales.

The breathing exercises don’t achieve much. His head is still spinning when he parks up in the street by your new place and lingers just outside the building. He sends you a text to say he’s arrived and you reply saying you’re on your way down. You appear in the lobby just a few minutes later.

“Hey,” you greet him warmly, crossing the space and putting your arms around him in a hug. He goes limp for a fraction of a second before his arms slide around you, too. God, he hopes you can’t feel his heartbeat right now. He thinks that the effect you have on him should be considered dangerous. But whether you can or not, you tighten your arms to squeeze him once before you unwind them from around his neck and step away. 

“Hi,” he says, feverish from the tops of his ears all the way down to his toes. His hands find his pockets as you take a few more polite steps back.

“Thank you so much for this.” Your bottom lip finds temporary home between your teeth before you’re nodding back towards the stairwell. “I’m on the third floor. Follow me.”

He does. He walks up the stairs behind you as you ask about his day at work, and he tells you that he thinks today has probably been one of the best he’s had in about 2 months. When he asks how your day went, you turn your head back to look at him and stumble on the next step, gently laughing and saying that you think you’re at your tether’s end with D.I.Y, but it’s been pretty good otherwise. By the time you reach your floor, his thighs are aching, a bit of residual fatigue from your session earlier in the week making it a little harder than it ought to be. He can’t imagine how you’ve coped every day since then; if his own building didn’t have an elevator, Jihoon thinks he’d have been sleeping in his car.

You give him a little tour of the apartment, and he stands next to you at the window as you point out where you were staying with your friend a few blocks away. He thinks the view is seriously pretty in the evening light, enchanted by how he can see the tops of the slightly lower buildings and the street below, lined with neon storefronts and currently alive with shoppers and bar-goers, but… He cringes at himself for thinking it, but the view through the glass is nothing compared to the one he has inside. 

You’ve started to put up a few decorations and knick-knacks around the place too. He doesn’t know you very well, but he still thinks it’s very you — all of it, and he likes them. Even with the room full of boxes and half-unpacked cases, there’s so much personality in it already. Charm. He brushes off your attempts to apologise for the ‘mess’, as you called it, despite everything being neatly pushed out of the way of the main space. It’s easily tidier than any other mid-move apartment he’s ever been in. 

“Did you want a drink?” you ask him, walking over to the refrigerator and resting a hand on the door. “I’ve got wine, or-… anything, really.” 

“Just some water would be great,” he says appreciatively, and a few seconds later you’re handing him a bottle, turning another one over in your hand. “I really wouldn’t be much help after a couple of glasses, trust me.”

“Does this mean you are good at it, then? Before a drink?” you ask him. Is it hope in your voice? Or do you somehow know how hopeless he is, and are you teasing? He can’t tell. Regardless, clearly his evasion earlier wasn’t quite as successful as he hoped it would be.

“About that…” He chuckles, taking a sip from the bottle and glancing sideways at you. “I’m sure between the two of us, we’ll figure it out.”

“My knight in shining armour,” you say with a laugh, closing your fingers around his wrist and leading him through the door to your bedroom. You’ve managed to separate all of the individual pieces, but you haven’t made any real progress otherwise. He settles himself down on the floor and reaches for the assembly manual, pursing his lips as he looks at the little baggies of screws and bolts and various other things he doesn’t know the names of.

“Okay.” He frowns, looking back up at you where you’ve kneeled down a couple of feet away. You’re grinning innocently back at him, but Jihoon’s lips are more aligned with a pout. “You maybe should have mentioned that the instructions are in Swedish.”

——-

Ignoring the fact that you can’t understand the directions printed on the flimsy little pieces of paper, you get to work. It’s… an interesting process, but somehow between the pair of you, you successfully manage to assemble the bed in just under two hours by mostly following the diagrams (and having to backtrack several times because Jihoon managed to miss a few steps). At three minutes to nine, you’re both finally standing up off the floor, stretching out stiff joints and tight muscles; the bed is fully assembled and made up with your sheets in the centre of the room, headboard against the back wall, the lamp you set on the dresser casting a pleasant orangey glow on every surface.

“We did it,” you say, a little in shock, a lot exhausted, and absolutely starving. At least, that’s what he assumes you’re feeling, because it’s what he is. “We actually did it.”

“I mean, you did most of it,” Jihoon says. It’s true; at a point, he was just handing you the pieces you asked him for and holding parts steady so that you could fit them together. But if you want to call it a joint effort, he isn’t going to stop you, and the roll of your eyes tells him that you do want to call it that. 

“Shh. You helped,” you scold him, bumping his upper arm with your elbow. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“If you say so,” he chuckles, taking another sip of his water. Jihoon isn’t sure he believes you, but the way you’re challenging him to argue further with your tongue pressed against the inside of your cheek scrambles his brain. Any remaining argument dies on his lips. “We make a good team.”

“We do,” you agree, expression shifting into a shy smile, bumping his arm again, your elbow lingering against him for a second longer. “Come on, I think I promised to feed you, too. What are you in the mood for?”

A movie has been playing in the background for about an hour by the time your food arrives and you’ve eaten everything. Jihoon relaxes back against the cushions of the couch and you’re settled comfortably next to him: there’s plenty of space on either side of you both, so there isn’t really any need for you to have your upper arm basically pressing against his, but Jihoon is too comfortable to say anything and you certainly aren’t making any attempts to move away. You shift your legs after about ninety minutes, bringing them up underneath you so your thigh is pressed against his now, as well, and you’re twisted slightly so you’re physically facing him but your head is still turned towards the TV.

Everywhere your clothed body touches him is scorching, and he wonders if maybe he should’ve worn a thinner t-shirt, or at the very least something a little less heavy on his legs. His jeans, slightly tighter around the thighs than perhaps would be their peak level of comfort, are clinging to him everywhere and he’s so aware of himself, so aware of you, of your sweet body wash, your fruity shampoo, every single one of your breaths… He’s cursed people out for breathing too loudly around him before, but he thinks he could replace his white noise machine with an eight hour track of just this and he would sleep like a fucking baby.

One of your elbows is propped against the top of the cushions behind you and you’re resting your head in your palm, and (not for the first time this evening) he glances sideways to look at you. They’ve been fleeting glances thus far, only stealing fractions of a moment before he turns his attention back to the TV. But this? This is the wrong moment. Entirely the wrong fucking moment because as his head turns, so does yours, and you catch him in the act. Fuck, if he thought he was burning up, before? He’s pretty sure he’s somehow just descended straight to the second circle of hell, greeting all the other lusty sinners like old friends. Several of his thoughts tonight have been considerably impure, and in this half second of blistering eye contact, they all come rushing back.

The universe is really testing him this evening, and Jihoon is stumbling. It feels like any minute now, he’s going to explode.

He straightens his spine and looks back at the TV, trying to force his eyes to focus even though he’s completely swallowed by the feeling of your arm straightening across the back of the couch, your fingertips grazing over the skin at the bottom of his hairline. He can feel your eyes still on him, your gaze burning into his cheek, no doubt following as his tongue darts out subconsciously over his lips. But he can’t quite help himself, can’t get the image of how sweet you looked out of his head; he clears his throat quietly and looks over at you again, coming over almost completely blank the second he notices the glimmer your eyes hold when they’re trained on him. 

Any. Fucking. Minute. 

“Jihoon, I-…” you start to say, and he turns himself a little bit so that he’s facing you better, completely forgetting about the movie now. That’s not a great loss: he couldn’t explain the plot even if he tried. “I don’t know if-… you can tell me if I’ve read you wrong…”

“You haven’t,” he hurries. Relief starts to ease the tension between your brows, before you scrunch them again and cock your head to the side. “I’m sure you haven’t, I mean.”

In this new position, one of his legs is bent and sitting up on the couch beneath him and you’ve adjusted your own posture to accommodate. Your knee sits just over the top of his, more of your impossible body heat radiating through his clothes, and he glances down at the site of contact before he looks back at you. 

“I just-... I don’t know, I think I knew I was interested in you from the first time I saw you, but the last few weeks especially…” You’ve been rehearsing this. He can feel it. It’s written in your eyes, holding the weight of the words you’re struggling to say, and behind them he can see cogs turning as you try to get the words in the right order. (He knows how that goes, because he’s been trying to figure out how to tell you, too.) He nods, urging you to keep going.

“I can’t get you out of my head. I really like you.”

He short-circuits, then. Even though part of him knew what you were going to say, hearing it out loud flips a switch inside him and he stops functioning. Blinking at you slowly, lips parted, heart racing – he feels as if his brain has been sucked clean out of his ears and is floating somewhere way above his head. Way outside of a contactable range, way beyond any level of rational decision-making. Jihoon knows what he wants to say, of course – he knows that he wants to say that he likes you, and that he has for a while, and that maybe you should let him take you out on a date or something, but all of that sits just behind the barrier of his teeth, so…

He leans forward and kisses you, instead.

He almost can’t believe that he’s only wanted this for as short of a time as he has; it feels like it’s been building inside him for so much longer. Relief floods through his veins, the emotional dam finally breaching. It only lasts a few seconds, but with his lips pressed to yours and yours pressing back, the static in his brain goes quiet, the movie falls silent: everything stops, except you. He thinks you could’ve been carved from stone around each other — he thinks something just feels so inexplicably right. Your hand tightens in his hair and he gasps softly as he pulls an inch back, eyes heavily lidded and looking straight at you through his lashes. You move forward, leaning your forehead against his, and the feather-light hold he has on your chin slides up to your cheek instead. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how to-…” he says after a long, long moment of remembering how to breathe, how to blink, how to exist in your space without combusting on the spot. He still isn’t sure he knows how to do any of those things, especially not now he can see every single line of your face this close. He’s trying, though. “But — shit, I’m crazy about you.”

You kiss him, then, harder than before, colliding in a mess of half-finished breaths and bumped, stinging noses. His other hand comes up to sit against your rib cage, yours pressing into the material of his t-shirt over his chest. He smiles and parts his lips as yours move against them, your tongue gently sweeping into his mouth, finding his own; a soft, low moan tickles the back of his throat, his fingertips curling slightly to tighten his hold. 

