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crowsofdarkness · 2 days ago
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Soldat: Chapter Seven
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-gif not mine. credit to owner-
Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Female Agent! Reader. Slight Steve Rogers x Female Agent! Reader
Content Warnings: language, 18 + implied smut, angst, fluff, kidnapping, violence.
Summary: Agent Y/N has worked alongside Steve Rogers at SHIELD for some time all while keeping a dark secret from everyone. Until one day that darkness faces her head on and she's forced to make a choice. Continue fighting along side Captain America? Or find her home once again with Soldat?
Authors Note: This was originally published on my old blog as a trilogy so I will be in the slow process of adding it to this blog. This is the first of the trilogy and will take place during The Winter Soldier. If anyone is interested in being tagged, let me know!
Very slight implied smut in this chapter, very tame. Also, there are three chapters left! Once Soldat is complete, I will begin posting the next in the series.
Tags: @globetrotter28 @sakuracyberhex @chinggay85-blog @bookofriverr @misatxox @that-blonde-girl
Soldat Masterlist
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Day One 
Eyes fluttered open softly, allowing the light to blind me for a few seconds as I stared up at the crackling ceiling. I followed the lines, hoping that it would lead me to an idea where I was but came up empty as I realized I was in a room with no windows, one door, and the lone cot I was currently laying on. My heart thumped in fear as I tried to remember how I ended up here. 
I was drinking in a bar in Siberia as I was going over my notes for the local terrorist group I was following. I was alone for most of the night until a strange man came up beside me, gun pressed to my side, muttering in my ear that I had to go with him or else.
The last thing I could remember was getting thrown into the back of a van and darkness. The watch on my wrist indicated that happened..
Sixteen hours ago?!
“What the fuck happened to me?” I groaned, clutching my forehead. 
The door clicked open, men dressed in European military uniforms catching my immediate attention. 
“Where am I?” I spoke in the native tongue. 
They ignored me, continuing on with their own conversation and paid no attention as they stood guard at the door, guns slightly drawn. 
Discreetly, I slid my hand down my calf trying to feel if the knife I stashed into my boot was still there. 
“You think we would leave you with a weapon?”
A small man entered the room now, glasses perched high on his nose. He gently removed his hat, handing it to one of the guards before sitting on a chair in front of my cot. 
“Who are you?” I questioned. 
He merely tsk’d before pulling a grey folder from his briefcase. “Y/N L/N. You’ve been an agent with the FBI for almost two years now and you’ve only been on one case. Why is that?” 
“Is that a file on me?” My eyes landed on the file.
“You were on New York SWAT for three years before this but had to leave for ‘different opinions’ pertaining to a rather personal case.” 
“That’s no one's business but my own,” I snapped. “You shouldn’t even have that information.” 
“I’m a very powerful man, Ms. L/N. I have many ways to get the information I want. Just like how you got info about me.” 
“Am I supposed to know who you are?” I squinted my eyes at him. 
“You’ve been looking for me for the last six months. I thought we could finally meet.” He gave me a small smile. 
“Wait,” my eyes widened. “You’re Dr. Zola? I thought you were dead. That’s why it’s been so hard to find you.” 
The older gentleman clicked his tongue against his teeth. “No, not Zola. But his apprentice. You can call me Dr. Berge” 
“Why did you kidnap me? To shut me up?” I crossed my arms over my chest, foot shaking with nerves. 
Dr. Berge handed one of the guards the folder before shaking his head. “Our last student didn’t make it. We needed someone new.” 
���Stu-student?” I stuttered. 
“Yes, for Soldat.” Bergenodded. 
“Soldat?” 
He answered my question with a wave; a new man entered the small room. My tired eyes raked in his appearance from head to toe. He was dressed in combat boots and black cargo pants. His broad chest was covered in a black vest, various pockets that held God only knew what, his long brown hair was falling into his eyes but did nothing to fix it. The only thing that held my gaze, however, was his left arm. It wasn’t like his right; this one was made entirely of metal. 
“Who’s this?” I questioned, voice shaking with fear. 
“Ah Soldat, meet your new student. Hopefully she’ll last longer than the last one.” Berge clapped his hands before leaving the room. 
Soldat remained in place, a few feet away from me, and he slowly nodded to the guards. 
“Leave us,” he demanded in Russian. 
Suddenly, it was just him and I, my fear being the only thing you could feel in the room by my heart beating faster and faster. 
“What am I your student for?” I mustered to ask. 
“To fight.”
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Day 23 
“I need a minute,” I gasped for air as I tried to gain some space. 
“You don’t have a minute.” Soldat reminded me as he flipped me over his shoulder, my own falling hard to the mat below. 
It had been a hell of a couple of weeks. I had been captured by who I had come to find was the terrorist group I had been searching for; Hydra. 
Every morning and night, Soldat would come to my room and train me for hours, fighting non stop. I had yet to find out why I was being trained to fight. 
Soldat barely said a word to me during these training sessions. He was instructed to train me not to make small talk. I couldn’t get a read on him, what his story was or how he ended up here. 
“Mother fucker,” I cursed, clutching my shoulder. “I think it’s dislocated.” 
Soldat remained silent, roughly pulling me to my feet and snapped my arm back into place causing a scream to erupt from my throat. 
“That’s enough!” I screamed pushing my palms into his chest. “I’m done! No one has told me why I’m here, getting my ass kicked by a guy with a fucking metal arm!” 
A small smile pulled at his lips and all the anger from being held captive here built up causing me to bring my hand back, wiping that smile off his face with my fist. 
Regret filled me when I saw the quick flash of anger cloud his eyes but his deep laugh relaxed my shoulders a tad. 
“That’s more like it.” He muttered while rubbing his jaw. 
“I already know how to fight. I don’t need someone to teach me,” I admitted, fists clenched at my sides. 
Soldat nodded. “Then next time should be easy for you.” 
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Day 37
The chill in the air caused me to wrap the blanket closer to me as I dug myself deeper into the bed that I started calling my own. I was unsure of the time but the tiredness in my bones made me believe it was time to let sleep succumb to me. 
A soft sigh left my lips as my mind wandered yet again to the man that had been clouding it the past few weeks. 
It had been almost two weeks since my last training session with Soldat. He stopped coming by in the mornings and nights which made me wonder if our sessions were over and what that meant for me. 
That thought was short-lived when Berge brought in someone else to train me. He didn’t want me to forget anything while Soldat was away. 
Rumor had it, Hydra sent him away from some mission. 
Besides the one old guard that would bring my food twice a day, Soldat was the only constant thing in this prison that had become my home. 
Heavy eyes fluttered shut, breaths becoming deeper and heavier and the long awaited sleep was so close. But the door to my room slamming open caused my eyes to snap open and I pushed myself to my knees. I watched as Soldat entered, anger clear on his face. 
“Where have you-.” 
The air to my lungs was constricted as Soldat wrapped his metal fingers around my throat, slamming me deeper into the cot. 
I trashed against his body, nails digging into the skin of his flesh arm, not bothering him an inch. I racked my brain for all the training he had taught me to try and get out of this. I attempted to wrap my legs around his waist to flip him but he was two seconds ahead of me, his flesh hand pining my hips down onto the bed. 
My body began to sweat with the fear of what was about to come. 
I wrapped a hand around his metal wrist as I looked into his eyes, the light far gone from them. 
“Soldat,” I choked out. 
The air suddenly rushed back into my lungs causing me to cough uncontrollably as he finally let go, the bruises already starting to form I was sure. 
His hand and hips kept me locked into place on the bed and his other hand gripped my chin, forcing me to look in his eyes. 
“You only train with me. No one else can have you.” His voice demanded through gritted teeth. 
Once I could breathe again, I gave him a sorrowful nod. “I’m sorry.” 
We stayed in this position for a few more beats, his hips locking mine into place while his eyes bore into my own. His chest rose and fell with each breath, mimicking my own in the small tank top I wore; it was one of the few clothes that Hydra had lent me. 
Soldat’s eyes traveled over the swell of my breasts and I felt the heat spread down to my core as he slowly ran his tongue over his bottom lip. 
“Get some sleep. We’re starting early tomorrow,” he breathed before pushing himself off of me. 
The room had a sudden chill to it as soon as he left the room and after wrapping myself into a cocoon with my blanket, I found myself falling asleep wishing it was his arms
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Day 56
Chains dragged behind me as I followed the path the two guards were leading me on. We turned a corner and continued down another long hallway. They had dragged me out of bed this morning, muttering something about getting some “fresh air”. 
I chuckled at their definition of fresh air; it was a small sunroom with a few potted plants and one large bench seat. Thankfully the bright sunlight beamed through the glass windows, spreading warmth into my skin. 
“Ten minutes,” one of the guards demanded while tossing me a book. 
They took their post on the outside of the door, backs turned to me, and I opted for not reading the book deciding I would rather stare out of the windows. This was the first time in almost two months that I had been granted access to the outside world. 
Sort of. 
The beautiful images of mountains scattered the skyline, the fresh snow blowing in the wind. I walked closer to the windows, peering down below and that was when I realized I was high up. 
Wherever I was being held captive was on top of a mountain. 
“Beautiful.” 
Jumping at the deep voice, I looked over my shoulder and a small smile came to my face. 
“Soldat, you’ve returned.” 
He nodded, tucking a strand of hair out of his face. “I returned last night.” 
“How was your mission?” 
His silence was enough of an answer I needed. 
“Have you been training?” He questioned, still keeping a safe distance between us. 
Immediately I shook my head, the chains rattling. “They won’t let me while you're away. You’re the only one I can train with.”
Soldat turned his head, eyes taking in the appearance of the chains around my wrists and ankles. A scowl appeared underneath the stubble covering his mouth and he beckoned me over with a finger. 
Swallowing thickly, I tried the best I could to walk over to him, feet coming to a halt in front of him. He gripped the chains with his metal fingers, breaking them off of me with ease. 
“You’re not a monster,” he muttered. 
I rubbed away the red marks on my wrists while giving him a smile of thanks. “What will happen to you once they find out?”
“You should get some rest, we have a big training session tomorrow.” Soldat spoke, ignoring my question. 
