#I don't see myself as a unhappy person

[sosclancy]

.

[cerbreus]

if 2026 rolls around and i've not figured out a set course for dealing with my career woes (taking community college classes, making plans to continue education, switching jobs, literally ANYTHING...) please beat 🔨me 🔨with 🔨hammers........🔨🔨🔨

[direscrowley]

been caught in one of those terrible "not good enough" spirals about my writing lately

[a-skeleton-of-something-m0re]

I'm tired of hurting people because I can't deal with myself.

[sensitivegoblin]

Is there anyone religious in the kink space?

I'm a Christian and I need to vent/get comfort cus I dunno what's wrong with me I'm dissociating so much and have so much anxiety and my head won't stop spinning about things

My dad says it's just anxiety hitting my body after being sick but I wish he could see inside my brain just to make sure I'm scared kinda :(

[literalgrill]

Do NOT Support Hard Drive On Patreon

You might see friends today suggesting you support Hard Drive on Patreon today. You know, the funny video games version of The Onion? As a journalist, I will firmly tell you DO NOT GIVE THEM A DIME.

The CEO has pushed out all former staff that have built the site up to its current greatness and has been pushing the use of AI. The staff begged to have a Patreon before basically all being pushed out, but the idea was refused until now, when it will only line the pockets of a single person instead of hard working writers.

I know they might have provided laughs before, but Hard Drive is a shell of what it was once. Let it die and support the people who actually made those moments of joy possible. Don't believe me? Check out what former employees are saying below:

Kevin Podas: Okay you know what, I would feel bad saying nothing about this, so here goes:🚨SAVE YOUR MONEY🚨

We passionately advocated for a Patreon at Hard Drive & were aggressively shot down. The talent & people who built the site were pushed out. To see this now is beyond upsetting. For the past few years or so I put a lot of myself into this website. I pitched a ton of jokes, got over 120 articles published, & met a lot of great people. I'm sure if you've been following me for some time you could easily see this.

However, there is a lot of misinformation. I was eventually promoted to Managing Editor of the site & was ecstatic. Grateful for the opportunity. Felt like all of my hard work in the comedy mines was finally paying off. But things took a turn for the worst, & each day there were new surprises that affected our livelihoods. These were all very avoidable surprises, mind you.

A patreon was going to be our hail mary, but alas, for some reason, the power that be did not want it. Causing us to leave a dream job behind. "At least we did all we could," we consoled ourselves afterwards. I put a lot of myself into this project. I pitched all sorts of ideas that could have helped-- we all did. Merch collaborations, Patreon-integrated YouTube content, so much more. And most of them were shot down out of sheer stubbornness and nothing more. To see lie after lie spread, and multiple big publications and YouTubers that I am a fan of promote this Patreon under these pretenses is incredibly upsetting. There are so many receipts.

Please share this and consider pulling out if you've already put money into this. On Hard Drive using AI, also from Kevin Podas: I can't personally confirm that part aside from some of the recent header images for articles on both Hard Drive and Hard Times are being made with AI. As far as writing, it's been mentioned in the past, but I personally do not know. Maybe others do, maybe not. MORE From Kevin Podas suggesting the owner denying a Patreon being set up earlier cost an artist a job that was replaced by AI: We had a social media person who was awesome! He made the images until this AI implementation. He had to leave because ad revenue was low and a Patreon was aggressively refused.

Luca Fisher: at the risk of burning some bridges, i have to back up kevin here. i've only been part-time, in-and-out of hard drive since i got in last year, but i can corroborate that management doubled and tripled down about not hosting a patreon/crowdfunding and that many other suggestions and ideas, including mine (and ones much smarter than mine!), were shot down in really long, apocalyptic threads of everyone left on deck desperately trying to come up with ways to keep the lights on. managerially it has been messy and sad

i've written for multiple publications that have long since died, ones that were in the process of dying, and ones that, in this case, are soon to be put in the ground. it is sad and sucks every time. i don't know what could have been done differently, but i do know that a lot of great writers and content creators were left shorthanded and unhappy by the way things have gone. and it is sort of puzzling to see the sudden championing of patreon after we were all told plenty of times that it couldn't work and we should move on also, just to add my own personal two cents here, i was really disappointed by the shuttering of many different article sections on the site over the past 6-8 months. i understand cutting corners in a deficit, and i know it had to be done. that said…

all in all, i'm really sad to see this all happen. i don't fault anyone, if only because i don't really know enough about how this all can happen to make sense of it. games journalism is in a sad, sorry state, and will likely no longer be a thing in the next decade

VideoSealMan: I'm gonna say this because I think I deserve to. For months, MONTHS on end I was bugging Hard Drive management about a Patreon. Often I got ignored for a week+, but when I actually got a response I was encouraged to - of all things, write up a Google Doc pitching the concept I did it regardless. I wasn't the only one trying to sway management on a Patreon, but so fiercely was I fighting for it that last night, I was accused of making this comment directly by the CEO! With no evidence whatsoever! After I'd been gone for over a month.

I vouched so hard for Patreon because I wanted all the writers and creatives working with Hard Drive including myself to get paid better. When I actually got a response, the idea was often shut down. Eventually due to the state of my company, my pay was cut for a second time I confronted management alongside a couple other important figureheads at the org and told them that if we couldn't do a Patreon - I could no longer financially justify staying there. The answer was still no, so I left. Baffled at the decision, but whatever.

It is unendingly frustrating to know that myself and many other people who put their soul into Hard Drive LEFT because of management's absolute refusal to compromise on a Patreon, to then see them launch one anyway a month later and get over 1000 people pledging money. I'm seeing a lot of things float around about greed and people being fired. No one was fired. Everyone who left, left because they were sick of management's decision-making. And honestly, management is a lot of things but I would not call them greedy. (From my experience.) They did genuinely make an effort to pay people as much as possible. I found the pay very fair for a while. I am not disputing that I was paid what I was owed - yet management frequently feels the need to remind critics of that. Lmao, yes. I was paid what I was owed. No one is disputing payment. You did the bare minimum a business owner should do and paid everyone their due, very well done. I make no allegations of greed, cheating or foul play. I make allegations of poor management and incompetence that has fucked over other people.

Basically the only people left at Hard Drive have been there for about 2 months. They will reap the rewards of this successful Patreon I and so many others passionately fought for for so long. We will not see a dime.

I do not know the new people at Hard Drive, But I feel bad for them. They were haphazardly thrust into Hard Drive's workplace with little to no explanation on how anything works, or given any context on the state of the place. Even now managements feeds them half-truths and misinformation about other people's grievances. I am broke and have been for a while. I had to move out of my flat in Reading and back with my family because of how little money I was making. This has basically doomed my flatmate to moving back in with abusive parents, which is something I feel guilty about every day. If we had gone with the Patreon I worked myself hoarse over back then, this could have been avoided. Some of my other good pals could also not have been fucked over.

It was a bad judgment call, but it's not a crime. It's just management getting it wrong.

So should you give to the Hard Drive Patreon? I don't know! I don't think any of the new people working there to patch up the holes left by the recent mass exodus have any bad intentions. Maybe they deserve it! But it is not the same site you knew a year ago, or even a month ago. Myself and many people who were there far longer than me and did far more for it than I did are all gone now because we could not deal with management's terrible decision-making and dogass communication any longer. That's what you should know, imo

I had an agreement in place with management that I would receive the next 8 months of revenue from the Hard Drive YT channel from my leaving in November. This was a deal I appreciated, and thought was very fair on management's behalf. So far, the deal has been honoured for 2 months. However as of last night I was removed from the Hard Drive Slack without warning, and as an editor for the YouTube channel. This means I no longer have any way of verifying how much I am owed, I just have to take their word for it. I'm sure management will make their own statements full of half-truths and weird language on the many cases being brought against them - I'd take everything they say with a pinch of salt if some of the screenshots I've seen of them talking about me are any indication lol

To management; I do not want to talk to you. I want you to DM me a screenshot of how much I'm owed every month and then send me the money per our agreement until June, then we can go our separate ways. Do that and admit to your mistakes, and maybe you can recover your reputation! That's it from me, lol. If they pull out of the deal and fuck me over I'll have more to say, but most of what I know is other people's stories of incompetence and poor decision-making, lol. I genuinely get no pleasure out of doing this; I do not think management is evil - I just think they're really bad at what they do and it's cost other, more talented people, lol. You should believe the writers imo

One last thing I wanna say btw, management did often stress that no one should try to make Hard Drive a full time thing. They were transparent about that, and that is fair. I was working on it because at a few points, I was lead to believe we actually were doing a Patreon. Many other ppl have similar stories of being strung along by management changing their minds and stop-starting shit every 2 weeks. We all made the fatal mistake of overestimating our manager - who would tell you one thing one day and something totally opposite the next week lol

Hunter R. Thompson:

I'm not your dad, but speaking as a Hard Drive writer, I don't know that funding Hard Drive on Patreon is worth it

The driving talent on the back end—behind the kickass site I joined in 2019—have peaced out over the years as the site's been (in our view) increasingly mismanaged. Mismanagement like, not setting up crowdfunding before the ship sank and all its best crew failed; or publishing a screenshot of Andy Ngo pedojacketing a trans writer, complete with her deadname; or a disgruntled ex-writer getting falsely accused of shit-talk, by actual staff. I'm grateful for the writing I've gotten to produce for HD (and will forever be kicking myself for not writing even more, in the four years I've had to do it!! i'm a dumbass!!!) but it is very much no longer the site I signed up for.

I don't want to resign as a contributor altogether, because I'm open to the idea of the site recovering and bad practices being retired as finances level out-- it would just be dishonest for potential backers to not be Aware Of The Circumstances, I think.

Jeremy Kaplowitz: i truly don't want to start shit, but feel compelled to say: i want to see Hard Drive succeed w/o resorting to throwing former writers & editors, myself included, under the bus. surely there's a way to save the site without building it over the corpses of those who left. my $0.02 i don't blame anyone who wants to sign up for the HD patreon and i support the website, but that includes those who worked on it for years, have complaints, and don't deserve to be treated like bitter assholes like this kind of stuff is just objectively true, meanwhile there's these new writers who joined the site after i left (meaning, in the last ~3 months) claiming people are liars. decide for yourself if you care, but this is what happened! [Quotes this Tweet]

Seth Finkelstein: Writing for Hard Drive has been a privilege the past few years, and it makes me so angry to see people I looked up to get jerked around behind the scenes. The amount of grenades the editors jumped on our behalf is immense, and I don't think the way they're being treated is right.

Other Bits On AI: We do know for sure however that AI art has been used by the site. Its fucking owner confirms it here:https://twitter.com/MattSaincome/status/1743040541603123622. Seems the owner pushed AI written articles as well! TayFabe: My vaguetweet is making the rounds & these made me apoplectic. - owner regularly lobbied using ai. Once he tested it & said ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. - ai images were used on the site & socials w/o consulting the team or disclosing it publicly I found the ai bit relevant to include bc 1) it illuminates a stark change in HD's current direction & leadership, 2) ai images have previously been used on the site and (since deleted) ig posts, 3) ai content fucking sucks, and repeatedly pushing to use it is a telling quality The "handful of writers who chose to leave" includes 2 editors-in-chief (both cofounders who wrote a combined total of >1,000 articles & defined the voice of HD), & at least 3 other editors. These guys put in WORK since 2017, so cool to be corrected by ppl who joined in Nov 2023 [Link to mentioned vague tweet from post.] More from TayFabe: owner continuously lobbied for using ai in every possible way. No one else wanted to do it, but he kept on, saying ai was writing better satire than 25% of the HT/HD writers. Also, ai images were used on the site & socials without public disclosure or consulting the team.

The owner has responded now multiple times in a private discord... Thank you for people sharing screenshots! First Screenshot:

Kevin's Response: He banned me from the server for speaking out, so no, I didn't see it. And he gave no indication of a timeline, it was just "we'll do one when *I* say so" and gave every inclination he was totally against it. It bred an environment that pushed our hands to have to leave. Screenshot Round Two:

Kevin's Response: "Starting one in 3 months" is an absolute lie. He denied it, I have screenshots and others who can confirm. No timeline was given. Just "this is what it is now" and like, I couldn't live off of that. I wanted to do more but he was allergic to good ideas from others around him.

Matt, owner of Hard Drive, responds publicly on Twitter.

Matt: Kevin, the patreon launch was delayed because I didn't think it would work. Everyone is happy that it did work. Everyone who left the site because we didn't have money to pay for creative content which didn't revenue is welcome to return home. But unclear why the hostility.

Hard Drive paid out literally every dollar it had, then a bunch more, to creative people who worked on the site. When we ran out of money, we couldn't pay anymore. We did our best.

Kevin: Right, and my point of this thread was that it was completely and totally avoidable. This is reasonable to be upset about. How could I have been any more clear?

Matt: If we knew with 100% certainly that the community would have supported us via patreon, we would have done that. We didn't know. We had tried 4 years ago and got no support. We were wrong this time. We did our best to figure it out. We paid all the money we could.

Kevin: So you knew with 100% certainty this time? Or you took a leap of faith?

Matt: It was a last gasp panic effort after ad rates got cut in half on january 1st due to seasonal spending changes. We didn't know it would work. We were embarrassed to ask for support. We wanted to figure it out.

Kevin: Every site has a Patreon. Every YouTuber, comedy group, etc. But you insisted that nobody cared about Hard Drive. Which is wildly untrue. I know you see that now, but again, I think you can see why I and many others are pretty upset. A last ditch panic effort was long overdue. A couple more things from Matt:

It was about the size of the hole we needed plugged budget wise, the time I had left of personal resources, and the past data I had about us trying a patreon (which turned out to be a bad indicator). I didn't think the Patreon would help us fast enough. I made a bad estimation

aka "if we make $1000 more dollars a month via patreon, which would be 10x what we got last time, we will not solve any of our problems. If instead we try to plow down path B, we might make it out in time." That was the thinking. I chose the wrong path, but didn't mean to Kevin also retweeted this comment from the user Matt was responding to: So you're saying that you're bad at running the business, didn't listen to any of your employees until after they were forced to leave their jobs, and now you're going to get more of the money from the Patreon that was their idea in the first place? Matt's Response: Respectfully, I made a mistake delaying the patreon decision. But keeping a comedy site alive for 9 years is not easy, there are lots of potential ideas, and think overall we've done a good and honorable job. Will leave this thread in peace now to allow people their space.

Sorry for linking to Elon's hellsite (derogatory), but sources need links so...

[waywardxrhea]

butterfly effect - Spencer Reid

pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader (no use of y/n)

part two of Casual

Spencer and Reader's first meeting is revealed along with how both are feeling in the aftermath of the restaurant debacle in part one.

word count: ~6.4k

content: 18+ minors DNI! language, angst! fluff (oh the fluff in this one is sickly sweet - i told y'all i don't like unhappy endings)! smut (i simply could not help myself because i've had this one line stuck in my head for weeks and it just so happened to transition very well in this piece i'm not sorry): oral [male receiving], unprotected PIV, multiple orgasms mentioned.

dividers by @firefly-graphics

now playing: butterfly effect by Sophie Holohan also a hint of vulnerable by Leanna Firestone <3

Then…

You watched as drops of condensation raced down the side of your iced coffee cup, lost in your own thoughts as you ignored the hustle and bustle on the sidewalk to your left. It was a sunny morning on your day off and you were at your favorite local coffee shop, trying to ignore your work responsibilities for as long as possible. You were doodling in the rustic looking parchment journal you had found at a thrift store when you went shopping with Celeste and Maddie yesterday, and you had become enthralled with butterflies once more. 

You had a hyperfixation on the beautiful creatures when you were younger and in some circles were ashamed to admit how much you knew about them. They were just so fascinating and beautiful, how could you not adore them? You knew that this cafe’s outdoor seating area was teeming with them during April due to their migratory pattern as well as all of the plant life they had blooming within all of the scattered pots seated throughout the patio, so it was the perfect time for catching glimpses of the creatures you had lost touch with for many years. 

A beautiful one with black and white coloring and long trailing wings fluttered by and you quickly snatched your cup and journal up as you went to follow the beautiful creature. If your memory served you right it was a Zebra Swallowtail, one you hadn’t seen since your childhood, and you were determined to capture its beauty in your new journal. 

Your journey following the butterfly was short-lived though, when as you quickly exited the patio’s gate you ran smack into someone! You felt your condensation coated cup leave your grip as it was crushed between your body and the stranger’s and your eyes went wide as the drink spilled down their front, completely soaking through the button up they were wearing. And to add insult to injury, the manilla folder that had been in their hands was now absorbing the liquid on the ground. 

With your now empty hand flying to cover your mouth, you began profusely apologizing, saying, “Oh my gosh I am so, so, so, so sorry! I wasn’t watching where I was going! You see, I saw this really pretty butterfly that I wanted to sketch and I didn’t want it to get away but now it has and I completely ruined your shirt and your file and you were probably on your way to work and now you’re going to be late because of me and smell like coffee the rest of the day and oh my gosh I am so sorry I am mortified right now!” By the end of your rambled on apology you had covered your face with your journal, afraid to look up at the person you had run into, especially after such a rambling and childish apology…

What surprised you was the person letting out a soft laugh in response to your rambling before telling you, “If you were going after something in the name of science I can’t exactly fault you for running into me. I likely would have done the same.” 

“You- What…?” you asked, risking a peek over the top of your journal, only to see the smiling face of a boyishly handsome man around your age with cropped and almost curly hair that fell slightly over his eyes. He was gorgeous. His melodic laugh rang out once more and it prompted you to lower the journal to your side fully, risking a glance at the damage your drink did. 

You cringed as you looked at his once pristine and pressed shirt, but your anxious thoughts were interrupted by him telling you, “You were going after a butterfly that you wanted to make an observation of in its habitat. As a man of science I can’t fault you for doing so.” He bent over to pick up his now thoroughly soaked file and offered a small smile as he came back up and added, “I’m Spencer by the way. I don’t exactly follow the science of lepidopterology, but it’s a fascinating subject. Do you study them for a living?”

You offered your name in turn before saying, “Oh, uh, no I- It’s just a sort of hyperfixation I’ve had on and off since I was a kid,” You felt an intense blush creeping up your neck and onto your cheeks after the admission crossed your lips and you wished that the earth would open up beneath you and save you from yourself. Instead of just keeping your mouth shut though, you rambled on, “And now it’s probably ruined your day and routine and again I am so sorry! Were you heading in? I could buy your drink! It’s the least I can do after ruining…everything.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that, I’m getting drinks for more than just me,” Spencer replied as he began opening his satchel bag and pulling out a sweater vest which he put on and covered the coffee stain on his front. “See, good as new. I have a change of clothes at the office anyway. Don’t worry about the shirt.” He waved the folder to get the droplets of coffee off and added, “And don’t worry about the file either. I have it memorized. Eidetic memory. Comes in handy for times like this.”

“Right…” you said, making a mental note to look up what that meant rather than assuming. You nodded awkwardly before gesturing toward the door and heading that way, telling him, “Well I’m gonna head back inside to get a drink to replace the one I dropped. We can at least discuss how I could repay you while we wait?”

“If you insist,” Spencer said before following your lead into the small shop, the little bell above the door ringing out to alert the workers that someone had entered. 

As you waited in line, you cleared your throat and asked awkwardly, “So, uh…what do you do for work?”

“I work for the FBI at the Behavioral Analysis Unit. We basically use what’s called profiling to determine why people do what they do, specifically in the realm of killing people,” he told you as if it was a regular old nine to five and not what sounded like the most interesting job in the world. 

“I- Wow! That sounds so cool!” you stuttered out awkwardly. You mentally kicked yourself at the stupid reply, but before you could rectify the situation it was Spencer’s turn to order. You breathed a sigh of relief at the out and began scouring your brain for ways you could repay Spencer for the mishap outside. 

Once you ordered your replacement drink, you cleared your throat and shyly asked Spencer, “How about as an apology I take you to dinner? You choose where. I just feel really, really bad about spilling my drink on you…”

Spencer was silent for a beat before telling you, “I would like that. Thank you.” So before you two parted ways, Spencer wrote his number in your journal beside another butterfly you had been sketching and you sent him off with a warm smile while what felt like a kaleidoscope of butterflies flew around in the pit of your stomach. 

Your dinner with Spencer got delayed when the BAU was requested to work a case in Oregon, but you were fine with that as it gave you more time to grapple with the fact that, no, this wasn’t a date. This was simply a business transaction because you had ruined the man’s clothes and case file. 

When Spencer returned after closing the case, you were finally ready to face the gorgeous man in what you hoped would be a platonic business-like way. That was until you saw his face again and heard his what turned out to be contagious laugh. He told you all kinds of fun facts about butterflies he had learned in preparation to have something to talk with you about and you practically had heart eyes as you listened to him ramble on and on about stuff even you didn’t know about the beautiful creatures. 

The spark you thought was there turned out to be mutual and by the end of the night, Spencer was back to your apartment and between your legs, sending you into the most blissful state you had been in in years. As you learned during your dinner, Spencer had a vast understanding of the human body and mind and it turned out that those skills translated to the bedroom as well. Needless to say, he had completely exhausted you and you fell asleep in his arms under your duvet, your legs entangled as you clung onto him like a koala. 

Waking up the morning after your dinner, Spencer began to come to his senses as he smelled bacon and pancakes being cooked and coffee lingering in the air of your apartment. At first he relaxed into the plush memory foam once more before he sat up with a start. What was he doing? He knew from current and former BAU members’ experiences, relationships while working for the unit were hard. The hours were odd and long, the mental toll of cases could be heavy at best and all consuming at most, and statistically the odds of someone in a relationship with an FBI agent - specifically a member of the BAU - becoming a target of a pissed off unsub was high. What if an unsub took you as a hostage in order to get to him? What if an unsub killed you as some cruel form of punishment for going after them? That wasn’t something he was willing to shoulder onto you, he thought as a shudder shook his whole body. 

But there was no way he wanted to let you go from his life altogether, so when he emerged into the combined dining and kitchen area to see you cooking in just a t-shirt and underwear, Spencer cleared his throat and greeted you with a good morning before asking tentatively, “Hey uh… I was just thinking… With my job with the BAU being what it is, could we…would you mind if we kept this casual? I had an amazing time with you at dinner and in…other places, but it’s historically difficult for an FBI agent to maintain a proper relationship and give their partner the attention they deserve while also giving cases the attention they need. Would…would that be something you would be okay with?” 

Spencer studied your body language as you concentrated on flipping the pancakes in front of you, doing so effortlessly as you nonchalantly replied, “If that’s what is easiest then yeah. I had a really good time last night too.” Relief flooded Spencer’s body at your response and he relaxed into the dining chair a bit more before standing up to pour himself some coffee and prepare it how he liked, content with the new arrangement he found himself in with the gorgeous and thoughtful woman in front of him. 

So that’s how it went on for the following months. Between Spencer’s cases and your shifts at work, the two of you managed to see each other more and more. Sometimes the evenings started at restaurants and some were initiated at either of your apartments when you were feeling particularly needy. 

Even though at first you were truly content with keeping things with Spencer casual, as time went on, you had started to develop feelings for the man. Feelings that sex alone couldn’t tame and that’s when you realized what you knew all along. That those butterflies you felt in your stomach during your first encounter were never a good sign. 

Now…

A knock on your apartment door broke you from your trance of zoning out whatever was playing on Netflix at the moment and you looked up at the clock hanging on the wall to realize it was nearly three o’clock. You had spent most of your day off zoned out in front of the TV lost in your own thoughts when you were supposed to go to lunch with Celeste hours ago. Looking at your phone you noticed all the missed calls and texts and rubbed your tired eyes as you groaned in frustration. 

The knock sounded once again before you heard Celeste’s voice calling out, “Are you in there? Do I need to call the cops for a welfare check?”

You attempted to smooth down your pjs before opening the door and telling her quietly, “No, I’m here. I’m sorry I flaked on lunch I didn’t mean to I just-”

You couldn’t even finish your sentence before Celeste was wrapping you in a hug to end all hugs and asking softly, “What’s wrong?”