Jihoon isn’t sure how you end up on your knees, straddled astride his legs with one of his hands tucked between your thigh and calf, the other on the curve of your ass — he just knows that he doesn’t mind one bit. You’re warm and comfortable, the arch of your back pressing you into him deliciously. He’s kissing you like his life depends on it (he really fears that it might), and you’re doing the same back, licking against his tongue and rocking slightly with every separation and reconnection of your lips. He feels your fingers brush at the hem of his t-shirt and slip just underneath at the same moment as you pull away from him, and he’s so dazed, so fuzzy, so lost in you that he can only tilt his head back to stare up at your face. In your current position, you’re towering over him. It’s easily the best view he’s ever had.

“Can I-…?” you ask breathlessly. The new roughness to your voice goes straight to his cock and he has to restrain himself from bucking his hips upwards.

“Yeah,” he says, leaning forward slightly to try and aid you. Your hands tug at the bottom of his shirt and peel it up over his chest: he raises his arms slightly and soon, you can toss it to the unoccupied side of the couch. He shivers slightly as he relaxes back, both at the chill in your unheated apartment and upon noticing the way you’re staring down at him. It’s addictive. 

“Oh my God,” you whisper, jaw a little slack, smoothing your hands over his shoulders to feel every ridge of hard-earned muscle. You travel down his arms, over to his chest, down his stomach… Jihoon sucks in a breath, your warm hands absolutely searing against his skin, and his abdominals tighten beneath them. Tilting your head, you press a line of kisses down the side of his neck, your lips brushing against one almost unbearably sensitive spot when you continue. “Fuck, you’re so hot.”

He smiles bashfully, rolling his head to the side and giving you all the access you want. Your lips tickle euphorically against him as he tugs you flush against his chest, both his hands now tightly pressing against your ass, fingers kneading the muscle concealed by your pants. You’re sitting right over his clothed cock and he’s reasonably sure he can feel your pulse between your thighs, letting out a soft grunt when you roll your hips deliberately down into his own. Your kisses travel to the swell at the curve of his shoulder before moving back up to his lips, where he meets you with a fire that he’s never kissed anyone with, before.

“Says you,” he murmurs into your mouth, your teeth clashing, his hips pushing slightly up off the couch. Just enough to make you sit back from him, just enough for Jihoon to open his eyes and look at you. His hair, thoroughly scrunched up and pulled around by your desperately gripping fingers, fans out at all sorts of angles and his chest has taken on a rosy hue since you last looked at it. With swollen, shiny lips, glossy eyes, breathing deep, he looks completely blissed out, like a man who could unravel beneath you if you moved just right. All from a little tongue action. He’d usually feel embarrassed, but it’s hard to when you’re the person on top of him; to be honest, neither of you would mind much if he did.

You’re pushing yourself up and off him before he can really get his bearings and an audible whine of despair parts his lips at the loss of your weight against his cock. Fuck, these jeans were a bad idea: he’s straining against the denim so much that it hurts, and there’s a near perfect outline of his hard-on. He stops pouting the second you take hold of his hand and tug him upright, though, your eyes dark and determined and intense. He thinks he might faint, actually: from standing too fast and feeling as though all the blood in his body is pulsing through his aching dick, he has to take a moment to stop the edges of his vision going dark before you’re pulling him through to your bedroom.

Something flips inside him the second you have him there. Jihoon, who was more than happy to sit beneath you and let you take all the control in the living room, is pushing you back onto the mattress by your shoulder and slotting himself between your parted thighs the moment the door is closed behind him. He’s past the point of wanting you, now: he needs you, and he needs you to need him, too. 

And God, do you. You prop yourself up on one elbow, staring at where he’s now leaning over you with wide eyes and your bottom lip drawn between your teeth. He bends down and kisses along your jawline in response, nipping gently just below your ear. Your back arches up and in a flash, one of his hands is beneath you, snapping open the clasp on your bra with a few slides of his fingers.

“Wh-…” you start, giggling and panting at the same time. He smirks against your pulse point. 

He flattens his tongue against you and licks a salty bead of sweat off your skin. “What?”

“Had no idea you could-…” You’re cut off by a gasp as one of his hands slides under your sweater, slipping beneath the garment he just unfastened. His fingertips graze over your breast and a pleading sob escapes you. His smile grows even wider. “You were so…”

“So what?” he prompts, pinching your nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Another one of those beautiful sounds breaks the air above you. He does it again, massaging your breast with the palm of his hand. “Come on… talk to me.”

“So good,” you gasp, lying down flat and tilting your head back against the pillows. He rocks forwards to press his cock against you again and your thighs tighten around his hips, one leg hooking around his to keep him there. “So-… fucking good.”

You’re so impossibly irresistible to him, especially like this, and he sits up, settling on his knees to look down at you. Jihoon doesn’t even get the chance to move his hands towards the hem of your sweater to tug it off you though: you’re already grabbing it yourself, crossing your arms to pull it over the top of your head. He can see your bra now, and hell, it’s pretty even if it is just hanging off you. Baby pink and lacy. He thumbs over the material as he helps you pull it down your arms, briefly letting himself wonder if-…

“If only you’d been patient enough to see the set together.”

Oh, so you can read his mind now, too? 

You glance down to the small space between your bodies and his eyes follow, lips slightly parted, a heavy sigh on his breath. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck — he wishes he had. Even imagining it, he’s throbbing.

“You wear all this for me?” he asks, hands creeping up the insides of your thighs. You nod up at him and he smiles down at you. “Fuck. I bet you didn’t even need my help tonight at all, did you?”

You’re bucking your hips now as his thumb brushes, agonisingly slowly, over your clothed cunt. One arm has come up to cover your face: for the first time, he acts on his impulsive need to see you shy, see you needy, and leans over you to gently pull it away and pins your wrist down against the mattress. He kisses you, his fingers on the other hand pressing slightly more firmly to where he’s pretty sure your clit is.

“Y/n, you’re so pretty. Let me see you.”

“I didn’t,” you admit, voice wobbling as he works you up so much you’re actually soaking through not just your pretty underwear, but the leggings you’ve had on all night, too. He can feel it against the pad of his thumb and he raises his eyebrows for you to continue. “Just… really wanted you to come over…”

“Mhm. I know,” he soothes, bending low again and kissing down towards your chest. His lips purse over one of your nipples and he sucks it up into his mouth, flicking his tongue over the bud. He releases your wrist with the hand currently taking most of his weight and leans on his elbow, teasing your other tit with his fingers. The weight of it in his palm has him murmuring soft praises against your skin, telling you over and over how good you feel. You push up onto your elbows to try and press him closer — when his teeth tug just slightly, you’re about ready to beg.

“Jihoon, please,” you murmur. He short-circuits, again. Goes blank. His name has always sounded so much sweeter on your tongue, but this? This? Oh, he doesn’t know if he’s ever going to recover. That sound is going to stick in his head for days, months, forever, if he has anything to say about it. But even if his brain isn’t working, his body moves on autopilot: he sits up and hooks his fingers under your waistband, pulling your pants down your legs and discarding them onto the floor. 

He’s staring between your thighs with zero functioning brain cells and literal galaxies in his eyes, trying to figure out what cosmic miracle brought someone like you into his life, how on Earth he’s ended up between your thighs. The question is so overwhelming in his mind that he barely notices that you’re moving, at first. Jihoon doesn’t know what causes you to try and bring your thighs together — if it’s shyness or arousal, desperation, a search for friction? — but he stops you as soon as he realises, laying a hand on each of your legs, pinning your knees down now, instead.

“Keep your legs wide for me?” he asks, to which you punctuate a nod with an assenting hum. “Good girl.” 

You’re so wet that when he strokes two fingers over your covered pussy, pressing the fabric of your panties into your heat, they come away thinly coated in the arousal that’s seeped through them. He brings his fingers to his lips then, eyes fluttering as he licks your slick off them. You taste otherworldly and he doesn’t hesitate to tell you so with a groan.

“God,” he murmurs, tugging at the waistband of your panties with his other hand. His eyes ask if you’re ready — if you’re sure, and when you nod down at him, he pulls them off completely too. His middle finger slips between your folds, collecting the wetness dribbling out of you, and he drags it slowly upwards towards your clit. He repositions himself again, leaning down over you with his head at your neck, the heel of his hand resting against your lower abdomen. He draws small circles over the bud, laying open-mouthed kisses at your collarbone and listening to the gorgeous sounds you make, learning what you like, following each gasp and moan and chasing as many of them as he can draw out of you.   

At the same time as you start rocking your hips up to meet his hand, your nails scratching gently against his scalp again, Jihoon slips his finger down from your swollen clit to press it inside you. You gasp, high-pitched and needy, your cunt spasming around his finger and pulling it in deeper. He’s only in up to his second knuckle but the way you keen for him has him pushing further until it’s buried inside your pussy completely. 

“S’this okay?” he asks, but he knows your answer thanks to your vocal responses to him already slowly easing his finger in and out, in and out. You nod your head almost aggressively as he glances up at your face, your eyes squeezed tightly shut, jaw tense, throat bobbing as you swallow hard. 

“More — please,” you say not long after. A breath hitches in your throat when he does exactly what you ask, pressing the heel of his hand against your clit and positioning another finger at your entrance. He flexes his wrist slightly to get comfortable, pumping both fingers into you now, and he curls them upwards at just the right time to make your back arch off the bed. “Fuck — mhm, just like that—…”

He moves down your body slightly, reattaching his lips to one of your nipples as he fingers you deep and slow. He’s in no rush: Jihoon thinks he could do this all day and just deal with the RSI later on. You look so unbelievably hot with your face scrunched in pleasure, your thighs quivering as you fight to keep them apart like he asked you to, with your hips twisting down against his hand to try and get his fingers deeper and faster. When he lowers himself all the way down, settling completely between your thighs, he flicks his tongue out over your clit and your back arches up off the bed with a gasp.

“Don’t stop,” you whine, all high-pitched and rushed, both syllables merging into one hurried sound. “Fuck, fuck — please, don’t stop.”

“I’m not going to,” he murmurs, keeping pace and rhythm as he works you towards your high. God, he thinks there couldn’t possibly be anything in the world more sexy than watching you come undone from this angle. Your chest rising and falling in stuttered breaths, your hips rocking down against his hand, your pussy right on his mouth. Just the thought of it has his cock jumping in his boxers. “You gonna come for me, huh?”