I wondered with fear what exactly they would do to him. Every time he would arrive back from a mission, his screams would echo through the base, keeping me awake at night. I yearned to be with him, comfort him. He was the only constant in my life now, I would do anything to be with him; to keep him from pain. 
“Will you sit with me?” I nodded to the bench. “We don’t need to talk, just your company is enough.” 
His body tensed, a bit hesitant, before he nodded and we both sat down with our knees a few spaces away from each other. I reached for the book and felt his gaze burn deep into the side of my head as I quietly read the pages, Russian almost becoming a second language to me. 
We sat in silence, Soldat’s eyes watching me as I carefully turned the pages of the book, enjoying the quiet company of the man who would scare others. 
“Soldat, do you know what this word is? I haven’t come across this one yet.” 
I pointed towards a word in the book that was giving me trouble and felt the heat radiate off of him as he leaned closer to me, his shoulder brushing against my own. 
“Dorogaya. It means my darling.” 
My core twitched at the Russian translation and I coughed, trying to mask my arousal. “Thank you.” 
“Dorogaya,” he repeated, this time more quietly to himself. 
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Day 85
“Faster! Harder!”
I let the screams of slight encouragement fuel me as I landed my fists into Soldat’s bare stomach, the force behind my punches doing nothing to phase him. 
He reached for my neck but I swiftly ducked while spinning on my heels, tripping him in the process. Soldat landed hard on his back, the wind being knocked out of him, and I straddled his hips with my own, my hands pinning his own above his head. 
Our breaths matched in sync, eyes boring into each other, and the sight of the smirk on his face made my heart nearly burst out of its cage. 
“I win,” I breathed, my breath fanning over his bare chest. 
My fingers itched want to run all over his grooves and muscles. Resisting the urge, I released my grip on his hands but felt the world turn as Soldat gripped my hips, slamming me on my back. His dark eyes stared down at mine, tongue rolling antagonizing slowly between his lips. He leaned closer to my own, his warm breath breathing life into me. 
“I let you win.” 
“Oh really,” I cheekily asked, a flirtatious smirk pulling at my lips. 
Soldat nodded with his nose brushing against my own. “Of course, dorogaya.” 
My heart fluttered at the pet name he had given me. Ever since our time in the sun room together, we had slowly started becoming closer with each and every training session. I was, however, afraid to take it farther than our flirtatious comments and soft touches. I wouldn’t allow him to get in trouble, or worse; hurt. Just because of how I felt about him. 
His metal fingers traced down from my cheek to my neck and rested above the lines of my breasts. My breath became erratic when the lightly brushed over my left nipple, perky already due to the coldness of the building. Fingers dug through his locks and gave a slight tug causing a groan to vibrate low in Soldat’s chest. 
“Are you leaving again?” I asked. 
He shook his head while palming my breast and I allowed a moan to slip through my lips.
“I told them no more missions until our training is done,” He spoke low. 
I nodded. 
“We really should stop. Before they find us.” I stuttered, not wanting him to stop kneading my breast with his hand. 
“Let them, they can’t do anything to hurt me that they haven’t done before,” Soldat breathed into the skin of my neck. 
He nipped and sucked there, leaving his mark to show the others here who I belonged to. My hands ran down the thickness of his back and I pressed my hips up into his, a loud hiss breaking its way out of his throat. 
“Dorogaya,” Soldat moaned. 
My fingers traced up his back, slowly fading over where his skin met metal. His body tensed, the lust in the air immediately dissipating as he pushed his body off of me. I was left alone on the dirty floor of my room as I watched him grab his shirt, throwing it over his chest. 
“Did I do something?” I questioned, sitting to my knees. 
“I need to go,” he grunted. 
“Soldat,” I stood to my feet now, “Please tell me if I did something!” 
He ignored my cries of wonder, letting the door slam behind him and drowning out my quiet sobs. 
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Day 124
No more training sessions. 
Berge had told me that I was done training with Soldat. He had too many missions to go on and not enough time to give to me. Doubt racked my brain if that was truly the reason why they wouldn’t allow him to train me anymore. They must have found out about us. 
I couldn’t dwell on it for long, Berge assigned another guard to my training. He wasn’t anything compared to Soldat; he was quiet and wouldn’t allow me the chance to improve. Only wanting to show off his strength. We had moved the training sessions in the main area of the compound, in front of every eye. But the only eyes that mattered were the ones that I wanted approval of. 
Soldat would watch from a distance, not bothering to step in when the new trainer would hit me a little too hard. I wouldn’t let that phase me, though. I gave it back a hundred times harder which would only anger him more. 
Which is how I ended up sporting a black eye for the last week. 
Soldat almost stepped in when the new trainers hand grazed lower and lower from my back with each session. Earlier today, we had been sparring in front of all of the other guards and I did my best to ignore their gawks of stares as I attempted to land a strike to his stomach. He was a step ahead of me, twisting my wrist behind my back and pulling me into his chest. I felt his rapid breathing against my back as he leaned his lips against my ear. 
“I love the way your ass fits against me,” He groaned. 
I knew if I tried anything he would twist my arm higher up so I stood frozen in fear while my eyes traveled to the man in the corner, giving him silent pleads for help. 
Soldat turned his back on me. 
After the sparring session, I retreated back to my room, a broken woman. My ego was hurt that I had succumbed so low to these beatings in front of other men. My heart was broken that the one man I had fallen hard for wanted nothing to do with me.
A soft groan left my lips as I stared out into the darkness of the room, sleep being the farthest thing from my mind. 
“God, Y/N you’ve got to move on from him,” I ran a hand over my face with a very unattractive groan leaving my lips. 
“Talking to yourself again?” 
Sitting up in bed, I turned on the bedside lamp and made out a large silhouette standing by the door. But even in the soft darkness, the metal arm was hard to miss. 
“What are you doing here?” I questioned. 
Soldat stepped closer, stopping at the foot of my bed. “I’ve come to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” My voice shook with fear. 
I then noticed he was dressed in his tac gear which meant only one thing. 
“You’re going on a mission?” 
He nodded. “I’ll be back by tomorrow night.” 
Pulling my knees to my chest, I raised my brow at him. “You’ve never said goodbye before.”
“I wanted to see you.” He gave a small shrug of his broad shoulders. 
“Oh,” I mouthed.
I allowed silence to overcome us as we both stared at one another, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. My palms began to sweat seeing the fire behind his eyes and I absentmindedly bit my lip. 
Soldat ran a hand through his hair before a quiet fuck it slipped from his lips. He kicked off his boots before crawling his way towards me on the bed. 
“What are you doing?” I asked. 
He ignored my question, only rolling onto his back while pulling me into his chest and his arms wrapping around me. The rapid beating of his heart told me that he was nervous but still kept his arms tightly around me. 
“I’ve been on hundreds of missions but now,” Soldat started, “Now, I’m worried about leaving you. With them.” 
“I’ll be fine. You’ve taught me well.” I gave his sides a small squeeze. 
“I’ve never felt this way before. It’s all new to me.” He admitted. 
“What is?” 
Instead of using words, Soldat’s fingers grazed my chin and pulled my face up to look into his eyes. He took a deep breath before he gently placed his plump lips over mine. The hairs on his chin and face tickled me as our lips moved slowly in sync. 
My heart thumped through its cage in my chest as I ran my fingers through his hair, deepening the kiss. His own hands found their way over my stomach, down to my core and slowly ghosted over it. 
“Soldat, please.” I moaned. 
“You’re mine.” He grunted, fingers finally touching my heated core over my shorts. “All mine.” 
“Only yours, I promise.” 
My breath hitched in my throat when I felt the heat of his fingers against the skin of my stomach, brushing over the waistband of my shorts. While his flesh ones worked with the ties of my shorts, his metal one pulled the ends of my hair, forcing my eyes away from his work on my shorts. 
“I’ll come back to you.” He vowed. 
I nodded. 
“I know you will and I’ll be here waiting for you. Always.” 
Soldat brushed his lips against mine, tongue delving between my lips and danced with my own as the kiss intensified. 
“I have to go.” He groaned against me. 
“Stay.” I begged, clutching onto his arms. 
“It’s my mission.” 
Pulling away reluctantly, I gripped his chin and stared into his eyes. “Please be safe.” 
“Of course, dorogaya.” 
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Day 131
Seven days. 
One week. 
168 hours. 
That’s how long it had been since I last saw Soldat. 
He had yet to return from his mission and what originally was supposed to be a one night mission turned into one week. 
I sat on the edge of my cot with my knee bouncing in worry as I chewed roughly on my bottom lip. I feared that Berge had found out about Soldat and I, which was the reason why he had yet to return. 
“Where the hell are you?” I muttered. 
I waited a little while longer, eyes trained hard on the door, hoping that he would bust through any moment. But after a few minutes of nothingness, I turned my back to the door only for it to open a second later. 
“Come with me.” 
My eyes squinted towards the guard, confusion well on my face. “Where are you taking me? I haven’t left in a whole week.” 
“Soldat’s orders.” The guard ordered. 
My heart rate sped up at the mention of his name. “Is he back?” 
“No but he’s requested that you stay in his living quarters now.” 
“Wh-what? Why?” I sputtered. 
“As a reward for completing his mission. Come now.” 
The guard quickly waved me to follow and not wanting to live another minute in this tiny hell, I scrambled to my feet and followed. Not bothering to take anything with me, I tracked close behind the guard as we turned a few more corners, coming to a stop at a lone door at the end of the hallway. 
The guard grunted towards the door before leaving me alone, my steady breaths coming in and out of my nose as I took a second to gain my bearings. In the months that I had been held captive here, I had never seen Soldat’s room; or anything else besides my room, the sparing center, and the “outside” room I was allowed to sit in every few days. 
My hand gently grasped the cold knob and taking one last breath, I slowly pushed the door open. Before my feet crossed the threshold, I gazed around the room taking in every inch of Soldat’s private space. 
It wasn’t big by any means, it would definitely be crowded with the two of us, however it warmed my heart knowing that we would be sharing that bed together. The bed was only made for one and was even small for Soldat. 
Next to the bed was a table that mirrored the one I had in my room. On the top of the table rested a small lamp and a book that looked like it was read ten times over. On the other side of the room was a small dresser that had more books resting on it and next to the dresser was a door that led to somewhere I was unsure of. The large window on one wall allowed the sunset to stream in, painting the entire room in a golden light. 