This simple question was always your downfall because the second that it was asked the floodgates opened and you began sobbing into Celeste’s shoulder. All of the tears you had denied yourself over the last week and a half finally began to freefall as you clung to your friend like she was a buoy out at sea and she was the only thing keeping you afloat. 

Celeste managed to maneuver the two of you back into the apartment and closed the door as you began rambling through your tight and broken voice, “At the restaurant…when we celebrated Adri…Spencer was there. We…we had sex in the bathroom but then he just finished and left me hanging. No explanation. Then I overheard his coworker call me Spencer’s love toy. He…he didn’t shut down the comment. I just thought I meant more to him than that… So I panicked and left. Almost had a panic attack outside when he came to talk with me. I thought he was going to comfort me but then he just reminded me, ‘no attachments.’” This whole spiel took you the greater part of five minutes to get out between sobs and trying to catch your breath, but Celeste being patient as always gave you her attention the whole time. You took a final deep breath before finishing with, “I really, really like him Celeste… I was a fool to think I meant more to him.”

Celeste thought on your words for the few moments it took to lead you toward the couch. She sat down and brought your head to rest on her thigh, gently detangling your hair with her fingers as she said, “I’m sorry that he made you feel that way. And I’m sorry we didn’t notice something was wrong before now. We’re your friends, we should be there for you through stuff like this.”

“It’s nothing you did,” you quickly told her. “Work kept me occupied this week so I tried to just ignore everything but then today I guess it all caught up to me…” Celeste nodded and you relaxed as she continued to mess with your hair. 

Her silence was broken when she finally said, “Not to play Devil’s advocate, because what he did was not okay, but have you thought about why he came out to check on you when you left?”

This question caused you to furrow your eyebrows together and think about it. Why did he come outside? None of the other BAU members were leaving. It was just him… You cleared your throat and admitted, “I uh… I didn’t think about that.” There was a beat of silence before you told her, “I haven’t told you guys much about his job besides that he works for the FBI, but he’s what they call a profiler. He can tell a lot about a person just by reading their body language. Maybe…”

When you trailed off, leaving your sentence unfinished, Celeste offered, “Maybe he knew you were upset from your body language so he came to comfort you?”

You thought about it for a second before telling her, “I mean maybe, but that wouldn’t explain-” Your sentence died in your throat as another knock sounded through the apartment. “Did you text Maddie or Adri?” you asked Celeste. 

“No,” Celeste replied as you began pulling yourself into a sitting position. “I’ll see who it is.”

As she did you started to realize how dehydrated you were, so you slowly made your way to the kitchen to get a glass of water. As you stood, a dizzying feeling filled your head and darkness lined your peripheral vision, but you tried to ignore it as you made your way to the fridge. You vaguely heard the exchange happening at your door, but your attention was caught when Celeste called your name to get your attention. Looking up from your glass and Brita, you saw Spencer in your doorway with a bouquet of flowers and your heart gave an irregular stutter in your chest. “He says he wants to talk to you. Is that okay?” Celeste asked and you could hear the protective nature in her voice that Spencer was no doubt picking up on too. 

“Y-yeah,” you replied, nodding in case she couldn’t hear you across the room. 

“Do you want me to stay?” she asked, eyeing Spencer’s tall form almost suspiciously as she did. 

“I think I’ll be okay,” you told her, offering her a small smile. “Thank you for coming to check on me. I’ll make lunch up to you next weekend.” Celeste nodded hesitantly before grabbing her purse off of the floor where she had dropped it and began making her way out. You were sure she would stay idled in the parking lot of the complex until you texted her that everything was okay, so you made a mental note to do so after this was over. Whatever this was. 

Taking a deep breath, you offered a quiet, “Hi,” to Spencer as he approached your dining area with the rather large bouquet in hand. That couldn’t have been cheap. 

“Hey,” he said, almost as quietly as you did. He cleared his throat and said, “I…I wanted to apologize for what happened last time we saw each other.” 

Nodding, you quickly wiped a stray tear away as you told him, “I was really hurt, Spencer.”

“I know that now. So that’s why I brought you these,” he reiterated as he offered the flowers out to you. “In flower language the white roses symbolize my remorse for what happened, my seeking of forgiveness, and my hope for a new beginning between the two of us. The pink hyacinths represent new love and fresh starts. The white hyacinths represent my wish for healing between us. And the pink tulips represent my asking for forgiveness and the sincerity behind my words.” You tentatively accepted the flowers and took a moment to breathe in their natural fragrance with closed eyes as Spencer rambled on, “Did you know that floriography has been practiced for thousands of years and was even used in theatrical works, most notably Shakespeare? A lot of people take for granted what the flowers they’re giving mean, but the meaning behind each one can offer you a great deal of insight into the mind of the giver.”

You tried to hide the small smile teasing your lips in response to Spencer’s ramblings which you always found endearing by searching your cabinets for a vase to put them in. With your back turned toward him, you cleared your throat and quietly told him, “Thank you. They’re beautiful. I just…” you pulled out a vase and let out a heavy sigh as you brought it to the sink to rinse out and fill with fresh water. “Fucking me in the restroom and just leaving before I got off without an explanation hurt. Hearing what Derek said, calling me your ‘love toy’ and you agreeing to it really hurt. I… I know you said no attachments, but… I’ve spent so much time with you and got to know you and I realized that I can’t do this whole casual thing anymore…” By the time you finished your statement, you had opened the flower food and put it into the water and hugged your arms to your body as you tried to make yourself smaller amidst the palpable tension in the room. 

“I could tell by your body language as you left the restaurant that something was wrong but I didn’t know what but I followed you out regardless because I knew something was wrong and wanted to try and fix it…” Spencer admitted. So Celeste was right about that… You didn’t have time to think about that though as Spencer continued, telling you, “I really messed up by leaving you in there after what I did, and it took me a while to realize what I did wrong because… Gosh now I really sound like an ass saying it out loud.” He scratched the back of his neck as he said, “I had calculated the longest average time an adult male takes in the restroom and was limiting myself to that time limit as we…did what we did in there. I knew that most of the team had seen you pass by and so I didn’t want them to think we were having sex in a restroom of all places. Not that I am ashamed to be with you at all, with you I’ve had the best few months of my life I think, but there are some aspects of my life I would like to keep private from them.”

“Oh,” you breathed out, unable to help the huff of a laugh that escaped your lips at the admission. What a truly Spencer reason to leave you hot and bothered. The bit about ‘the best few months of his life’ made your heart soar once again as you finally looked up to make eye contact with him. 

A smile broke out onto his lips when his eyes met yours and he slowly approached you as he rambled on, saying, “And about the whole response to what Derek said. I panicked. He’s usually the one who has all the girls and is some sort of expert love maker or something, and I’m way less experienced than that. So when he brought it up I didn’t know how to respond so I guess I just blurted out what would make me look cool to him. Which I realized was a mistake far too long after, when the team sort of had to give me a reality check…”

Just the next morning after the restaurant incident left Spencer reeling, trying to make sense of what happened between the two of you, the BAU was called out on a case. After the first two days on the case, JJ approached Spencer as they were packing up for the day and asked, “Spence, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, I-” he tried to say but couldn’t finish as Emily too approached him while putting her hand up and shaking her head. 

“You’ve been moody. You don’t get moody for no reason,” she argued. 

“I’m not moody,” Spencer defended himself. 

“Yes you are, you’ve been off since that night at the Italian place. What happened?” JJ asked. By then more of the team had started to gather around and he noticed that even some of the locals had poked their heads up from their work to listen to what was now looking like an intervention. 

Spencer sighed and threw his hands up exasperatedly as he said, “Fine! You wanna know why I’ve been in a bad mood? It’s because she told me to go to Hell and since then I just…I haven’t been able to concentrate. She’s on my mind all the time and I’ve just been trying to figure out what I did wrong so I can fix it!”

“Oh so it’s a lovers spa-” Derek started to say.

“Don’t you go making more comments,” Spencer snapped, which made Derek freeze, the smile melting off of his mouth. “Your ‘love toy’ comment is one of the things that set her off. I know that for sure.”

“Okay so we know that. What else happened?” JJ asked as she took a seat in a chair nearby, seemingly fully concentrated on the conversation now. 

“I, uh…” Spencer faltered, feeling awkward about being open about his sex life in front of so many people seeing as how Hotch and Rossi had wandered into the space too. He felt heat creeping up into his cheeks as he blurted out, “We had sex in the bathroom and I had calculated how long I had before you guys got suspicious about what was happening so by the time that limit rolled around I had finished but didn’t have time to get her there but I still left because I didn’t want any of you to know what was going on.”

The response reminded him of the time they all found out you existed in the first place and he struggled to hear all of the comments. “Spencer Reid, you did what?!” came from Penelope. Emily groaned in frustration as she said, “We already all knew what was happening in that restroom!” One of the locals chimed in with, “Oh come on man, you can’t just leave her hanging like that!” “Yeah, you messed up big time,” was JJ’s snide remark as she leaned her head back and rolled her eyes. 

The chaotic chorus was interrupted by David clearing his throat to get the room’s attention. When the focus was on him, he wisely pointed out, “I think we can all agree that seeking forgiveness is what you need to do here. Do it right when we get back from the case.” The older man patted Spencer on the shoulder before continuing with, “Life isn’t going to slow down or wait for an ideal opportunity to make things right. If you really want things with this girl to work out, then you’re going to have to accept that there may be obstacles in the way and hurdles you both need to jump over. You have a village behind you, kid. A village that is willing to go to bat to protect both you and those you love. We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again. The unknown shouldn’t be the reason you hold yourself back from what you really want. So go after her.”

Spencer’s large hands gently took yours into his and when you didn’t deny the touch, he squeezed them and told you, “You aren’t just an object or ‘love toy’ to me. I promise you that.” He took a shaking breath and you looked up to see tears rimming his eyes as he said, “I was just so scared of something happening to you because of my job that I denied my feelings for you. I have been targeted and taken by unsubs before, Hotch’s ex wife who was in witsec was tracked and killed, JJ’s family was targeted just a few weeks after we met… I didn’t want any of those things to happen to you. But I also didn’t want to lose you from my life so I made a deal with myself that we would keep things casual, but I never followed up after that first morning if that was okay with you…”

Tears began welling up in your eyes in response to his words. You knew that he said the job was tough on relationships, but you never thought too into what he was protecting you from… It showed that he truly cared in your eyes. That he had thought this through. 

You were too stunned to speak and the dizzy feeling returned in response to all of the new information. Seeming to notice this, he guided you to the couch in your sitting area and asked, “I trust you know what the butterfly effect is?”

“I do,” you confirmed, curious as to where this was going. 

“Well sometimes I get to thinking and I wonder what the probability of us meeting would have been if that butterfly hadn’t made you spill your drink on me. Think of it as an actualization of the theory. I calculated that the odds would have been slim to none considering how far off our lines of work are from each other and it makes me sad to think that in virtually every other reality we never met. Because you’ve changed my life. And yes, the sex is great, but so is the conversation! You are always so genuinely interested in what I have to say and it’s so refreshing because a lot of the people I’m close to have gotten tired of my ramblings over the years. I didn’t realize until I didn’t have you in my life anymore that I wanted to come home early from cases to be with you, and not just intimately. I wanted to come home to you in my apartment - what would be our apartment. To bring you flowers and your favorite chocolates. To cook dinner with you and watch your favorite movies. To show you my favorite books and read yours in return! I’m usually one to look at the statistics and facts of it all, but just this once I would like to believe that the butterfly effect is real and that it brought us together.”

“Spencer, I-” you started, but stopped as a quiet sob left your mouth and you covered it with your hand. When you regained your composure, you nodded and told him, “I want that too. So much. I want to come home to you reading impossibly fast through my entire book collection. I want to take trips to bookstores together. I want to make your favorite meal when you get home from a case no matter what time of day it is. I want to properly meet your teammates from the BAU. I want it all. Because I-” you stopped your rambling once more before too much came out. 

You didn’t have to worry about it though, because Spencer took the words right out of your mouth as he said, “I love you.”

You felt weightless in response to his confession and you felt the biggest smile break out onto your face before you whispered back, “I love you too.” 

“Can I kiss you?” Spencer asked as he leaned his forehead on yours. 

“Always,” you replied, the smile on your lips evident in your voice. 

The kiss was the most gentle one Spencer had ever given you and you felt your heart soar and a kaleidoscope of butterflies explode in your stomach once more, reminding you of the day you met. And this time you were sure that Spencer wouldn’t let your soaring heart fall. 

After a few moments though, gone was the gentle kiss that brought you two back together. Soon the kiss was filled with need and desire as you finally noticed the reaction that your body had been having to the man who was now under your hips as you straddled him. Desire once more guided your actions as you moved your hips on Spencer’s, feeling his arousal starting to grow as you lapped into each others’ mouth. 

A low and muffled groan left Spencer’s mouth as he moved his hands to rest on your ass and began massaging in time with the sway of your hips. At the same time as you began to ask, “Can I-?” Spencer was whispering, “I need-” You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your mouth before you began moving off of him and down onto the floor between his spread legs, saying, “I take it we’re on the same page then?”

“Yes,” was his instant response as his lust filled eyes looked down at you on your knees between his legs, your hands gliding up his thighs and to his belt buckle. After getting the belt undone you of course took a moment to tease his stiff member, earning a small buck of his hips and a beg of, “Please,” almost whimpered from his lips. 

“How can I no to that?” you asked with a small smile on your lips as you began to unbutton and unzip Spencer’s slacks. When you pulled his slacks and underwear down in one fell swoop, you smiled up at Spencer as you asked, “Have I ever told you how handsome you are?”

“A-a few times. Shit-” he moaned out as you began teasing his head with your tongue, focusing on the spot on the underside just below the head that you knew drove him crazy. When you took him into your mouth fully, one of Spencer’s hands flew right into your hair, lightly tugging as you took as much of him into your mouth as you could. 

You bobbed up and down a few times before hollowing out your cheeks around him and as you did, the grip he had on your hair tightened and you let out a low moan in the back of your throat at the feeling. Spencer’s response was instant, letting out a loud moan into the otherwise quiet room that sounded somewhat like your name. Within seconds though, he was tapping at your temple and whispering, “W-wait. Stop.”

You instantly stopped what you were doing, feeling your heart clench at the words. Wiping the excess spit from your chin, you said quietly, “I-I’m sorry did I do something-?”

“No, no, no you didn’t do anything wrong, I just…” Spencer said as his chest heaved. “I want to do this the right way. I want to make love to you.” 

Your mouth opened slightly in response to the words as you sat back on the floor, shocked at the implication. Before you could come up with a response, Spencer was pulling you up from the floor and coaxing your oversized t-shirt off, revealing that you had not been wearing a bra this whole time which made him groan as he began toying with your now fully exposed breast. He began kissing you once more and a whimper escaped your mouth as he began toying with your hard nipple and you began pushing at his vest and button up, silently telling him to get rid of them. 

During all of this, the two of you began fumbling toward your bedroom, dropping clothes as you went and leaving a trail from the couch to your bed. When the backs of your knees met the edge of the bed, Spencer collapsed on top of you which ended up with you in a fit of giggles as he rolled both you and himself over to be in the bed properly. When you were comfortably on the pillow, you teasingly asked, “So what does love making entail, Doctor?”

“Something more gentle than I usually give you,” he replied as he lined himself up with your entrance. “Something more meaningful,” he added as he pushed in slowly. 

The stretch around Spencer was something you needed a moment to adjust to and he gave you time to do so as he buried his face into your neck and let out what sounded like a relieved sigh. This was already a change of pace. Usually the two of you were so needy, he never gave you time to adjust to his size and you always took the sting in stride with the pounding he usually gave you, but this…this was different. It felt new. It was gentle. 

Wrapping your legs around Spencer’s waist, you sighed contentedly before whispering, “You can move.”

And so he did, starting off with small thrusts that you were sure he was doing so he didn’t lose it right then and there after the oral you had just given him before you started. But then they transitioned into long and languid strokes, almost completely pulling out from you before slowly pushing back in. At one point Spencer grabbed a small throw pillow you had on the bed and lifted your hips to place it under them and from that moment you knew you were a goner. The angle made it easier for him to hit that spongy spot within your walls and you let out an almost pornographic moan when he did. Over and over again. 

“You sound so beautiful,” Spencer grunted out which made you open your eyes to look up at him. You were met with his smile as he reiterated, “You are so beautiful.”

The compliment had your body reeling and you felt the coil in your abdomen tightening as he continued to brush over that spot within you. “Spencer, I-” your words were cut off by a moan when he brought the hand now not supporting his body weight to your clit and began rubbing gentle circles on it. Your breathing began to become labored as the pleasure continued to mount until it was almost too much. “I’m close,” you told him, feeling your core starting to twitch around him as he filled you up so well. 

“Me too, sweet girl,” Spencer panted out, leaning down to place a gentle kiss to your lips. 

As cheesy as it is to say, the tender moment was what broke you. A litany of pleasure filled sounds escaped your mouth that were swallowed by Spencer’s as he picked up his pace just the slightest bit as you began contracting around him, your orgasm ripping through your body in the most intense way possible. Spencer followed behind you quickly, burying his head into your neck once more as he moaned out his pleasure between sloppy kisses placed on your throat. 

Spencer collapsed slightly on top of you, slightly to the side as he slipped out of you, some of his release following suit as you both breathed heavily in the aftermath of what you would deem the most pleasurable sex you had ever had. With hands wandering in mindless shapes over your body, Spencer mumbled into your skin, “I love you. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize.”

“I love you too,” you told him with a smile on your lips. You never wanted to let go of this feeling. 

A few minutes passed of just basking in each other’s warm embrace before Spencer raised his head and kissed your lips, telling you, “Let’s get cleaned up. I’m thinking that after we shower I can take you to dinner? On a proper date?” 

“I would love that,” you replied as he helped you off the bed and into the shower. 

That night after dinner Spencer outdid himself with the love making, somehow managing to drag three more orgasms out of you, each more intense than the last. As you laid there in bed that night with Spencer’s arm draped over you, you silently thanked the world for sending that butterfly into your path that fateful morning.

a/n: thank you all so much for the outpouring of love on Casual! i really hope this lived up to expectations that may have been built after the first part! Derek still hasn't been redeemed and Reader still hasn't properly met the BAU team (especially Rossi who was honestly the MVP here), so i'm thinking we'll see each other again in a potential part three? ;)

part three: Right Person, Right Time

taglist: @spicyspirit @misserabella @lillianacristina @lullvu

those who didn't ask to be tagged but y'all were so kind in the comments so i will anyways to make sure you see this post <3 (apologizes if i am overstepping by tagging)

@lilrios-world @theylovemelody @lea24sposts @espressoparis @crazy4books1 @i-live-in-spite @mega-kittyglitter-1 @rumplereids

[mysunshinetemptress]

Anxiety (lil McCabe universe)

Leah Williamson x McCabe!reader!ex

Magdalena Eriksson x Pernille Harder x McCabe!reader!platonic

Warnings: Talks of anxiety, not edited or proofread

You’re anxious, a feeling that has followed you around way longer than you would like to admit, a feeling that has consumed you way longer than your family, your Mam, knows about, longer than anyone knows about.

You had tried to tell her about the funny feeling you had as a kid, your little heart racing, your mind spinning, spiraling into the never-ending feeling of fear, but there was always something else, someone else. It wasn’t your Mam’s fault, nor was it your siblings’. They had things they needed her for, their own problems. Your Mam had her own problems. Surely this feeling, this sickening feeling, wasn’t as important as your siblings’ feelings, their needs and wants. They were older, so much older, they had more serious problems, more important problems and feelings than this feeling you were dealing with, right?

You didn't know why you so sick, it was so much more than butterflies, defenitly not excitement, it wasn't until you had been all grown up and earning enough money to visit a doctor did you get a diagnosis.

"Miss McCabe, you suffer from anxiety"

You had felt a weight being liftied off you the moment your feelings had been givien a name, that you weren't just looking for attention, you weren't just making it up, made you feel so much lighter then you had ever felt.

"You said you have been suffereing with these feelings since you were a child, did you ever try to tell anyone."

You nod, you had tried, when you couldn't go to your mam, you had tried one of your older siblings, you had tried to tell Katie, but she was to busy to deal with you "Y/n, can't you see i'm playing with Lauryn, your supposed to be a big girl now not a baby stop makeing things up for attention." you dropped your head as Katie muttered "Seriously she really needs to grow up."

"I tried." the docotor nodes her head her eyes scanning your solum face "How come you decided to look for answers now? For help now?"

You pick at your fingers "My girlfriend...She-she said she was worried about me...that-that sometimes I have trouble sleeping" you take a breath picking at your fingers looking towards the door, "I have trouble concentrating, she...I don't...she just said i should come here, that i should get a check up make sure im ok." The doctor smiled at you softly "If your girlfriend hadn't pushed you to come see me, would you have come eventualy."

Would you? "No" she looks surprised at your answer "No? why?" You look at the door again picking at the skin around your nails "I-I-I have to get on with it, I have to learn to get on with it-I have to grow up." The doctor looks even more surpriesed, sad, unhappy with your answer. Why is she unhappy with your answer?

“This isn’t something you can grow out of Miss McCabe, anxiety isn’t something you should just push on with, it can cause serious mental health problems for you if you do.” You shake your head no “I-I don’t have time-I have to get on with it-it’s the only way.” The doctor lets out a sigh “You said you come from a big family, surely one of them doesn’t mind talking to you about these things.” You shake your head again “They don’t need this, they-they don’t need anymore then they already have.” The doctor wants to press on you can see that but her attention is pulled to your bloody hands, you’ve picked at them till they bled. She looks to the door “Your girlfriend then.” Again you shake your head.

Leah doesn’t deserve the stress of something being wrong with you, she doesn’t deserve the possible sacrifices she’ll have to make in order to make you feel comfortable and happy. Not her,not Leah, not when she is the only person who looks at you and not through you, the only person whose hand fits and hold yours instead of passing through.

“I can look after myself, I-I have done it for long enough.”

You can look after yourself, you have done it for long enough, it’s the mantra you repeat in your head again and again as you arrive at the training grounds for Bayern, it’s the mantra you repeat every time your anxiety strikes and you feel yourself pick at your hands.

Bayern Munich, fresh start, no Katie, no Arsenal, no stupid bets, no Leah. Y/n, just Y/n.

“Hi.” Bayern Munich and Magdalena Eriksson, Bayern Munich and Pernille Harder.

You look behind you trying to see if it’s anyone else they are talking to, but there’s no one, there’s only you.

You.

You think for a second and the voices scream in your head, they are just like the others, this is a joke another bet, who can get closest to the new girl first. Who can pretend to be her friend the best.

Your hands, your poor hands sting as you begin to pick at them again, they are the same as the others, they have to be, all you are is worth a bet, 100 quid.

But still, there is no one behind you, no one new in the car park and the older women continue to smile at you softly.