“I-…” you start, releasing your death-grip on the bedsheets to bring a hand to cover your face. He clears his throat deliberately — perhaps it’s sort of closer to a growl than a cough — and he thinks maybe you really can read his mind, or maybe you’re learning that he wants to see every inch of you (especially like this), because a second later, it’s tangled up in his hair and holding him in place. “Y-yeah, fuck, I…”

“Good girl,” he coos again, and that breaks you. Your pussy tightens around his fingers and you feel yourself convulse, muscles clenching and releasing as you go over the edge with a cry. He eases you through your climax, tongue laving over your clit, fingers slowing but not stopping inside your cunt until your thighs close around his head in your oversensitivity. He takes the hint, then, and he slowly pulls away, sucking his fingers clean of your arousal while you take a few breaths to recover.

“Oh, my God,” you sigh as he moves back up and starts pressing small pecks over your chest and collarbones, your fingers lacing through his hair again to pull him up to kiss you. You groan softly at the taste of yourself on his lips, and can’t blame you. He still isn’t over it, either.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he tells you in-between kisses, one hand supporting the back of your neck to keep you close. “So pretty. So sweet. So good.”

“Shh,” you giggle, but he doesn’t. Just about every adoring adjective Jihoon has in his arsenal is murmured against your lips until you’ve gathered enough strength to get up on your knees and push him back onto the mattress, fumbling with the button of his jeans. 

He groans at the relief as you tug them down over his hips and thighs. “We don’t have to do anything else if you’re—”

“Shh.” This one’s a little more insistent, and he makes a show of clamping his lips back together. “You wore the tightest jeans on the planet, had your cock on-fucking-display for me all evening, and you think I wanna stop now?”

His jaw falls slack at the words that come out of your mouth. The incredulous way with which you say them has him involuntarily bucking up into nothing. Your expression matches his when you finally get his jeans all the way off and his thin, black boxer-briefs are the only barrier between you. The outline of his cock strains against them, tenting the fabric: Jihoon doesn’t miss the way you lick over your lips before glancing up at him through your eyelashes. It’s your turn to give him the look, now, asking that this last part is okay, with your fingertips hooked underneath the elastic waistband. He nods feverishly up at your heavy gaze.

“Please,” he groans, lifting his hips so you can pull them off. His length springs free the moment they’re pulled low enough, slapping back against his abdomen, sitting pretty against his toned muscles, thick and veiny and red-tipped. Desperate. His underwear joins the pile of clothes down the side of the bed as you throw one leg over him; sitting across his thighs, you take his cock into your hand, giving it a few gentle strokes. He fucks up into your palm when you squeeze your fingers around it.

“I need you so fucking bad,” you murmur, head spinning, and Jihoon isn’t in much of a better state himself; he’s fighting to keep his eyes open, fighting to keep his breaths coming. He sits upright, one arm behind him for support, and kisses you hard as you continue to tug at his length. 

“Need you, too,” he breathes, shifting so he has both arms around you. In a swift movement, muscles rippling, he lifts you off him and turns you over so he has you sitting on your now impossibly scrunched comforter.

He finds home back between your legs as you reach over into the drawer at your bedside and fumble around for a few seconds. He hears a little clatter and a rustling and when your hand resurfaces, you’ve pulled free a small foil square. You don’t even give him a chance to lean forward and take it; you’re ripping it open and looking up at him with the biggest doe-eyed stare he thinks he’s ever seen. He nods at the silent question, a grunt tumbling free as you roll the condom down his length. This is the most pathetic little bit of contact and he’s fighting demons.

“Okay?” he asks, shuffling back a little and giving you space to lie down flat on your back. You nod up at him, already wrapping your arms around his shoulders. 

“Mhm, just-... take it slow?” you ask him, anticipation rendering you already a little breathless. “S’been a while.” 

A grin blooms all the way from his lips to his eyes and he leans down to kiss you again, positioning his tip at your hole and pressing forward just enough to tease.

Your thighs tighten around his hips and he pushes himself further inside you with a stuttered groan, agonisingly slowly, inch by inch. He stills every few seconds, both to give you the time to adjust and so that he can take a steadying few breaths and not collapse at how good you feel wrapped around him; he stops pressing his hips forward before he’s fully sheathed inside your pussy and you let a whine slip, the stretch slowly easing. 

“You can move,” you tell him, laying a kiss to his chest. “I’m okay.” 

Jihoon gives a soft laugh. Oh, he wishes this was just to be polite, but no. He’s in real danger of losing control any second. “Yeah, this isn’t for you, baby.”

“Oh?” you ask. You clamp around him and he gasps at the tightness, hips jerking forward until he’s buried up to the hilt. Fuck, there’s a bruised cervix if you’ve ever had one; a high-pitched whine erupts out of your lips and he ducks his head down to your ear.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You just-... fuck, you feel so good.”

“Mm, says you.” 

It’s another moment before he thrusts with intent, though. But when he does? When he pulls out halfway before sliding all the way back inside you, losing and regaining the feeling of your heat enveloping him entirely, hearing your gasps against his collarbone? The invisible reigns holding him back unravel and he settles into a slow but intensely deep rhythm, guiding your legs around his waist. You hook your ankles behind his back and somehow, you suck him in deeper still, your bodies touching everywhere they possibly can, so impossibly close.

The arm not holding his weight slides beneath your hips and raises them just a little. Now, at this angle, every time he rolls into you he grazes against your sweet-spot and you’re reduced to an incoherent mess within a few minutes. Good, he thinks, because he’s not doing much better, himself.

You hug him tighter after one particularly well-angled thrust, sinking your teeth into the muscle of his shoulder. He hisses at the sting, and your lips part as if you’re about to apologise but he doesn’t give you the chance to; he bumps your nose with his own to ask you to lift your head slightly, before he bends down and kisses you hard.

“Do that again,” he gasps, almost all of his weight against you as the hand not around your hips comes up to rest on your cheek. When your brows tighten, he swipes his thumb over your spit-covered, swollen lips. “Please. ”

So, you do.

Maybe not as harshly as the first time, but your teeth find his collarbone and you suck a bruise into his skin, drawing from him the highest pitched sound you think he could possibly make. He squares his jaw, ducking his head back down, biting on his bottom lip before he has no choice but to speak.

“I’m close, y/n,” he confesses, fucking into you slower, trying to stave it off for a few more seconds, his hips stuttering. “Can-... can you give me one more…?”

You nod, the knot in your stomach already growing tighter and tighter with every movement he makes, and when one of your hands unwinds from around his back to slide between your sweat-slicked bodies, he moves slightly away, letting you reach down.

It’s the sight of two of your fingers finding your clit and rubbing your favourite movements out on yourself that takes him past the point of no return, his cock sliding in and out of you messily, desperately, chasing the high that he’s right on the brink of. He kisses and nips just below your ear, breathy groans tickling your neck, and your high-pitched whine tells him you’ve hit your orgasm just as he starts to spill his into the condom, gushing around him, your walls fluttering and milking him for all he’s worth. 

—

You offer for him to shower first – an offer he gratefully accepts. While you’re taking your turn afterwards, Jihoon hunts down a fresh duvet cover in your room; he changes it, grabs you a glass of water for when you’re done, and sits on the edge of his bed with just the towel wrapped around his waist, scrolling through his phone. He looks up with a bright grin as the door opens and you emerge through it in your pyjamas, glowing from the light behind you, stray droplets of water clinging to your arms. 

You pause gently rubbing your hair dry with the towel, eyes brightening when you see him. “You didn’t have to do all this,” you say, and he pushes a hand through his own still damp hair with a laugh.

“It was the least I could do,” he counters. You raise your eyebrows at him, crossing the room to sit opposite him. He drops his phone down onto the mattress. “I couldn’t leave and make you change them yourself.”

“Leave?” you ask, picking up one of his hands and playing idly with his fingers. 

“I mean, it’s getting pretty late, so…” he says. “I probably need to get going at some point.”

“Or…” you say, tongue darting out over your lips. “Maybe you don’t.”

Jihoon looks down at your hands, then back up at you. Are you suggesting what he thinks you are, or has he still not quite come back to himself from earlier? It’s hard to say if the look on your face is hope, or something else.

“Are you… asking me to stay?” he asks. 

“Only if you want to,” you tell him. He lifts your hands up, pressing a kiss to one of your knuckles, then using it to tug you closer to him until he can plant one on your own lips. “I’ve probably got an old t-shirt you could sleep in.”

“Of course I want to.”

So you slip away from him to go rummaging through your drawers, trying to find the promised article of clothing. The whole time, he’s awestruck. Jihoon can’t take his eyes off you.

——————

He wakes up next to you for the first time on a Saturday morning. His sleep-fogged brain registers lying on an unfamiliar mattress, tucked beneath new bedsheets, eyes fluttering open to take in a room he doesn’t quite recognise at first. Part of him wonders if he’s still dreaming. When he rolls over onto his side, and his eyes land on the curve of your shoulders, the fall of your hair down your back, he has to ask himself the same thing again. 

All of last night must’ve been a dream, he muses, smiling shyly to himself and watching your frame rise and fall with every slow breath you take. There’s no way you really told him you liked him, too. There’s no way any of it could have really happened.

“Y/n?” He asks in the gentlest of whispers, only wanting to stir you if you’re awake already. When there’s no response, he moves a tiny bit closer to you, hesitating before he slips his arm around your waist and settles with his chest pressed against your back. A wildly insecure part of his brain tries to argue that just because you wanted what happened last night, that doesn’t mean you want all of this now. Maybe you only wanted to sleep with him, or maybe you’ll have changed your mind somehow now the sun’s come up. He considers moving away again, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling until you wake up and he can have a real conversation about where both of your heads are at with everything, but he barely gets a chance.

Those thoughts are silenced almost immediately, his brain falling quiet the second you roll over in his arms. You bury your head in the valley between his pectorals, tucked away from the world beneath his chin. His arms tighten around your sleep-warmed body.

“What time is it?” You ask. He contains a shiver at the softness of your voice, bliss running the length of his spine. Jihoon thinks that he could get used to this.

“I don’t know. Early, I think,” he murmurs, and you whine softly, burrowing deeper against his chest. “Go back to sleep.”

“Not if you’re awake,” you say. He’s not entirely convinced you can stick to that promise, though, with the way you yawn and he feels your eyelashes fluttering. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he tells you, the tips of his fingers ticking against your side. He ducks his head, pressing a kiss to your hair. A soft hum rumbles in your throat and he can’t hold back the smile that spreads over his lips. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

True enough, you fall back asleep curled up against him and Jihoon, to the sounds of your slowing breaths, drifts off too. A few hours later, at a far more reasonable time, you wake him up with a press of your lips to the tip of his nose.