My gaze rested on a pair of clothes that were neatly folded on the chair in the other corner of the room. Taking a breath, I crossed over the threshold into Soldat’s room and grasped the pair of clean clothes in my hands. It was only a new pair of jeans, underwear, and a long sleeve shirt but the soft fabric was enough to bring me to tears. I had only been given new clothes once since being here and that was the first night. 
“It’s not much but it’s home.” 
Jumping at the deep voice, I turned on my heels and felt my heart leap to my throat. Soldat stood at the doorway, his body a clear indication of the toll the mission put on him. Stray hairs had fallen from the low bun he had pulled them in, the lines on his face screamed that he hadn’t slept in days, and his tac gear was covered in dirt and blood, the blood had also covered his metal arm in streams. Fear raked my body, wondering whose blood was all over Soldat and I bit my lip to stop from asking. 
“You’re back,” I breathed. 
He remained silent, his intense gaze taking over my body. His body tensed when he fell on my lips, the sight of the two cuts burning into his brain. 
“What happened?” 
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I shifted on my feet. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.” 
“What happened?” Soldat questioned again, this time closing the distance between us. 
Metal fingers gripped my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes as they danced over my face. Anger flashed across them when the soft words left my busted lips. 
“Ben didn’t appreciate getting beat by a girl.” 
“What did he do?” Soldat demanded. 
“He just hit me a little too hard. I’m fine, Soldat.” I reassured him as I gripped his flesh arm. 
The anger still flooded his veins and I linked my fingers with his metal ones, fearing he would leave me and do something we would both regret. 
“You need to get yourself cleaned up,” I encouraged. 
Soldat was still silent, only giving me a small nod as he pulled me with him towards the closed door. 
“What?” I questioned. 
“You need a bath.” He demanded. 
Licking my lips, I let the fear of him seeing my bare flesh push away the thoughts of us in the bath together.
“No, you can go first Soldat. The blood is going to take awhile to clean.” I lied, hoping that would keep the thought of us naked together out of his head. 
I was afraid of what he would think when he saw the bruises and scars that covered my body. 
His eyes hardened, seeing right through my lies, as he gripped my arm causing a loud hiss to pass through my lips. 
“Fuck,” I cursed pulling my arm to my chest. 
He didn’t grip me that hard, I knew that. It only hurt because of the bruise that covered half of my forearm. 
“Take off your shirt.” 
The soles of my shoes were frozen to my spot, being weighed down with the fear of what Soldat was about to see.
“Sol-.” I started. 
“Take it off,” his voice was deeper and rougher. 
Gnawing on my bottom lip, shaky fingers gripped the bottom of my shirt, slowly raising it over my stomach and head, letting it fall to the floor in silence. Instinctively my arms wrapped around my chest, trying to cover as much as I could. Soldat didn’t make me uncomfortable; the idea of showing him my battle scars is what did. 
His dark eyes were now almost black as he looked over my bareness of flesh, taking in every inch of bruises and new scars that had yet to heal over my stomach, chest, and arms. The blood had dried hours ago but the exhaustion of today’s training had stopped me from cleaning my wounds. 
My mouth dried with the intensity radiating from Soldat’s body. 
“We-uh, Ben decided to start the knife training today. He wouldn’t let me get a chance to prove myself. He kept stabbing and slicing,” I admitted quietly. 
Soldat's tongue grazed over his bottom lip and nodded to the door behind me. “We need to clean those wounds.” 
“Are you upset?” 
The tone in his voice answered my question before I even asked it but I needed to make sure he wouldn’t leave, do something stupid. 
He remained silent, beckoning me to follow him with a snap of his head. Obeying with a soft sigh, I trailed behind him into the bathroom that was connected to his room. The soft breeze coming from the vents caused me to wrap my arms around my bare chest, trying to keep the warmth in. I could see the way Soldat’s muscles in his back tensed as he leaned over, running hot water and letting it fill the tub. The steam danced around his head as he peeked over his shoulder, nodding towards my pants. 
The silence was thickening and my fingers gripped the top of my pants, slowly pulling them down my legs; the new visions of bruises and scars clouding Soldat’s vision. The only thing keeping me from bearing it all to him was a thin piece of fabric. Soldat turned on his knees, face inches from my core, and goosebumps rose to my skin as I felt his finger slide my underwear down over my knees and I stepped out of them. He tossed them to the side while keeping his eyes trained hard on me as he looked up into my own. 
“Get in.” Soldat’s flesh fingers tapped the back of my thigh, his warm breath brushing against my heated core. 
The water immediately eased the sore muscles and wounds as I submerged myself, pulling my knees to my chest. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see Soldat stripping himself of his own clothes before I felt the water slosh behind me. Metal fingers wrapped around my middle pulling me into a hard chest. We sat in silence as he first cleaned me then him. 
“I should have been here,” his words mumbled against the skin of my shoulder as he pressed a soft kiss there. 
“You needed to go on your mission.” I reminded him. 
“I will kill him.” He vowed. 
I hushed him with a soft squeeze of his thigh, fingers resting easily over the mass of them. “I’ll be alright.” 
“You’re coming with me on the next mission.” 
I smiled at the softness in his voice. 
“I don’t think Berge will like that.” I admitted. 
Soldat took a damp cloth to my legs and stomach, cleaning the wounds with soft touches. 
“They can kill me to try and stop me.” Soldat deadpanned. 
I opened my mouth to protest but he silenced me with a kiss to my forehead, whispering promises of him saving me, protecting me, no matter what the cost will be. 
“I missed you, dorogaya.”Soldat breathed, his cock hardening against the small of my back. 
“I missed you too,” I moaned. 
His fingers grazed over my core underneath the water, rubbing circles over my clit. His lips attached to my neck, leaving his mark for all to see. 
“I need you.” 
The water splashed out of the tub as Soldat lifted me out and carried me bridal style into his bedroom. I fell to the bed with a soft sigh and my eyes took in the God-like form of Soldat, his dick twitching with anticipation. I took in every groove and line of his muscles, the way they tensed under the light as he stood in front of me. 
“Soldat,” I begged, “I can’t wait anymore.” 
“Say your mine.” He commanded. 
“I’m yours.” 
“Good girl,” Soldat praised while his metal fingers stroked his already hard cock. 
He slowly climbed up the bed, laying soft kisses over the skin of my legs and thighs on his way up. My body shook with the want of his body on mine, skin on skin underneath the moonlight from outside. 
That night, our bodies linked together in pure bliss and adoration for one another. Our moans that bounced off the walls were a proclamation of our growing love for each other. 
That night was the first and last time Soldat and I made love.
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 Day 132-The last day. 
Eyes slowly blinked open as I patted the spot next to me, finding it empty and cold. My brows pulled together in confusion as I looked around the room trying to figure out where Soldat had gone. I groaned at the soreness between my legs as I sat up in bed, clutching the sheet tighter to my chest. The memories of last night clouded my vision and my cheeks reddened remembering all the ways Soldat’s fingers and mouth had pleasured me. 
The door had burst open causing me to jump at the sight of the man that had entered. 
“Where did you–?” 
“You have to go; leave.” Soldat rushed while handing me my clothes. 
“What?” Tears started to well up in my eyes. 
“You need to leave, now. It’s not safe for you anymore.” Soldat demanded. 
Rising from the bed, I let the sheet fall to the floor before quickly dressing. 
“What are you talking about?” 
Soldat ran a hand over his tired face before a loud sigh left his lips. “Berge has plans for you that I will not let happen. You need to leave here.” 
“Plans?” I croaked. “What plans?” 
“There’s a door on the other end of the compound that I always leave through to go on my missions. I left it unlocked last night. Once you’re outside, run west for 5 miles. There will be a gas station where you can call for a ride.” 
Soldat ignored my questioning pleads as he handed me a pair of his boots and a jacket to keep me warm once I was outside. 
“No, Soldat. I’m not leaving you.” 
“It’s not up for discussion. You’re leaving.” He demanded. 
“I won’t leave you. I love-.”
My confession was short lived as we heard voices yelling from down the hallway. Soldat cursed before pulling me into his chest. His plump lips brushed against my forehead while his hands wrapped around my back, giving a hard squeeze. My fingers gripped tight his vest, the fear of leaving him weighing heavy on my chest. 
“I can’t leave you, Soldat.” I confessed. 
“Wait ten minutes then take a left at the end of the hallway, the door to your escape will be the last one on the left.” 
Soldat pulled away from me, strong eyes staring into my sad ones. His pink lips stood out from underneath the stubble that had grown since the last time I had seen him. I unknowingly reached out for him as he took a step away from me. 
“Soldat,” I sobbed. “Please don’t make me leave.” 
“Stay safe, Dorogaya.”  
We shared one last loving glance before I watched him turn his back on me, walk down the hall and out of my life. 
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Those ten minutes had passed by antagonizing slowly and now matter how much I wanted to stay here with Soldat, I knew that he was looking out for my safety. We both knew the kind of man Berge was and if whatever he had planned for me scared even Soldat, I knew I had to trust him. 
Regretfully, my feet took me down the way that Soldat had instructed me. They froze, however, when I noticed commotion coming from the room to my left; the one I had to pass in order for me to reach my freedom. 
“Get him in the chair!” 
“Sir, it’s been months since we’ve wiped him. We don’t know the risks!” 
“I don’t care about the risks! He needs to forget her!” 
Slowly peeking from around the corner, I watched in fear as four men struggled to get Soldat in a chair that sat in the middle of the room. No matter how much he had fought the men, Soldat gave up in the end, falling into the chair with a groan. 
When his broken eyes landed on me, his chest rose in fear and he motioned to the door, begging me to leave. 
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed. 
Not wanting to stick around and see what they were about to do to him, no matter how much I loved him, I ran down the hallway and out of the prison I had called home for the last 132 days. And away from the one and only man that would haunt my dreams every single night for the next three years.
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mrs-harkness · 4 days ago
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Its so funny to go back and see how my tumblr has changed over the years, yet stayed the same. Cringey teenager to awkward adult. Many different fandoms, but all gay yearning. How did it take me so fucking long to realize I was a lesbian?