Magda looks at your hands her smile faltering, she drags her eyes up your body, now noticing your heaving chest, your panicking, your shivering slightly yet you speak, you force yourself to talk to them even though it’s scaring the living shit out of you

“Hi”

[just-a-ghost00]

What they wish to tell you

Decks used : I don't care oracle, White Numen tarot, Spirit Junkie oracle

Group 1 ⭐️

"My productivity stems from inspiration. When I focus on what brings me joy, my tasks become effortless actions." The Moon, 4 of pentacles, 5 of cups, Abuse of power rx, Party in your heart, Surprise rx

They wish to tell you that they're afraid and unhappy. That they feel powerless within this connection. They feel like they've lost all chances of being with you and that scares them. I get a lot of sadness from this spread. Sadness and regret. They feel unsafe. Like all the fun has been taken away from them. They can't seem to rejoice about the things they used to like or to marvel at life. They have a hard time focusing on daily tasks, seeing the glass half full. They feel uninspired, unmotivated, lost because things aren't as they used to be. They feel like you've changed, whether that's the truth or not. They feel disconnected from you, from people in general. They have a hard time thinking positively. I feel like they struggle with mental health issues at the moment. At the back of each deck we have The High Priestess, Dopamine ? Dopa-go ! & My friendships support me, nourish me and inspire me. This person feels like they are not supported by the people around them. They have lost the will to fight for what makes them happy, what they believe in. They're going through a dark night of the soul and they're in a lot of confusion right now. That's also something they try to hide from people around them, including you. They put on a façade but the truth is they wish they could tell you how empty they feel without you. This person wishes they could go back to the times where things weren't as complicated and they could enjoy themselves freely. This person feels like they cannot be themselves freely with their loved ones. For some of you, the person you're thinking of may struggle with their sense of identity. I was picking up on the LGBTQIA2S+ community. For some of you, if your person is a masculine, they may struggle with expressing their feminine side because of societal expectations or pressure from family. I was specifically picking up on Drag Queens and Kings. But more than that I just feel like your person is currently struggling to find their path in life and may be questioning themselves a lot. Which is a very tiring and uncertain time of their life. And they wish they could talk about it with you but for some reason they struggle to do so. Their heart feels very guarded. They are very insecure right now. They have a hard time showing compassion to their own self for what they are experiencing. They may be blaming themselves a lot when they have nothing to be ashamed of. I feel like if this person could change their surroundings maybe they wouldn't be going through such a difficult phase.

Group 2 🍾

"I accept the gifts I've been given as a high service to the world." Death, The Chariot, 3 of swords, Stop doing so much, There's no planet B! , Stand up for yourself rx

The person on your mind wishes to tell you that they feel stuck career wise and they don't know where they stand anymore. This person doesn't feel happy with their professional life as of now and they are afraid to leave whatever situation they're in because they have no idea where they would go or what they would do in such case. This person feels like they don't have what it takes to start over again. They wish they could move on and find something better, get closer to you possibly but they lack the strength and courage to do so. This person feels burnt out by their responsibilities and engagements. They're also afraid of criticism from their peers. On the back of each deck we have knight of swords & Close your eyes, close the curtains and sleep & "Attacking others is an attack on myself. I choose to release this now." They wish to tell you that they do not dare to speak up their mind for fear of rejection. They're afraid of their own light and power, as well as the effects their choices would have on the people around them. They're afraid of the unknown, of "losing" what they're used to. They're afraid of change. They're losing sleep over the fact that no matter how hard they try, no matter how much they think about it, they can't seem to find a way out or a way to change the outcome. On one hand, they know that where they're at right now is detrimental to them. But on the other hand, they feel like if they left whatever situation they're in right now, they would be wasting something beautiful and they could not go back. This person is afraid of taking responsibility and they feel very bad about themselves right now. They're in a dilemma and though they sincerely wish to put an end to this cycle, they can't seem to get themselves out of it. They wish they could tell you how exhausted they are and how hurt they are but they keep it to themselves because they do not wish to burden you with their struggles. Also, for some of you, your person sees you working really hard for your dreams and they're afraid that you're overworking yourself. They wish you would take the time to rest and take care of yourself.

Group 3 🎀

"My friendships support me, nourish me and inspire me." 10 of wands, 2 of wands, The Magician, I dare to declare my love, Please leave a message, Spread the love

I really like the energy of this spread. It's such a stark contrast to the other groups. They wish to tell you that, though they have a lot on their plate, you do not leave their mind and they still have a lot of hope for your connection. You are a source of motivation and inspiration to them. You are the reason why they get up in the morning and do their best every day. They wish to tell you that whatever you are going through, they still appreciate you and care for you. That should you need them, even if they're busy with their own things to deal with, they'll make time and space for you, to comfort you and guide you. They wish to tell you that you are so dear to them and that they're working really hard to be able to be closer to you. That may be true especially for those of you that are in a long distance connection. This person hopes to travel so that they can meet you. They're constantly day dreaming about you. They wish to tell you that you're all they care about and that they only have eyes for you. At the back of each deck we have Ace of pentacles, You are here & "Compassion is my compass. I am willing to hold space for the experience of others." The "You are here" card show an arrow pointing to the Earth from an outer space perspective and the Earth is right at the center of the galaxy from that angle. So they wish to tell you that you're at the center of their Universe. You occupy their thoughts at every moment of their life. I get the same vibe from the compassion card. They are willing to adapt and change things in their life so that you can better fit into their world. With this ace of pentacles, they wish to tell you that they would like to start anew with you or give your connection a new turn by making you an offer. I feel like this person would like to be in a relationship with you, regardless of what people may think and despite the challenges this may rise. It's like, no matter what, they're willing to make it work because you mean so much to them. Honestly this is so sweet.

[reidmotif]

Please, Please, Please

Summary: Spencer makes a promise he can't keep to Reader, and pays the price. (Requested by Anon!)

Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader

Category: Angst

Content Warning: allusions to reader wearing makeup, unhappy ending

Word Count: 1k

Masterlist

"Heartbreak is one thing, my ego's another / I beg you don't embarrass me, motherfucker."

I felt like despite it all, the scene was a little comical. 

Half eaten cake plates, all strewn around haphazardly around my apartment, balloons and streamers meant to commence the sunniness of the day, and yet my disposition was anything but. 

I’d asked him, a million times over and then some if he was absolutely sure he’d manage to make it. I’d never been the type to demand anything, I was fine with an answer that wasn’t in the affirmative and yet there he went, reassuring me that “I’ll come” and promising he “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Well someone must’ve given Spencer Reid the fucking world, because here we were, party over and Spencer very obviously not here.

I’d stupidly gotten excited over it too, which only added to the growing bubble of resentment I felt. I’d promised my friends that after the last dozen times he’d flaked on shared plans, he’d be here this one time. None of them believed me.

 I kept grinning, reassuring them he’d come. I kept imagining my charming boyfriend surprising them all, holding some extravagant gift in his hand and sweeping me into his arms with the other one. He’d compliment my makeup, or maybe he’d kiss me right then and there,  and I’d finally be able to introduce him to everyone. I would be able to relish in how lucky I’d gotten to have such a wonderful man in my life that I cared for so deeply. I’d share stories about the memories we���d made, and spend an incredibly special day with an incredibly special person. 

That’s what I’d imagined. Instead, my friends and other guests looked on in pity as I watched the front door, for a man who couldn’t care less to commit to any one of our plans. Guests slowly trailed out as the party came to an end, and I was left there, cleaning up the remnants of Spencer’s empty promises to me.

Fuck this.

Finally, I hear the doorbell ring. Fun. He comes half an hour later once the party’s ended. I unlock the door and see him standing there, sheepish and apologetic.  There’s a sad little bouquet in his hands, which I assume is there to assuage me from the anger I felt, but it did absolutely nothing to placate me. 

“Baby I’m so-“ Spencer starts.

“Save it. I am sick of this.” I say, my nostrils flaring as he stares at me from the doorway.

“Please. It was work. I was- it slipped my mind.” He replies, trying to reason with me. 

I felt an angry laugh bubble over me, disbelief clouding my features. “You forgot?! Are you fucking kidding me?” 

There’s a pause. “No..? No. I’m not kidding.” He mumbles. 

“So much for an eidetic memory.” I think to myself, snarking in my own head at the mess of a man infront of me.

I used to think he’d hang the damn stars in the sky for me.

“I can’t do this anymore.” I say, a firmness in my voice. 

Spencer straightens up. He swallows and nods. “Yeah, no.” He sighs, rubbing at his neck.  “Let’s table this for tomorrow. How about we go upstairs and just cuddle and forget about today? Yeah?”

He’s speaking with that infuriatingly comforting tone, attempting to step forward, to envelope me in that warmth only he could. As soon as his hand made contact with my shoulder, though, I glare at him, shooting daggers with my eyes before forcibly removing him off, much to his dismay and heartbreak.

I ignore it all.

“No.” I interrupt. “I can’t do this anymore. You. I can’t do you anymore.” I say, gesturing between us.

The moment he processes the words, the heartbreak on his face is immediate, his features falling within a nanosecond. “No. I mean- no. You don’t mean that, you’re angry but please- I love you. You know that.” 

“Do I?” I responded, eyebrows raising with a condescending edge to my tone. “When have you once shown up for me the way I show up for you? Love isn’t transactional Spencer, but Jesus. This isn’t love. This isn’t how you treat someone you love.” I say, fuming. 

“You know how my job is. You know that.” He says, voice on the verge of breaking. 

“And you knew how important this was to me!” I responded. “This hurts, Spencer! I don’t know if you get that, but it does. I feel so- so humiliated!”

“Humiliated?” He asks, softly. 

“Humiliated. Crushed. I go on like an absolute ditz for the better part of this week about how excited I was to introduce my boyfriend to everyone, and then he doesn’t show up. Wonderful.” I say, a bite in my tone. “Sad girl at her birthday party. What a fucking cliche.” 

“So, what? Is this about your ego?” He fires back, slightly defensive. “I know I fucked up, but- but this is too much. My actions do not warrant this.”

“You know what?” I fire back.  “Yeah. Maybe it is my ego. Sue me for believing that maybe, just maybe, I believe I deserve better than someone who can’t bother to commit to a promise.” I say, a bit more resigned now as my statement came to a close. I roll my eyes. “You’re not the relationship I want nor the one I deserve.”

His eyebrows raise, face further conveying the state of distress he was in. He licks his lips, sensing that this conversation is coming to a fast end and shakes his head, trying hard to save face. “Please let me make it up to you. Let me be the person you deserve. You.. You know how important you are to me.” 

His eyes are shining. Brown doe eyes glistening with tears and my heart twists at the sight, but his words only aim to wound me further.

I sigh, feeling a prick of tears for the first time this whole conversation. My feelings of anger were slowly replaced with a deeper sadness as I replied.

“No, Spencer. I really don’t.” 

I shut the door before I have to endure anymore of his crestfallen expression. 

So much for a good birthday.

so woahh. do we do a part 2 ? who knows. sorry about the unhappy ending. anyway, this if my first time doing an angst piece like this! let me know what you think lmfao. any comments, likes, reblogs, ect ect are sooo deeply appreciated <3 thank you for reading!!

[certifiedsexed]

Is it unacceptable to decline dating someone because they're asexual?

Someone came into my life in the last few months who is VERY set on getting into a serious relationship with me, and although I do really really like them and wish it could work out, we had a conversation a few days back where they revealed that they're asexual and entirely sex repulsed. They told me that they'd never want to have sex, were against me potentially seeing other people for my needs, and that they would even be uncomfortable with me masturbating in a shared apartment if we ever moved in together. I wish I could go along with that, but I have an incredibly high libido and I genuinely cannot imagine forcing myself to become celibate like they need me to be, so I told them earlier that I'd like to break up since I have a feeling our incompatibilities will only make the both of us frustrated and unhappy as things progress. They blew up on me though, saying that I'm being selfish since, in their words, "I'm really not asking for a lot," and that if I really cared I'd compromise for their sake. Like... is having this as a dealbreaker genuinely unreasonable? Am I being too stubborn? To me this feels like a big deal, but they make it sound like it's the easiest request they could've given me and now I'm nervous that maybe I'm just making a mistake by giving this much importance to my sexual needs.

Good question! I think declining to date someone solely based on the fact they're asexual, without knowing anything about their sexual preferences beyond that, can be heavily based on bigoted assumptions.

But that's not what you're talking about. You're saying y'all had a serious conversation about sexual preferences and you've realized you're completely incompatible and you don't want to pursue a relationship with them.

That's not bigoted and not just completely reasonable but also very responsible! You're respecting their wishes and preferences while also respecting your own, which is a great thing to do!

That's not selfish. You're allowed to break up if you want to. Sure, if this person was dating someone else, it's quite possible what they're asking for isn't a lot! But for you, it is a lot and that's okay.

But what's not okay is guilting you for wanting to break up and saying you're being selfish by "not compromising", especially when no compromise was even mentioned. That's not okay behavior.

This isn't unreasonable. For you, this is a big deal! It's okay to give that the importance it has to you. Just because sexual needs aren't important to them doesn't mean they can't be for you.

That's just another example of what you were talking about and how you thought you were incompatible.

I understand how their response could make you nervous but you're literally allowed to break up for any reason.

This is absolutely a fine reason to break up, especially with the guilting on top of it. You do not want to be dating people who blame and guilt you for entirely reasonable decisions.

Hope this helps, Anon! Wishing you luck. Let me know if you have any other questions. <3

[ppssession]

Mystic Shop:Shortcut to success

The path as an actor is quite difficult, that is something I understand very well.Okay, but what I don't quite understand is that almost six years have passed and I still haven't made any progress.

The voice in the head of Has, an ordinary-looking young man, is thinking while working on the set of the film.

He graduated from the Faculty of Acting and majored in acting many years ago. He was praised as a very talented actor by both his teachers and friends, but his chance to act was overlooked simply because he looked ordinary.

While he was thinking about the past, he saw a handsome young man who was the main character in this group.

Raven, the handsome young man who was the hero of this filming, made Ash a little unhappy because Ash could clearly see that his acting ability was very low. He acted stiffly like a robot, or maybe a robot could act better than that. Ash could only think to himself.

After the group of people left, Ash could only hold back his dissatisfaction as he walked along the quiet street, and then he heard someone shout, "Hey, big brother, come in."

เHe turned to look at the source of the voice and saw a handsome young man wearing a simple waiter's uniform calling him into a strange shop. The sign in front of the shop said, "We can help you change your life." As he walked into the hot room, he heard sweet words.

Do you want to be successful? It seems like you are taking a long time but the results are not coming to you yet?

The young employee asked openly.

Not arrogant about anything, Hass admits, “Yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve had that opportunity.”

Then you're in luck, we can help you. The young clerk turned under the counter and picked up a leather jacket.

This is a special jacket that allows the wearer to possess his or her body just by wearing the jacket as part of him or her.

We will put your soul into the jacket ourselves. You will fall asleep and wake up in your new body. Do you agree?

Hearing that, Hass was interested, but he had a question. “If I put my soul in it, will I be able to make my new body wear this jacket?” Hass asked suspiciously, but the clerk smiled playfully before answering.

“Of course, our shop will take care of everything.” So to guarantee that we will make you into the shape you want, we will not charge you upfront, but you can pay when it is done. How about this?”

Hus saw nothing bad when the employee just reached out his hand to make a deal. He shook hands with the employee. “I agree.” When their hands shook, it was a contract that the deal was made. Suddenly, Hus started to feel sleepy. He slowly lost consciousness. The last thing he saw was the employee smiling with his eyes full of satisfaction.

Huss came to a strange state of consciousness. He felt that his body was very light. When he looked closely, he could not move at all. He found that he had turned into a jacket.

She said as she walked away that someone had carried him up to the wardrobe and had someone put him on.

Hus found out that the person wearing him was Raven. He was a little shocked, but he felt satisfied to receive Raven's body from him. He felt that he was merging with Raven's body. Everything about Hus slowly turned dark again…

Raven's Corner

Today I have to continue filming this movie. I'm a little bored with the people on set who are gossiping about my acting being too stiff.

**After putting on the jacket**

I feel like I can perform better with this weird feeling like something is flowing through me, but I accept it.It made me able to act more naturally but ahhh the more I accepted it the more my body became uncontrollable. Ahhh the worst it made me horny it made me hard all the time.I can't stand it anymore. Aaaah no, I just finished in my pants and they're so wet now. Why is everything getting darker…,,,

Raven's body twitched for a moment before opening her eyes. Hass had now taken over Raven's body.

From now on, I'll take care of it myself. Let's see how well I can portray you, Raven. Wow, it looks like someone just finished in his pants. I'll definitely continue at your house, Raven, no, mine, lol.

After 1 year

The handsome young actor Raven has been nominated for the Best Leading Actor award. He can give a great performance. The headlines are like this, I feel shy.

Hass in Raven's body lives as Raven. He can act as Raven smoothly without anyone knowing. He gets up and goes to take a photo, thinking to himself, "Thanks to this body, I've come this far, but I should thank the Mystic Shop for helping me get this body. Ah, I feel so good in this body. Ah, it seems I made his brother hard again by accident. I'll have to work so I can have fun."

I'm trying to get my backlog of requests sorted out before the new year. I hope you like it. See you on the next one.

[captain-joongz]

Space for two

Pairing: demon!Kim Taehyung x f!reader

Genre: smut, both angsty and fluffy, dark themes, positive ending, historical au (maybe like 18/early 19th century Joseon)

Summary: Trapped in a marriage arranged by our families, married to a cold, uncaring man and taking care of a farm in the middle of nowhere, I had sunken to the lowest lows. Aware of my husband's gambling habits and love for brothels that often kept him from home, I'd gotten used to the feeling of falling asleep in a cold, empty bed. But that changed one day, when an uninvited guest made himself quite at home and brought with him warm touches and scorching dreams. Gentleness coming from the one least expected may just be the push into the right direction.

Word count: 25.4k

Warnings: some dark themes, demon Taetae (he's a sweetie though), he's messing with the reader a little tho, he does have some slight yandere vibes, themes of depression and loneliness, infidelity, a shitty husband, some themes and mentions of domestic violence and verbal abuse (at one point the husband grabs her by the hair, throws stuff around the house), mentions of death and murder

NSFW warnings: slightly dubcon-ish (at first he visits her dreams), reader is inexperienced and embarrassed, slight innocence/corruption kink if you squint really hard, wet dreams, fingering, dirty talk, praise kink, making out, handjob, unprotected sex (it's joseon :// you be careful out there), some slight breeding kink, half clothed sex

A/N: super late but finally here!! i'm sorry for all the delays, but this just kept getting longer and longer and i had to juggle it between schoolwork, but i hope it is worth the wait! this is actually based on a korean folklore story of prince cheoyong, which i explain in the end notes so i don't spoil anything hehe

I was preparing the food in silence, the only sounds in the room the clanking of my knife on the cutting board and slight bubbling in the pot over the fire. It was winter and so I kept the doors leading to the yard closed, but I still heard the thuds of my husband chopping firewood, the dull thumps of the wood hitting the ground, the swish of his axe in the air.

I was already well used to this, to the silence of this place.

It was a quiet that could only come from unhappiness and spite, the kind that made you feel lonely and desolate, knowing the only other person around rather chose to not speak than engage with you. It was what I had come to know very well in here.

I had found myself married quite abruptly. It was a little over a year ago, when a messenger from the Ryu family of the neighbouring village arrived at our door. My father accepted him, but didn’t speak of what the meeting was about, which raised some suspicions between the women of the family. I was the second child of the family and the eldest of the daughters, and way past the age when women of my standing usually married. It felt like we all knew what it would come to.

My unmarried status was a bit of a controversial story around these parts.

I wouldn’t call our family exactly disgraced, but we weren’t at the full glory the Kangs used to stand at, back in the days of my great great great great-grandfather, who built the family into a considerable fortune, but whose grandson to the family’s great embarrassment failed the gwageo examinations several times and couldn’t secure an official position. The family had tried to bribe their way into the office, but the local official came from a family that had been feuding with ours for a few generations, over something that was no doubt petty and no longer relevant. He basked in the desperation of our family and wished for nothing more than to see them crash and burn, thus if we couldn’t secure a position through the examinations, he wouldn’t allow any bribery in order to destroy our clan.

The embarrassment continued as neither his son, nor his grandson were able to pass the qwageo and our family was stripped of our title. We had been living on the rapidly thinning fortune, trying to keep some sort of decorum, but feeling the full force of shame the other inhabitants from our area showed towards us. To them, we were pathetic. Just some thirty years ago we were strolling through these streets as if we owned them and now, disgraced and quickly running out of options, here we were – on the same level as them.

My father was able to break the family curse by starting a successful shop with trinkets, toys and other useful little devices, which allowed us to stay afloat money-wise, but cast us further into shame, considering our family had once been part of the yangban class and thus weren’t supposed to work. Even if disgraced, rules applied to us, and we were a great embarrassment to those who we used to call friends and allies.

The curse was further broken when father in his quite advanced age managed to pass the gwageo and got a spot in local office. He pushed my younger brothers into studies, as his pride never took this situation lightly. He was brought up to be an aristocrat, but here he was, working his days away like a commoner. In the end, his obsession was fruitful when two of my three brothers also passed their examinations and entered into civil duty, one striving for the office and one for the military service. The middle son, who struggled with his studies, was put in charge of the shop where he excelled.

As such, we were suddenly catapulted back into our previous standing, after several generations of disgrace, after struggling financially and fighting for survival every month, we were back to walking the streets with our chins held high, wrapped from head to toe in silk.

And that’s where the controversy about my marriage started.

As most young people, I had been promised and engaged to a young boy from a different neighbouring village. Due to the fact that we lost our title, I couldn’t strive for marriage withing the yangban class – after all, social standing was inherited after the mother, so I couldn’t be more than a concubine since I would curse my child with low social status. But that would be a hit to my father’s pride. Therefore he rather engaged me to a son of a lower middle class trader. To them, I was someone of a better status as they had never received a title, and my family would expand their funds.

But then several things happened all almost at once.

We regained our status, thus our marriage in my father’s eyes was no longer appropriate, even though finding someone from the yangban who would want me to marry their son would be nigh impossible. He demanded the breaking of the engagement, which was something the society looked down upon, especially since he had sealed the deal years ago. The two families started feuding, the trader now even more eager to secure me for them, and my father with his regained confidence insisting upon marriage to someone “of our class”. And during this time, the boy fell ill and promptly died.

Since we were engaged, I now was to be considered his widow even though we hadn’t had our wedding, but my father insisted that the engagement was broken off and I had no such obligation. The trader of course claimed the complete opposite and demanded we go through with everything as was arranged. The people in the area, even if they followed the drama between the two families closely and listened to gossip religiously, they themselves couldn’t tell who was telling the truth. Our engagement had been in place for years, but it was also widely known that my father has changed his mind and demanded for the wedding to be off.

In the eyes of some I was free to marry, but some viewed me as a young widow, a ghost bride, and thus I couldn’t find another husband unless I wanted to bring huge shame on the family and reap cosmic consequences. But most simply disliked my father for his underhanded tactics and newfound arrogance.

But this situation had made the question of my marriage impossible to solve. It was already unlikely that a match of my father’s expectations would be willing to take me as a first wife and honour me as such, since the yangbans looked down on us heavily, and now I had become tarnished goods in the eyes of potential suitors. My family still tried desperately to pawn me off to someone, but we had turned into a huge joke between the families in the area and I was doomed. Some even started to view me as a cursed woman, touched by black magic, that would bring death to any man who would want to marry me, and that was a final nail in the coffin of my marriage.

But my father wouldn’t give up so easily. He still had something that many desired enough to risk a curse on their family – money and power.

Thus, when the messenger had come and father refused to divulge any information about the nature of the meeting, the wives and daughters that had amassed in our house over the years all whispered about a potential engagement. I thought it was possible, but it was probably for one of my younger sisters. I was wrong.

The Ryu family used to be a powerful local aristocracy, but over the last few generations they had fallen considerably. Their disgrace wasn’t as openly talked about as ours, even though they were the centre of some mean-spirited jokes, however they had one powerful advantage. They didn’t lose their title, just most of their money. While their children still could live their lives telling everyone they were yangbans, they didn’t have the money to uphold the lifestyle. Only one of their sons had an office and it wasn’t enough to keep the whole extended family afloat. There were rumours of gambling, addiction and unwise spending, which were the most probable factors in their fall.

They knew no one self-respecting would marry their children, who were all pushed into working for their livelihood, and they couldn’t marry under their standing lest the children lose their status. That’s when they came up with the bright idea to get into talks with our family.

My father didn’t waste any time. For him, this was perfect – the right class, family with still some respect left intact, he had enough money, so he didn’t mind striking a business deal with the mostly impoverished family and I was used to working, as I had also grown up before our rise. It was just the perfect deal.

From the moment I had first heard about it, it was barely two months before I found myself fully engaged and a week away from a wedding to a man I’d never met before. He was the second son; he had a house on the foot of the mountain a little further away from the town that was the heart of this area. It would take some travelling, but still remained close enough to keep close ties.