Innocent, exploratory kisses grow heated in the warmth of the sun that streams through your blinds. Hands start to travel, sleep clothes get discarded, and you have him lying on his back, pressing kisses down his chiselled stomach when his phone starts to vibrate on the floor next to the bed.

He groans at the distraction, again as you shuffle up to sit on your knees and look at him expectantly. 

“Are you gonna answer that?” you ask, the tips of your fingers grazing his thighs. He shakes his head, no. “Come on, Jihoon. It might be important.”

“Not important enough,” he sighs. 

“At least see who it is,” you laugh. Despite a huffed protest, he props himself up on one elbow, leaning over the side of the bed and glancing down at his phone screen.

Seungcheol.

The arrangement to go for a run this morning comes rushing back to Jihoon, who slaps a hand to his forehead and reaches down to grab his phone off the floor, looking at you apologetically.

“Give me two seconds,” he says, and you grin wickedly up at him, ducking low to press a kiss to one of the lines that disappears down into his boxers. 

“Take all the time you need.”

He answers the call frowning, flopping his head back against the pillows. 

“Hey, look – I’m really sorry,” he starts to say, but Seungcheol’s voice cuts him off almost straight away.

“Jihoon, where the hell are you? I got to your apartment and your car wasn’t here, and Seokmin said he didn’t hear you come home last night. We all thought you’d died,” he hurries. Jihoon can picture the expression on the other man’s face perfectly, which is pretty unfortunate seeing as how you’ve moved to start palming his hardening cock through his briefs.

“I stayed out,” Jihoon says, a little wobbly. “I can’t make the run, someth-... shit.” You press an open-mouthed kiss to the outline of his length, the heat of your breath through the fabric sending him into overdrive. “Something came up-...”

The line goes silent for a second, and his breath stutters as you do the same thing again. Each press of your lips is euphoric agony, and he’s really not hiding this as well as he wishes he could. One look down at you tells him that you’re very proud of that.

“Dude,” Seungcheol gasps, snickering suddenly. “Tell me you’re not with a girl right now.”

“Shut up. Go away,” Jihoon grunts. “I’ll call you later.”

“Oh my God, is it gym girl? Did you finally-...”

“Bye, Cheol,” he hurries, hanging up before his friend can say anything else. He drops his phone onto the mattress, fake-glaring down at you and shaking his head. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Yeah?” you ask, pulling at the waistband of his briefs to tug them down his legs. “Let me make it up to you, huh?”

[silkscream]

CHAPTER 9: GOD IS A CIRCLE

ੈ✩ gojo satoru x reader, geto suguru x reader

Your angels do not react. They only look at you with concern, shielding you from the blazing sun with their wings. They stare as you laugh, doubling over, falling backwards into the green grass. You only remember that you’re alive when they trace the contours of your body with their fingertips.

ੈ✩ chapter cw/tags: explicit content (18+ mdni) , unprotected sex, high sex, threesome, oral sex, fingering, graphic depictions of violence and blood, recreational drug usage, biblical imagery, angst

ੈ✩ wc: 5.5k

ੈ✩ a/n: i was barely conscious when i wrote this. sorry bout it

playlist ✸ read on ao3 ✸ series masterlist

August, 2009

Bliss is never eternal. If it was, you’d think the world would stop turning with everyone busy with their greatest indulgences. It’s not like you were much of a hedonist anyway, not even with Satoru’s influence.

You feel intoxicated with him and Suguru, but it’s not enough to keep you from reality. Yaga-sensei proves this the moment the boys are ordained the task of protecting the star plasma vessel—a fourteen-year-old girl with more spirit than you ever had at that age. You admire her spunk, her unwillingness to take shit from either of the boys. It entertains you endlessly.

“How do you deal with them?” she mutters to you. You learn that her name is Riko Amanai. She loves the ocean and has a sweet tooth like Satoru. Her favorite flavor is anything blue.

“I keep them in check.”

“Are you my bodyguard too?”

“Not really,” you laugh. “But I’ll be around.”

Riko likes you. She clings to you more than you anticipate, considering this isn’t your mission, but you understand. She’s vulnerable despite her confidence in her fate as Tengen’s vessel. Talks a big game with blue eyes shining bright, similar to Satoru. 

She pouts at your absence. You think nothing of it, knowing that she’s in good hands between the boys and that caretaker of hers. The bounty on the girl’s head is daunting, but the boys are the strongest, and you watch them evade the enemies easily. 

It’s when they end up in Okinawa that something in your chest feels a bit empty. A bad omen, anxiety pooling in your gut. 

Satoru texts you pictures from the beach—sea creatures from the ocean and the aquarium, selfies with Suguru that are often blurry. He texts you how much he misses you, how much he craves the parts of you that you think may be too intimate to even talk about out loud, let alone through text. Suguru sends you pictures of Riko and Satoru on the beach with the creatures they pick up from the ocean, of sunsets he knows you would enjoy.

You ache for their return. 

satoru: gonna stay for another day jsyk

you: having fun?

satoru: yeaaaa

satoru: tired as fuck though

satoru: but riko likes the beach. thought we could give her one more day

you: you’re sweet

satoru: not as sweet as uuuuuuuuu

satoru: she says hi btw

satoru: shes mad ur not here

you: she likes me more than you

satoru: >:(

you: i’ll see you soon. get some sleep please

satoru: anything for u baby

Something has gone terribly wrong. 

You have no reason to be worried—Satoru is more than capable of handling that assassin, no matter how swift his movements may be. It was whiplash to see a sword go through him, and it was whiplash to see Satoru react like it was a paper cut.

Now, in the Tombs of the Star, you feel a chill run up your spine as you escort Kuroi out. She’s still emotional, wiping tears after her goodbye to Amanai. Trepidation strikes you the same way it did in that forest all those months ago. The air has grown cold, but you can’t sense any other cursed energy but your own.

“Kuroi,” you breathe.

“Yes?” She sniffles, wiping her tears quickly.

“Go on without me,” you say cautiously. “I think I better guard the Tomb just in case. For Geto.”

“Alright. Thank you for being there for them.” Kuroi smiles at you with a warmth you aren’t sure that you deserve.

“I wasn’t the one protecting her.”

“I know, but she admired you a lot. We missed you in Okinawa.”

You pull her into a hug, one that you wish you’d given Riko moments prior. It’s a parting gift. 

When she departs, you’re left alone in a dark hallway. You expect a spirit to jump out — something monstrous, an amalgamation of your nightmares. But this is a sacred place, you suppose. One meant for sacrifices and blessings. You’ve never really believed in blessings. The world is built on too many curses for that.

Something in the air made you want to choke, swallow back bile. Nothing like your old anxiety spells. It’s something else, you’re sure of it. And yet, it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. The rustle of fabric. 

He couldn’t go undetected, not completely. Not when your intuition was on overdrive, making you sick with it. Your senses acute. 

“Haven’t seen you before.”

His voice is raspy, the sound of skinned palms on pavement. Deep the way Japanese whiskey burns down and sits in your stomach a little too heavy. There’s a split on the corner of his mouth as if he’d been nicked by a thorn. He smiles at you with lazy, bovine eyes and a snake-like smirk. 

This man is not a figment of your imagination — he’s real as can be as he towers over you, yet there’s not a lick of cursed energy you can feel, even when you’re this close to him. A human.

You think about Satoru and the sword that went through his chest. You look at the sword that the stranger in front of you wields. Within a second, you rush to touch him, but your technique doesn’t activate as soon as you want it, too. He slashes you across the stomach, crimson permeating the torn fabric of your uniform.

“Weak little girl,” he chides. “You’re too pretty to kill, though.”

You gag, nearly vomiting on the ground. 

“You their girlfriend or what? Would’ve thought they were fucking each other, to be honest.”

You shake your head weakly, your vision blurring already. You hear a bark of a laugh. Not even your bared teeth can be taken seriously, not when you’re bleeding out on the ground. He tuts as if he’s scolding you.

“He’ll kill you,” you hiss. The man laughs again. You must be referring to one of your boys. He grins wider when he realizes. 

“Which one? The one with the bangs?” he scoffs. “Because I already killed the Gojo brat, sweetheart.”

You feel your heart drop, sinking like an anchor as the feeling drags your body down with it. You look at him with wide eyes, and the sadistic stare you get back tells you he wants to humiliate you. It would hurt less if he just killed you.

Satoru would never die by the hand of a non-sorcerer. Not a fucking chance. But the notion doesn’t stop the itch behind your nose, your eyes threatening tears. The man crouches, his face looking down at you in mock sympathy, and places a rough palm to your face, swipes your quivering bottom lip. You taste blood.

You clutch his wrist immediately and he raises his hand.

Something metal whips the side of your face, something heavy. Your sight of vision narrows into black.

When you wake, you aren’t sure if you’ve arrived in a nightmare or had just left one.

For one, Satoru is saturated in blood. The scratches on his face are brutal. He looks half feral, half shell-shocked. It’s nothing you’ve seen before.

Despondency paints Suguru’s face into a shadow of himself. There’s something off about their cursed energy.

You don’t want to ask them how the rest of the mission went — you can already tell what the answer might be. If everything went according to plan, there wouldn’t be a blank stare in each of their eyes. If everything was fine, they would return to you like themselves — animated and flirty and teasing. If everything was the way it was meant to be, maybe you wouldn’t have the slight scar of a side wound aching at the side of your gut.

Instead, they’re all business. It’s like they look through you when they speak to you.

“Is Riko…” you trail off.

“She’s dead,” they say.

They deliver the news to you, expressionless. Mirroring each other.

There’s a blankness in Satoru’s eyes. Cold. No one exactly knows how to deal with being killed only to bring yourself back again. The thought of his mangled body surrounded by flyheads makes your stomach churn. 

He had always been god-like, prodigal. After being reborn, he really was a God. Untouchable. You’d think him to be cockier or more cruel, but on the surface, he’s devoid of anything, really. He’s stony-eyed, instead, a little empty behind the face. There’s a spark of something when he sees the large bruise on your cheekbone and the ghost of a slash on your rib.

He won’t say much about the man who killed him. Only that he had no cursed energy and a son. You remember a scar bending with the curve of a mouth and sharp green eyes.

It’s quiet at Jujutsu Tech afterward. Yaga continues classes like he always does, and all of you do your best. There are fewer missions that are being demanded of you. You think it’s because of the failed mission. Despite this, Satoru takes on whatever he can, even volunteering for the tougher ones just so he can let off some steam. Suguru often tags along with him, leaving you alone to sulk.

You don’t think you have any reason to sulk. It’s not like you were killed, anyway.