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rufflebuttercup · 9 months ago
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romance analysis unit | spencer reid
summary: you like spencer. spencer likes you. somehow, you're the only ones on the team who can't see it - and that calls for some BAU intervention.
a/n: i had a bit of an impulsive moment and decided to delete my old blog (vintagecarat) because i wanted a redo, so if you've seen a variation of this fic before, it’s not been stolen - i promise! this is my favourite x reader i've ever written, so i had to rewrite it, of course!
enjoy the fic, and have a fantastic day! <3 requests are open!
note(s): gn!reader & no pronouns used, mention of alcohol, mention of canon-typical violence, reader gets hurt, mentions of blood, one bed trope
word count: 5,173
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One year, seven months and sixteen days. That's how long it had been since you'd started working at the BAU.
One year, seven months and nine days. That's how long it had been since you'd realized that you had a sickeningly huge crush on Spencer Reid.
It had been a long time since you'd had a crush. The last time had been in elementary school, and you'd been convinced that you were in love with the boy who sat two seats to the left of you in class. He’d gone on to marry your best friend and leave you with a broken heart. In hindsight, though, you were only five.
You'd fallen for people before, and you'd had a string of partners in the past, but it had been such a long time since you'd felt the way you did when you looked at Spencer. Seeing him smile made your heart thud erratically in your chest. Hearing him ramble made you smile in the giddiest and most euphoric way possible. Feeling his fingers brush against yours whenever he handed you your morning coffee made your brain turn to mush and left you unable to form a coherent sentence for at least ten minutes. You were trying your hardest to break that last habit, though.
Your crush on Spencer quickly became a topic that you knew you wanted to keep a secret from the rest of the team. The last thing you needed was all of your progress as the newest team member to be weighed down by a crush that made you blush and giggle like a child.
During a particularly wild night out with the team, though, your plan to keep your crush on Spencer a secret went flying out of the nearest window, along with any shred of dignity you had remaining after drinking one too many shots. It had been a miracle that Spencer hadn't been there at the exact moment the words spouted from your lips. At least you had your drunk self to thank for something, you supposed.
Penelope had been the first one you'd told. Definitely a foolish move on your part, but you were too drunk in the moment to make any logical decisions. Emily and JJ had gone to the bar to get more drinks - "another round of shots", Emily had screamed before dragging JJ away - leaving you and Penelope alone to guard the table in the corner. She was the one who'd brought up the conversation, and naturally, you'd followed along without a care in the world. If there was anything good to come of the situation, then it was the look on Penelope’s face. You wished you’d taken a picture of her expression as the words tumbled from your mouth.
Penelope couldn’t keep a secret to save her life, and once she knew, it was only a matter of time before Emily and JJ knew. She’d screamed so loudly that you’d almost gotten kicked out of the bar for causing a disturbance.
"Place your bets," Emily had shouted over the pounding bass music, slamming a twenty-dollar bill onto the table, "How long until Garcia tells Morgan?"
It barely even took an hour. Emily ended up winning her own bet.
Derek had practically cornered you at your desk the next time he saw you in the bullpen, failing miserably to hide the smirk on his face as he showed you his phone and the babbling, completely unintelligible, texts from Penelope.
With the alcohol out of your system and the devastating hangover a painful memory, you wanted nothing more than for the ground to swallow you whole. Maybe you could quit, or request a transfer, or simply disappear to the other side of the country and become a recluse in the wilderness. Wishful thinking, of course.
From that moment on, you noticed that the rest of the team was messing with you. You didn’t have any proof, but you were sure of it. You’d enter the conference room to find that the only seat remaining was next to Spencer. You’d find yourself paired up with Spencer more often during cases. You and Spencer would frequently be the last two members left in the bullpen at the end of the day. 
It wasn't as if you particularly minded. You and Spencer were best friends. You had been from the moment you'd walked into the bullpen on your first day and immediately made a comment about the book he was reading. You were used to being around him more often than not, but it was a lot harder to act as if nothing had changed when you were on edge 90% of the time. You were always wondering if he knew anything about the crush you had on him, or if someone else was about to blurt out the secret that you were trying so desperately hard to keep hidden. You couldn't bring it up because you'd either out yourself or you'd be forced to have a conversation that you were sure would end in rejection.
It was an endless cycle, and you hated it.
You were in the bullpen with Dave, perched on the edge of your desk as he rattled off his famous carbonara recipe. You’d always wanted to be a better cook, and Dave had promised you that he'd teach you, even though he really didn't want you burning his kitchen down to the ground.
“Okay, so, do you add the cheese and the egg together, or separately?”
“You combine the egg first, and then you add the cheese.”
“Oh. Right. So…”
It was at that moment that Derek decided to sidle over to the conversation, perching himself on your desk beside you with an all-too familiar smirk on his face. 
“Since when have you been interested in learning how to cook?” he gave you a not-so-subtle nudge.
You shot Derek a glare, “Derek. Don't.”
"Unless you were planning a date for pretty boy over there.”
He nodded his head in Spencer's direction, and you couldn't help but follow his eyes. It was automatic. The sight of Spencer pouring pretty much the entire jar of sugar into his coffee made you smile, but it was definitely an expression you wiped off your face when you heard Derek's laughter.
“I swear to God, Derek…”
“Guys,” JJ interrupted, entering the bullpen with a case file in hand, “We've got a case.”
“Is it bad?”
JJ simply grimaced. 
“Of course it is,” you said with a sigh, hopping off your desk. Derek was still failing to hide his laughter beside you, and you swatted at him, “Shut up, Derek.”
“I didn't do anything.”
“You didn't have to.”
It didn’t surprise you at all to see that the seat beside Spencer was the only one available. As you slid into it, you caught Emily smirking at you from across the table, though she was clearly trying to hide it. You shook your head at her, though you couldn’t stop a tiny smile from ghosting over your lips as you focused your attention onto the case file in your hands.
ꨄ︎
It always seemed as though every case at the BAU was worse than the last one.
You’d all been called to a small town in Wyoming after a frantic call from the police department. Three victims had been found in the town’s frozen lake with anchors tied to their ankles to keep them below the surface. A fourth victim had gone missing, and there was no doubt that she’d end up like the others if she wasn’t found. It was a horrifying fact that everybody knew, but nobody wanted to admit.
It was later, almost 11 pm, and you were no closer to solving the case than you had been when you’d first arrived. It was as if the unsub was always three steps ahead of you, and it was frustratingly annoying. You’d spent a good portion of the afternoon scouring through decade old case files. The lead detective was convinced that it was related to a similar case that had happened in the 1990s. You hadn’t found any striking similarities between the two and you were beginning to wonder if there would be any at all. He was clutching at straws, desperately trying to close the case as quickly as possible. You couldn’t fault him for that.
Just as the words on the case file were beginning to blur into one large amalgamation, a gentle hand landed on your shoulder, “Hey,” JJ said, “We’re all heading to the hotel.”
“You go ahead,” you waved dismissively, stifling a yawn, “I’m going to finish looking over these files, and…”
“Hotch’s orders,” she cut you off, “You need a break. We all do.”
You looked to the doors of the precinct and saw the rest of the team ready to leave, muttering amongst themselves in a tired conversation. Aaron raised his eyebrows, almost expectantly, at you.
“Alright,” you didn’t bother trying to hide another yawn, “I’m coming.”
JJ smiled softly at you, almost dragging you to your feet because of how exhausted you were. It didn’t really feel as if your brain was in control of your body as you padded after her. You’d been so caught up in the details of the case that you hadn’t realized how tired you truly were. The sudden rush of air that hit you as you exited the building made you even drowsier.
“You look exhausted,” Spencer chuckled as he helped you into the SUV with a gentle hand on the small of your back that almost made you combust right then and there, "I've seen you tired, but this is another level."
You simply made a little grunt in response. You didn't have enough energy to come up with one of your usual witty comebacks. You clumsily collapsed into your seat, and you leaned your head back against the headrest as your eyes fluttered shut.
It wasn't too long of a drive to the hotel, but that didn't stop you from catching a quick power nap during the brief moment of peace. You couldn't get Spencer out of your head. Or, more specifically, that hand on the small of your back. He'd never touched you like that before. Ever. It was sending your brain spiraling, to be honest.
“We’re here,” Spencer’s voice filtered into your ear as he gently shook your shoulder,  “Wake up.”
Your eyes snapped open, and you glanced to your left. After a moment, your eyes came back into focus, and it hit you that your head was leaning on Spencer’s shoulder, “Oh,” you quickly sat up, though you almost choked as the seat belt snapped you back against the seat, “Sorry.”
You were so very glad that most of the team weren’t in the same SUV as the two of you because they’d never let you hear the end of it. The only other person was Aaron, and as you caught his eye in the rearview mirror, you could tell that he was trying not to uncharacteristically laugh at you. You did your best to ignore him, which wasn’t exactly easy when your face began to burn with a familiar wave of heat that you’d grown accustomed to.
That chuckle of Spencer’s that you loved so much and made your heart do flip-flops in your chest echoed in your ears, “It’s fine. You clearly needed it. And I do make an excellent pillow.”
You snorted out a laugh, and you gave him a shove as you climbed out of the car beside him, “Shut up.”
The rest of the team were all waiting beside the front desk with their bags as you and Spencer entered. Even though you made sure to look in any other direction, you definitely saw the subtle smirks Derek and Emily were shooting you out of the corner of your eye. 
Aaron finished his hushed conversation with the receptionist, and with a curt nod, he moved back over to the rest of the team with key cards in his hand, “They don’t have enough rooms for all of us. Looks like we’re doubling up.”
If Spencer noticed the subtle smirks and side glances from the rest of the team, he never mentioned them.
Instead, he nudged your shoulder, “We’re sharing, right?”
“Of course, we’re sharing. I wouldn’t expect anything less,” you took the key card Aaron was holding out to you, and you couldn’t help but notice his lips twitching up into a tiny little-half smirk. You brushed it off, though, “I’m sleeping on the bed nearest the window this time.”
“That’s not fair,” Spencer followed you as you made your way to the elevator, “I like sleeping near the window.”
“No. Not happening. You slept near the window last time.”