Our wedding ceremony was brief and awkward, a lot of stilted conversation and pretend joy, while my mother and sisters all gathered around me in silent support. I saw their sad and worried eyes, the graveness of their usually more cheerful voices, the barely masked sympathy they looked at me with when I interacted with my stone-faced husband. Marriage was something I had since long made peace with, after all it is what every woman has to face at some point in her life, so I had just squeezed their hands and smiled at them gently, whispered words of assurance and prepared myself for the long journey to my new home.

I had soon found out he was a cold quiet man, rough and unhappy. Most of the time he wouldn’t address me with much more than grumbling complaints, cross when I tried to speak to him, when I asked him questions or requested something to be bought, turning away from me and rather spending time tending to his house and to his animals.

I was suddenly confined to a few rooms within an unwelcoming dark house, knitting or sewing or cooking, trying to lose myself in the mindless tasks of caring for a man and a household instead of dwelling on the growing despair in the pit of my stomach. Since then the situation between us has considerably worsened, but I found that the angrier he grew with me, the less he wanted to see me and the more he avoided me, which had begun to bring me relief. I was lonely and I did feel abandoned, but it was better than surviving in the same room as him.

I had gotten used to the air of gloom hanging over this dwelling.

My hand reached over for another carrot and found none, and I startled myself out of reminiscing. The vegetables were cut and the stew was boiling vigorously, so I busied myself with finishing. The sounds of chopping wood have ceased and I could no longer hear any traces of my husband’s presence.

Curious, I opened the door and peeked outside. The bitter coldness of the air immediately bit into my face and I shuddered, my body shocked by the sudden freezing temperatures when it was so warm from the kitchen fire. Looking over the yard, I didn’t see the hulking form of the man I’d come to live with, but I did see his fresh footprints in the snow leading towards the pig sty. Satisfied I walked back in and closed the door again. Rubbing my hands on my arms and cheeks I hurried back to the pot to warm up.

Soon the sun would go down and night would fall, so he was tending to the pigs for the last time tonight, making sure they had everything, which gave me a little more time to finish up dinner.

Some maybe half hour later the door finally opened roughly and he made his way in wordlessly. There were wet footprints on the floor left behind and a puddle was slowly gathering as melted snow dripped from his coat. I bit my tongue and said nothing, just pulled out the table and started setting it for dinner.

No words were traded and yet the atmosphere chilled considerably, the mood dropping low along with the sun on the horizon. We sat down, we ate in silence. Once he was done, he again got up, put a fresh coat on and was out of the door before I could even wish him a good night.

I used to ask where he was going, but there was no longer any need for that. He spent his evenings and nights in the same place every day, it was a habit that must have started a little before our betrothal. He had found himself some new friends from the town, friends that very happily spent most of their time playing cards, smoking opium, drinking and crawling from brothel to brothel.

Around the time of our wedding, he only joined them a few nights of the week and usually came back in the middle of the night. Back then I saw it as a problem and oftentimes tried to dissuade him from throwing away money this way. His family lost all they had because their young lord lived this exact lifestyle, it was foolish for him to fall down the same trap, but it was a frequent cause of arguments between us and the more I pushed for him to not go out and spend so much money, the more he wanted to. Gradually he went more often, came back later, until I had started waking up to an untouched, unslept in bed.

But I do have to admit that nowadays I saw it more as a relief that he never spent his nights home, even if that meant our already hard-to-come-by money was being thrown out the window like it was nothing. I’d come to prefer spending time alone.

I cleaned up after dinner and started preparing myself for bed. The ritual of changing clothes, brushing out my hair and smoothing out the bedding on the mats was helping me calm down every evening, but tonight I couldn’t find rest for some reason. While I sat on the floor and carefully brushed my hair, the house felt chillier than usual and I kept hearing soft creaks from the outside as if someone was walking around on the porch. It’s just the wind and the frost, it must be.

Unsettled I lost the battle with myself and went to look out into the yard. The moment I got near the door, suddenly a gust of chilling wind bust the door open and I screamed with shock, covering my naked arms to shield them from the frost. Immediately I jumped towards the door to close it back up, not before looking out into the yard and the forest beyond the walls of our house. There was a full moon hanging over us in the night sky and its light allowed me to see everything with startling ease, casting an eerie silver glow over the murmuring trees. I quickly shut the door and sat back down to help my heart calm down, as it was beating so hard I feared it might tear right out of my ribcage.

After I laid down, it took me a long moment to settle down enough for sleep to start licking at my consciousness. I kept startling myself with every crack and every hum of the wind outside and the fright from before still coursed through my veins, making me shiver and trying to persuade me there was something wicked hiding behind the darkness, lurking in every corner and waiting for an unguarded moment.

But somewhere along the way I did nod off and when I woke up in the morning, I was certain the strong arms that at some point found their way around my waist and pulled me into a warm wide chest were nothing more than a dream. An embarrassing dream that just spoke of my sombre solitude.

In the first months of our marriage, much to my chagrin, Minhwan practiced his marital rights almost nightly. Some nights he would return late from his outings with friends and immediately roll over on me and demand I submit. I did of course, it was expected of me and I was well aware of that. I had been taught that.

But over the course of several months, the frequency of such encounters lessened as I wasn’t getting pregnant, until we no longer even spoke to each other and his side of the bed became permanently unoccupied.

Of course, there was a simple, and really the only, reason for my introduction into this family – a child. A son. That was the end-goal of this union and the purpose for my existence in their eyes. After I had failed to fall pregnant despite months of effort, the man I married who already wasn’t very kind to me slowly turned into someone crueller, angrier. I could see the frustration taking over him until he completely lost himself in the rage at my uselessness.

He couldn’t divorce me, even though my inability to bear him an heir would be a legitimate reason. His family was already teetering on the edge of respectability, and this would make them the laughing stock of the town, since they definitely wouldn’t be able to find him another bride. That was because of the other issue. Money. They bought me with what last they had left and if divorced they would not only lose my father’s protection and financial help, but also wouldn’t be able to scrounge up enough money to buy another woman, if they even found one that was willing.

Minhwan knew that, knew that he couldn’t get rid of me, and even though his status would allow him to take a second wife or even a concubine, he couldn’t afford them. What little he had he gambled away and spent on girls in the red district; and not much was left for actually running the household and keeping us alive. No self-respecting family would let their daughter enter a family like that and women who were after money and status wouldn’t find anything here. And if he had an illegitimate son from a kisaeng, he could hardly bring it here and claim him as an heir, his father would never let him disgrace the bloodline like that.

Thus in his eyes I was worse than useless. I was his doom, a wasted effort that only pushed him further down and he no doubt felt that the best thing I could do for him was to die, so he could remarry. That’s why I preferred when he didn’t return home for the nights. Living alongside such pure hatred was draining.

When I was sitting by the mirror in the morning, I had just heard him return home. I opened the door a crack and peeked outside, just catching his eye as he was changing into fresher clothes. He held the contact for a few beats of my wild heart and then looked away.

“Breakfast?” he asked gruffly, not even forming a full sentence, while still looking away from me. I followed his gaze and found it stuck to the door leading into kitchen. I sighed quietly, making sure he couldn’t hear me lest he gets angry with my insolence.

“I will prepare it in a second,” was my short answer. He wasn’t interested in hearing anything more, the less I said the better. Thus my morning routine had to be cut short. Walking past him, I was suddenly bombarded with the smell of smoke, stale alcohol and cheap perfume and powder. The stench was a bit too strong for my queasy morning stomach and I felt it roll a few times, threatening to spill even though it was empty. I subtly covered my nose and busied myself into the kitchen smelling pleasantly of food and spices. This room has become my refuge. I knew he wouldn’t overstep here, this was my domain and I felt at least a semblance of power in here.

As distracted as I was, I kept finding my tools in places where I didn’t leave them in. I would turn around and suddenly my spoon would be laying two paces further into the room then I remembered leaving it. I told myself I was just tired, I was feeling unnerved by my husband’s hulking presence on the doorstep of the room, watching me prepare porridge as if fearing I’d poison him if he’d look away for a moment, I was still flustered by my dreams and nervous from the scare the night before. Surely it was that.

That day I spent mostly inside, sitting by a dying fire trying to mend broken and torn clothes, worn thin by hard labour and years of wear, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling of unsettlement that has been plaguing me since yesterday’s evening.

By the time the night fell and Minhwan left again, I found myself quite anxious to be left alone in the cold house, still feeling like a presence was glued to my side, invisible and watching me, but every time I would look over my shoulder, I’d find an empty room. Before settling down to sleep, I walked out and checked the courtyard again, and just like the previous evening, it was illuminated by a silver light so brightly it was almost shocking.

I looked to the sky and was stunned by the giant full moon hanging over my head. The night was calm, much calmer then yesterday, no wind shaking the trees and the only sound was the distant cawing of a bird. The white snow reflected the night sky and blinded me, but not enough to not notice the stark contrast of pitch black footsteps disrupting the otherwise clean coat over the ground. I could see their path clearly, leaving the house and disappearing behind the gate, and they filled me with gentle sadness. With my mind off of the ghost of a feeling that’s been following me the whole day, I made my way back inside to sleep. But I wasn’t prepared for what the night had prepared for me.

As soon as I closed my eyes and started drifting off, I felt the mat and bedding shifting as another body laid down next to me. I had fully accepted it, not questioning the arms making their way around my waist and pulling me into a warm hug. It felt as a very clear dream, and I found myself fighting to open my eyes to see, but instead chose to sink into the comfortable atmosphere. There was a hum behind me, but the voice was so deep and pressed so close to me it almost felt like a purr. Non-consciously I answered with my own, drifting with the current. I fooled myself into this, so desperately needing to feel a nice touch that I didn’t even want to think about why somewhere deep down I felt alarmed and unsettled at the situation. I buried that away and let the hands run along my sides, basked in the quiet humming somewhere right behind my ear and the warmth it filled me with.

When I woke up in the morning, it was to the sound of a door slamming open and heavy steps and sighs. I was confused for a few moments, subconsciously searching for the comfort I had felt in my sleep, only to be hit with a wave of embarrassment and mortification. I had been dreaming again, imagining inappropriately a stranger’s presence in my bed, hoping for a touch and comfort of man’s hands.

I felt the blush spill over my face just as the door to the bedroom flew open and my husband found my gaze. I saw suspicion in his eyes, most probably not used to seeing me in such a flustered state and questioning what could stand behind it. His eyes shifted subtly over the room as if looking for a hidden lover and in my mind I chuckled. He dragged me away into the woods, and living in the middle of nowhere and not allowed to leave the house without him or an attendant I couldn’t afford, how could I have possibly found a lover? No one came here and I went nowhere, the only company I knew was the animals and a warm fire, a needle and a thread and worn books, I couldn’t take the same liberties he has been taking for a better part of our marriage.

When Minhwan made sure I was completely alone, just as he left me, he looked back to me and asked for breakfast. That broke the strange silence and I was thrown right back into the routine of my normal days.

Over the following few nights, the dream kept coming back to me, but every time the unknown man in my fantasy went a little further. More often than not I found myself waking up with a start, blushing red from head to toe at the daring hands that kept straying more and more south, embarrassed with myself but also not wanting them to stop before I had the chance to experience whatever my subconscious wanted to grant me.

At first, his hands would only lightly caress along my side, as if trying to console me and help me sleep peacefully, while he hummed along some kind of a lullaby behind me. Everything always felt pleasantly fuzzy and I’d come to think of him as my dream guardian. My days, in comparison, felt dull and sad, and I’d found some sort of peace in these dreams.

But soon, the direction started to change. The hands strayed lower onto my thighs, grabbing the flesh lightly and teasingly, or going over my stomach until they were right under where my breasts were. I could feel him pressed closer to me too, his front moulded around my back, shoulders caging me in, the sweet humming slowly turning into something more akin to satisfied purring, causing me to flush red and a rush of excitement to flow through my veins. He always laid behind me and his existence felt like half here half not, but the closer he pushed himself, the more solid his presence was, the warmer I felt in the embrace and the more flustered I woke up.

Clearly, I hadn’t been taking proper care of my body and it was screaming for some sort of attention, there was no other explanation for these embarrassing dreams. The shame I felt from such urges surfacing in this manner was overshadowed only by the pressing loneliness, and I kept telling myself that even if I am a married, proper woman, dreams are dreams, and indulging in them a little wouldn’t hurt anyone, right? So, I let myself slip into sweet sleep every night, anticipating where my mind would take me.

During the day the little slip ups would continue. I would misplace things, find them in completely different places then I’d left them before. Sometimes it felt as if I was losing my mind, that the combination of the strange dreams and my sudden scatteredness meant I was finally feeling the effects of the situation I’d find myself in. But I could swear sometimes I would catch a glimpse of shadow or hear a gust of wind that sounded suspiciously like a laugh when I couldn’t find something. It made me feel even more insane.

The moment I realised what was truly happening came a few days later. Even though I was a little unsettled, I’d grown accustomed to the dreams and I treated them as my little escape, no matter whether I should have been concerned or not. I felt comfort from them and they felt like a dirty secret of mine, something I shouldn’t have been doing but it felt so nice I couldn’t stop myself. My husband spent all his nights god knows where doing god knows what with god knows who, I could allow myself this little thing.

Usually, I would sleep through the night without a problem and in the morning I’d be woken up by Minhwan coming back home and barging into the bedroom to ask for a breakfast, but that night for some reason I was shaken out of my sleep somewhere in the dark hours of the early morning. There was some noise outside, something that sounded like a wolf howl, and it was so close I was almost afraid to check the yard in case there was a wild animal there, but I had to go see whether the rabbits and chickens we were keeping were peaceful, just to be sure.

I moved to get out of the bed, but found an arm around my waist pinning me to another body and keeping me in place. My first instinct was to panic, but quickly that was overridden by utter bottomless embarrassment. What if Minhwan has been returning home earlier than I thought and this whole time my mind only substituted some unknown man in the place of my husband as I was falling asleep? Had I been embarrassing myself in front of him the whole time, dreaming about such immoral things and imagining a stranger’s embrace? But he had never touched me like this, and even when we shared a bed at the beginning of our marriage, he never showed the habit of hugging something while sleeping. He always kept himself to his side and never touched me unless completely necessary, even during marital activities. I couldn’t imagine him slipping quietly into bed in the middle of the night and embracing me so tenderly.

Complicated emotions flooded me, not knowing what to make of this, but in a moment of weakness I fooled myself into thinking this could maybe be a beginning of a better marriage. That was shattered the moment I reached back to gently pat at his thigh to wake him up to go check on the animals. There was some shuffling, the arm tightened around my mid and suddenly I could feel him nosing at the crook of my neck, laying a single long wet kiss there. I froze and flushed, completely flustered and even more confused by the situation. Then he chuckled and ice cold flooded my veins. I felt myself freeze in place, terror keeping me so still I barely even breathed. That wasn’t my husband’s voice. It was deep and velvety, rich like the dark chocolate I’d once gotten the chance to try in the city, completely different from Minhwan’s quiet rough commands.

Fear was making it hard to think, but I knew he realised I was awake based on how stiff I’d gotten, I could hear him quietly breathing and waiting for my reaction. There was certain amusement to him, I didn’t know how I felt it, but somehow I just did, something about him gave off excited anticipation and I imagined a sly smirk stretching his lips as he laid there. Then suddenly as if everything caught up to me, I felt my body jumping into motion, tearing his arm away and flying out of the bed. I grabbed the first thing I could see, which were my shoes, and turned around to try my best in defending myself against this stranger that’s apparently been sneaking into my bed deep into the night.

But the moment my eyes fell on the bed, it was empty. No sign of anyone being there. Frightened out of my mind, I searched the room with my eyes, but it was mostly bare and there wasn’t a place that could hide a man. I knew he was bigger than me, I’d felt him behind me and I was sure he couldn’t have been hiding in the sorry state my bedroom was.

For a moment I just stood there and processed before my knees gave up on me and I slid down to the floor, shoes still tightly clutched in my hands, heart beating out of my chest. I wasn’t going insane. My mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. There was something not human in my bed.

Needless to say, I spent the rest of the night sitting on the bed leaning on the wall and watching the room. My eyes frantically jumped to any movement, even the tiniest flickers of shadows would make my hands twitch, fingers tightening around my slippers, ready to jump out and fight for my life. But nothing happened. The only sounds I could hear were coming from the wind tearing into the walls of the house and messing with the trees and branches outside, and at some point the room was so still I almost felt as if I fell through the cracks into a painting and was now stuck inside.

Thus I had hours to sit there and stew in my fear and humiliation. Whatever the being was, it must have had nefarious intentions, why else would he sneak in like that and make my dreams turn to such depravity? And here I was, fooling myself into thinking it was okay to feel such cravings and giving into them, anticipating them and with bated breath hoping maybe the next night the dream lover will finally cave and touch me in a way I’d barely ever felt in my life. Instead I almost gave myself over to a demon, let him have my body and feed off of my energy, damn my soul and prove that I truly was cursed.

I also had a lot of time to think of my next steps. But what could I really do? I could never tell Minhwan and ask for his help, he’d chase me out as an impure woman. Once I’d tell him the nature of the encounters,  he’d accuse me of adultery and use it as an opportunity to get rid of me. If I was returned to my father in such a manner, death would be more welcoming than facing his rage and humiliating the family. Telling him would do more harm than good.

I could buy myself talismans and hide them around the house, but there were many, each of them used for a different ailment. I’d have to visit the village shaman and pay her to exorcise me and our home. I’d have to explain to her the troubles I’ve been having so she could paint me appropriate protective talismans. It was obvious that the being must have been a demon of lust and once I admitted that, the delicious  gossip would no doubt spread and I would be as good as dead.

No, I couldn’t tell anyone what was happening. I had to chase him out myself, no matter what it took. Come morning, I was completely exhausted but determined to deal with the situation myself.

When Minhwan barged into the house, pale in complexion and with dark bags under his eyes, I was already preparing the breakfast on the small table, looking similarly dead on my feet. The man’s eyes flitted over me, but he didn’t seem to take notice od my state and only grunted, pleased at not having to wait for food or scream for me to leave the bed.

I was so lost in my thoughts I didn’t even notice when he left for the yard, didn’t even have time to process the usual air of coldness and disinterest he brought with him, as I was too preoccupied thinking of the unwelcome guest. The little tricks with misplacing things must have also been him. I felt rage lick at the edge of my mind, suddenly making itself known in such an intensity I surprised myself. I’d fully start to believe I was no longer capable of feeling such strong emotions, but here I was. Thinking of million ways to get back at someone who’s been making a fool of me for his own entertainment for the past weeks.

The next few days were suspiciously uneventful. No more visits, no more “dreams”, even all my tools stayed suspiciously still and didn’t suddenly appear at places they weren’t supposed to be, but I wasn’t a fool. I knew he wouldn’t give up so easily, not to mention I still couldn’t get rid of the feeling of being watched or messed with.

And slowly he had begun giving me subtle hints he was still as present as ever. The books that were put in order, the robe that was waiting for me on by the partition one evening, water refilled in a cup I knew I’d finished. He suddenly switched to being helpful instead of messing with me, but I knew it was all just entertainment to him.

One of the bigger ones was some days later in the evening. I’d taken to walking around the veranda checking on the yard and the forest outside of the yard walls. As usual, there were footsteps in the snow, my husband left them there every night when he left, but that evening there was something different about them. I frowned, trying to discern what about them caught my attention. I leaned over the railing to inspect them closer with a sense of foreboding looming over my head like a silent monument. The moment I realised what it was I gasped and dread and anticipation filled me. The footsteps, they didn’t lead from the house. They led towards the main entrance.

This must be it, I thought to myself. This must be the night.

When I walked back inside, I lingered around each room a little, watching the surroundings like a hawk and expecting him to jump out at me from every corner and every shadow. But the house was still and silent, not even any sounds from outside creeping in. I slowly walked towards the bedroom and found it empty and in the same state as I’d left it. I made it through my little nightly ritual without a hitch, but anxious and expecting something to happen any moment. It didn’t. Lying down in bed, I continued sharply watching the room, but to no avail. Even though I could basically taste the anticipation in the still air of the room, and knew the demon was most definitely watching me back, he didn’t make any move. I fell asleep suddenly, without realising I was even teetering on the edge and when I woke up, I wasn’t sure whether the fingers I felt gently carding through my hair just as I succumbed to sleep were my imagination or not.

He didn’t return abruptly, instead he slowly built it up, as if testing how far I’d let this go. Sometimes he would hand me things when cooking or I would be looking for something only to find it gingerly sitting on the table a few hours later, as if suddenly becoming helpful would make me more accepting of whatever his end goal was and I would let him return like nothing happened.

The problem began when he started leaving flowers for me. The gentle quivering of my heart when I saw a beautiful little flower in bloom laying by my bedside was alarming to me, and I didn’t want such a confusing feeling to enter my life. But I couldn’t help myself.

Without thinking I picked it up and brought it to my nose. It smelled sweetly, almost too ripe, the scent permeating the air and everything around it, making me slightly dizzy. I couldn’t remember when was the last time I received a flower like this, maybe when my little brother was still a child and brought it for me from playing in the fields. Our father scolded him then, for running around with other boys instead of studying, but after that whenever either of us saw the little white blossom, we would giggle at each other, sharing smiles like tiny secrets.

I was startled by a tear sliding down my cheek at the memory, the sudden reminiscing of my family, of the one person I was truly close to before he joined the military and went to Hanyang. He was to be married soon too, already at that age when the promises turn to actions and I couldn’t wait for the spring to come so I could travel for his wedding. I’d met the girl before, she was a shy quiet daughter of a smaller aristocratic family who just recently got their title for their merits. I quite liked her, even if I didn’t get much time with her before leaving.

He was the one person in our family who had a chance of a happy marriage, I hoped he would. No matter what our father tried to create out of him, he was a sensitive boy, full of mischief and laughs. I so desperately wanted his life to turn out better than mine did. Or that his marriage wouldn’t end up like our eldest brother’s did. He had married first, when we still scrounged for money, I remembered going to his wedding as a young maiden and being swept away in the celebrations, wishing for my own wedding with red blushing cheeks as young girls did. His wife was a practical woman, strong and resolute, but kind. They never had much affections between them, but they had an understanding and their marriage functioned well. I believed my brother respected her as a husband should his wife, but I was wrong.

After our title was restored, our father started pushing my brother to divorce her so he could marry a lady from an aristocratic family, but he couldn’t do that. She had given him children and wasn’t causing him any troubles, so a divorce wouldn’t be allowed. So my brother did the next best thing. He married a woman of a high standing and made her his main wife, pushing the first wife into a secondary position in the family and robbing her children of their inheritance of the title. Since then she became quiet and withdrawn, no longer she was allowed to make any decisions and lived only to serve a man that didn’t even look her way anymore, couldn’t even explain to his firstborn son that he no longer would inherit his estate and left her to pick up the ashes and survive such disgrace.

It was terrifying when it happened. While she never showed much gentleness, she always smiled at the children and sometimes would sneak me sweets like I was one of her own, even when I was the second oldest child of the family. My heart bled for her, and I started to fear my own marriage, knowing I would never get any aristocrat’s respect due to our family history. At that time, I had no idea that what would happen to me would be even worse.

I was startled by a sudden touch on my cheek, a finger wiping away the few stray tears falling down while I sat on the ground and stared at the pretty flower. I gasped and tried to flinch away, but another arm snaked around my waist and I could feel his head leaning on my shoulder. He sat behind me once again, like always, holding me as if he didn’t want me to see him.

“Shhhhhh…,” came his deep honeyed voice, whispering in such a gentle way that I could feel a wave of goosebumps hitting me, “I didn’t know it would make you cry.” Against my better judgment, I could feel my body relaxing into his embrace and a few more tears slipping out. He rocked us from side to side, trying to console me, but it was like my dams broke and soon I was sobbing in his arms, pushing my face into his shoulder and clutching the single blossom in my shaky hands.