You feel them both pulling away. You don’t bother to pry — they at least seem to be occupied with each other. They were best friends before you ever got close to either of them. You knew your place. You’d give them space, knowing the gravity of the trauma they’d experienced on the mission, and yet your heart ached all the same. It was a familiar hurt, the same you’d felt in high school about Satoru. It was only peculiar now because those feelings applied to both of them.

But then there are times when Satoru sneaks into your room like he always does. He likes to nip at your shoulder with teeth that feel sharper, meaner. Hand around your throat, the calluses squeezing flesh. He likes to pin you down to the mattress, likes to hear the squeak of the bedframe as he fucks into you mercilessly.

Suguru takes you, too, but not so desperately, not so obviously. He lures you in, instead. You realize that he’s different than Satoru in the way that he has the patience for games. It explains the teasing, the touching. He’ll have you wrapped around his finger just from talking to you, and within the hour, he’ll be fucking into your soaked cunt in the locker rooms after sparring.

You suppose this is the way they both let out their frustrations, how they cope with the trauma of losing Riko. They were tightlipped about her. 

Both of them had changed in ways that were beyond your comprehension.

Satoru gets colder. Similar to the way he was in high school, when he barely acknowledged you. He doesn’t like to look at you for very long, as if the mere fact of his gaze on you would hurt him, hurt you. It was stupid. He didn’t care about your fragility before, so what point was there to care about it now?

Suguru is mostly the same, just quieter. Hell, he’d always been quiet, other than the times he’d fuck you or when you’d be alone with him. His sarcastic streak was weaker. He touched you less.

You can’t stand any of it.

Satoru isn’t meant to be someone so vulnerable. It’s out of character for him. 

You soothe his nightmares when he wakes you up in the middle of the night clutching your waist with nails digging into the skin underneath your shirt. He’s always shaking, always mumbling something nonsensical.

Selfishly, you find that it feels nice to be needed. To be his only form of salvation during these times.

In his waking moments, Satoru is himself again. Belligerently so, with his recklessness. It’s up to you and Suguru to tame him, often. Satoru is almost a different version of himself – familiar and still annoying — but he is much more adamant about his power, nowadays. A God complex in the making.

Satoru gets greedier. He likes to wake you up with his nose nudging your clit, tongue already making a mess of your hole. No amount of pushing his head away with your hand would make him stop, though you blame yourself for indulging.

He likes to tease you for the semblance of control. You suspect that beyond playing with you, he finds solace in Suguru, instead. They aren’t particularly shy about it—sometimes you walk into Satoru’s dorm and find them entangled with one another, clothes off and warm to the touch. They always welcome you into their arms, forcing you in between them. 

You feel like you’re at an arm’s length from them at all times despite this. 

November, 2009

You settle on a routine. It’s less than pleasant, but you’re used to it. Convincing yourself that it’s normal, at least.

Yaga puts you on more solo missions — you’ve improved your technique. The precision of it is tough, always a wildcard given the unpredictability of destruction beneath your fingertips. Regardless, it’s gotten better. It doesn’t traumatize you so much to be a vehicle of decay anymore. You’re numb to it.

It’s odd — you’re carrying the burden of something you didn’t experience. Satoru finds that you are a mirror for Suguru, the same temperament and all. Always leaving the party to smoke cigarettes together. It doesn’t make him pissy necessarily, but it makes him pout. Clingy to the both of you.

“Stop being antisocial,” he whines.

You and Suguru look up at him in question. He had followed you out of the party when you saw Satoru’s hand on the waist of a girl you didn’t recognize. It was nothing, probably, but it wasn’t something you had ever had to deal with. It wasn’t like he could pry anything out of you, anyway.

“We’re not,” you defend, waving a cigarette around. “It’s too hot in there.”

It was true, to be fair. You were too warm in there and the outside air was nice. That, and you figured that Suguru would follow you, and he always wanted to steal you away for kisses.

Satoru had technically intruded on that, interrupting the moment Suguru had pulled away from your mouth. He eyes you wearing Suguru’s jacket and softens.

“You wanna go home, don’t you?” he asks.

“I can stay if you want,” you shrug.

He sighs. “Can you guys at least hang out with me?”

“Needy,” Suguru teases, stomping the butt of his cigarette on the ground and ushering you in between the sliding glass doors, hand on the small of your back. He nips at Satoru’s neck on the way in. 

As if in apology, you don’t leave Satoru’s lap for the rest of the night. You don’t really get to. He even follows you to the bathroom and considers taking you over the counter for the hell of it.

It’s been difficult to touch you, lately.

In late August, the Zen’in outcast had killed him. Satoru had never thought of death as an option that was even possible. It’s why his mind was frenzied in his last moments, panicked as the two of them were surrounded by fly heads. He had not anticipated death, hadn’t anticipated the impact of it, how Suguru would have to return his corpse to Jujutsu Tech. How you would be shedding overflowing tears.

He’d like to think that your face or Suguru’s was in his mind when he took his last breath, but truthfully, he doesn’t remember. His mind was blank.

And when he had risen from the dead and shot a lethal hole through Toji Fushiguro, his mind was blank then, as well. The euphoria had faded. He had fulfilled the ordained role of a boygod, his hands were bloody, and he killed a man who would leave behind a son. He thought of his supposed immortality, his transcendence beyond something human, and then he thought of you.

You were the most human thing about him.

Your warmth, the flush in your cheeks. The way he had taken you back when you were in school, none the wiser about the world of curses. Sometimes he thinks you are one. 

It wasn’t meant to go this far, but he had taken the leap and continued to wade in the pool of it all. He does not think of love when he thinks of his family, but he thinks of love when he sees you and Suguru. Something beating, something alive.

It was why he was constantly tipping the line between overflowing completely and being numb — Satoru was no stranger to his indulgences. You, on the other hand, were something else entirely. Fragile underneath his hands. Sometimes, he didn’t even think it was worth it to keep you in the bear trap he had set for you.

And then Suguru would kiss away your tears when Satoru was too rough, too cold, and he would succumb to his desires again. Instead of being something akin to a god, he often dreamt about being ordinary. 

Maybe if his birth didn’t throw the planet off its kilter, he could truly be good to you instead of wanting to cut you open and live inside of you. Satoru would always be safe in your skin, but he had started to doubt that you would ever be safe in his.

You were the first to know him, he thinks. You had met him as a child and didn’t assume his divinity, rather, you were oblivious to it. Even as a little servant, you refused to kiss his feet. It relieved him. Satoru knew you always meant more to him than a toy, but in his emerging adulthood, he had taken you as a form of escapism and couldn’t cut you off. You had fastened yourself to him like an extra limb unknowingly. 

“I don’t get how you can be so overbearing to her yet so distant at the same time,” Suguru remarks. 

Satoru makes a face, scrunching his nose.

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I genuinely don’t know what you’re referring to,” Satoru says blankly.

“The teasing goes too far. And you get insensitive because you’re a prick, and then you barely text her back when you’re on missions.”

Satoru scoffs, fiddling with the pencil he twirls in his hands. Suguru was right, he supposed. He noticed you were a little hollow, all blank stares. Sleeping in while Satoru did not sleep at all. 

“They’ve gotten harder lately. And it’s not like I’m–”

“Not what?” Suguru snorts. “Her boyfriend?”

Satoru says nothing to this. Instead, he tackles Suguru onto his bed, slides his palms underneath his shirt and up the smooth planes of his abdomen. He sighs, setting his head on Suguru’s chest.

“It’s not like she cares.”

“She does. She loves you.”

Satoru’s face reddens as if what Suguru says isn’t fact. On Satoru’s end, however – his feelings for you were an understatement. Calling it love seemed fruitless. He’d like to be fused with you, never letting you go. Stuck in the bliss of your skin kissing his in the early mornings forever.

“Think something got knocked loose when I died,” Satoru mumbles, his eyes blank.

Suguru looks at him in question, not following.

“I’ll make it up to her.”

January, 2010

“What are you getting Suguru for his birthday?”

“I don’t know,” Satoru shrugs, a blue raspberry lollipop filling up the hollow of his cheek. Tongue matching the blinding saturation of his eyes. “A blowjob?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Don’t be homophobic! You like watching.”

“I’m serious,” you roll your eyes.

“We’ll take him out,” he grins, shoving his hands in his pockets. Always stupidly attractive, his beauty borderline mythological.

You knew he was lying, knew that he would be away on that Wednesday, that his calendar was always filled a month prior with what the higher-ups needed from him. You thought it was unfair, given that he was still only a second year, though you still knew better. The glaring truth of his strength ever since the failed Star Plasma Vessel mission was conspicuous, a reminder that started to become egregious to you. 

Satoru takes some of your takoyaki in unspoken amusement with you rolling your eyes, passing the tray towards him. He pouts despite the gesture, reaching over to poke you in the cheek.

“That can’t taste good with all the sugar in your mouth.”

“You’d be surprised.”

You fixate on the television. Satoru had gotten lucky recently, convincing Yaga to convert one of the common rooms with the connected bathroom into a dorm for himself. He had the Gojo money to “donate”, and he’d been on his best behavior in the past few months, which was rare. It wasn’t like Yaga really gave a fuck about their boarding situation as long as the missions went smoothly. 

The room was big enough to fulfill that dream of pushing two beds together. A TV set and dingy couch to match. He needed the TV to fall asleep at night, especially if you weren’t there to stroke his hair. It was the only light source beyond a Hello Kitty lava lamp that Suguru had gotten him as a joke gift.

Satoru had recently started an obsession with Godzilla for some reason, forcing you to watch one every few days before bedtime. You were going in order since Christmas – tonight was the one versus Hedorah.

“You never look at me anymore,” he whines.

“What are you talking about?”

You’d rather say something biting, like how it was the other way around. How he’s been shoving your face into the mattress. How you’d come back to your dorm and see Satoru in between Suguru’s legs without much acknowledgment to you until he’d finish. 

“You look at me like I’m a mosquito bite or something. What’s wrong? You don’t think I’m pretty anymore?” he grins, settling his cheek into his palm.

“Not at all. You’re hideous,” you deadpan, crossing your arms. The remark earns you a light kick to your shin under the table.

“Wow. Rude. Personally, I think you’re God-sent.”

“I thought you wanted me to watch this movie,” you mutter, trying not to let him know how much his comment affected you. You always flushed when he said things like that still, and it would always be out of the blue.

“You know I like talking during movies.”