A comfortable silence fell over the two of you as the elevator shot up to your designated floor. Your eyes wandered around the small space, and you found yourself looking anywhere other than at Spencer. You weren’t an anxious person, and it wasn’t as if being alone with Spencer was a new thing to you, but your mind was racing. All because of that one small gesture. His hand on the small of your back. You couldn’t stop thinking about it, and you wished you could because it was making your cheeks burn.
“Even the elevators are fancy,” you muttered, casting a quick glance around the elevator’s plush and yet miniscule interior, “For a small town, they sure do have nice hotels.”
Things really were dire when you started making small talk. You were the type of person who could make a mountain out of a molehill with how much you talked. You almost rivaled Spencer with how much you could babble on. Small talk wasn’t your thing at all.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Hm?”
“You hate small talk,” Spencer said, and you bit back a laugh at that. It was as if you and Spencer were on the same wavelength sometimes, “And you’re picking at the hole in your sweater. You only ever do that when you’ve got something on your mind.”
You immediately glanced down at your hands, dropping them from your sweater as if it burned. You hadn’t even realized you’d been picking at the hole until Spencer mentioned it. You hadn’t even realized that there was a hole at all. Your bottom lip jutted out in a quick pout, “I love this sweater.”
Spencer chuckled at that, “So,” he continued, “You’re clearly nervous about something. And it’s not the case, because cases never make you nervous.”
“Really?” you said, a hint of laughter creeping into your tone, “You’re analyzing me?”
The elevator reached your floor, and the doors opened with a loud ding, “I’m not analyzing,” Spencer stepped out, “I’m simply making an astute observation.”
“Okay, well stop astutely observing me,” you followed after him, “Don’t worry. I’m fine. You know I’d tell you, “ it wasn’t necessarily a lie. Maybe you’d tell him. Eventually. 
Spencer glanced back at you briefly as if he didn’t believe a word coming out of your mouth, but he never said anything. Instead, he took the keycard from you and held it against the lock, waiting for the light to turn green before pushing open the door, “Oh.”
“What?” you sidestepped around him, “Oh.”
There was only one bed. Sure, it was a double, but it was still tiny. It was in that moment that you decided perhaps becoming an unsub wouldn’t be a lost cause. 
“I’ll take the couch.”
“I can sleep on the couch.”
You and Spencer finished your sentences at the same time, and you turned to look at each other. As soon as you locked eyes, you both started to laugh at the stupidity of the situation. 
“I’m not letting you sleep on the couch.”
“I’m not letting you sleep on the couch either,” you argued, “It’ll kill your back, Spence. You’re way too tall.”
“It’s not fair on you, though. You’ll…” Spencer was about to argue some more, but he stopped when he saw the look on your face. Spencer couldn’t argue his way out of a wet paper bag - when it came to you, at least.
“Look, Spence. It’s fine,” you dropped your bag onto the couch before he could protest, “There. Easy. No harm done.”
Spencer frowned, but he reluctantly put his own bag on the bed, “Fine. We’re swapping tomorrow night, though,” he told you, almost ordering you, “You’re not sleeping on the couch the entire time we’re here.”
“Deal,” your lips curled up into a smile, and you sat down on the couch, “See. I told you I’d be sleeping near the window.”
Spencer laughed at that. 
ꨄ︎
From your space on the couch, you could faintly see the glowing green alarm clock that sat on the bedside table. A strange commodity for a hotel room. It almost looked alien. 
2:32 a.m. 
You couldn’t sleep. You had a bad enough sleep schedule at the best of times, but the injury on your side was making things worse. It still burned, and if you gently put pressure on the area, you could still feel the deep wound through the layers of bandages. 
You were almost three days into the case, and you’d finally had a solid lead. It had taken a lot of digging, but Penelope had discovered the unsub’s hunting ground; an old speakeasy hidden so deep in the town that nobody had been able to trace it. Since you were the closest in victimology, you’d agreed to go undercover to catch the unsub once and for all. All you’d ended up with was a knife embedded deep into your side as the unsub escaped once again.
You’d been in the hospital for hours after that. The knife had gone in so deep that it was close to catching something vital, and the doctors had told you that you were lucky to be alive. You’d spent most of that afternoon in a hospital bed, listening to the monotonous sound of beeping machines. After a concerned lecture from Aaron - he’d told you not to follow the unsub but you hadn’t exactly listened - you were bandaged up and sent on your way.
Spencer had told you to take the bed. He’d almost forced you into it at one point. But you’d seen the way he’d tried to discreetly stretch out his cramp throughout the day, and you were far too stubborn, so you refused his offer and tried to sleep on the couch for the night. It wasn’t working, though. 
You huffed in pain, shifting uncomfortably in the hopes of finding a better position to sleep in. Every movement made your bandages rub against the wounded area. You finally thought you found a comfortable enough position and you tried to settle down, but then you felt a dampness seeping through your bandages, and you cursed under your breath.
“No, no, no,” you muttered, pulling your shirt up and surveying your body. Even in the darkness, you could see the dark spot where the blood had begun to soak through, “Goddamnit.” 
You pushed yourself off the couch and tip-toed across the room. You didn’t want to wake Spencer, especially not in your current state. You kept a hand tightly pressed against your side as you slowly moved. You didn’t want to get blood on the carpet. The staff seemed lovely, and you didn’t want to ruin their day with your mess. Every single step made you wince as a sharp pain shot straight through your body, and your breaths came out as sharp little puffs of air. 
A muffled noise from the bed caught your attention, and you saw Spencer begin to stir. He gently mumbled your name as he sat up and stared at you with bleary eyes, “What are you doing?” he looked you up and down, and then his eyes settled on the blood, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” you told him, though you clearly weren’t, “I think the stitches came undone or something. It’s fine,” you tried to wave his worries off, “Go back to sleep.”
Spencer did the opposite. He clambered out of bed and turned on the light, lighting up the room so that you could both see each other clearly. Your heart started to thud a little faster when you saw that the shirt he was wearing to sleep in was a little undone towards the top. You’d never noticed that before. 
“You’re not fine,” his eyes were laser focused on the blood as he took a step closer to you, “You’re bleeding.”
“Good observation skills, Spencer,” you laughed a little, though you grunted in pain as it aggravated the injury, “I told you, it’s fine. I’ll redress it, and…” you paused when you saw the look in his eyes. It was a look he’d never given you before, and it stole your breath for a moment. 
“Let me see.”
“Spencer...”
“It’s obviously hurting you,” his sentence was almost demanding, and yet there was a soft and concerning tone to his voice, too, “Let me see it.”
You sighed. There was no way you could refuse when he spoke to you with that tone of voice. You gingerly lifted your shirt high enough for him to see it, “It looks worse than it is.”
Spencer gently pulled away the loose bandages and inspected the open wound, his eyes never leaving your body, “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered, “You’re not redressing it yourself, and you’re certainly not stitching yourself back up.”
You barely had a chance to respond before Spencer had darted into the bathroom, and he came out moments later with a roll of bandages the hospital had given you. 
“Here. Sit,” he sat back down on the bed, and he patted the space beside him, “You’ll have to go back to hospital tomorrow. I’ll help you rebandage it for tonight,” his eyes darted between your own eyes and the blood that seemed to be pooling on your side, “Please.”
You hesitated for a moment, “Spencer…” there was no point in arguing with him, you knew that, and your wound hurt the longer it was left open, “Fine.”
You sat down beside Spencer, curling your legs up under you as you turned your back to him. Your hands gripped the hem of your shirt, holding it up high enough so that it wasn’t dangling in the way. This wasn’t the first time that Spencer had patched you up after an injury in the field, but this was the first time where you were definitely feeling a little light-headed. 
“Ow.”
“Sorry,” Spencer’s voice was a gentle whisper against your ear. You hadn’t even realized that he was practically leaning his head on your shoulder, “Sorry.”
Spencer’s hands were so gentle on your skin that it was almost as if he wasn’t even touching you at all. The only indication that he was even helping you was the bandages around your torso since he wrapped them so tightly that they felt like a strangely comforting hug. 
“There,” Spencer said, almost proudly, and he gave you a pat on the shoulder, “Done.”
You glanced down at your body before dropping your shirt. The wound didn’t even seem to hurt any more. You became very aware very quickly that Spencer’s hands hadn’t left your hips, “Thank you.”
You shuffled around until you were facing him, and when your eyes locked, it suddenly felt as if time had come to a standstill. That look was back in his eyes; the one that you’d never seen before that made you feel as though you were melting on the inside. You weren’t entirely sure what was racing faster; your heart or your mind. 
And suddenly, before you could really comprehend your actions, your lips were on his. Your body acted before your brain could catch up. Your hands tugged slightly on the collar of his shirt as if you were trying to pull him closer to you. The kiss was tender, and yet it was so full of obvious desire. Warmth flooded your entire body as your stomach seemed to explode with swarms of butterflies. This was a moment you’d thought about for a long time, and once your brain caught up, you couldn’t quite comprehend that it was happening.
It may have only been a few seconds, but it felt like hours. You pulled away, and it was only after you saw the startled expression on Spencer’s face and the faint blush that crept up his neck that you realized what you’d done, “Spence…” your mouth opened and closed, but now words came out for a good few seconds, “Spencer. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
Your panicked babbling was cut off as Spencer pressed a quick kiss to your lips, “Shut up,” he smiled, and he pressed his index fingers where his lips had been moments ago, “Just shut up for a minute.”
If this were any other time, you’d be rather offended that he told you to shut up, and you’d keep talking. In this situation, however, you were happy to keep your mouth shut.
“You didn’t mean to, what? You didn’t mean to kiss me?”
“No. I mean… Yes, but also no, but…”
Spencer raised an eyebrow with a faint smirk, “I thought I told you to shut up.”
You pressed your lips together in a fine line, “Sorry.”
Spencer’s hands left your hips, and he took your hands in his own. He squeezed them gently, and his thumbs began tracing soft little circles onto your palms, “You kissed me.”
You were more than ready for the ground to open up and swallow you whole. Spencer seemed to notice because his grip on your hands got a little tighter as if he knew you’d go run, “I’m glad you kissed me.”
There was no stopping the surprised squeak that escaped your lips, “What?!”
Spencer chuckled at that, and the pink blush had spread up to his cheeks, “I’m glad you kissed me,” he repeated, “I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time.”