I couldn’t say when the last time I was held so tenderly by someone was, but it must have been when I was a child still, begging for my mother’s touch any time something happened. I was warm, wrapped into him, and soft. There was a hand in my hair, carding through the locks and caressing me like a lover would. I couldn’t stop the stream of tears and emotions and I felt ashamed and scared. I couldn’t trust him, and it hurt because no one’s ever treated me so softly, but I knew. Knew it might be just a way to get closer to me. So I decided to allow myself this just for a moment.

I let him hold me, listened to him hum some kind of a song I didn’t recognise, let him lull me into a half-asleep state until I was draped over him, boneless and numb. His hands never strayed like before and he seemed to be genuinely trying to console me. In my mind I scolded myself, believed myself pathetic for falling for such tricks and for being so desperate I would let a demon embrace me just to feel some warmth, but outwardly I didn’t let anything show. I was too drained for that.

When I quieted down and just limply hung off of his frame, he must have decided it was time to sleep. He grabbed me and carried me onto the bedding, making sure my head was pushed into his shoulder so I couldn’t look at his face. I found it strange, but had no energy to ask him anything, just letting him manoeuvre us around until we were lying just like we used to before I caught him, on our side with him behind me. Sleep came and claimed me suddenly and out of nowhere, but I found myself strangely comfortable.

When I awoke in the morning, the house was silent and the bed was empty, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Would I have confronted him and demanded answers? Or did I allow myself to be vulnerable around someone that wished for my downfall and now I found myself inappropriately attached? One thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t like thinking about it, and so I got up and went about my day as if nothing had happened. I did find myself wondering what happened to the flower, as it was nowhere to be found, wondering whether it even was real or if I hallucinated it. But after that night, a fresh blossom was waiting by my bedside every evening, leaving me full of complicated confusing emotions. No sight of my demon, though.

“Do you want that?” a gruff voice by my shoulder growled and I barely stopped myself from scowling. The hairpin I had been staring at was suddenly plucked from the table by the eager merchant who understood that question as my husband’s intention to buy it for me. The older man pushed it towards me and started reciting all the reasons why such a lady like me absolutely had to have such a decoration, hoping to pitch it to a loving husband doting on his wife. Unfortunately, his guess was completely wrong.

“How much is it?” I asked towards the merchant, who seemed confused by me talking to him while Minhwan stared daggers into my back. His eyes flitted between us, awkward silence taking over for a few seconds before he stuttered out the price, looking at no one in particular. I went to fish out the amount from my purse, but my hand was stopped by another much bigger and rougher one.

“You don’t need it,” Minhwan said resolutely, voice leaving no space for discussion, “Don’t waste money on useless things.” I gritted my teeth, minutely losing control of my expression as rage swept through me at his statement, but as soon as I saw my husband’s eyes narrow in warning, I schooled myself and pulled from the stall.

“Of course,” I answered with false demureness, shooting the merchant an apologetic smile before ducking my head down and following after Minhwan through the market like the picture of the perfect wife. We walked around for some time, from stall to stall, haggling for vegetables and tools, whatever was needed around the house. Minhwan didn’t like it when I spoke to the vendors, he had me trailing behind him with a veil on or my head demurely ducked down like an obedient wife, and I was to speak only when he asked me something. Thus I spent most of the time in the market saying only “yes, we need it” or “no, I think we still have enough”. I hated it, but there was nothing that could be done.

The ride back to the house was also incredibly tense. I could still feel my husband’s rage at my earlier behaviour and knew that the moment we walk back through the gates of our farm, he’ll have some things to say. So I sighed and waited for the endless journey to finally reach its final destination.

To my shock and unease, nothing came when we walked back into the house, supplies in hands and struggling to pull the baskets through the door. Silence was all that greeted me. Minhwan helped me pull things into the kitchen and then with one last burning hateful stare he walked across the house. I watched him rummage through a chest, pulling out his only other jungchimak he usually wore when outing with his friends. It was the better one, in deep indigo colour, that made him look like a young affluent yangban. I snickered behind my hand and pretended to sort through the different bags and baskets we brought back.

When Minhwan was done changing, he charged out of the door without even a second glance. I looked out of the kitchen door facing into the yard and watched him until the gate slammed shut behind him, then I returned to the task at hand with a sigh. He didn’t do this often, but sometimes when I would make him angry, he just left. Without a word. He likely wouldn’t return until late noon tomorrow morning.

I’d long since given up on trying to stop him when the sun was still high up in the sky, he would still leave, just significantly angrier, which would result in him throwing out more money, so it was better to not get in his way when he wanted to drink, smoke and fuck his frustration away god knows where with the other young men.

I busied myself cleaning around the house and caring for the animals, finishing the work he had left. I found myself gritting my teeth in anger and annoyance as I chopped the firewood, wildly swinging the axe around and taking it out on the logs. When the time to go to sleep came, I was drained, both emotionally and physically, too strung out and tensed to even enjoy my nighttime routine like I usually did.

When I turned to the bed, a single hairpin was lying on the bedding. A beautiful, red, lacquered hairpin with a carving of a flower and a single red gem in the centre. The one I’d been looking at while we were in the town and almost bought to spite Minhwan. A mix of emotions overtook me, the most prominent one being sudden anger. My heart stuttered under the weight of it, the frustration of the day and the past weeks bursting through me in one big eruption.

Our uninvited guest was keeping himself surprisingly scarce after that night I had cried, but kept bringing me flowers. I accepted them with complicated feelings, but I had convinced myself into believing that since they’re already here, since they already have been plucked, it would be cruel of me to not accept them. So, night after night I tucked them away so Minhwan could never find them. I didn’t even know where the demon was getting them, since we were in the middle of a tough winter, but after all, I should care for them all the more, right?

But the hairpin was a step too far. I did not need to be reminded of my shameful behaviour and of the fact that my husband felt it appropriate to blow all his money away but couldn’t spare a single silver to let me buy a hairpin, and definitely not in such a way.

“Okay, come out,” I spoke loudly into the empty room, “We need to talk. This can’t keep happening.” I looked around, but everything stayed silent and still. Then, a soft voice rang out.

“Close your eyes.”

I stood up and crossed my arms defensively, spinning around to try and catch a glimpse of the being.

“Why?” I asked gruffly, speaking to an empty bedroom like a lunatic, “Why do you not want me to see you?”

“I can’t let you see me until you truly want to,” the answer came, the voice just as melodic and soft as it was before, as it was always, and I involuntarily shuddered.

“I do want to see you, right now,” I replied, ticked off. He just wanted to have the upper hand and not face me head on, I was sure of that. There was silence again, seemingly even the wind outside the door quieting down to listen to us, the room unnaturally still.

“You want to scold me,” he answered petulantly after a moment, sounding more like a child. I could hear the pout on his lips, the childlike upset of doing something wrong and not understanding why. My resolve softened a little, but I pulled myself together, determined not to let the demon play me like that. I couldn’t keep letting him get away with everything.

“So you know,” I stated, the anger seeping back into my voice, “You cannot keep doing this.”

“Doing what?” I could hear genuine curiosity in his question, one that filled me with exasperation.

I gestured to the hairpin wildly. “This!” I exclaimed loudly, “The leaving of gifts, the creeping around, nothing of it. Leave while I’m still asking nicely.” Even as the words left my mouth, they felt like an empty threat. What could I possibly do against him? I’d let him go this far, what could I do to stop him now? But he completely ignored the second part and focused solely on the gifts.

“Do you not like them?” there was slight dejection present in his voice, like he didn’t understand why it was such a problem, “I thought you did. You never threw them out.” I cursed my soft heart. I should have never let him get away with bringing me flowers, I shouldn’t have let him get to me like that. I should have been resolute and told him to leave right then, not let him coddle me and embrace me when I felt sad.

I hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to answer. I found myself not wanting to upset him by saying no, falling victim to his sweet demeanour. Again. I groaned with frustration and hit my forehead with my palm.

“It’s not that I don’t like them,” I started a little softer than before, “It’s just embarrassing.”

“Why?” I groaned again. Good lord, this was going to take a while.

“Because…” I stuttered for a moment, the vulnerability of words on my tongue shocking me, “It feels humiliating. My own husband wouldn’t buy it for me and it feels like an insult for a demon to do that.” There was a beat of silence, in which I almost managed to persuade myself that there was never anyone there and I had been talking to myself the whole time, but then he spoke again.

“I didn’t mean to humiliate you,” his voice was quiet, contemplative, “I wanted to make you happy.” That shocked me enough to have me stutter over a few breaths, wildly looking around the room with wide eyes. “W-why?” I managed to squeak out, flabbergasted at such admission.

“It felt like you needed it,” came his simple reply, as if talking about the weather. That statement drained the whole fight out of me, leaving me standing there unsure and confused, filled with shame and wonder at the simplicity of it all.

“What?” I whispered, not really looking for an answer, just voicing out my inner turmoil.

“It felt like you needed it,” he replied a little louder, “You were always so sad. I didn’t like it. You shouldn’t be so sad.” It was such a simple statement and yet it pulled down the walls of my heart and made it flutter. I chided myself for being so easy to fool with a few sweet words, but I couldn’t stop the lightness taking over my heart, the relief bleeding into my every pore.

Someone saw my suffering, I thought to myself. Someone noticed my pain.

“What are you?” I whispered the question into the empty house, but no man stepped out into the light, no shadow moved. He was silent for a moment and then said: “Close your eyes.” And this time I did.

The moment my lids fluttered closed, I could hear slight shuffling of clothing behind me and light footsteps. On instinct I went to turn around, but a hand suddenly tightly covered my eyes, startling me slightly. I jumped a little, pushing myself back straight into his chest, which embarrassingly enough was a position I’d gotten used to over the past weeks. Then a silken ribbon touched my cheek and the hand moved quickly to tie it over my eyes.

“So you don’t try to cut this meeting short,” he explained lightly, voice full of amusement.

“But I do want to see you, is it not enough that I no longer wish to scold you?” I asked, confused by the strange rules.

“You need to desire to see me, truly, with your soul,” he said lowly, voice deepening into the honeyed register I was used to hearing from him and I shuddered lightly, feeling the words trickle down my skin and bite into my very being.

“S-so I can only see you when I want t-to-“ I couldn’t bring myself to finish that thought, the sinful image burning into my brain making me stutter and blush so fiercely I felt as if I burst into flames. I ducked my head, but his chuckle followed me, melting over me. There was no longer any amusement in his voice, now there was something darker and heavier, threatening to consume me from the inside out.

“Smart girl,” he whispered and I couldn’t help the wave of goosebumps that hit my skin when I felt his breath on my ear and neck. The sudden turn from his earlier more innocent voice and words left me confused and flabbergasted, blushing at his newfound confidence. I felt him lean closer into me, nose almost touching the crook of my neck, only to whisper: “Time to sleep.”

Before I could react, he swooped me into his arms and I yelped in surprise, before hiding my face in my hands in embarrassment. He carried me to the bed and very gently laid me there, his hands smoothing down my nightgown and pulling the blanket over us. My face burned, but I stayed silent and let him happily chirp behind me as he pulled me closer to his chest and made himself comfortable.

It felt like years before I fell asleep. I just laid there, feeling his chest move and his breathing deepen until I was sure he was sleeping, but even then I didn’t reach back to untie the ribbon. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to trust his words. That’s how I finally got pulled under, with my heart trembling with careful hope.

Come morning, something new happened. When I woke up, his strong arms were still wrapped around me and as soon as I started wiggling in his grip, he woke up with a content groan and a big stretch, like a cat. I blushed again, which seemed to become more of a permanent thing in his presence. I went to call out to him to scold him, when I realised something. I didn’t know his name. I haven’t asked him for his name all this time.

“Good morning,” came his morning raspy voice, then he burrowed his face somewhere deeper into the bedding and my hair. The ribbon slipped during the night and with my movement it unravelled onto the pillow, making me freeze slightly. I reached for it, playing with it between my fingers a little, before I spoke to him too.

Good morning...” I trailed off uncertainly, not sure how to ask him his name, “d-demon?” I flushed in embarrassment. Truly perfect, why not just call him a pervert if I was going to be like that? Behind me, the man chuckled and wriggled a little, presumably to make himself more comfortable. I couldn’t believe I let myself lie with a man like that, but it was better to just not think about it.

“Taehyung would be a bit better, but I’ll take it,” he replied nonchalantly, but then suddenly stiffened. Before I could truly register his alarm, the entrance door slammed open and heavy footsteps made their way into the house. I panicked and flew out of the bed, but when I turned to warn Taehyung, I was met with an empty bed. The other half was even made as if nobody slept there.

Seconds later, the doors to the bedroom slid open and my disgruntled husband peeked in. His hair was a mess, his face taunt and white, bloodshot eyes adorned with dark circles underneath. He looked like death itself, the exhaustion seeping out of him in waves, but he still managed to scowl when he laid eyes on me still in my nightgown. I wondered what time it was, but concentrated on schooling my expression and not showing my flustered state, my heart still beating wildly in my chest. He regarded me with slight suspicion in his eyes, but ultimately decided not to comment on it.

“Make me a breakfast,” was all he said and then he disappeared into the house. I glanced at my little vanity sitting in a corner of the room and noticed the hairpin sitting gingerly right in the middle of it. I swiped it away quickly putting it with the flowers, and started getting ready for the day. But the thoughts of Taehyung and his words and behaviour wouldn’t leave me for the rest of the day, plaguing me when I was making breakfast, when I was cleaning up the melted snow Minhwan carried into the house on his shoes and clothes, and embarrassingly enough even when I went to wash up that evening, wondering whether he could see me now too.

The peak of the winter came and went, but the layer of snow stayed thick, blanketed over the world and painting it pure white. I had found myself much fonder of the quietness it brought, how it swallowed all sounds and created a bubble of calm over everything, especially when my husband was gone from the house, which has become more and more frequent. Lately he left earlier and came back later, turning more and more pale with every morning. He didn’t speak to me about what he did, he barely ever spoke at all, but the tension in his shoulders and the troubled angry expression that has made itself home on his face told me that he must have gotten himself into some big trouble. I found myself just as anxious, waiting for him to tell me we would be losing it all because he made a bet or let himself be swindled.

Taehyung, during that time, worked hard on trying to distract me, bringing me little gifts and messing about the house trying to help me. Anytime I would come across clothes that have been rearranged or things that have been cleaned up, but put into the wrong places, I would sigh and jokingly glare around the room, but I couldn’t stop the fluttering of my heart and the fondness that spread through me at hearing his disembodied giggles.

During these evenings he took to covering my mirror, sitting behind me and brushing my hair for me. We would spend this time in comfortable silence, resting against each other and enjoying the simple companionship. It was such an intimate act, like we were lovers taking care of each other, like husband and wife who love each other, I would find myself flustered and blushing, feeling like it was my wedding night all over again. It was such a strong contrast to how tensed and hostile the silence was when my husband was around, that I often shamefully dreamed and pretended that Taehyung was my spouse, that this was a part of our life and our routine. He would caress my hair, my sides, press soft kisses to my shoulders, play with my hands and my fingers, and when we retired for the night, he hugged me tightly, pressing himself into me and making me feel safe and secure.

The longer this went on, the more torn with fervent longing I was, wishing this was my life and not just pity that a passing demon took on me. I was choked up with emotions, the words “stay”, “show yourself to me”, “love me” always on the tip of my tongue, fighting to spill, chest heavy and full like I was about to burst. It hurt. I hurt. I wanted a life I couldn’t have; I wanted a man that would take my soul and leave once he’d gotten what he came for, and I hated myself for it and I hated my life.

Taehyung felt this in me, felt this shift from happiness back into tortured silence, I could feel it in his touch, in how gently his hands and fingers regarded me, how reverent his lips were on the skin of my shoulders and neck, I felt it in his voice whispering praise to me. The desperation to make it all better, the frantic beating of his heart against my back because he feared he did something to upset me. No matter how much I wanted to ease him, the words would just not leave my mouth.

And my body, it betrayed me. It lit up with every touch, heat pumping through my veins with every brush of his lips, I could feel it swirling in my lower belly and oftentimes found myself hoping for his daring hands to explore as they had been doing back then before I caught him. But Taehyung stubbornly never strayed from the safe spots, never returned to his previous antics.

One night when he didn’t show up, I had a lot of time to think about where this was going and how I was dangerously teetering on the edge of improperness. When I sat alone by the bed and worried for him, called out to him and then promptly spiralled into believing he had grown tired of me, the feelings of pain and despair it filled me with shocked me. I missed him. I missed his touch, his presence, his voice. I didn’t want him to leave me. I’d grown attached to him, to a shadow that spoke to me and treated me with gentleness and kindness.

I wanted to see him. I looked at the ribbon lying on my vanity, the one he used every night to cover my eyes so I couldn’t swindle him and peek when he wasn’t paying attention. I wanted it gone.

I wanted. I longed. I needed.

Falling asleep that night was a challenge, I couldn’t find a comfortable position when I suddenly laid alone once again, too used to a warm comforting body behind me. And when tiredness finally overcame me, he visited me in my dreams, his bold hands exploring places that haven’t been tenderly touched before; drawing out sighs out of me, body trembling with unknown pleasure as his fingers dipped between my legs and leisurely moved in little circles over the bundle of nerves. My dream self was moaning and writhing in his arms, begging for him to never stop as the pleasure mounted until it burst out in a bolt of pure ecstasy. I jolted awake, breathing heavily and still shaking from the intense sensations. Startled I realised there was wetness coating my intimate parts and the top of my thighs, the sticky feeling making me blush in embarrassment. My whole body seemed to be tingling from this experience and I couldn’t calm myself down.

“Taehyung?” I called out carefully, checking that he wasn’t around to witness this. When no answer came and the man himself didn’t come out and shown himself, I quickly ran to the vanity to grab the first cloth I found and cleaned myself. My shaky hands couldn’t hold onto anything properly and I couldn’t get my breathing back under control, the experience leaving me full of confusing feelings, longing filled with arousal mixing with shame until I my head was spinning and my chest hurt. After that, I didn’t fall asleep again, instead I sat on the bed and tried to make sense of my own heart.

The only thing that saved me from getting suspicious stares from my husband was that he himself barely looked at me. But it felt different from his usual coldness, he looked haunted and worried, too preoccupied with his own thoughts to even realise anyone else was present. It made me anxious. Whatever he’d gotten himself into, it seemed bad and if it came to it, he’d drag me down with him. For the first time in so long I found myself wishing he’d just talk to me, tell me what was happening so I could stop drowning myself in worry. But I knew that if I had come to him and asked him, he would get angry. So I waited for my life to end with bated breath.

Taehyung returned after two days and acted as if he was never gone, as if he didn’t suddenly disappear without a word and left me spinning, thinking he’d never return. When I heard his voice ring out it the empty house for the first time in so long, I couldn’t stop the tears of relief and he spent the whole evening and night holding me and consoling me, whispering into my ear how he’d never leave again.

More than ever I realised the burning desire coursing through my veins whenever he touched me. I wanted him, like wife should want a husband, and it was getting harder to ignore the way my body responded to him. I wasn’t sure if Taehyung was aware of my plight, if he registered how I seemed to stiffen anytime he pushed me closer to himself, how I held my breath when his arms snaked around my waist, how I shuddered when his hands slipped through my hair when he tied the ribbon over my eyes. I didn’t know if he noticed, but if he did, he didn’t say or do anything. Sometimes he would get closer to me, nose at my neck or play with my ear and then he would suddenly stop, as if he remembered himself, and pull away. And I wanted to scream at him. To not go. To do more.

And the more the situation went south in my marriage, the more I realised that my heart has long since been stolen by a being I haven’t even seen, but whose actions spoke louder than thousand words.

And so I decided to take the situation into my own hands. Or, well, to put it into Taehyung’s hands.

Some nights I would dream about him, even when he laid behind me I just wouldn’t have enough. And in those dreams, he would do the things I desired from him. It felt like my dirty little secret, enjoying him in such way in the privacy of my own mind, but knowing he was there. That he could be witnessing me be improper, could be witnessing my needs resurfacing in this manner. He never showed it, but sometimes I wondered if he knew, if he was waiting to make a move. And it excited me even more. The tension kept thickening, and I boiled, I boiled until one day I just… burst.

I had woken up in the middle of the night, woken up by my own dream as usual, hot and breathless, but just short of release, pent up and frustrated and needy. Taehyung behind me stirred, but his breathing stayed deep and stable, arms minutely tightening before he relaxed again. I felt my wetness seeping down my thighs, squeezing them together on instinct to chase the pulsing and throbbing there, choking out a little whimper and squirming in my place.

That seemed to shake Taehyung out of his sleep, I could hear the shuffling of his clothes, his hand flexing on my belly. He raised his head and murmured something, but I couldn’t hear through the rushing of blood in my ears. I was so aroused my head was almost spinning, my mind zeroing only on getting back to the pleasure I had been feeling. I squirmed in his arms again and whined.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?” came his quiet raspy voice by my ear and I could feel goosebumps breaking out over my arms. Without saying anything I reached for one of his hands and pulled it lower, until it laid over my thigh. There was silence behind me and neither of us moved for a moment.

“What?” he whispered again, confusion lacing his voice as he started caressing my thigh, thinking I just needed comfort, “Did you have a nightmare?” I shook my head, frustrated at myself for not being able to get the words out of my mouth, so instead I grabbed his hand again and this time I gently laid it over the very top of my thighs, the tips of his fingers just grazing my intimate area. Taehyung froze for a moment, and I held my breath, fearing his reaction.

But then he released a long breath and his hand moved, grabbing onto my nightgown and slowly pulling it up over my legs. “Are you being naughty?” he asked me playfully and I trembled with anticipation, the searing heat seemingly reaching a crescendo with the promise of his touch. The moment I felt him gently caressing up the naked skin of my thigh, I whimpered again and immediately lifted my leg to grant him access to where I wanted him the most.

Behind me, there was a chuckle, so deep and rumbly I felt it in my bones, satisfied and overjoyed with my eagerness. Taehyung nosed up my shoulder, until I could feel him laying searing wet kisses into the crook of my neck. His hand suddenly shot up back to my knee, grabbing it so he could hook it over his legs and keep me spread. I blushed, but another gush of wetness seeped onto the skin of my thighs at the prospect this finally happening.

“Want to have your pretty little cunt played with, hmm?” Taehyung whispered into my hair, the smirk evident in the smugness of his voice. This was his element, and I ducked my head into my arms, embarrassed by the words and the actions, embarrassed by my body screaming for him. He didn’t seem to need an answer, pleased with my shyness and with how my body responded for me, arching into his touch and begging for more. So he indulged, both himself and me.

His fingers descended between my legs suddenly, shocking a moan out of me as they glided through the wet folds until they settled over the little bundle of nerves. He touched me teasingly, circling it lightly, tapping and pressing on it and then sliding his fingers down to play with my entrance, as if testing how much I would be able to take.

I trembled whole, overflowing with relief, pleasure and burning need for more, spilling out of me on sighs and whimpers. I lost the control of my body as it swayed and arched, pushing into his elusive playful fingers. When my whines took on a more desperate tone, Taehyung finally seemed to be satisfied enough to stop teasing. He started playing me masterfully, fingers drawing tight quick circles on my clit, making me choke on my spit, brain not comprehending the sudden onslaught of sensations.

I found myself hurling towards that edge of ecstasy quicker than I’ve experienced before, my whole body singing under his touch, thrumming with the fulfilment of all the desires that had been piling up over the past weeks.

“Let go whenever you need to, don’t be afraid,” Taehyung whispered to me, voice low and aroused, and I arched with a silent scream as the release overtook me, bursting through my body in a single white flash. Taehyung carried me through it, fingers slowing down but never stopping, little quiet groans leaving him at seeing me blissed out. When the pleasure ebbed away gradually, I pushed his hand away with a quiet whine, feeling too much all at once.

He led me down from the high gently, hands running over my body, over my sides, his voice murmuring loving words into my ear, telling me how lovely I was, how well I did for him. I soaked it all up, preened under his care and attention and loved every moment of it, the fear and insecurity about his intentions taking the backseat for a few calming moments. My body thrummed with the after-shocks of my climax, and I pleasantly floated on the feelings of relief and release.