“Right. It’s one of your worst qualities,” you sigh.

The pillows around you are discarded when he suddenly pins you down to the carpet, your face right next to an old ash stain from one of Shoko’s cigarettes. He grins as he parts your mouth with the pad of his thumb, and you’re as obedient as you always are. There’s a ribbon of saliva from his mouth stretching as he takes the lollipop from his tongue to yours. 

It wasn’t difficult to get his dick hard, really. He’d known that ever since he’d seen you sprawled on the grass next to the track field when you were fourteen, the way your chest was heaving and your underwear was just slightly visible underneath your gym shorts when you parted your legs. 

Satoru thinks you’d laugh in his face if he’d told you about all the times he thought about you when you were teenagers despite the fact that he didn’t speak to you at all. He knows that he would deserve it.

It’s funny. He used to resent you then. He knew he could have you if he’d simply tried a bit harder, if he didn’t so abruptly toss you aside in middle school. Even so, you were everywhere for him—in his dreams, in his house against your will like a chained ghost. Back then, he hated that he loved you, hated that you were weak, hated that, at least besides Suguru, nobody knew him except you.

He wonders briefly if he was high on the taste of you or if the candy is laced with something— he wouldn’t be surprised, since Shoko and Suguru were enablers for the two of you even when you tried to be responsible. It didn’t matter anyway. Your body always made him this frenetic.

It’s when his fingers graze the heat of your cunt that Suguru barges in. He blinks at the two of you entangled on the floor and merely laughs.

“You guys just started?”

“Mmmf,” Satoru grunts. His hand’s wrapped around your neck, now, and your eyes are closed. 

Suguru’s musk fills the room. White pine and sugary maple — he’d used Satoru’s deodorant before the mission. There’s still a blood splatter under his cheekbone the color of ripe plums. This was the usual weekend routine. Mindless fucking with a movie in the background. At least one of you would be too exhausted to muster up the energy to go into the city. It was easier to indulge inside, especially when the temperature kept dipping.

Your eyes flutter as Satoru bites your neck down to your collarbone. When you look toward the couch, you see Suguru with a plastic baggie of something you don’t recognize.

“What’s that?”

“Shrooms.”

“How the hell did you manage that?” Satoru quips, his hand digging into your hip. 

“There are some freaks in Akihabara,” Suguru shrugs. He eats the mushrooms like they’re crumbs at the bottom of a chip bag. “Got this shit after my mission in a fucking vending machine outside a love hotel. Can you believe it?”

“What, did you get a room there or something?” Satoru snorts. “Whore.”

“Why would I, when I can home to this?” Suguru’s eyes are viper-like, serpentine as he smiles lazily. You’d eat from his palm if he asked you to. In sickness and health—it was stupid. You crawl to him and you do.

Satoru doesn’t take any. He knows full well that psychedelics fuck with his Infinity, that it would only make his insomnia worse. The last time he’d tried acid, he had nightmares for days, seeing green eyes of a hunter. Blood slashed from a blade to his neck. Flyheads swarming.

The drugs make you giddy. Another hour and the room spins in an orderly fashion, the ceiling dancing around in a kaleidoscopic pulse. Suguru had limited your dose, knew you’d freak the fuck out if your self started to disconnect. He’d been there enough times to despise it. Ego death was torture for the introspective kind.

He sucks a hickey into your neck while you’re mindless. It’s amusing how invested you are in this episode of Sailor Moon. Satoru lays his head on your thigh, playing with you lazily. You’re happy enough to take it, grinding against his hand as Suguru distracts you with a kiss. It’s tender and slow, not unusual for him, but with the two of them together, everything is usually frenzied.

He gets you in his lap, the sacrificial lamb you are. Always eager to walk into the predator’s gaping maw on your own accord because of his beautiful eyes. Suguru is no beast, but there’s something twisted about the way he plays with you sometimes.

He likes you to beg for it, but it’s not the taunting way that Satoru does. Suguru will inch his face close enough to yours to smell the artificial sweetness of your breath, then pull your hair when you lean in to kiss him. He’ll touch your thigh under the table, not unlike Satoru, but his fingers will dance around your core in a way that leaves you unable to speak to your fellow peers.

You wonder if they’ve learned their cruelty from each other. But this time, he’s sweet.

It’s the hallucinogen fogging his brain. It makes him like a teenager in love. Open-mouthed, pawing love handles. You’re wearing Satoru’s t-shirt, something monochromatic and stupidly expensive, and Suguru tears it off of you as his mouth waters.

Coughing, Satoru tilts his head, supports it with elbows on the carpet. His temperament is neutral, teasing even, but for some reason, looking at him makes you sober up to some degree of lucidity that’s sensitive to him. The part of you that wants to please him at all times.

You crawl to him and say his name. It’s child-like. The shrooms make your eyes wide, colors innocence onto your face from the bliss. It reminds him of when you were younger—bruised knees and twigs in your hair from tumbling in the forest with him. Something tugs at his chest.

“You tryin’ to seduce me?” Satoru jeers, tongue licking his teeth. His palm on your face is hot.

You smile and nod. His gaze lowers and he snaps the waistband of your sweats against your hip. Hand on your thigh again, taunting your synapses. You think he’ll take you with his usual ferocity, but he steals your breath with a kiss instead. 

The kiss never ends. Maybe they switch in between, but you don’t notice. Your eyes are shut, tight enough to see phosphenes like a galaxy. Blue and purple bleeding into your irises. You feel them pulling you apart, cock filling you up, hands everywhere.

“Fuck,” someone gasps. Something like groveling, desperate hair pulling.

“Inside,” you beg. “Please.”

Satoru watches, mesmerized. The heat of your body, sweat pooling into the divot above your clavicle—it all makes his mouth water, but he stays still on the couch as Suguru pins you to the floor. It’s the most the Six Eyes has felt in months, for some reason, and he hadn’t even taken anything. He half-wishes he could get his hands on something other than you to inject into his veins—maybe then he could learn to be calm or fall asleep at regular times. Anything to stop the odd ache in his chest whenever he looked at you.

He’s never been a man of God. He was God himself. And then he sees you moan out, bliss-wrecked and flooded with light, burning like seraphim. He’d come back to life a thousand times just to see your face. It made him sick.

Satoru kisses you before you knock out on his bed, eyes half-open and dazed. You’re refusing to go to bed, citing euphoria for your desire to run a few laps. Meanwhile, Suguru is asleep on the couch, fucked out and satisfied. 

You’re coaxed into sleep. It’s not hard once you start rambling, shut up only by the feeling of Satoru’s fingers running across your scalp. He lays awake like he often does, talking to the moon. He sighs as you nuzzle into him, your whole body curling towards him to ward off goosebumps. You’re nearly bare considering you didn’t bother to put on clothes after you and Suguru had finished. 

Satoru pulls the blanket over you, sighing. He’d had the leftover beers in the mini-fridge just to feel a buzz, even the taste of German ales made his nose wrinkle. It still wasn’t enough to put his mind at ease. He stares at the stained carpet, then Suguru’s sleeping shadow, then your face. He shuts his eyes.

It’s been months, yet the memories still cage you. It’s like something wraps its hand around your throat in your subconscious. In each dream, you are aching for their return, and they come to you like newly-bloomed flowers.

It feels like you’ve been waiting for them for centuries, your body stuck in the grass with a bruise over your left eye that doesn’t stop aching. You don’t even know how much you’re bleeding until they return to you again, caressing your sides and pulling away at the sight of a wound. 

Your angels are not dead. It’s enough relief for you to keep going, but they still look at you with furrowed brows. Blood spills from your mouth.

“I missed you. I missed you. I missed you.”

Your angels do not react. They only look at you with concern, shielding you from the blazing sun with their wings. They stare as you laugh, doubling over, falling backwards into the green grass. You only remember that you’re alive when they trace the contours of your body with their fingertips.

Despite the pain, the vision is familiar. You’re too distracted by their beauty, how their mere presence is arcadian in itself. You don’t need anything else. You could die here.

Here, between them and their celestial bodies, in the green, green grass. Spider lilies bloom around you like kisses in blessing as the golden evening swallows you up. There’s a sinking feeling—a literal one, of you descending into the ground in a way that feels like a loose feather falling.

Your angels reach for you until they grasp the whole of you and turn you inside out. They pull apart the mess of you, reshaping you, undoing tangles and knots and bending the stem of your being so you can be reborn in their image. They love you enough to do so.

And when you look back at them with love in your eyes, you flinch. They’re eclipsed by something terrible, too far away for you to reach. It’s bloody. It has a voice like skin scraping pavement, full-bodied whiskey.

You stretch your hand out only meet a sweaty palm. When you open your eyes, a pair of blue ones stare back at you.

[spottedbyceed]

So this happened and I still can’t believe it. I had the chance to meet Ewan and the rest of the cast in Paris last night.

They were all so sweet and kind and they took some time to take pictures and sign autographs after the premiere even though they were all really exhausted and a bit in a rush.

I did not watch the episode because I couldn’t get my hand on an invitation so I can’t tell you anything about it. All I did was waiting outside for a chance to see them, especially Ewan since Aemond is my favourite character and I’ve known and liked Ewan since the Last Kingdom.

He is really one of the kindest actors I’ve ever met. And yes he looked amazing with that green leather jacket. He signed my Fire and Blood book (update for the people accusing me of spoiling Ewan, my friend who was holding the book hid most of the drawing like I asked her to so that Ewan could not see) and my Aemond pop. He seemed genuinely amazed to see it btw. He said something like « Wow! it looks great ». I don’t really remember because I couldn’t believe he was there right in front of me. I was a bit stressed to not get his autograph on my pop because my pen could barely leave any ink on the plastic but Ewan insisted until it looked somewhat visible. He even tried the pen on the back of his hand to make sure it worked. He also has one funny rule he follows : he only signs autographs in black and refuses blue pens (I don’t know why)

Then we took a selfie together and he met the other fans.

My memories are a bit blurry because of the excitement and stress but it was an incredible experience and I will never forget it.