“You… You…” your mouth was hanging open, and your eyes were wide. You must’ve looked like an absolute idiot, “You have…?”
“Of course, I did.”
This conversation was going in an entirely different direction to how you’d assumed it was. You’d never seen Spencer look or talk with so much affection before. Spencer said your name with so much love in his tone that it snapped you out of your shocked state, “I like you.”
For a single moment in time, it felt as if the world had stopped spinning. You simply stared, unable to do much of anything else except feel a sharp tug at your heart, “You… You do…?”
“Are you capable of putting a sentence together, or not?” Spencer laughed, and he interlaced his fingers with yours, “Yes, I do. A lot, actually,” he smiled at you, and there was a hint of teasing, “I might be a genius, but even the dumbest person in the room could figure you out right now.”
You cracked a smile, and your shocked expression gave way to a relieved and delighted one, “I really like you, too.”
“Do you? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Shut up,” you giggled, and you never giggled. You knew this crush was childish, but this was on another level entirely.
“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you giggle.”
“I’m not giggling.”
“Oh, you absolutely are. You’ve always been a terrible liar,” Spencer grinned at you, and then his lips connected with yours. 
The kiss seemed more affectionate than earlier, and a lot more passionate. Your hands wound around his neck, and his hands found a comfortable resting place on your waist. Your lips seemed to perfectly fit together like two puzzle pieces. It could’ve been seconds, or it could’ve been minutes. You weren’t entirely sure how long it had been, but you eventually pulled away from each other, and you were both a little breathless from the intensity. Intense was something you never expected from Spencer. You liked it, though.
You let your forehead rest against Spencer’s, “I hate to ruin the mood and everything, but…” your eyes flitted back and forth to the couch, “Does this mean I don’t have to sleep on the couch anymore?”
“Absolutely not,” Spencer pulled you a little closer, “You’re not sleeping on the couch. Especially not now.”
“Good,” you curled into him as he pulled you closer to his side, letting your head rest against his chest with a gentle sigh, “The bed has better company.”
Spencer maneuvered the two of you until you were lying on the bed, and he tucked you that tiny bit closer into him. You’d imagined him hugging you plenty of times, but this felt better than any imagination could. He kissed the top of your head, and he ran a gentle hand up and down your back, “Sure does.”
ꨄ︎
“Penelope Garcia! I’m going to kill you!”
You stormed through the BAU and entered Penelope’s office, slamming the door open with such a bang that it made the walls shudder.
Penelope grinned as she spun around in her chair to face you, “Ah, my sweet angel,” she spoke with a beaming grin on her face, “Do you require my assistance?”
“You little…” you stepped a little closer, but it was hard to look even slightly threatening with a goofy grin on your face that you were trying to hide, “You gave me and Spencer the only room with a single bed?”
“I did no such thing.”
“I spoke to everyone else, Pen. Everyone else had a bed of their own.”
Penelope continued to smirk at you, not even trying to hide her laughter, “It worked, didn’t it? I haven’t seen you as happy as this in weeks.”
You faltered at that. She wasn’t wrong. Ever since you’d gotten back from Wyoming, you’d been happier than anyone had ever seen you. Of course, everyone knew about you and Spencer, and it didn’t take long for the good-natured teasing to pick straight back up, “Yeah. Okay. It worked, but…”
Penelope held up a manicured finger to cut you off, “Besides, my sweet,” she continued, leaning forward in her chair as if she had a secret to tell you, “I was the one who booked the rooms, yes, but I wasn’t the one who handed out the keys, was I?”
Another pause. The words slowly sunk in, and then your mouth dropped open in a mix of shock, humiliation, and a little bit of gratitude, “You… You don’t mean…”
Penelope grinned. She could practically see the gears turning in your head, and it made her laugh, “Oh, I mean exactly what you think I mean, my love.”
“Hotch set us up?!” you didn’t even wait for Penelope’s response. You turned on your heel and marched out of her office, leaving Penelope laughing to herself behind you, “Aaron Hotchner! I’m going to kill you.”
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bellanothadidloa · 5 months ago
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I've been receiving a lot of inquiries since sharing my success story, and while I'm not planning to start a blog, I do want to address some common questions here.
Did I manifest everything from the void?
Yes, everything I listed was indeed manifested when I entered the void, as outlined in my story. I've had some successes with various experiments before, but none reached the level of my most recent attempt.
What was the most crucial factor in achieving the final breakthrough?
I wish there was a straightforward answer, but it probably boils down to the realization that no matter how much I complained or cried, I was determined not to give up. I would read success stories and find myself in tears because they mirrored the life I aspired to have. I wanted to shift realities, be wealthy, happy, and beautiful—it might sound vain, but that's what I desired. I longed to feel free, unbound by any world, and to pursue my own path. Who wouldn't want that? At some point, I asked myself, would I still be trying to shift at 30, while struggling with dietary issues caused by gut praxis disorder? If the answer was yes, what did that mean? It meant I wasn't going to give up. So, I kept trying different things, knowing that eventually, something would work. Inner work is essential, but I believe it's inevitable. The longest journey I've seen took seven years. Do I want that for myself? Absolutely not, but what if it happens? The very acceptance of that possibility means you're not giving up, so what does it matter?
What method did you use?
As I've mentioned, I've tried every method. The final one that worked was the morphic field. I don't really care whether it was the morphic fields or something else that clicked within me. As I mentioned earlier, I realized I was sad, but I knew I wasn't going to give up, so I let myself be sad. Who cares? Let me be angry; I'm still not giving up. So, why fight those feelings? I cared and was disappointed and scared, but I just decided to trust in the fields because, in the end, it didn't matter whether they worked or not. I wasn't giving up.
How do you feel now that you've achieved your dream life?
I've managed to transform my life and self-concept, and along with being incredibly happy, I feel a mix of sadness for everything I endured and pride for how I pushed myself before succeeding. Initially, I thought it would be hypocritical to say I love myself after I changed everything about myself, looks and life, but I realized this is my life, and I'm still the same person, just with desires that now align with my reality. Why would I want to be unhappy in a life that makes no sense to be sad in? I don't believe anyone deserves or doesn't deserve anything. Do what you want, pursue inner work if you wish, or just manifest your desires. Personally, I didn't feel the need to do the inner work after manifesting my dream life, but I know some people do, and that's beautiful too. Life is just beautiful.
How to mend your relationship with the void?
The only advice I can offer from my experience is to acknowledge that you're not giving up on it. It reminds me of toxic relationships where despite infidelity, they say, "I know where home is." Unlike those misguided people, the void genuinely serves its purpose and supports you. It already knows its home is with you, whether you realize it or not, and that's all that matters.
How did you exit the void state ?
Exiting the void was a simple experience for me. I simply took a deep, calming breath and set a clear intention to leave. The sensation that followed was like tunnel vision, where everything around me seemed to narrow and focus. This was followed by a profound sense of detachment from any sense of self, almost like becoming weightless or losing a sense of individual identity. When I finally opened my eyes, I found myself in a completely new room, confirming that I had successfully transitioned out of the void and back to reality with everything on my life
Did everything you wanted come true?
Oh, absolutely—and then some! I ended up getting things I didn't even know I wanted. The way I look now is even better than my Pinterest boards ever dreamed of. Like, I had this idea for how I wanted my room to look, trying to mash together different vibes and aesthetics, and it turned out way better than I could have pictured. I was stuck between wanting a curvy figure and that sleek Bella Hadid look, but somehow I got the best of both worlds, which is exactly what I was hoping for.
I wasn’t even thinking about changing my eye color, but it happened, and I absolutely love it. I thought I'd revise old friends, but instead, I found new, amazing people who fit into my life perfectly. Now that I’ve got a better sense of self, I see this is exactly what I really wanted deep down. Everything just fell into place so perfectly, and it feels like I've finally got a handle on what I truly wanted all along.
Can you manifest things for other people?
Well, yeah, but it’s kind of like it's really just about yourself in a way. I mean, there have been times when I managed to manifest things for my brother, but oddly enough, I struggled to do the same for myself. It's weird, right? I don't fully understand how manifestation works in every detail. I just kind of go with the flow and assume it works the way I want it to. If I can pull off all these manifestations, then why not just trust that I can manifest whatever I want, however I want it? That's the mindset I've adopted, and it seems to work for me.
What's it like being a master shifter?
It's like waking up and remembering who you truly are, and almost laughing at all the suffering you experienced. When you think about it, you might have lowkey created that suffering yourself, which is kind of sadistic, but instead of holding onto any negative emotions about the journey, I just appreciate my life more. It’s a mix of joy and bliss. I still remember my old life, sure, but somehow, this new reality feels just right. It's like destiny exists, and I’ve finally found mine.
This concludes everything for me, and I’ve decided I won't be continuing my blog any longer. I've shared a lot of helpful insights in the past, but I won't be actively posting from now on. Thank you all for the love and support. I’ve reached a point where I no longer have a reason to continue here, and soon, you won't either. Goodbye and take care!
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singukieee · 7 months ago
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—my all time favourite bts fics (pt. 4) ᯓᡣ𐭩
consists of my personal favourite bts fics that I've read countless of times. including those from other platforms, such as Wattpad, AO3, and Patreon.
For some works that are cross-posted between tumblr and wp/ao3, I'd only link them to the latters bcs I find it easier to read and navigate the stories on those. but I also tagged all the authors I know are here and linked the rest so you can check their blogs out yourself!
I'll also separate this list into several parts simply because there's too many... So it'd be easier for you guys to navigate!
red means unfinished
blue means finished
🗯️ curator's note
(sorted by alphabetical order)
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Stay by OT7oramI
Y/N and her hybrid best friend, Jin, have known each other since Jin was eight years old and came to live with Y/N and her family. Throughout the years, Y/N and Jin have grown closer but there is one major secret between them. When an injured hybrid comes into Cherry Blossom Sanctuary where they both work, the secret is revealed. What will become of the friendship between Y/N and Jin when others are added to it?