I was still catching up to my brain, when the words “I want to see you” tumbled out of my mouth. Taehyung’s hand stopped for a moment and then grabbed onto my arm gently. He hummed, non-committally, fingers suddenly teasing again as he lightly dragged them on my arm up and down.

“Do you really?” he whispered sensually, almost purring, and I gasped at the sensation. Before I could reply, he was suddenly gone. I heard him moving around in the room, the sound of his steps, his stable breathing and the light clanking of items as he moved them. I had no idea what he was doing, but when he was satisfied, he returned to me. Taehyung leaned down to me and grasped my arm, pulling me up to stand.

“Get on your feet, darling,” he told me sweetly, the sudden nickname making me blush as if we weren’t just wrapped in each other in such sinful ways. I stood, knees still a little shaky, but managed to hold my weight. I was a little achy, but it was a pleasant and boneless feeling, as if everything had been drained away and all that was left were soft sweet clouds.

Taehyung’s hands left me, and I could hear him stepping away, his heels hitting the wooden floor heavily. I held my breath in anticipation, my hands trembling, my body still confused from the screaming pleasure it was put through just moments ago.

Then, he spoke.

“You can pull the ribbon down.” His voice was smooth, kind and happy. My arms moved as if they had a mind of their own, lifting up to my head to grasp at the ends of the ribbon to pull. When it fell away, at first I was left blinded by the light for a moment. I blinked; eyes hurt from getting flashed with white after so long in the dark. I hurriedly wiped away the few stray tears and gently pressed on my eyelids to alleviate the pressure. When I opened them again, he stood in front of me.

He was beautiful, absolutely breathtaking. I gasped as I took him in, the softness of him.

He had long black hair, half done up into a bun at the back of his head. He was dressed in a black cheollik with red hems and pulled together by a silk red string adorned with dark grey jade, and his underclothes were also in black. He was barefoot, standing on my cold wooden bedroom floor like he didn’t feel the chill at all, when I already started shivering in my thin night robes. My eyes shot back to his face. He was ethereally pretty, all sharp edges but still looking so soft and lovely it stole my breath away. Even though his eyes were shockingly blue, I could see the kindness in them, unlike his mouth that was pulled into a mischievous smirk. Just I as I imagined he so often had.

I could see he started nervously fiddling with his sleeves, face flashing with panic and unsureness. He stepped from foot to foot, looking at the ground bashfully, before looking back up at me with wide round eyes full of pure-hearted earnestness.

“What do you think?” he asked, as if I was looking at fruit at the market. He squirmed in his place again and I couldn’t bare to let him believe that I didn’t think he was the most beautiful man I have ever seen. In a few quick strides I crossed the room to him and threw myself into his arms. He caught me, as always, and I had begun believing he always would, and pressed me closer into him. Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled him down by his neck and pressed our lips together.

Taehyung caught on quickly, wrapping his arms around me and taking charge, kissing me like a man starved, passionate and hungry and all-consuming, filling my head and my heart with him and only him. I dreaded my husband’s return, because it would mean my little fantasy dream life would dissolve and Taehyung would have to disappear again, but for now I focused on his mouth claiming mine with such fervour it left me breathless.

Seeing Taehyung made things both easier and more difficult. Nothing much changed between us, only now I saw him messing with my things and “helping out” around the house. I heard his endless giggles and sometimes would catch a glimpse of his figure before he disappeared into a different part of the house, and I always trailed behind him and looked for whatever it was he misplaced or swapped.

I found that even though he was visible to me most of the time, he still didn’t talk much, preferring to sit by me and watch me with fond eyes. He would silently take heavy things from my hands and carry them for me, only sending a playful grin my way, or push me away from the cutting board to prepare the ingredients himself with a simple quiet “let me help”. I liked it. Taehyung filled the space with his presence, with kind eyes and gentle laughs and comfortableness I haven’t felt with anyone else. Sometimes laughs would just bubble out of my throat at his antics or at his expressions and I stopped, surprised at my own ability to laugh. I was happy. I felt content.

I loved him, and I knew that. I wanted my life to be like this from now on until the end of time. More and more often I found myself thinking how married life wouldn’t be that bad if my husband was Taehyung, and I blushed at those thoughts, but couldn’t fully fight them away. I imagined him chopping the firewood in the yard (he already did that for me after he saw me with an axe one), taking care of the animals (it wasn’t unusual for him to feed the hens and the pigs after sundown, since Minhwan was already long gone around then) and then coming home to happily eat supper I worked so hard on (he loved my cooking and never failed to compliment me). I loved watching him walking around the farm as if it was him who owned it, him who married me. Him who loved me.

And during the nights… Taehyung was more than happy to dote on me, naughty hands suddenly insatiable once I showed interest, bringing me to the peak of pleasure every morning, wandering around my curves and gently squeezing and loving on every inch he could reach. I melted in his hands, my brain suddenly interested only in how to get him to please me again. But he never moved it further, no matter how much I gently probed, tried to touch him back or insinuated that I would like to do more, he always grasped my hands and pulled me into a tight hug until we ended up falling asleep.

I was confused. I wasn’t a virgin. I knew how it worked between men and women and I trusted him with my body and my pleasure, and I wanted to return it too, learn how to please him too, but he didn’t seem to want that to happen. He would always give me this unsure smile and then hold me all the tighter and I didn’t want to push him.

But while I found my domestic bliss in Taehyung’s presence, it was harshly brought down every time my husband returned home. Even though he’d become strangely withdrawn, he always seemed to fill the house with gloom and uncomfortable tension, choking every spare inch in despair. I was dancing on eggshells around him, trying my hardest not to draw his attention lest he redirects his ire to me.

This explosiveness was also new. He’d been angry at me before, but never like this, never with bloodshot eyes and shaking hands, spewing poison until I was trembling with fear and shame, and then walking out. He would scream at me for the food not being warm, about spilling something on the floor, about not cleaning proficiently enough, and I begun to dread his returns, because he would always smell of alcohol, opium and other vices, and immediately find something to vent on, only to become silent and absent the moment after.

I could see on Taehyung he was worried for me. I wasn’t a fool, I knew he was present and heard everything, I could feel it in his sad tender eyes, in his loving caresses and the little gifts he would leave me. I wanted to assure him that everything was okay, that this was just my life and I had to deal with that, that him being around the house was already making a dreadful reality all the more bearable, but sometimes he just zoned out and I saw the cogs turning in his head, trying to come up with a way to somehow deal with this. But there was nothing that could be done.

While Minhwan spiralled and came home looking worse and worse every day, Taehyung tried his best to raise me up and make me feel better. And I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

One afternoon we were enjoying a particular sunny day, the door to the kitchen cracked open to let in the crisp freezing air, but I couldn’t feel the chill, not with Taehyung plastered to my back. He hung off of me, hugging me and whining playfully, his hands ever so often straying to my thighs or breasts, trying to rile me up while I made broth. I would always slap them away, but I couldn’t hide the blush on my cheeks or the way my body started responding to him and demanding his attention lower.

I was playing with the idea of letting him pleasure me right in the kitchen in the middle of the day, when Taehyung behind me stiffened, arms tightening around me. At first I didn’t register it, but when the sound of snow crunching under someone’s shoes reached my ears, I panicked. Throwing the wooden spoon away I turned and pushed Taehyung away from me.

“Quick, disappear! Minhwan must have returned!” I whispered urgently, almost sobbing with frustration when the dark-haired man just continued standing there as we both listened to the footsteps getting closer. He was looking out the door, his face curious but impassive, as if he didn’t realise the impending doom.

“Taehyung!” I cried out desperately, pushing him away just as the doors slammed opened. I froze and turned to the door, while Taehyung’s arm snaked around my waist and pulled me into his chest. At first I recognised the gesture as protective, but then I realised it was too casual.

I forced myself to see through the panic and registered that in the door stood a complete stranger. He regarded us both with a bored expression, his eyes sliding down my panicked frozen face and then skipping to Taehyung, sneering lightly in a pretend angry manner.

“So this is where you spend your days, I haven’t seen you in forever,” he grumbled a touch whinily and made himself comfortable on one of the seating pillows in the corner. He had elegant gestures and moved about in a graceful manner, he was also dressed in expensive clothes, showing off to everyone his status as a son of a wealthy yangban family. His face was sharp and impassive, but I could see a strange spark of something in his feline eyes.

“Hyung,” Taehyung said cutely and pulled me towards the man in expensive robes, “this is Y/N.” I stared dumbly between the two men, flabbergasted at the situation I had suddenly found myself in. Hyung? Was this another demon?

The man in question nodded towards me, showing polite interest. He looked intimidating, but whenever his eyes jumped to Taehyung, there was softness in them, and his face would suddenly relax and look more human and boyish.

“This is one of my hyungs,” Taehyung said towards me and then leaned closer until he could whisper into my ear: “He’s a tiger spirit.” I gasped lightly and looked at the man. He gave me a goofy toothy grin, his posture loosening as he made himself more comfortable. I slipped into the hostess mode and started offering drinks and food and he indulged happily, even getting Taehyung to take a glass with him. I listened to their gentle teasing for a while, content with watching him be so happy and carefree.

“So if one wants to see your face around these parts, they have to come here, huh?” said the tiger with a little smirk and winked towards me. I giggled and added: “As long as my husband isn’t home.” I immediately blushed, but the feelings of shame I used to feel over this have ebbed away and now I could only feel a little twinge of it as a phantom pain, before I put it away and focused on the men in my presence.

“Oh, I know your husband very well,” the man said, his face turning into a mysterious sharp hungry grin, “He isn’t home very often.” Taehyung tensed behind me, and I glanced at him, before throwing a confused smile at the visitor.

“What do you mean you know my husband well?” I asked, ignoring the way Taehyung’s hands tightened around me. I refused to turn his way, instead focusing my all attention at the dangerous being sat in front of us.

“He plays cards out of his league,” the man stated, eyes glinting with some feral contentment, “He lost a lot of money to a lot of people. An especially big sum to a certain very dangerous man that likes to prowl around those parlours.” It felt as if I was thrown into a freezing water, the panic seizing me at this information. I had known, to a certain extent, that he must have gotten himself into something, but losing in cards and owing money to someone dangerous, that would absolutely destroy my life alongside his. Distressed, I looked to Taehyung, who immediately pushed his hand into my hair in an attempt to comfort me.

“Hyung, stop that,” he scolded the man gently, “Stop scaring her.” I blinked at Taehyung owlishly.

“You knew?” I whispered the question, my heart aching when the dark-haired man looked away with guilt etched into his handsome face.

“I told him,” the older man piped up again, gently inserting himself back into the conversation he himself started, “I happen to have an insight into the situation. Don’t fear, dear, this is between your husband and the forces he messed with.” The vague statement did nothing to ease my anxiety and my eyes flitted between the two men again, but I chose to not say anything anymore. They shared a resolute look, full of determination, and then moved on from the topic.

Mr. Min, as I finally learnt his name, stayed for a better part of the afternoon, only departing once the night fell with only the moon lighting his way. His sharp eyes seemed to glow in the dark and once again I was reminded that he was a spirit of the mountain. I snickered gently at that. Look at me, the cursed widow dining with a demon and a tiger. If the old ladies in my home village knew that, they would lose their minds.

Taehyung wrapped his arm around my shoulders as we watched his friend go, looking at my amusement fondly, but the way his hand squeezed me I could tell he was worried about the conversation we had. I looked at him, truly looked at him, and contemplated whether to bring it up again.

He sensed it, his face turning a little guilty and sheepish again, before turning to me, grabbing both of my shoulders and saying: “Y/N, do you trust me?” Did I? Of course I did. I loved him, I loved him more than I have ever loved anyone. He never failed me, never gave me a reason not to trust him. So I nodded firmly.

“Then know that it will be taken care of,” he stated, voice gentle and kind, “I wouldn’t let this impact you.” I nodded again, looking at him fondly before caving in and seeking the warmth of his embrace. He held me tightly, then and through the night, whispering words of love. I trusted them.

I should have known that this would smudge lines, that me living my little fantasy with Taehyung and him living in the house fully visible would lead to us being careless and slipping. But still, when it happened, I was sorely unprepared for the whirlwind it started.

We depended too much on the belief that Minhwan wouldn’t return home early. He didn’t, in the past weeks. Every morning, I would watch the sun climb pretty high up on the sky before the door slammed open and he trudged in wordlessly demanding food. Taehyung spent the mornings lazily spread out in the bed, stretching like an over-sized cat, grinning at me lazily and watching me get ready for the day. And usually I would be woken up by his gentle hands or kisses, or by the sun shining through to my face, or the cold would make me turn and snuggle deeper into my lover’s arms.

So when I got woken up by a scream, I was shocked and confused to my core. I jerked up into a sitting position, eyes wide open and looking for the source of the commotion, heart beating out of my chest and throat tight. It was a cry of rage, a man’s ire bursting through the quiet comfortable space of early morning.

There was a flash of movement and then suddenly I was being painfully pulled out of the bed by my upper arm. I cried out, legs fighting to get into working order and stop the pain from the uncomfortable angle. Suddenly I was face to face with a seething Minhwan, his face red and bloated, twisted into a grimace of pure primal rage. He grabbed onto both of my shoulders, nails digging into my skin until I feared he would draw blood, shaking me violently.

He screamed something, but I was too tired and shocked to fully comprehend what has happened. Panic started pumping through my veins, my breathing getting out of my control as I choked on the instinctual fear of being met with a man in such an emotional state. He shook me again and I got dizzy. Behind me the bed was empty, but very obviously slept in.

 As if wading through a thick fog, I finally realised he must have seen Taehyung in the bed and my knees buckled. He let me fall, let me knock painfully into the wooden floor as he paced around the door. Thoughts going a mile a minute I scrambled to try and come up with something, with anything instead of just sitting there staring dumbly. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, slipping slowly down as my mouth opened and closed. My head hurt, my chest was so tight I could barely breathe and my heart was beating so fast I feared it might just tear right out of my body. I looked at my shaking hands and released a few strained breaths.

“Are you even listening to me?!” Minhwan was suddenly screaming right into my face and I flinched. It was as if a filter lifted off of the world and the sound was suddenly getting to me fully, the thumping of his feet on the floor, his ragged breathing, his enraged mumblings. I stared at him blankly for a moment and in a split second decided to play it the only way I could.

“W-what happened?” I asked quietly, still looking at him with wide confused eyes, movements sluggish. I put a hand to my head, shaking it from side to side. At least I didn’t have to pretend I had a headache.

Minhwan stopped pacing and regarded me with suspicion. Come on, I prayed to myself, I know you must have seen him disappear in front of your eyes. He watched me for a moment, and I made sure to look as disoriented as I could, blinking blearily around and pulling a blanket closer over my rapidly cooling body. The seconds ticked away as he just looked around the room, watched the bed, the doors, as if measuring whether the man could have gotten away around him. He wasn’t saying anything for the longest time, and I felt like I was losing my mind, fearing any moment he’ll decide I was a liar and do god knows what in a fit of rage, but then he looked at me again with eyes filled with more confusion and fear than rage.

“Do you really not know?” he inquired, and his voice was grating to me, rough from speaking and drinking the whole night. I nodded slowly and then asked again: “What happened? Why were you screaming?” His face filled with determination, and he wordlessly walked out of the room. I scrambled to follow after him.

“Where are you going? What’s going on?” I hammered him, looking for a confirmation that I was safe, at least for the moment, but he just silently started fastening his hat back on. Finally, right before walking back out of the door, he turned to me and said: “I’m getting the exorcist.”

The next few hours I spent sitting in the house in panicked silence, wondering what my fate would be beyond this day. What would the shamaness say? How will this go? Do I have to pretend to get exorcised? I tried calling out to Taehyung, but he didn’t respond once. I bit my nails and paced around the house, counting every second ticking by as if waiting for execution.

By the time the door slid open again and stone-faced Minhwan stepped in, my nerves were completely frayed, and I could barely support my own weight on my shaking knees. My head snapped into the direction of the noise, and I saw a man and a woman step inside. The moment their eyes landed on me, they bowed slightly to me, but said nothing and instead followed my husband through the house into the bedroom. I hurriedly trailed after them, shaky hands with nails bitten almost bloody grasping onto my skirt to ground myself at least a little bit.

When I stepped into the room, Minhwan was gesturing to the bed, still unmade as I was too panicked to clean, and explaining what had happened.

“I walked in and saw four feet instead of two,” he said darkly, anger shining through to the surface again, “They were clearly man’s feet. I threw a shoe at him and started screaming, but then he was just gone. He disappeared into thin air. When she woke up, she was disoriented and had no idea what was going on.” I listened to him with a lump in my throat and when they all turned to look at me standing in the door, my knees almost buckled. I hoped that my nervousness would be interpreted as my unawareness, but when the woman’s eyes bore into me with a startling intensity, I couldn’t help but flinch and look down.

She came over to me and an expectant silence fell over the room, all of us collectively holding our breath and waiting for her judgement. She grabbed my chin, not roughly but definitely not gently, and moved my head so that I was looking at her. Her eyes flitted across my face, in search of something. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but I wondered how I must have looked to her. Did I look guilty? Did I look sick? What did she see?

She examined me for a moment and then let me go and stepped back to the man. She looked at him and nodded.

“It is a demon of sickness,” the man spoke, “He was draining your wife’s life energy, eventually saddling her with plague or similar illness. It is good you caught him before he did irreparable damage to her.” I touched my own face, wondering how bad I looked for her to come to the conclusion I was getting drained in such a way, but felt immense relief. Before I caught myself, I swayed, the feelings of anxiety crashing onto me, leaving my body too weak to stay upright. I crashed into the door and barely managed to catch myself before I hit the floor full force. The woman rushed to me and pulled me up, holding onto my arm and helping me stand in a manner she must have believed was comforting.

“Don’t worry, darling, he will not get you,” she whispered in a raspy old voice, “We will take care of this.” I mumbled something out, an insincere thanks, and propped myself up by the door. Instinctively I looked to Minhwan and found him already looking at, eyes coldly assessing me. He was scaring me, I had no idea where I stood with him and what was going through his mind, but I hoped this would buy me some time. I looked back to the floor and started smoothing out my skirts with shaky hands.

“We will get the supplies we’ll need and return tomorrow with the dawn,” the man spoke again, looking mainly to Minhwan, “For tonight, hang garlic and onion around the house. The foul smell will keep the demons away. I will draw you a talisman for your door and main gate, plaster it on the wood and keep it there until we come.” My husband curtly nodded.

The pair started moving towards the door to leave and Minhwan followed them out. I took the time to slide down to the door. I was trying to keep myself calm, but the stressed tears came anyway, rolling down my cheeks and there was nothing I could do to stop them. Once Minhwan returned, I was silently sobbing on the floor, too overwhelmed by everything that’s happened in these few hours.

Minhwan regarded me silently and then moved to the main room, sat by the fireplace and didn’t speak again. I sat there, filled with dread, and waited. Waited for the other shoe to drop, for him to fly off of his handle and do something, but the house was eerily silent. In the end I pulled myself together and moved about my day as if nothing was happening, as if Minhwan wasn’t sitting in the other room counting minutes before sun went down. The uncomfortable atmosphere stretched over us like a suffocating blanket and even though I went with the motions, cooked food and served it, I wasn’t even interested in eating, and neither seemed to be Minhwan.

With dark setting over the dwelling, the moon shining over the snow and creating a silver glow over everything, I found myself anxiously glancing at my husband to see whether he would leave, but he stayed firmly sat. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I had to have a talk with Taehyung, confide in him and see what he thinks we should do. I desperately craved his comfort and calming presence, I needed him to hold me and kiss me and whisper about all the things he loved, I needed him to whisk me away into the woods and keep me away from this life I had found myself in.

As I paced around the bedroom nervously, I realised that. I wanted to leave with him. I wanted to flee into his reality and leave my own behind. I needed to talk to Taehyung soon.

The door slid open, and I flinched and instinctively moved a few steps further into the room. Minhwan looked at me, his eyes empty and dark, and then moved to the corner of the room, sitting down and staring soullessly at me.

“Aren’t you going to get ready for bed?” came his gruff voice when I stood there frozen for too long, watching him out of the corner of my eye. I could hear a certain accusation in it and my heart jumped into my throat. Without saying anything, I mechanically moved to my vanity and started brushing my hair while keeping an eye on my husband’s dark form slouched in the corner. His eyes never left me, slowly with every second ticking by filling with more and more pure hatred.

The room felt as if it was freezing, the air so heavy with tension I could taste it on my tongue. I could feel my heart beating hard in my chest, my clammy hands squeezing around the brush.

“I feel quite stupid now, you see,” Minhwan started suddenly, his cold voice startling me. I turned around to look at him, trying to keep my expression neutral but knowing I probably looked truly scared and guilty. He stared at me expectantly, but when I failed to say anything, he continued.

“I saw it,” he simply stated, “the hairpin.” It felt as if time stopped, the blood freezing in my veins with one simple word. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, but I ultimately failed to say anything. He knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to the market to buy it myself, there was nothing I could say to excuse that.

“I saw how certain mornings you seemed to be flustered,” he continued quietly, “how you changed, I saw the flowers you tried to hide.” He chuckled darkly, mirthlessly, but stayed sprawled out in the corner, watching me. I sat frozen in front of my vanity, brush still in hand, thoughts going a mile a minute.

“I ignored it, of course,” Minhwan carried on, seemingly okay with being the only one to talk, “I know how hard it is to get here and there’s no one close enough to sneak here like this. But when I went to town for the shamaness, I started remembering these moments. I saw the hairpin in my mind, as clear as day. And it made sense. Whatever he is, you knew about him.” I gulped, but said nothing, staring at my hands. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movements and I looked up startled. Minhwan was now moving towards me, slow and calculated, and dread filled me.

I looked up at him and couldn’t help a few stray tears escaping me. Minhwan watched me coldly, but it was so different than what I was used to from him and it terrified me. This was a different kind of rage, the kind that made people unpredictable, the kind when you know the person is so angry they’ve become calm.

He slowly threaded his hand into my hair, gripping it tightly until I could feel slight pain. He angled my head, watching the tears slide down my face with a scowl. Then he pushed my head away and released my hair, sending me crashing into the vanity. I caught myself on my hands, but the impact still hurt and I whimpered through the tears.

I heard Minhwan moving about the room, thrashing the chest I kept some of my belongings in, tearing through my fine robes and sending little reminders and keepsakes flying through the room and crashing into the floor and the walls. With every crash I flinched again and again, shrinking into myself and slowly slinking into the corner behind my vanity.

Minhwan finally got to what he was looking for – the dried flowers and other little gifts Taehyung has been bringing me. Whatever he got his hands on, he destroyed, tearing the flowers apart or breaking things by throwing them on the floor. I watched him helplessly, now fully sobbing as I witnessed my life being torn apart.

Minhwan paid me no mind, his eyes catching onto something in the chest. He bent over to pull out the object, and I eyed him carefully before I realised what it was. The hairpin. He glanced over at me and when he saw my eyes trained to it, he smirked with such malice it made shiver. He gripped it with both hands and then with a quick gesture broke it in half. Before I could stop myself, I cried out with my hands outstretched going to grab it, grab him, just do anything to stop it from happening, but I couldn’t. Minhwan threw the broken pin on the floor, and I watched the little gem break away and fall through the tiles.

Minhwan walked over to me again and crouched down so he could look at me closer.

“Did he get you pregnant?” he suddenly asked, and it was such an unexpected question it shocked me into silence as I just stared at him dumbly. Then I just slowly shook my head. Minhwan’s face stayed impassive. He just stared at me until I started squirming in my place, my skin crawling with fear and nervousness.

Then he just got up and walked out.

I stayed put, not daring to move from my place, but I strained my ears to hear whatever he was doing. He walked around the main room for a moment and then his footsteps seemed to get further away until I heard the door slide open, slide shut and then silence. I held my breath, waiting for a moment before I allowed myself to decompress, immediately slumping down onto the ground. With the stress rapidly draining from my body, I found myself a shaking crying mess. I crawled over to the chest and grabbed onto whatever destroyed piece of memory I could, cradling them to my chest and desperately hoping that I could mend it, that it would all go away. That I’d wake up in Taehyung’s arms and he’d console me and tell me it was all a bad dream.