Thank you Ewan

Dream come true ✅💚

(Please do not remove the tag on my picture and do not repost/edit without permission)

[lovelywoos]

my life, my seasons (teaser) | l.sm

genre: strangers to lovers, small town au, grumpy x sunshine; fluff, angst, comedy

↳ hometown cha cha cha x once upon a small town x summer strike inspired

pairings: gn!reader x lee seokmin, librarian!reader x handyman!seokmin

description: you're stuck in jeju for the summer having to run your grandma's library when you should be on vacation. things could not get worse. good thing lee seokmin, the man who you run into almost everyday, is there to make your summer a bit better.

word count estimation: 13k??

a/n - yes, dokyeom is inspired by hong dusik and yes, i love small town kdramas. anyways, please be patient as i hurriedly work on finishing and posting the final fic :') . comment or ask to be added to the tag list!

seokmin thinks he likes you.

he saw you practically every day. from then on, he wondered if he would ever have a bad day again as long as he saw you.

first, it was when he realized you would remember everything he said, all the small things, which was crazy because you couldn’t even remember what you had for dinner the day before.

it was a late night at the library. he had just finished tutoring his last student and you were closing the library.

seokmin had asked if you were hungry and you said no, only for you to be interrupted by the grumbling of your stomach saying otherwise. then that led to seokmin teasing you and you punching his shoulder, telling him to shut up.

so, he had ordered takeout to be delivered to the library for the both of you.

he had laid out all the side dishes for you as you unboxed the main dishes.

when you both finally sat down to eat, he has grabbed your chopsticks and split them for you, making you shy and then kick his foot gently under the table for mentioning your reaction.

what made him blush though was when he noticed you moved the dish of sliced cucumbers closer to you.

when he gave you a questioning look, you just shrugged, without even looking at him as you dug into the food, “you said you hate cucumbers.”

but it was definitely the time you were there for him when he felt the loneliest.

it was when mrs. park, the chinese restaurant owner, was a vendor at the summer festival in the next town over. she had called him when he happened to be with you.

the moment he ended the call and a cloudy look filled his eyes, you immediately picked up on it and asked what was wrong.

his words were brief. all he said was that mrs. park needed his help during a festival, but he declined, and mrs. park was not pleased.

you knew him well. you knew he hated disappointed the townspeople since it was his only job to fix their problems. but you also knew his trauma with crowded places, not that he knew you knew at the time.

so imagine his surprise when mrs. park texted him a blurry selfie the day of the festival and in that selfie was a beaming mrs. park and you in the background wearing an apron and hairnet with a dead look on your face.

“thank you for sending y/n in your place instead! she’s grumpy but a great worker!” she had texted.

seokmin had never asked you to go in his place.

a couple hours when he assumed you’d be home, he immediately called you.

“why’d you go in my place, y/n? i know you probably hated it the whole time,” he whined into the phone.

you laughed. and it comforted his soul. “why didn’t you tell me your fear of crowded places was real?”

his silence makes you sigh. “that day at the chinese restaurant with my friends, i accidentally overheard you and mrs. park talking about it. i didn’t mean to eavesdrop, i’m really sorry. and don’t feel bad for not doing something that you can’t do. it’s not your fault. if anything, let me do it.”

seokmin knows he likes you and he likes you so much that he doesn't know what to do about it.

[deathblacksmoke]

call me when you get the chance

pairing: noah sebastian x nick ruffilo x fem reader

cw: polyamorous relationship, long distance yearning, it’s pretty fluffy my friends

taglist: @concretenoah / @ladyveronikawrites / @lma1986 / @monotoniscreaming / @xxrainstorm / @agravemisstake

let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future fics!

author’s note: thank you lady v once again for the beta; i added some pitt back in just for you. and thank you @darksigns-exe for the poly boyfriends brainworms. no smut in here - wild change of pace. and i’ll probably be writing more little bits of these sweet babes at some point 🤍 i got euclid on the brain so title from that, obvi. enjoy!

**************************************************************

Nick sends a postcard from every city.

Missing you from Atlanta! Love, Nicholas.

It makes you feel warm and loved, every time you open your mailbox to another card from another city, with your partner’s pretty writing on the back.

You imagine him standing in the store for ages, sifting through the cards, trying to pick the perfect one for your gallery wall. You imagine Noah picking one out as a joke, and Nick scoffing, putting it back irritated.

No, man, she’s particular about her wall. Remember?

It makes your chest swell. You long to be there, to play mediator like you do when they’re both home with you. They need it sometimes, and you’re sure Jolly could use the break every now and again.

Noah sends memes. They’re ones you would never see otherwise because you won’t step foot on Twitter, but they make you smile and remind you of him, his stupid sense of humor, and the way his face lights up when he laughs. You close your eyes and imagine it, his eyes scrunching closed with his laugh, and your chest tightens.

They always send a selfie when they get off stage, and another before bed, sometimes a FaceTime if you’re still up. They don’t show you their intertwined hands. They know it makes you jealous and weepy, but you’re so grateful that they have each other. You imagine them kissing when the call ends and you cry anyway.

***

When you couldn’t make it to the show you had all planned for, you thought that was it. Work gets in the way again, sends you out of town, but you’ll see them when they come home to you and all will be okay.

The show looks incredible. You brave social media just this once to see clips of your boys, weep in bed in your hotel room. You stay up late to see them before you sleep—they tell you they wish you were there, they miss you, they love you. You catch a glimpse of a love bite on Nick’s chest and wish it could have come from you. You fantasize about quitting your job. You get closer every day.

The postcard comes two days later, a pop-art rendition of the Pittsburgh skyline, Nick’s little note scrawled across the back. It feels silly to have but you knew he wouldn’t dare to break the tradition he’s created.

Wish you were here! Love always, your Nicholas.

You don’t know how much longer you can go without them, holding back tears as you put the card in its frame, giving it its place on the wall.

You feel helpless and hopeless until you get an email, the airline notifications you had set up on cost changes doing you a solid, for once. Flight to LAX, suspiciously affordable, landing at 2 PM on the 8th of October.

It’s not a question. You don’t think twice. You have the PTO, and your boss can’t possibly deny you again. And if they do, fuck it, you’ll really dig your heels in about them needing another girl working on the tour. You’ll get Lana on your side this time around. They can’t say no to you both.

You book the ticket, arrange a guest list spot with Matt and buzz with excitement in preparation for your surprise.

***

You never tire of watching them perform.

The way Noah owns the stage, running from stage left to stage right, commanding the crowd to chant and jump with him. Nicholas, his long hair swaying with each rock of his neck to the beat of the song. His slender fingers grip the neck of his bass as he bounces his leg, growling backing vocals going straight through you. You wish you could be at every show. You swell with pride and know you couldn’t have picked two better boys to share your life.

You head to the green room when they come back out to say their thank yous and goodbyes. You hate to miss the photo slides but you helped pick most of the photos, anyway. Lots from your private collection and you think maybe you owe some of these people a “you’re welcome.”

Sitting on the old, worn leather couch, you start to panic. You’ve never surprised them before. Noah hates surprises, but you hope at least you’re a good one.

Folio comes through the door first, followed by Jolly, and the door swings back closed. Shocked at first when they see you, Folio’s face breaks out into a huge grin before turning on his heels.

“Yo, Noah, you’re gonna wanna see this—” he yells as he swings the door back open, to reveal Nick, sweaty and looking exhausted, but when his eyes land on you—

“Holy shit,” he whispers.

You can barely make it out above the roar of noise in the hallway. You don’t know where Noah is, but Nick looks as gorgeous as you’ve ever seen him. You need to take a deep breath but find your throat stopping you as your vision starts to blur. The look on his face as he crosses the room to you melts your anxiety in an instant. You haven’t seen him in so long. And he’s here. He’s right here with you.

When he reaches you, he sinks to his knees at your feet. His fingers digging into your thigh, eyes glazed over as he looks up at you, you lean down to meet him halfway.

The feeling of his lips on yours makes you feel dizzy. The feel of the wetness on his cheeks when you cup his face makes you want to sob, but you don’t, you lick into his mouth and bask in the sound of his gasp.

“Where the fuck were you,” he speaks into your mouth when he pulls away from you.

His fingers are gripping your thigh painfully. You know you’ll bruise, you wince, but it’s Nick and you don’t care. You’ll press your fingers there when you get home and you’ll think of him and—

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was flirting with the pretty bartender. I think you’d like her, Nicky, do you think Noah will go for a fourth?”

He’s leaning in for another kiss when you hear the green room door slam back open, thundering steps getting closer and closer until Nick is jostled forward, Noah’s head resting on his shoulder, eyes focused on you.

“You were a very naughty girl, keeping this secret from us,” Noah says, his head angling to press kisses and nip at Nick’s neck. Nick grins and you watch as the hand that was digging into your thigh takes Noah’s hand and laces their fingers.

When you’re far away, it makes you jealous. When you’re right here, when you have them both in front of you, that’s the furthest thing from your mind.

When you kiss Noah and he smiles into it, when the hand not laced with Nick’s threads through your hair, when Nick nips at your neck while Noah kisses you, you’ve never felt more at home.

Because they are your home.

“Nicky let me pick your postcard this time,” Noah tells you when he pulls away.

“You’ll hate it,” Nick says, but he’s grinning as he stands up to rummage through his backpack.

When he returns to you and holds it out, it’s a silly little card, but both their names are signed this time.

Loving you from LA. Love, your Nicholas and Noah.

Noah’s grinning as wide as you’ve ever seen. It’s your favorite of the bunch.

[blainesebastian]

sticks & stones

words: 2,546 ship: austin butler x reader summary: (anon request) “ Austin launches his relationship with his girlfriend, she has a few thousand followers on IG and will post lots of selfies/risque photos and everyone’s tearing her down saying she’s too slutty/Austin is to classy for her?”  warnings: none notes: thanks for reading!! slightly different from request. will re-open my requests after i finish this next fic i’m working on :) thanks everyone!  tag list: @killerqueenfan, @karamelcoveredolicity, @elizabethrosecresswell, @gigisworldsstuff, @stylespresleyhearted

You've always been pretty liberal with posting photos of yourself. Your mother has this saying that she got from these old-timey song lyrics that goes 'accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative'—and it kinda just boils down to that for you? You appreciate a lot about your looks, your body, not in a completely conceded way, but in admiration. Too many women in your opinion aren’t fond with their looks or find something wrong with themselves, that's human, and you definitely have those moments. But you've also worked very hard to love yourself, every part of you. Your body supports you, nourishes you, is your home. Not that you post for anyone other than yourself? but you can't remember a time when anyone's ever had a problem with you either.

At least not until recently.

It comes and goes in waves ever since you started dating Austin—it never ceases to amaze you the audacity some people have online, how they're incredibly bold to strangers just because you so happen to be dating someone specific. You melt it all down to jealousy, you quell down the voices in the back of your mind that start to agree with terrible comments you've read and ignore it because what's the point?