Storms of Fate by SumiSG7
A darkly forbidden Auction in the veils of night catering to the morbid appetites of the wealthy in a world of legalized slave hybrids. Results in A melody of storm uniting the fates of a powerful Heiress with 7 mysteriously seductive & deadly hybrids The dark spiralling descent into the fever of passion & longing entwining their hungers while being targeted by an unknown enemy. What will be the result of the lethal games to Anya & the hybrids caught in a velvety prison of their own cravings for each other. But slowly, the realization trickled in… All was not normal as it should be, the love they forged, was a test of devotion that was still withstanding the time since before time began…
🗯️ too freaking good... but also really dark and sometimes sweet. I don't think I've ever read an ff as well-written as this one. plot's insane too. (this is actually a whole universe with side stories that you would be told to read along the way to understand the lore, so good it's crazy that it's free)
Sweet as Honey by sugakookie98
In a time where omegas are increasingly rare, others constantly question your resistance to find a mate. No one seemed to understand that you were content to stay in your comfort zone, focusing solely on your job. However, a series of unexpected events set your quiet world into motion, making you question your outlook on life and on mating bonds.
🗯️ another Idk what to say but it's really good
The Butterfly Effect by themonsterteddy
Easily attached hybrids get adopted into a family. Lei, the protagonist, is the quietest member of the family. Follow them to explore the lovely bond developing between them.
🗯️ a super warm read <3
The Butterseries by @minniepetals
Their names alone had every men and women turning their heads and falling at their feet. successful, prestigious, handsome, rich, and untouchable to anyone that looked their way. and you? you were just an employee who worked for them. who would’ve known you meant so much more to them than you could ever imagine?
The Byeoljali series by LittleShyGirl
❶ Finding A Place
As an isolated, lonely omega raised by humans, you have little understanding of how other wolves live. When you take a promotion to become a member of the BTS staff, your world collides with the Bangtan Pack and you realise you have a lot to learn.
❷ Making A Home
Now that she's found where she belongs, follow Y/N as she learns how to truly be a part of the Bangtan Pack.
The Companion by MoonChild791
After being fired, the job of a lifetime lands in your lap. You up root your life and moved to Seoul, only to find out you'll be working with your favorite group, BTS. Slowly, you start to develop feelings for them. But that's crazy, right? You can't have feelings for all seven of them, it would never work out.....would it?
The Contract by namjuicyy
Your life is turned upside down when a contract is pushed your way. But what happens if you sign it?
The Last Lycans by RoxNotRocks
Sometimes, a fateful encounter takes the form of a bullet through the head… After years of living as a wolf, alone in the wild, Yu has no memory of her past and no idea what her true nature is. As she attempts to begin anew and discovers that her fate doesn't have to be a lonely one, her lost secret comes back to haunt her. When your past comes back with a vengeance, should you flee, or fight?
The Line Between Love and War by @purpleyoonn
Your experiences told you that soulmates were something you would never have the pleasure of having; something not given to you because of who you are, despite the soulmark that resides on your inner left wrist. During your solo trip to Los Angeles, you find out that you are more than capable, that your soulmates had been waiting for you for a long time, and would not be letting you go anytime soon.
The Little Fox by @purpleyoonn
“The idea of being free was a foreign concept. Being free meant having choices, having opportunities. Being a hybrid meant never being free.” Just as you escaped the Little Fox, a bidding house, you find yourself at war with your thoughts, not wanting to go to another shelter. You didn’t expect yourself to find a home anywhere, especially not with the men who found you, and their pack.
The Pictures That Talk by @imnotlauriane
In a world where everyone has a special ability, mine is giving life to pictures. It allows me to see what happened behind the camera, reliving the moment when it was taken, as the subject. It's something I really cherish, but it can also come with great pain, so it's to be used carefully. I look at my finger, rings of fate black and cold. And I wonder, will I ever meet my soulmates?
The Seven by chewymilkyoda
When a young 17 year old girl and her friend went to an empty mansion that is reported as 'haunted', she never knew that her life would changed when she accidentally woke up 7 dangerous vampires that has been asleep for centuries. And boy is she in for a long-ass ride of fantasy shit that she never even knew about.
The Seven Princes by wassap_its_hunter
Being known as Nyx, you never had an easy life. With the expectations of being the world's best-renowned assassin and hunter, protector of your people, and a babysitter of five children, you can't really expect to have time in your hands to relax, the world being run by werewolves, witches, vampires, mermaids and more. But now, another role has been added. After hearing the princes of the biggest empire in the world, the Asian Kingdom, say the word "mate", you're scared for what is about to come. But then again you're Nyx, one of the very few humans that survived and became known, you could take a challenge like that.
🗯️ mc is so cool and the boys are whipped. my favourite.
The Seven Red Flags of HAKON University by tinyeyecat / emi ree
Born in the hell hole of Space Port 69, Rue’s a human Omega desperate to leave the alien whore house she calls home. Defying all odds, she masquerades as an Alpha and obtains a scholarship to the Ivy League of all space institutions. HAKON University is an all-male school that trains the cream of the crop—future leaders of the galaxies. Rue's just here to graduate, pretend to have a dick and then flee into the workforce, that is until the legendary Bangtan pack sets their eyes on her. They’re the future emperors—aliens with godlike abilities that make them rulers of their species. But with excessive power comes the price of testosterone-fuelled insanity that cannot be soothed. An esper will always need his guide. They’ve been searching for a final member to quell their raging soul-an eighth to complete their pack. Millions have tried for a taste of the peak, but none have succeeded, and thousands die from their power unable to withstand the bond. Bangtan doesn’t chase their prey, they don’t have to, but this time the seven Alphas want Rue.
🗯️ it's emi ree so it's gonna be insane!
The Siren's Song by PurpleQueenie
Modern day Seoul and myths don't go along hand in hand as easily as one might think. When for centuries (Y/N) has been bound to the Ocean, serving her duty as a siren- waiting for the day when it'll finally end, who knew stumbling across seven different souls would've been the reasons she needed to start living again, feeling again- even if it meant losing herself in the process.
🗯️ this might be my ultimate fave among queenie's stories. it's just soo good. mc who became the best version of herself after meeting the boys who support her despite the villain's constant torture. also, mc is just so full of life despite the ... it's amazing, go read it!
Through Her Eyes series by Gigi_Luv_4u
❶ Through Her Eyes
In the world of soulmates, perhaps Daun is the only one who does not expect for any soulmate to come. She doesn't have the soul marks that everyone supposed to have. Not one ink on her skin, no time marks on her wrists, no glowing red strings... but why does one day, seven gorgeous men claims to be her soulmate? And these seven are none other than the greatest boy band in the world?
❷ Through Her Eyes: Eternal
Multiples puffing out to the open has been on the news, but not as often as Daun with her seven. Now, more than ever, people have made their lives more than just a curious entertainment. Snippets of their married lives have become great treasures of inspirations that the entire world would simultaneously coo. No one can't blame them with how adorable they have cultivated their marriage to an inspiring one. Not to mention with the new additional members that surely adds more life to their already dynamic universe. Or… How does a family of Multiples go through their lives?
To Be, Or Not To Be Your Omega by Anonymous
Which would be harder? To be an Omega in an Alpha's world, or to have to play Omega to a pack of Alpha's that's known across the WHOLE world? As if disguising your gender truth isn't hard enough, how many omegas can say they have seven alphas that want to claim them? That went to the trouble of drafting up an overly generous contract just to have you as their omega? Oh, why did they have to find out your truth? Maybe it won't be so bad to be theirs, even if it's only by contract? After all, they're all so handsome, and smell so good, and— Is it wrong to have your inner omega cooing at the idea that this could become more than just your Omega status being taken advantage of like it's been all over the world?
To Be, or Not To Be Your Omega REBOOT by Anonymous
What would you do if you suddenly found yourself playing Omega to not just one, but seven world-renowned Alphas? Your struggle to conceal your true gender pales in comparison to this new challenge. These Alphas want to claim you. They've gone so far as to draft an outrageously generous contract just to have you as their Omega. But as your scent betrays your truth, you're left wondering: why did they have to find out? As you contemplate your fate, you can't help but think – maybe being theirs wouldn't be so bad, even if it's just by contract? After all, they're devastatingly handsome, their scents intoxicating, and... wait, is your inner Omega actually cooing at the idea? You've spent your life seeing Omegas taken advantage of across the world. Could this be different? Could this become more than just another power play? In this story, you'll navigate a world of primal instincts, hidden truths, and unexpected desires. Are you ready to step into the shoes of an Omega on the brink of a life-changing decisions?
Trouvaille by @spookyserenades
In a world where hybrids are both the hottest commodity and largely exploited, a recent shortage of hybrids nationwide due to the wealthy adopting for sport hunting dominates the news headlines. More than ever, stray hybrids are whisked off the streets and taken into shelters to meet the demand. Mistreated, neglected, forgotten – in a notoriously disreputable hybrid shelter in a pocket of downtown Boston, seven “aggressive” hybrids await their inevitable fate of being sold for sport.
After years of trying to distance herself from her mystical past and upbringing, Y/N finds herself quitting her emotionally-draining job and is forced to face past mistakes. While accompanying her friends looking to adopt a child hybrid into their newly-formed family, Y/N inadvertently finds herself face-to-face with seven hybrids doomed to die. In a spur of the moment epiphany, Y/N decides to change the course of fate for the better; though bringing seven aggressive hybrids into her life and the darkening spiritual energy of her old home is trickier to navigate than she originally thought.
🗯️ I really appreciate the length of every chapter. like, so much details put into each and every chapter, and each chapter it just gets better and better.
Until The Last Star Falls by Lov3Mochi / @minniepetals
It was a love you knew would never make it out alive without sacrificing a part of your happiness to receive a greater happiness. but for them, you’d go to any extreme to have them again, and for you, they will always remind you each day that you are theirs and that nothing can tear you apart, not even until the last star falls.
🗯️ so freaking good! a painful journey of love, full of longing and sacrifice.
You Never Walk Alone by @agustdakasuga
You live a quiet life in your late grandfather’s cabin in the woods. You go to school just to graduate and get your diploma, not to make friends or stand out from the crowd. That was until one day, you enter your home to see a pack of wolves that need shelter.
사람 (People) by thearmyprof
You are preparing to move across the Pacific Ocean and start a new chapter in your life, when a chance meeting with a man in a coffee shop has you questioning the timing of everything in the universe. When you hit it off on your first date, little do you know that the man you’ve already fallen head over heels for is, in fact, a member of BTS.