I didn’t sleep that night. And Minhwan didn’t return in the morning. The shamaness and her husband came knocking with the dawn and I sat on the porch and expressionlessly watched the main gate rattle and shake under their fists, listened to their raised concerned voices calling to be let in. I was drained, empty and exhausted. I waited until they got tired of it and left, and then I continued sitting there watching the trees move, the sun travel the sky. I could barely feel the frost biting at my fingers, my arms, my face. I could barely feel anything.

For two days, I waited. I sat around the house and watched the walls, walked around the yard and looked outside, into the forest and the trees. Minhwan didn’t return. Taehyung didn’t return. I was completely alone, in the silent house, just wondering whether I was forsaken by both of them, wondering what would happen if neither of them came back.

On the dawn of the third day, I heard footsteps in the yard. My stomach dropped and my heart felt like a piece of ice. Footsteps meant Minhwan. Footsteps meant the end of my life, meant my husband was back and there was no telling what he would do.

I drew the blanket closer to myself and resignedly made my way outside. I would accept whatever was to come. Except the moment I slid the door open, I saw a sheepish Taehyung nervously stepping from foot to foot in our yard. I could only guess how I looked, but when he saw me, he closed the distance between us in a few quick strides, arms immediately pulling me into his chest. I felt my resolve break and desperately clawed at him, pulled him closer, just needing to touch him and make sure he was real and he came back.

He pulled back and I whined, but he took my face into his hands, gazing upon me with tenderness and sadness and despair. His fingers smoothed out the worried lines on my face, touched the puffy cheeks and eyes, gently caressed my face until I could see my vision blurring with unshed tears. Taehyung sighed and bent down to lightly kiss my forehead.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered quietly, his voice like soft caress for my soul after days of loneliness and solitude, and sudden onslaught of emotions hit me like a stone wall. I grabbed onto his robe and looked into his kind beautiful eyes.

“Where were you?” it came out choked on a sob and I couldn’t even wait for his answer before the dam broke and I started crying. Taehyung held me through it, he took me in his arms and carried me inside, petted my back and held my face, whispered to me and it almost felt like a huge déjà vu to the first night I let him get closer to me. He apologised again and again, and I should have pressed for more answers, but I was so relieved he returned, I couldn’t bring myself to ask more.

When I calmed down, Taehyung’s attention was finally drawn to the state of the house. I didn’t clean up the bedroom, I barely even slept, and all the broken things were still lying around. It must have been quite a sight – a broken life, and in the middle of it all, a broken me. But instead of saying anything, he just reached over to grab the remnants of the hairpin. I watched him wordlessly, heart struck with grief at the sight of it, but he played with it for a moment, eyes peeking over at me and grinning mischievously. I returned it shakily, heavy emotions still weighing the corners of my mouth down but I tried, head leaning on his shoulder.

He encased the broken parts of it into his hands and shook them little. I thought nothing of it, watching his hands turn from side to side, expecting this to be just a way to distract me, but when his hands stopped, he uncovered his palm with a grand gesture and I gasped. There, lying on his palm, was the hairpin in one piece, looking as if it’s never been broken.

I immediately went to grab it, but he moved his hand away, keeping it out of my reach. Instead, he grabbed my brush and started slowly brushing out my tangled unkept hair. I let him care for me, I sat there on the floor of my thrashed bedroom, leaned on him and listened to him hum as he played with my hair. When Tae was satisfied with it, he tied my hair with his red ribbon and then pushed in the hairpin.

The fondness in his eyes when he looked over his work warmed my heart, and I relaxed into his embrace.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” Taehyung whispered again, “I shouldn’t have left you alone.” I shook my head and tightened my arms around him.

“There was nothing you could have done,” I told him and attempted to smile. I wanted to ease his worries, but I still felt too shaken.

“I should have been here,” Taehyung reiterated, “You needed me, and I failed you.” I squeezed his waist, trying to share comfort to him as he did to me. He looked at me fondly with a little smile, then kissed me gently.

“Where were you?” I asked again, this time much more calmly. Taehyung’s face fell immediately and I expected him not to want to tell me, but with some difficulty he started talking.

“I went to my hyung,” he admitted to me, and I realised there was guilt in his expression, “I asked him to sort something out for me.” I looked at him confused, but his face has turned hard and cold, gazing out of the room. I wanted to ask more, but I couldn’t bring myself to. It didn’t matter now, all that mattered was that he returned.

“We need to leave,” I blurted out suddenly, the calmness leaving my body. I turned on my knees and grabbed onto his clothed shoulders, looking into his eyes with urgency. Taehyung smiled at me and attempted to sit me back down, but I wouldn’t let him. “We really need to leave, before my husband returns,” I continued, the words falling out of me quickly, “I don’t know where he went, he hasn’t returned for a few days, but when he returns I cannot say what he will do.”

Taehyung’s hands pushed onto my shoulders, gentle smile on his face, mouth opening to tell me something, no doubt to calm down, but I jumped in before he got a chance.

“No, you don’t understand Taehyung, he knows,” I whispered urgently, “He knows about us. When he returns… Taehyung, I’m scared of what will happen…” I trailed off, hands flexing and bunching up the fabric of his robes. A few stray tears escaped my eyes, and I was surprised I even had some left in me, after the last few days.

Taehyung gave me a soft smile, hands coming up to hold my face. He gently wiped my tears away and bent down to kiss my forehead, my nose and finally my lips. I watched him, despair mixing with love and fear inside of me, making me feel like I was about to explode. I didn’t know how else explain to him that we weren’t safe here.

“I’m ready to leave,” I whispered again, desperate and broken, “Please Taehyung, I’ll go with you. I’m ready to go. There’s nothing left here.” He said nothing, but caressed my hair, fingers smoothing out the edges of my cold wet face. His eyes were trained on his hands moving on my skin, as if he wasn’t registering what I said at all. I could see in them that he was battling something, lips pursed in a bittersweet smile like they were trying to keep in some awful truths.

My heart gave a few painful pumps before it felt like it stilled completely. My hands fell from him as despair and hurt took over. Suddenly the realisation hit me, the realisation of what this must have been for him. A goodbye. My lips curled around a silent sob, but I couldn’t cry more, there was nothing left inside.

Taehyung noticed my plight and immediately pulled back into him, and I realised why he looked so guilty when we sat down.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” the words barely left my mouth, so quiet they could be barely heard, but Taehyung reacted to them immediately, arms tightening around me.

“No, darling, of course I’m not,” he replied, but I didn’t want to hear more lies, not now and not ever. My own hands balled into fists in my lap.

“Please, tell me the truth,” I said resolutely, looking straight into his eyes that were coloured by confusion at my statement. “What are you talking about?” Taehyung asked, lost and worried. His hands travelled across my shoulders and back, grabbing onto anywhere they could and then passing on as he tried to comfort me without fully knowing what was happening.

“You didn’t respond before,” I told him, and the realisation seemed to hit him almost instantly. “Oh, darling,” he whispered and kissed me softly again, “of course I want you to leave with me. But…” He seemed to struggle there, looking down to his lap guiltily, fingers digging into my shoulders nervously. I grabbed onto his shoulders too and pressed a little closer, until our faces were just a breath away.

“What is it?” I asked, desperate for a resolution, desperate to leave this all behind and go into the woods with him, follow him wherever he’d take me.

“Your husband…” Taehyung started and I tensed at the mention, but I wasn’t prepared for what came out of his mouth next, “he isn’t coming back.” I scrunched my face up in confusion. Taehyung avoided my eyes again, this time looking towards the door with a quiet resolution painted on his face.

“What are you talking about?” I pushed out of my mouth, mind muddled and tongue tied, “Of course he is, and he’ll bring all hell back with him.” Taehyung sighed, hands flexing into my skin.

“Y/N, you don’t understand,” he reiterated, urgency taking over his sweet, honeyed tone, “He isn’t coming back. Ever.” I froze when I finally put together what he had tried to tell me. I wish I could say I was terrified. I wish I could say that I was filled with dread and panic and disgust instead of relief, I wish I could say that I pushed him away, confused and hurt, instead of letting out a shocked laugh, hands immediately searching for his face. I turned him so he’d look at me.

He was painted with shame and guilt, with fear that I would hate him for the implication, so I gently caressed his face and laid a little kiss over his furrowed brows. He closed his eyes, sighing in relief. My heart was beating fast, but I couldn’t tell if it was out of nervousness or joy. I wondered whether that made me a bad person, whether I was cursed after all. But when Taehyung opened his eyes and gave me a toothy grin, it didn’t seem to matter much.

“What did you do?” I asked the question in a hushed whisper, as if discussing my husband’s demise was a thrilling secret just between the two of us. Based on the dark-haired man’s reaction to it he was expecting to hear a horror-struck tone, not the casualness with which I spoke about this matter, but he shook the surprise quick enough.

“Do you remember my hyung? The tiger?” Taehyung begun his explanation, a small smile taking over his face when I nodded in answer, “He was the one your husband owed money to. It was a matter of time before he’d gotten himself reaped, I just called in an early favour.” I frowned slightly at that.

“You mean that my husband was always destined to die?” the question was asked more out of curiosity than concern, but Taehyung still seemed to be a little on edge, fearing my reaction and attempting to gauge my emotional state. Still, he indulged me.

“He was since the moment he decided to play cards against a spirit,” Taehyung explained, “Tigers don’t play for money. We have no need for earthly possessions. But the more the human loses to you, the more under your power they are. With the mounting debt, the spirit only bides his time, terrorising the soul and pushing them into losing more. Then the spirit only waits until they’ve lost the amount of money that could buy their soul, before reaping. Your husband was a lost cause since Yoongi set his eyes on him.” I took in the information slowly, but to me his death was inconsequential now. Taehyung would take me away, I didn’t have to fear being left behind and collected by a family-in-law and living out the rest of my life as a proper widow, a property of my husband’s relatives. With that my only concern was taken care of and I found myself empty of any big reactions regarding his impending sudden demise.

“Do souls have prices, then?” I inquired more, interested in his earlier statement. Taehyung’s eyes sparkled slightly, as if he was delighted I wanted to know more, delighted that I wasn’t mourning, that I didn’t think him a murderer.

“Yes they do,” he answered simply, “a saint would be hard to tempt, the amount would be higher. A tyrant on the other hand, a sinner, they don’t take much.” I hummed quietly, absent-mindedly playing with some of Taehyung’s long hair. It didn’t take much to know which category my husband fell to. Getting my questions answered, I was satisfied to let this subject go. I felt as if a great weight has been lifted off of my shoulders and off of my heart. I found myself cautiously hopeful, looking forward to leaving this house and everything in it behind, letting it rot and fall to the ground and never return. But Taehyung seemed to have something else on his mind still.

“It was me,” he confessed quietly and suddenly, leaving me confused what he meant. He looked at me, gauging my reaction, fingers nervously playing with the edge of my jeogori. “It was me who told hyung to seek him out and tempt him into playing,” the man finally got out and it seemed as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders too.

I said nothing, hands migrating to caress his hair gently, smiling softly, and then getting up. I walked across the room to where my possessions laid strewn across the floor as if they were violently gutted from the insides of the chest. I found a cloth big enough and started piling the most important things inside. Taehyung watched me quietly, unsure of where I stood, still believing I could shun him for this. I smiled at him again when I caught his sad eyes watching my hands move. He returned it, in the same cautiously hopeful way I felt, and I could just think to myself. How perfect. We’re perfect like this.

“I just need to grab a few things and we can go,” I said, giving him a reassuring smile. His returning one was as bright as the sun itself and I felt my drained heart tiredly jumping in joy.

When I gathered everything, he took the bundle from me gently into one of his hands, the other holding mine as I quietly led him out of the cold empty house. Outside, the air was crisp and freezing, but the sun was shining and it filled me with happiness. The snow was sparkling, reflecting the rays of sunlight, blinding me slightly, but I had everything I needed, and it was a beautiful day outside. I squeezed Taehyung’s hand and he returned it.

Once stood in the gate, I turned back to the house wordlessly. I could see through the open doors the mess that was left inside, the state of the bedroom, and the two trails of footsteps leaving forever. Taehyung watched me carefully, making sure I was okay. I nodded at him and he grinned gently. We both turned and walked away.

He led me through the forest, up the mountain path. I’d never been here before, and it seemed that it was a long time since someone else than the demon himself took this path. Briefly I wondered if it even was visible to other people or if it was one of those paths you see once out of the corner of your eyes and then never find it again, even if curiosity kills you from the inside.

Taehyung was walking confidently now, once we crossed the threshold into his world he gained strength and resolve and led me through the trees until we reached a little clearing with a dwelling firmly in the middle of it.

It was smaller than our farm, but it looked much nicer, with little windchimes and colourful decorations hanging from the beam over the porch. Their clanking created a nice ambience in the background and their colourful flashes reflected off of the snow. I smiled fondly at that, feeling at ease.

The house only really had two smaller rooms and a kitchen, but they were filled with books and clothes and paintings. Taehyung seemed to be a lover of arts, his walls full of various pieces varying from flowers to landscapes and portraits. I peeked at them curiously, but Taehyung seemed eager to pull me along until we reached the other room, where a bed was unfolded but untouched. There was a vanity on one side, very similar to the one I had, ready with a brush and another beautiful hairpin sitting next to it, waiting for their owner. I smiled at that, heart filled with so much love it felt like bursting.

Taehyung carefully laid the bundle with my things on the ground and then skipped back over to me, plastering himself to my back, arms possessively coiling around me and lips and nose immediately running over the expanse of the skin at my shoulder and neck. I shuddered lightly, noting his palpable excitement at bringing me to his home.

“This will be our bedroom from now on,” he whispered in a rough voice, laying a series of wet open-mouthed kisses down my shoulder, “This house will become a home.” His hand splayed over my stomach and pushed me more into his form, his heated body melting over me instantly, lips travelling wherever a sliver of skin presented itself to them.

I shuddered lightly, squirming in his arms. I managed to turn to face him and immediately was met with fond eyes full of unshed tears. I grabbed his face and gently pressed our lips together. I meant for the kiss to stay innocent, but Taehyung clearly had a different idea, descending onto me with an urgency of a starving man, lips devouring mine in a hot all-consuming kiss.

I moaned lightly into his mouth, hands tightening in his clothes and subconsciously pulling him closer to me. He used the opportunity to slip his tongue inside my mouth, sighing with content when it met mine and twisted and pushed around each other. He towered over me, with every second bending down a little more, making me arch into the kiss. The dark-haired man was grabbing onto my hips, as strong as a vice, digging fingers into the layers of fabric with such force I still felt his nails biting into my skin. My own hands slowly travelled up, tangling into his hair and wrapping around his neck. When I pulled on the strand lightly, Taehyung sighed into my mouth and pushed us closer together.

My mind was quickly becoming muddled, only thoughts of the man in my arms swimming around in my brain, body heating up rapidly and begging for his attention in the way that he used to give me. And with the way he held onto me and pressed into me, he was in a similar state.

Without interrupting our kiss, Taehyung started slowly sliding down to the floor and pulled me with him. I gasped slightly and finally broke our kiss to breathe and take in the new position, but Tae didn’t get discouraged and continued his path down my jawline and my neck. I had enough mind to breathlessly move my head out of the way and present my neck for him, which made him hum appreciatively, his low deep voice purring into my skin. All I could really do was hold on to him and let the sensations sail me further.

I could feel his hands inching higher, until they were kneading my waist, thumbs slipping under the jeogori and messing with my undergarments. My whole body trembled like a plucked string, desire wreaking havoc on my psyche. I released a shaky sigh and decided to be a little bit braver. I grabbed one of his hands, Taehyung making a little questioning sound in the back of his throat, but didn’t stop his ministrations, and I pushed it towards the bow tying my top together.

Taehyung paused only for a second, eyes searching mine for any kind of hesitation, but I only blushed under his heated gaze, the lust taking over the control of my body and pushing my chest more into his curious hands. He no longer wasted time after that, leaning a bit back and making quick work of the binding and soon he had me sitting in his lap in only my undergarments. My lips found his again, needing to feel his touch more than I needed to breathe oxygen.

With new skin now visible Taehyung seemed to be over the moon, a little content sighs and quiet moans leaving his mouth as his fingers travelled across the expanse of my shoulder blades and my arms. The intensity of the kiss kept increasing, my body confusedly trying to move with the motions and seek even more pleasure. When Taehyung gently bit on my lower lip, my hips jerked forward on their own and I could feel a hardness sliding across my centre. We both gasped, Taehyung’s hands jumping to my hips to stop them, but I felt as if a lighting struck me to my core, pleasure zapping through me on a jolt. I gasped, hips mindlessly chasing after the feeling again. Taehyung separated the kiss on a groan, his head falling to my shoulder, hands now encouraging my hips to move instead of stopping them.

For a moment we just enjoyed each other, mindlessly kissing here, grabbing onto each other and chasing the pleasure, moving against each other. I managed to get Taehyung out of his outer robes too and he was clad only in a thin undershirt that teased a little bit of his collarbones, which I immediately covered in kisses. We didn’t speak and the room was filled with the sounds of shifting clothes and airy little gasps and moans, but I needed more. I needed so much more.

Taehyung’s lips travelled down to the edge of my undergarment, kissing the soft swell teasing my breasts, and I gasped and arched and curved into him, but I could feel the smirk settling on his face as he moved away again. I whined, mind gone and begging for more solid touch, for his hand between my legs and his lips biting into my shoulders.

I pushed onto his shoulders and as Taehyung wasn’t expecting it, he went easily, slight alarm painting his face, but I just grabbed him and pulled his face back to mine. The moment our lips crashed together, I keened, licking into his mouth desperately. The dark-haired man chuckled, but he seemed to take pity on me.

With one hand gently laid on my lower back, he slowly toppled us over until I was lying on the ground with his weight settling gently on top of me, legs tangled and lips intertwined. With a wet smack our lips separated and for a moment we both just looked at each other breathing hard, but then the time and reality caught up to my overheated excited brain and I immediately started tearing at his clothes, untying anything I got my hands on and pushing the fabric away until his whole torso was on display.

I choked on a moan, the desire reigniting within me tenfold. He was beautiful, strong and lean, honey-toned skin blemishless and perfect. Distracted with all the possibilities and my body screaming at me to have the man take me now, take me as soon as possible, my hands wildly flitted over his chest, kneading the skin but not settling anywhere for too long. I decided to pay back the favour and my lips latched onto his neck, making him shudder and moan. I played around lightly, just like he had, kissing anywhere I could, moving south to his pecks and then back up all the way to his ear with wet open-mouthed kisses, revealing just how far gone I was and how needy he made me with his earlier ministrations.

Taehyung buried his face into the crook of my neck, skin rippling with every touch, releasing low groans right into my ear, which made me work even harder. I was ecstatic that I was finally able to touch him too, ecstatic by the prospect of returning the pleasure he had been bestowing me with all these mornings that would have otherwise been cold and lonely.

With that thought in mind, my hands shifted to his hips, at first seemingly just sitting there and holding onto him, but slowly moving downwards, pushing the pants down. Taehyung didn’t seem to notice at first, but once I got low enough to expose the v of his hips and the thicker part of his happy trail, he let out a loud excited groan, body shaking with anticipation.

His lips pressed into my ear. “Do you want to see me? Touch me?” he whispered, voice rough and aroused. I gasped quietly, legs falling open more so that he could settle his hips more comfortably and I could see the moment I finally pushed them low enough, breath held in excitement.

“Yes, please,” I answered in a similarly debauched hushed voice, “please, Taehyung.” His chest rumbled happily, lips busying themselves with biting and kissing into my neck. I must have been absolutely covered with little red and purple bruises and the thought sent a bolt of arousal through me, my body jerking underneath the bigger man.

“Go ahead then, darling,” he said sensually, regaining back a little control. His hips stiffened, allowing me to pull them down the final stretch, releasing his erection. It hit his lower stomach with a tiny noise, the wet tip leaving a little smear of clear liquid there. I clenched on nothing, a gush of wetness suddenly leaving me at the prospect of having him inside of me. He was watching me closely, a wild look on his face, and the more excited I felt, the hungrier he looked.

Then Taehyung pressed his face to mine again, lips caressing the shell of my ear as he whispered: “Do you want it? Do you want my cock, darling?” I nodded, a whimper escaping me, thighs and pussy throbbing with pure burning need. I was so aroused my head was spinning and every thought inside curled around the pleasure this man was providing me with. He clicked his tongue though, and shook his head a little, giving me a playful grin.

“Then you need to say it,” he stated meanly, eyes sparkling with mischief, “Good girls always ask for it.” The way his tongue wrapped around the words good girl made me borderline delirious, back arching and thighs spreading even further, until my hips hurt and I was gasping with the liquid lust coursing through my veins.

“Please!” I whined out again, hands grabbing onto his searing hot skin and attempting to pull him closer, but he didn’t budge.

“No, no, no, darling,” his voice seemed even darker and richer than usual and I was losing my mind on the little rasp, his tongue peeking out to play with the lobe of my ear quickly sending me spinning, “You need to say it.”

“Please, Taehyung,” I choked out, a few tears of frustrated arousal slipping down my cheeks, “I want you.” He smiled, giving me false sense of victory, but still kept his hips away from mine. I whined again, not knowing what else to do.

“I want to hear the words from your mouth, darling,” he stated firmly, “Say ‘Please Taehyung, I want your cock’.” I gasped at his words, the flush on my face deepening despite the lewdness of the situation I already found myself in. My tongue darted out to wet my dried lips and Taehyung’s eyes zeroed in on my mouth, fascinated.

“I want your cock,” I whispered, the arousal pushing me into boldness I’ve never displayed before, “Please, Taehyung, I want your cock so bad.” He groaned and I saw the exact moment his pupils expanded with pure lust and his eyes were overtaken by desire to have me. While his lips crashed to mine, his hand grabbed one of mine and pulled it towards his cock and wrapping it around it.

I squeezed on instinct and Taehyung moaned into me, hips bucking gently. I took a moment to feel him out, just gently ran my hands over the ridges and curves. I could feel the way Taehyung trembled, the way his breathing stuttered on tiny, muted groans, his eyes firmly shut. His hands grabbed onto my thighs and dug into them through the underskirt still half covering me from his eyes.

When I began sliding my hand up and down the shaft, Taehyung’s head once again fell to my shoulder, open mouth pressing into my skin and releasing rugged moans. His hips jerked forward in tiny motions, thrusting lightly into my curled hands. I was content with touching him, but my body also screamed for attention, thighs shaking and muscles in my belly contracting in pleasurable little ripples. I was so wet I could feel my essence sliding down my thighs and my bottom, leaving a little puddle on the bedding under us.

I squeezed around him lightly and he jerked into my hands harder, a debauched groan leaving him. I spasmed, pussy pulsing around nothing, begging to be filled up to the brim, an answering moan leaving my own lips. Taehyung looked at me through half-lidded eyes, reason completely overridden by the need to push himself into my tight wet heat at the clear need depicted on my face, he shuddered again, pre-cum leaking out the red tip of his painfully erect cock.

His hands scrambled to grab my skirt and push it up my legs until it pooled around my stomach, wet pussy exposed to his needy hands. He didn’t waste any time and pulled his fingers through my folds, teasing my clit for a moment and punching out desperate moans out of me, whole body spasming at the sudden onslaught of pleasure cursing through me, but then his fingers hurriedly slid down and pushed inside of me. At the feeling of his fingers getting so easily swallowed up by my wet cunt he groaned, thrusting them in a little and scissoring to make sure I was absolutely ready to take a cock, but both of us were beyond gone with desire.

I was enjoying the feeling of finally having something inside of me, but it didn’t last for long. After a few hurried thrusts of his fingers, Taehyung pulled his hand away and I whined, arching my back, pussy chasing after him. He quickly swatted my hands from his length and lowered his hips until we were pressing into each other, his cock snuggly sliding through my wet folds.