You talk yourself out of it bothering you—until you can't.

Leaning against the kitchen counter, you doom scroll as your other hand holds a cup of matcha tea. You take a sip every so often but you're not really paying attention to anything other than the commentary on these candid photos that have been posted. You went to this Italian restaurant for dinner with Austin and his sister to celebrate her birthday and you're wearing a stunning navy-blue dress. It's got an open back, thin gold chains holding it together. The front is high-neck and you paired it with strappy gold heels and…really you've worn this dress around your own family and have gotten so many compliments. There's nothing wrong with it?

If you allow yourself to dive into the black hole of what's 'appropriate' for a woman to wear to dinner, you might not ever return. It'll never change the fact that people have strong opinions on absolutely everything and they somehow deem to apply it to you, what you want to wear, or how you and Austin are in your relationship. You and Austin have so much mutual love and respect for one another, he has never made you feel less than or like you should feel guilty or embarrassed for knowing and appreciating yourself.

And he's certainly never complained about what you've worn. You often know what he thinks about your clothes because he tells you—and something that you love best? No matter whether you're wearing a pair of joggers and one of his t-shirts or an elaborate dress from Fashion Week, the compliment is always in the same wheelhouse—'you're beautiful'.

So…why are these range of comments beginning to bother you? Especially when you realize the small sample size is women. You can’t even appreciate when others step in to back you up.

kelly_allen: she wore that to a…family dinner? austin44: yikes jessi1030: 😍😍😍 elvisfan: oh come on guys, maybe they’re going to a club afterwards? stylespreseleyhearted: pretty sure what she’s wearing is no one’s business—besides, do you see Austin complaining?? elvisthepelvis: bro just saying, his last gf wasn’t nearly as slutty

You don't even hear Austin come into the kitchen but suddenly he's in front of you, gently taking your phone out of your hand with a soft expression, "Told you not to look at that crap."

You crinkle your nose—were you being that obvious? "I know," You turn to lean back against the counter as Austin sets your phone face down, moving to stand in front of you and carefully pin you against the surface. His arms create a cage as he tilts his head down to nip at your lower lip, causing you to laugh. "Sometimes it's hard to avoid."

Austin hums lightly, lifting his one hand to cup your cheek. You turn into the touch a little, pressing a kiss to his palm and closing your eyes for a few moments to take a breath.

"It doesn't bother you?" You ask, gazing up into his blue ones, "What people say?"

He shakes his head before trailing his thumb over your lower lip, "It bothers me that you're upset."

Letting out a soft sigh, you roll your eyes to the ceiling before a semi-dramatic huff leaves your lips. You tilt forward a little until your forehead rests against Austin’s shoulder and it’s…a perfectly good spot right now. His arms move to wrap around your frame, squeezing, one hand massaging circles into your spine. Up and down in a soothing motion, almost perfect enough to fall asleep to.

You just…come to the decision that you can’t let it sit with you. It’s alright to let it upset you, you’re human and you have real emotions, but those words don’t have to plant seeds of doubt—there is nothing wrong with utterly being yourself.

Tilting your head back up, you give Austin a small smile, “I love you.”

He playfully grabs your chin with his fingers, his own matching smile as he leans down to kiss you in response.

--

Everything’s fine until it isn’t.

You kinda remove yourself from social media for a little bit, not deactivating anything, just not actively posting any updates about you and Austin or yourself. It’s definitely unlike you but you feel like you need a cleanse? To just get back on track of just doing your own thing without worrying about what anyone else thinks.

And that works for a while.

You’re out and about to grab lunch with a friend and after you’ve done that, you stop at a coffee shop that you frequent to get a latte that you’re only slightly obsessed with. It’s a nice day out so you’re wearing this t-shirt dress that hikes up the leg, showing off a thigh tattoo you have. You’ve paired it with this jean corset that creates a silhouette look, it’s one of your favorite fashion combinations to put together.

You turn to walk out of the café with your order and hold the door for someone behind you and you feel what happens before you even have time to process it. That same person says your name and there’s a fraction of a second where you’re confused because you’re ninety percent sure you don’t know them—

Then, “Slut.” And they toss their drink down the front of you.

You gasp and take a step back out of instinct and your mouth hangs open, not necessarily out of pain even though the coffee is hot, but because you’re shocked.

One of the baristas who know you and Austin well as regulars rushes out from behind the counter to hand you a hand-towel and ask you if you’re alright but…you can barely grasp the towel to begin patting yourself down, let alone answer their question. Emotions are heavy and quick, hitting you like a ton of bricks. Your eyes burn with tears and this lump appears in your throat that is incredibly difficult to swallow over.

You barely push out the words thank you before handing the towel back and rushing out of the doorway, making a b-line for home.

--

It’s a mixed bag of emotions and maybe you’re pissed off because you have no idea how to actually feel. You’re angry and vulnerable and sick to your stomach all at once, you don’t even realize your hands are shaking until you tear off your clothes and toss them on the floor. You lean against the sink in your stained nude bra and underwear, squeezing the sink, not being able to look yourself in the mirror because you know you’ll cry.

Austin chooses that exact moment to walk in the front door.

You quickly turn the shower on and reach for the bathroom door as your boyfriend wanders into the bedroom, “Hey Y/N.”

And you can’t quite close it now, giving him a ghost of a smile as you leave it open a crack to say, “Hey, just gonna grab a shower.”

But your voice does not sound like your own and Austin immediately picks up on that, taking a step closer. His eyebrows draw together as he touches the door, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” You reply, a bit too quickly.

Now Austin’s concerned, you can see the look right on his face because he knows you’re lying. He gently pushes on the door a bit more, getting you to take a step back.

“Austin—” You shake your head.

His eyes flutter across you then to the stained clothes on the floor, “What happened?”

Your voice changes, just slightly, because now you’re starting to get worked up. You just want him to leave you alone at the very same time that you want to tell him everything. And yet the words stick like glue in the back of your mouth because you know this was one of his fans that’s done this to you and…your interaction with Austin’s fans have always been pleasant. They’ve been nice and thoughtful and respectful so the fact that this happened feels messed up even more than it already is.

“Coffee happened,” You reply, voice sharp as you motion to the floor, “Obviously.”

“Y/N.” He says and it’s gentle, far too gentle and yet it somehow feels like a dagger right between your ribs and suddenly everything spills right out.

“Oh my god,” You scoff out a laugh, running a hand over your forehead, pushing your hair back. “What happened was I was at the café on the corner and when I went to leave, someone called me a slut and thew coffee at me. Okay? Happy?”

Austin stands there for a moment, a mixture of emotions passing over his face, his jaw clenching in that way where you know he’s pissed off. He doesn’t say anything though, like you expect he might, instead he takes a step forward and clasps the back of your neck with the palm of his hand. He draws you into his chest, wrapping his arms around you and you’re tense for a long few moments until you just…melt against his embrace.

That’s when the tears come.

There’s no loud sobbing but a stream of silent crying against his shoulder, turning your face into his neck and sniffling, fingers gathering the fabric of his shirt in your hands as your shoulders tremble. He doesn’t move for a long time, just keeps you against him, his hand stroking through your hair and massaging along your shoulders. He pulls back just slightly to look down at you, his hand cupping your cheek and removing a tear track with his thumb.

“M'sorry baby,” He whispers, pressing a kiss to your temple.

You shake your head, sniffling again—your face feels puffy and wet, eyes red-rimmed, a bit congested from crying. A mess, really, can’t even imagine what you must look like. The thing is—he doesn’t have to apologize to you. He’s not in control of any of this, especially his fans. You know it’s not one hundred percent responsibility but moreso he cares that you’re upset, he’s hurt because you’re hurting.

“I love you.” Austin says, tilting your chin up just slightly so that your gazes meet.

That always manages to pull the softest of smiles from you and this is no different, regardless of how terrible you feel. You nod as you rest your hand on his chest, a point of connection, grounding, as Austin tugs you into his embrace again.

--

A few days pass since the incident and Austin has been relatively quiet about it. It's not that he's ignoring the situation or refusing to talk about it but rather he's just giving you open space to talk to him, or not talk at all. You appreciate that more than you can really put into words, you're not quite sure what you'd say anyways. It's such a push and pull kind of situation—you know that tensions and emotions run really high for fans, they feel a connection to Austin as real as the one you have with him, even if it's not the same at all. You don't want to disrespect that, you get that fans are also what make Austin's work so important—he cares about them and what they bring to the table in terms of his stardom. But at the same time? you definitely feel insulted, hurt, and you don't understand what you've done exactly to deserve such strong words and actions from a stranger.

It's a warmer day out and Austin's decided to take you out because you both have time off (secretly you know he's just trying to make you feel better, but it's working). It's a pretty lazy day, you're wearing a soft yellow sundress, a bit sheer, but it hangs on you beautifully. You're on your way to a brunch after visiting a farmer's market, a tote bag filled with fresh produce, cheese and some homemade fruit pastries that you couldn't pass up.

You wander down the sidewalk, Austin ending up behind you and it takes you a moment to turn around...to see him taking a video of you. Your cheeks flush pink and you kinda give him this look before laughing,

"What are you doing?"

"Filming my beautiful girlfriend." Austin replies, like it's obvious. "Do a twirl or somethin'."

You laugh, shaking your head, "No, stop."

"C'mon, can't be wearin' a pretty dress like that for no reason."

You roll your eyes but you're grinning, so you do what he asks. You do a playful twirl and come to meet him, grabbing his other hand as he flips the video around so that it's in selfie mode, you pressed up against his chest. He leans down and presses a soft kiss to your lips before ending the video. Lazily wrapping your arms around his waist, you watch as he taps open his Instagram on his phone, your eyebrows lifting slightly. You...didn't actually think he was going to do anything with the video he took. He snaps photos and takes videos all the time but they never end up on social media, which is fine, you know Austin isn't as active as you are on apps.

But for him to be...putting this on his story?

"Austin."

"I know what I'm doin'." He replies, drawing an arm around your shoulder. He presses a kiss to your temple and uploads the video to his story with the comment 'main character energy' and you can't help but snort out a laugh because he's ridiculous and cute and…sweet. And you fall a little bit more in love with him in that very moment.

He waits until the video loads before he closes his phone, putting it back into his pocket. Giving you a soft smile, he leans down to brush a kiss along the bridge of your nose. You hum lightly, eyes fluttering closed as you soak in the moment with him.

He definitely didn't need to do that? But it makes all the difference.