Our breaths were knocked out of us on deep satisfied groans. He moved his hips back and forth a few times, coating himself in my juices to ensure easier slide, and then pushed inside with one firm motion, cock driving inside of me without any resistance, filling me absolutely all the way up on the first thrust. I threw my head back, mouth open on a silent scream, the contentment of finally having him inside me lighting my every nerve on fire and satisfying something deep inside of my core. I trembled, desperately holding onto him as my brain turned to mush with barely anything.

Taehyung was having more trouble staying silent, mouth open and instantly pumping out groans and moans, shaky hands keeping my hips still and desperately trying to stop himself from immediately mindlessly driving into the divine pleasure that was the feeling of being enveloped by my wet tight walls.

I whimpered and squirmed underneath him, grabbing onto him. I wasn’t even fully aware of myself, body and mind consumed by the heavenly feeling of being filled by him.

“Please!” I whined out loud, desperately needing him to finally start doing something, like there was an itch deep inside of me that needed scratching, “Please, give me more!”

Taehyung chuckled above me, trying to stay suave and smooth but I could hear how breathless he was, could feel his hands tightening and loosening on my hips. His hips trembled against mine, jumping with excitement at my words.

He pulled his hips back and slowly slid back in, making us both sigh with content. He kept the pace slow and deep, covering me with his body and claiming my mouth with his while I fell apart on his well-aimed pace. I moaned on every stroke, arching my hips and spreading my thighs to let him hit deeper, pull him in closer.

The slow build up of the pleasure had me losing my mind. I felt like I was getting gradually submerged into boiling water, the heat steadily rising with every thrust filling me with deep primal satisfaction. My hands roamed over Taehyung’s body, appreciating his smooth skin and muscles as they jumped with movement, soaking up Taehyung’s little hick-uped groans when I passed over sensitive areas.

Taehyung changed the angle a little bit and when he pressed all the way inside, his tip pressed into a spot that had me keening loudly underneath him, eyes tightly shut and mouth wide open. My hands instinctively grabbed onto his waist and squeezed, nails digging into his skin, and Taehyung groaned loudly, hips jerking into me roughly, punching out a whiny moan out of me.

That seemed to break us into a frenzy, my hands sliding down his body and grabbing onto his ass, pushing him into me and encouraging his movements. Taehyung happily took the sign and started thrusting faster and harder, filling the room with sounds of our moans and the wet slapping of our hips. I couldn’t stop the sounds spilling out of my mouth, his every stroke hitting deep inside me and lighting my every nerve on fire, stoking the lust and the bliss in pulsing consuming waves.

I felt myself getting close to the peak I was so familiar with from his hands, the sensations drowning me and washing over me in over-powering waves. Taehyung’s moans were reaching crescendo, getting higher and whinier as his hips unfalteringly pounded into me.

“So close, darling,” he croaked with a raspy voice, “going to paint you with my seed, going to fill you to the brim.” I moaned in response, pussy throbbing and clenching around him, sucking him in deeper. I needed us both to peak, I needed it more than air to feel him unwind and release, get consumed with pleasure I provided him with.

“God, just a little more,” I answered to him breathlessly on a pleasured sigh. My hands squeezed his bottom and pushed him a little rougher. His breath hitched, but he changed his pace accordingly, slowing down but snapping his hips into me harder and rougher, making me wail with pleasure.

I felt myself spiralling into the heat, knowing I wouldn’t last too long like this. Above me Taehyung watched me through half-lidded eyes, mouth open and face consumed with raw lust at my blissed-out state. I caught his eyes just seconds before my whole body spasmed and then stilled, climax exploding over me with force that shocked a raspy scream out of me. I blanked out, trembling and overflowing with bliss and ecstasy, legs spasming and toes curling with the sensation of the fire consuming me inside out. It was the best feeling I’ve ever felt, the most intense thing my body has ever gone through, but I loved every second of it. It felt as if all the stress just drained away from my body and was replaced by molten gold.

Taehyung fucked me through the orgasm, and it took him only a few more thrusts before his hips jerked wildly, pleasure mounting until he released deep inside of me with his head thrown back and a long drawn-out moan. I felt his cock throb and pulse inside of me as it spurted his seed, his hips lightly swaying in circles to ride it out, until the boneless weightless feeling set in and he collapsed on top of me.

I was feeling so content, body pleasantly light and thrumming with aftershocks of our shared moment, eyelids heavy with sleep. I felt Taehyung slip out and move away from me, his release running down my legs and making me blush again, but I didn’t have any strength to move or wipe it away, so I just laid there and waited for the man. He returned with a piece of cloth, still just as naked, shooting me a little playful wink when he saw me looking at his body. I turned around, embarrassed, even though we had just enjoyed each other like husband and wife.

I heard his little chuckle, but then the cloth suddenly pressed onto my thighs, making me gasp quietly. Taehyung squeezed my leg in apology and continued cleaning me up. I couldn’t help the little sighs of content leaving me, the warm cloth and his gentle touches filling my heart with love.

When he was done, he threw the piece of cloth away carelessly, before jumping onto the bedding and snuggling up to me. We ended up like we always have, Taehyung holding me from behind, hands pulling me as close to him as I could go, lips and nose pressing into the crook of my neck and into my hair, trilling happily.

I let it gently lull me to sleep, melting into his loving embrace, listening to his content purrs, our bodies moulding perfectly together like it was always meant to happen. I closed my eyes, and welcomed sleep, feeling the most comfortable I’ve been in years.

I couldn’t remember what I was thinking right before I slipped under, but I did with the feeling of just everything being right.

I would be okay. We would be okay.

hope you enjoyed yourself and see you around <3

A/N: the story of prince cheoyong, the son of the dragon king who neglected his wife to which a demon of pestilence took a liking and sneaked into her bed - one day cheoyong returned home and saw four feet sticking out of the bed instead of two, and he chased out the demon with singing and dancing, saving his wife and becoming a guardian god - it was said that no demon or evil spirit could enter a house as long as there was a likeness of cheoyong there, so people bought his portraits or talismans with his face and put them on their door, but i kind of switched the sides hehe

[swanimagines]

HER QUEEN | REGINA MILLS

Summary: Imagine working as a maid in the castle and having a crush on Queen Regina, and her developing a crush on you in Storybrooke.

You always knew Regina wasn't the kindest person in the Kingdom - in fact, she was considered a monster by a lot of people. Which was why so many people were baffled how you weren't scared of her at all, you were even eager to see her and seemed to get along with her better than most of her other servants.

You didn't know yourself why were you so fond of her at first, before finally realising that you actually had feelings for your queen. And it was quite hard to hide, so much so that you had great difficulties with not confessing it to her - you knew she wouldn't react well. She practiced dark magic with Rumpelstilskin and she'd just think of you as weak.

That was why you forced yourself to keep your feelings secret, but every day they just seemed to grow, larger and larger, until you felt like you were going to burst unless you told her. But as you were still sure that you'd just break your heart, you chose to ask Regina for some time off from your duties. She had always given you more leash than she gave her other servants, so you knew she'd say yes.

So you traveled to the other side of the kingdom to your family and tried to clear your head while there - not knowing there was a curse coming to wash over you all.

---

"Hello again, Mrs. Mayor," your cheerful voice rang through the house. Regina's lips curled upwards upon hearing it and she walked up to her entrance hall, seeing you ready with your mop and rags with a bright smile on your face. "How are you today?"

"Good, thank you," Regina replied, her voice warm and happy. You were one of the only people in her Kingdom who she didn't doom to an unhappy ending - you were still sort of her maid, but she was always warm and welcoming to you. You seemed to genuinely enjoy her company and your presence made her feel things she didn't know she could feel - or maybe she had just hidden them from herself back in the Enchanted Forest.

"How is Henry?" You asked, curious as you started to clean the floor. "He is such a wonderful boy."

"Oh, he's fine," Regina said, smiling softly at your praise. "He got an A+ from the English exam this week."

"He is such a smart boy," you said, smiling. "So bright and happy, a joy to have around."

"Thank you," Regina said, smiling as she took a seat on her sofa. "He's growing up so fast. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to cherish the moments. It's just gone by so quickly."

"It has," you agreed. "I don't think I can imagine Henry being a teenager yet."

Regina smiled softly at that - it wouldn't be but another five years and Henry would already be a teenager. Eight years had gone by so quickly, even when time had partially frozen in place here.

And Regina didn't even really think - she just blurted her next words out. "Would you stay for a cup of something hot and a warm apple pie? It's getting chilly out there."

You paused at that, looking at Regina. She almost regretted her words for a moment, thinking she managed to weird you out, but instead you broke into a wide smile.

"I would love that."

---

Requests are always open! FANDOM LIST | PROMPT LIST(S) | RULES (READ!!!)

[bunnwich]

It's Supposed to Be Fun

(a letter to my friends in the twst fandom)

I've been wanting to make this post for a while and these thoughts may seem scattered but I’m gonna try to express them. 

Lately, I have seen many friends and moots that either are leaving the fandom or feel guilty over not having posted in a while or losing interest in twst. On the other side, I also have friends being harassed.

This a reminder to remember why you joined this community to begin with. I know that keeping up with the fast-moving pace of fandom and comparing ourselves to others, can skew our perspective on these things.

It’s supposed to be fun. 

Why do we post art or write? Sure, partly for recognition, there's no denying that. But, why do we create, I mean really? For enjoyment. Not for others, not to be “popular” FOR JOY.

So, whether you’re dealing with people critiquing you or feeling guilty about not creating. My question is this: Why waste so much of your time on something that makes you miserable?

Did it stop being fun? Why? Haters? Loss of interest?

To my friends who feel guilty for not creating and not sure if they lost interest in twst: 

Don’t feel guilty. At one time, the creation of your twst content was natural. It's what you did for fun with friends or for yourself. Revisit that mindset and think - if creating twst content now will bring that same joy it did before.

If the answer is no, then maybe it’s time to pivot. It’s okay for interests to fade. It doesn’t mean that time, memories, or the friends you made are lost. Connect with your friends, we will understand! We still love you! It's not a race there's no time limit, just pick up were you want to. Draw fanart of old events or OCs.

To my friends who have been harassed: 

I say this with sincerity…. People who harass others over fictional characters are fucking losers.

Like… There’s no other eloquent way to encapsulate it. I’m starting to not care for the reason anymore - If you harass or be shady to others over a ship or fictional character. CONGRATS! YOU ARE A LOSER.

We all join fandoms as a hobby, for fun. We’re all just kids in the sandbox playing pretend again… and if you are the type of person to go up just to “kick the doll out of someone’s hand" or make commentary on how “their way of playing is wrong." You’re a loser. I have a life outside of twst, we all do. Someone saying my ship is wrong or cringe is just so laughable to me. We have to make fun of these people more for being so goddamn lame.

Imagine being so unhappy that when you see someone having fun you HAVE to comment on it. By all means, if it gets you through the day...talk shit to close friends or even post about it on your own blog. (THAT WAS ALWAYS ALLOWED.) Don't bother creators directly. Don't be a loser. I sure see tolerance leave people’s bodies when they see a fandom opinion they don't like. (And this is coming from someone who has lots of opinions on these things! But that's why I always put the disclaimers that, hey this is just MY opinion.)

Discussion is one thing, unhelpful comments are another. We shouldn’t give these people the time of day. Curate your online space. Yes, when you post things online you are subjecting yourself to scrutiny. But, we as creators need to stop letting these people have power over us. Period. We do this for free!! FOR FUN. The best thing you can do is create shamelessly.

Delete weird replies, block whoever you need to do to rid yourself of these people who have nothing better to do. Keep your peace. It’s supposed to be for fun. You don’t owe anyone a response.

The twst fandom is like a little family to me and I guess I feel protective over the people in it?  I have made many friends and memories because I joined it. And even dispite a handful of the negative experiences (AKA: A couple of “losers" that I’ve had to deal with.) I’ll always look fondly back on this time.

The key for me has always been to just…create for myself. I originally made bunnwich for me and one friend to make fun little arts about our Yuu’s and now I get to have lots of friends to share it with! I’ve transitioned from an OC blog to probably more of an Oc x Canon blog…but I don’t care tbh. I just…draw what I feel like. I know there are people who probably dislike me for that or feel strange about my content and that’s fine. I’m still gonna keep drawing it, loser.  

And I just want you guys to do the same, twst or not.

I can’t forget that all my followers and friends are a bonus, if I had never joined tumblr I’d still be drawing the silly shit I draw in peace. And while yes, I do want to grow as an artist and sell more merch and keep growing... I can’t forget my initial excitement for this silly little game. I like to talk about it. I like to write about it. It inspires me.

It’s supposed to be fun. Please remember that. I know it can be discouraging to have others being shitty to you. Or going through a creative drought. But, try not to let this stop you from creating what you love.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Broadwaybabyto AKA The Disabled Ginger

If you see a mask - wear a mask. Better yet - wear a mask all the time and show us you understand that we're still IN a pandemic. We are depending on you to keep us safe - please don't betray that.

I’m dedicating this article to disability advocate and Long Covid patient Tinu - who passed away three weeks ago. Please read to the end for more information on her legacy and how to help patients like her. #ForTinu.

I was recently at the hospital (which is not an unusual occurrence for me) and wearing my N99 respirator like I always do. I’m the definition of a ‘high risk’ patient. I’m immune compromised, I don’t mount a proper response to vaccination and I have heart issues. A cold has put me in the hospital.

In fact - I masked prior to Covid during cold and flu season or in high risk situations like the ER. Healthcare workers intuitively put on a mask when they saw mine - a process we refer to as ‘mask mirroring.’ They recognized the risk any virus or bug posed to me and took steps to try and keep me safe.

During the first year or so of the pandemic - it was relatively easy to stay safe in the hospital. There were strict mask mandates in place (albeit with surgical masks) and many patients were being treated virtually to reduce the number of people in the hospital.

But as we rushed ‘back to normal’ - I noticed a perceptible shift in healthcare workers’ approach to masking. They very clearly didn’t WANT to do it anymore. Even in hospitals that had active mandates - I would encounter staff wearing their mask below their nose or chin - and they would sigh and huff at me if I asked them to put their mask on properly.

One time I was in the elevator when a woman in scrubs got on. She was wearing a hospital badge - clearly an employee and thus governed by the mandates the hospital had laid out.

Her mask was in her hand. I asked politely for her to wear it and told her I was immune compromised. She rolled her eyes - held it in front of her face (without actually putting it on) and then leaned right across me to hit the elevator button. There was another set of buttons on the opposite side of the elevator - and this move felt like a deliberate attempt to violate my personal space and ensure I knew just how unhappy she was that I asked her to mask (trust me - I knew).

As time went on and more and more people bought into the comfortable lie that Covid was over - it became harder to access safe medical care. Less and less staff were complying with mandates - and eventually they were dropped altogether in favour of a ‘mask friendly’ policy.

What exactly IS a ‘Mask Friendly’ Policy? “We respect the choice of all patients to wear a mask if they see fit. Hospital staff will decide whether or not a mask is required based on a number of factors. They will not tolerate any violence or abusive behaviour.”

Effectively - we’re not going to mask anymore but if you really want to - we won’t stop you. Stating that masks will be ‘respected’ infers that there’s something inherently wrong with masking. That people who do it are to be tolerated but perhaps also pitied. It’s the exact WRONG message to be sending in a hospital of all places.

That said - I knew my chart clearly documented my risk factors so I hoped that doctors would continue to ‘mask mirror’ for me. Unfortunately I was very wrong.

Since mandates have been dropped I’ve been accused of being “anxious”, scared of Covid, “difficult” and told I should “stop worrying so much.” I’ve had staff refuse to pull up a mask they’re wearing under their nose, repeatedly take their mask off and on during an appointment and a few have outright refused to wear one. It’s been absolutely exhausting - as I have to steel myself for each and every interaction as though I were going into battle.

For a Vulnerable Patient - the Hospital Feels like The Hunger Games May the odds be ever in your favour. We have to navigate so much risk. It’s not JUST the risk of Covid - it’s any hospital acquired infection. The pushback against mandates has caused an overall reduction in infection control. I’ve had staff try and start an IV without washing their hands - and get angry with ME for requesting they stop. It’s bleak for patients right now.

There’s also the risk of being psychologized or labelled anxious because you choose to wear a mask (or ask a healthcare worker to wear one for you). I don’t understand how we’ve ended up in a place where it’s considered ‘weak’ or a ‘flaw’ to want to protect yourself and others from a deadly and disabling virus. But it IS where we’ve ended up.

On one of my recent trips to the ER - I had an infuriating interaction with a doctor. It may not seem immediately obvious WHY it was so infuriating - but please read on and I will explain.

Doctor: Looks at my N99

"you seem anxious about Covid."

Me: "Not anxious - realistic. Please check my chart - colds have put me in hospital."

Dr: Checks chart.

"Oh sorry - you should definitely keep masking. Do you want me to wear one?"

My Plea to Maskless Healthcare Workers Please stop doing this to patients. While I'm grateful the doctor dropped the "anxiety" remark quickly AND checked my chart - they never should have commented on my mask. They should have been masking too. If they absolutely cannot or will not mask for themselves - they should ‘mask mirror’ when they see a masked patient.

This idea that ‘only the vulnerable’ need to worry is causing a tremendous amount of harm. I was ‘lucky’ in that my chart clearly states that I’m vulnerable - so the doctor didn’t push back. What about people with less obvious circumstances? What about those caring for a vulnerable person but who are healthy themselves? Would the doctor mask for them?

The only difference between me and everyone else is that I KNOW I'm vulnerable.

I might even be slightly less vulnerable by virtue of the fact that everyone else has had repeated COVID infections (which we know damages your immune system) and I'm avoiding infection.

If you know enough about Covid to agree that a vulnerable person SHOULD be masking - shouldn't you ALSO be wearing one? You obviously understand it's more serious than we're being led to believe - so why aren't you protecting yourself and others?

This is extra true if you're a healthcare worker. You can't tell WHO is vulnerable just by looking at them.

By the time the doctor had made the comment, checked my chart and offered to mask - we had been in close proximity for seven minutes. That’s more than enough time to infect a patient.

While I of course appreciate they made the offer TO mask - at that point the damage was done. COVID can infect in seconds. If you see a patient masking - the decent, caring and smart thing to do is to don one yourself.

We must also be cognizant of the fact that many patients don't feel comfortable questioning a doctor given the imbalance of power. So while they may WANT you to put on a mask - once you've accused them of "anxiety" they're going to shut down. They won't ask. They won't risk deterioration of care.

This interaction went as well as could be expected - and yet it still put me at risk unnecessarily. It still resulted in my being psychologized. It still left me with a lack of trust and faith in the medical system.

How Can I Have Faith in a System That Ignores the Science? A system that puts me - and others just like me - in harms way? A system that allows healthcare workers to refuse to acknowledge the critical role they’re meant to play in our lives.

They're meant to HELP us. Not harm us.

I'm not a doctor. I can't treat myself. I can "just stay home" from almost ANY public setting - but I can't avoid the hospital. I'm not the only patient like this. We are all making huge personal sacrifices to keep safe in a world that has deemed us "expendable".

We're exhausted, angry, scared and frustrated. Yet despite how badly we've been treated and how much we've had to sacrifice - the place we go to GET BETTER is the place most likely to give us a deadly and disabling virus.

Does no one understand how backwards that is?

Now - we’ve all heard the tired argument ‘if your mask works why do I need to wear one’ - so let’s address the WHY and put that discussion to bed:

In a hospital setting - there are countless reasons a person might be unable to mask. In my case I have frequent anaphylaxis and when my airway is in jeopardy they must remove my mask.

People are vomiting, need oxygen, have dental emergencies or facial trauma. People have tracheostomies or sensory issues that make it impossible to mask. Babies and small children can’t mask. The list of people in a hospital who may be unable to mask is LONG.

These are sick people having a medical emergency and due to the nature of their condition - they can’t protect themselves. They are relying on others to protect them.

They have no control over other patients - but they should be able to expect that the staff they’re trusting with their life be willing to wear a mask for them. One way masking is good - two way masking is far better.

Disabled, elderly and vulnerable people are not expendable. We aren't "better off dead." We deserve safe access to all public spaces - but hospitals and medical facilities should be at the TOP of the list.

There's No Logical Reason to Oppose Mask Mandates In Hospitals It's where the sickest people are, they have no choice but to be there AND where the strongest bugs thrive.

Masking would prevent a great many nosocomial infection and it would SAVE LIVES.

Please - push for masks in healthcare. If you're a healthcare worker who sees a patient in a mask - put one on for them. Don't make them ask.

Don't psychologize them. Don't betray the trust they've shown you. They've literally put their lives in your hands. Don't take that for granted - it’s not an easy thing for many of us to do.

If you're a patient struggling because you can't access safe healthcare - know you're not alone. There are many of us struggling alongside you. Fighting for the respect and care we deserved. Saying proudly that we will not go gently to the wayside. We will NOT be expendable.

How Do Other Vulnerable Patients Feel? I posted on Twitter/X asking people if they would like masks in hospital. Asking if they had delayed or avoided care due to lack of masking. Asking healthcare workers to tell me why they did or didn’t mask.

The responses were overwhelming and demonstrated a very clear need for masking policies in hospitals. There were over a thousand replies from people who were either avoiding care and/or had been infected in a healthcare setting. There were actual doctors saying they’re not concerned with getting sick so patients can ‘mask if they want.’

There were heartbreaking stories of healthcare workers trying to protect themselves and their patients only to be told by administrators and/or superiors that they aren’t allowed because the masks remind people of the pandemic.

I’m sensitive to people who’ve gone through a trauma - but we are still IN a pandemic. If masks remind people of the pandemic - that’s a good thing. People need to know it’s not over and that they’re taking serious risks with their health.

If your trauma is so severe that you can’t mask for a vulnerable patient - or worse you lash out at a patient for masking - then you need to carefully assess whether you should still be in a patient facing role. There’s help for trauma - many chronically ill patients have been repeatedly traumatized in healthcare settings. We work through it as best we can - and for our sake (and your own) we need you to work through yours as well.

Given the sheer volume of responses - I’m going to turn this article into a series. This article will serve as MY plea to healthcare workers. Part Two will be a summary of the stories I received from patients who feel unsafe in healthcare. Part Three will be the responses from healthcare workers - including reasons WHY they mask and why they don’t.

My hope is that this series will encourage hospitals and governments to reconsider mandatory masking in healthcare. In the absence of a mandate - I hope people will send this article to any healthcare workers they know and perhaps it will convince them to do the right thing without waiting to be told.

Never forget - you have lives in your hands. You don’t need a mandate to mask up. The sooner we start masking in healthcare the more lives will be saved.

In Loving Memory of Tinu Lastly - I want to end this article with a tribute to disability advocate and Long Covid patient - Atinuke Abayomi Paul (Tinu). Tinu had cancer AND Long Covid and spent the last months of her life advocating for Masks in Healthcare. She was undergoing chemotherapy and most healthcare workers REFUSED to mask for her. Her first Covid infection left her with devastating disability. She was the definition of ‘high risk’ given she had cancer and was undergoing chemo - and still they refused to protect her. Unsurprisingly - she caught Covid again.

This should NEVER happen. Patients like Tinu deserve to be safe in healthcare settings. We all do.

She also spent a great deal of time trying to raise money to afford her chemotherapy - and spearheaded a number of mutual aid campaigns on social media. If you ever needed help, a boost, a share etc… you could count on Tinu. She understood the harsh realities of living with chronic illness - namely that you’re abandoned emotionally AND financially and often have to rely on crowd funding for support.

Her death has been a devastating blow to the disability community - and I hope that this article can serve as a reminder of what’s at stake when you choose NOT to take precautions in healthcare settings. Mask up for Tinu. Mask up for me. Mask up for yourself.

The community is raising funds to support Tinu’s family and pay off medical debt - if you’re in a position to help - you can access the Go Fund Me here: www.gofundme.com/f/honoring-tinus-legacy-with-compassionate-support