🗯️ this story doesn't include any insane themes, but so enjoyable and heartwarming. the characters also feel human, well-written.
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PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | NAVI
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vettelsvee · 6 months ago
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GOODBYES ARE BITTERSWEET | Sebastian Vettel ✩₊˚.⋆ PART 2: LOVING HIM WAS RED [PREVIOUS PART] [NEXT PART]
goodbyes are bittersweet masterlist f1 masterlist | ao3 | requests or let's talk!
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ferrari sebastian vettel x ex gf!female reader
word count: 3972
summary: seb, after not knowing about her for almost five years, finds out that y/n just went viral on youtube after posting a song that might be written about him
warnings: settled on april 2018 and narrated on seb's pov. curse words, mentions of sex and one night stands. apart from that, just a little bit of background story from seb and reader's relationship
taglist: [@saltycomicsanimalssalad @hc-dutch @mycenterfold @simplyamberj @spitesfvl-blog @jaydaaasworld @lottalove4evelyn @zoeyjadetice2010 @nhfls @jehun @ferralari @cosmoscoffeee @mcmuppet @myescapefromthislife ]
a/n: i know i'm supposed to be posting oscar fics but migraine is killing me today (been quite stressed for the past few days i believe). in the meantime, as i already had it written, here you have part 2 of goodbyes are bittersweet! hope you liked it as much as you liked part 1 (even if it's a bit different). part 3 coming tomorrow if you want so? PLEASE let me know your thoughts and opinions in comments! feedback is appreciated, as well as reblogs <3
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© VETTELSVEE (2024). please, do not steal, copy or translate my works. thanks for reading!
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2018 April 27th Baku, Azerbaijan
Sebastian
I woke up as soon as I felt the sun’s rays hitting me in the face, and at the same moment I noticed a surprisingly strange warmth next to me, in bed.
I looked at my phone and saw that it was already half-past seven in the morning. Not only had I realized that my alarm hadn’t gone off and I had overslept by an hour and a half, but it was also Y/N’s birthday.
Like every year, there was no response from her to the email I had scheduled to be sent at midnight. 
After almost five years of knowing the bare minimum about her and having seen her a couple of times from afar in Heppenheim, I knew why, deep down, I kept doing it. I still loved her as much as the first day, or even more. I hoped for a reunion where we could tell each other about our lives and start a simple friendship as if nothing had happened, as if she hadn’t chosen to leave my life and act like she didn’t know me.
I decided to turn over to see what was getting closer and closer to me, almost pushing me off the bed. It wasn’t hard to find myself face to face with blue eyes that were not the green ones I had dreamed of that night.
Suddenly, memories from just a few hours ago started to form in my mind. A few beers I shouldn’t have had at a local pub just because I wanted to escape the blurry memory of Y/N were responsible for me meeting this charming young woman with a wonderful smile.
My head couldn’t piece together how we ended up here, but I suppose her insistence, my invitation for her to accompany me to the hotel, and possibly a taxi ride I paid for were the final results of the goal to escape reality. 
This had been my routine since I realized my ex-girlfriend wasn’t coming back into my life. I didn’t like being this way, and although I had tried to find a stable partner, kindness, fun and a temporary refuge had been the best way to try to forget Y/N Y/L/N, who always found a way to slip into my thoughts at the least expected moment.
I quickly got out of bed and, almost without thinking and without needing to undress, jumped into the shower and did my best to let the warm water make me forget everything I had allowed to happen the night before. I closed my eyes and let myself go as much as I could. I tried to organize my thoughts and find the easiest possible way out of the problem I had gotten myself into, but it was impossible to find one that worked.
I got out of there faster than I would have liked. When I returned to the room, with just the towel wrapped around my waist, leaving my entire torso exposed, I found the person I had been avoiding at all costs.
The brunette was already stretching in bed, dawdling and, surely, not wanting to leave.
“Would you mind leaving?”
My rhetorical question made her just look at me in surprise, her eyes still sleepy.
“Why, Seb? Can’t we spend the day together? I could go with you to the paddock and repeat what we did last night in your room or whatever you call it,” she suggested with a playful smile. “You know as well as I do that it would be fun.”
I felt a knot forming in my stomach at her suggestion. It wasn’t that I hadn’t enjoyed her company or was forbidden to do so, but the simple fact of knowing who was turning thirty today, and that this exact proposal was something I used to do with her...
“I don’t think it’s a good idea...” 
Damn, I didn’t remember her name.
“Alessia.”
“That’s it, Alessia,” I confirmed. “You know how these things are and what it could mean for us to be seen together. We could meet another day as... friends.”
Neither my response nor hers were what the other expected. After hearing her name, I remembered the brief introduction she gave me: a musician just starting out and a member of a highly successful Italian orchestra.
An Italian version of Y/N and, unfortunately for me and possibly the blonde, a successful one.
“The way you moaned my name last night so many times is not something friends usually do. You made me feel special last night. A lot, in fact.” 
“I’m sorry, Alessia, that wasn’t what I meant,” I clarified, my cheeks blushing slightly at her statement. “I hope you enjoyed what we did last night, but it’s time for you to get dressed and go back to your hotel or wherever you’re staying. I have to go to work,” I added, trying not to succumb to her obvious charms. 
After several more attempts to convince me, the girl finally resigned herself and reluctantly accepted my suggestion. I felt uncomfortable when she threw off the sheets and began to gather her clothes, completely naked. I felt even worse as I watched her slow and deliberate movements, as if she were prolonging the inevitable farewell and trying to arouse me. 
I bit my lip and refrained from doing or saying anything when she asked for help zipping up her dress. I could have said no, but I didn’t want to seem rude, especially considering that the time I spent with her had made me feel just as I had with my ex-girlfriend. 
Once we were finished, the Italian approached me with determination. Before I could react, her lips sought mine with clear intention. I instinctively turned my face, causing the kiss to land on my cheek instead of my lips. 
“Alessia…” 
What could I say in a situation like this? Did she deserve the hurt I was going to cause her even though we had only had a night of wild sex, like so many others I had had with other girls? 
“I’m sorry,” she murmured hastily, looking away. “I thought… you know, that we could have something more than just a one-night stand.”
My heart sank at her words, and as I had already foreseen, because it always happened in these cases, guilt overwhelmed me. 
I knew I had been unfair to her by allowing this to happen, by letting her believe there could be something more between us, and that the problem was hers when the only one to blame was me, who hadn’t gotten over the love of my life after four years, now closer to five, of no contact. 
“Alessia, you’re an incredible person,” I began to say, trying to find the right words and not hurt her more, “but right now, all I want to focus on is my work and working on myself. It wouldn’t be fair for you to be part of all this and end up getting hurt.”
“I understand,” she said softly, nodding with a sadness that, although expected, still surprised me. “Thank you for letting me spend this night with you, Sebastian.”
I felt overwhelmed and at the same time a great mixture of relief and remorse as I watched her leave without even looking back. 
When enough time had passed to be sure I wouldn’t run into her, I went down to the hotel lobby still feeling that heaviness invading me. I tried to shake off all of them, but as soon as I saw Britta standing in front of the entrance, arms crossed and with an angry look fixed on me, I knew it was going to be difficult. 
“Sebastian, again?” she asked, full of frustration. 
“Yes, and I’m not going to apologize for something I don’t regret,” I replied sincerely, knowing there was no way to avoid the upcoming conversation. 
“Are you going to keep playing this game much longer?” she reproached as she quickened her pace, trying not to cause too much of a scene or draw attention. “You’ve gone longer than I’d like to say without settling down.” 
“I will when I get tired of sleeping with girls I don’t know, I suppose. Having sex is good for health, you know? Be thankful I don’t cause you many problems after these nights.” 
Britta sighed, and I knew my response was making her lose the little patience she had left. 
“I know you didn’t ask for my opinion, but I think what would make you tired of sleeping with strangers almost every Grand Prix week would be to have some kind of interaction with Y/N.” 
The mention of the blonde’s name made the wave of emotions I had tried to bury for years resurface, hitting me suddenly. 
“You know I can’t do that. It’s impossible. I’ve tried, but she doesn’t want to cooperate.” 
“You should at least try once again, at least. I know there’s nothing, nor anyone, who can change her mind,” and it was true. Y/N was the most stubborn person, for better or worse, that I had ever met in my life. “But I also know that if you keep avoiding facing your feelings and trying to forgive yourself for what happened, you’ll never find the peace you’re not only wishing for but also deserving of.” 
“I know, Britta, but…” 
“But what, Sebastian? It’s just that…” 
“Have you ever heard of the invisible string theory?” 
She raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised by the change of subject and possibly for not letting her finish. She slowed her pace, and for the first time in the short time we had been together that day, I felt calm and even understood. 
“Yes, I’ve heard something about that,” she said after a few seconds that felt eternal. “What does that have to do with getting over your ex-girlfriend?”
“Well, everything, really,” I declared. “Y/N and I dated, if you can even call it that, for ten days during Christmas of ’99. She was 11, and I was 12, and I was a bit stupid because I ended up breaking up with her when I fell for a classmate who had just moved to Heppenheim and who eventually started dating my cousin.” 
“But…”
“Then Y/N and I became friends again,” I continued, trying not to let her interrupt my impromptu speech, “and it took six years until she told me she loved me. I didn’t want to admit my feelings and decided that not talking to her for four months was the best, not even to offer my condolences after her grandmother’s death… And look, in the end, I asked her to go out with me!”
My PR sighed, possibly tired of hearing that story once again, a story I never got tired of telling because sometimes reality was weirder than fiction.
“I’m going to tell you what I’ve always told you since Y/N left, and I don’t care if you don’t want to hear it: you’re still clinging to the hope that everything will go back to how it was, even though you know it’s not possible,” she said without a hint of doubt. “Even if you ran into her and had a deep conversation, your lives have changed. At least yours has, and I’m sure hers has too.”
“I mentioned the invisible string theory because I feel like there’s something else. I feel, besides there being something unknown that ties us together for some reason, that the third time's the final one,” I finally confessed.
My confession seemed to have caught her off guard. Now, she slowed, and she was passing her accreditation to enter the paddock much more slowly than she usually did.
Maybe she was right, that I was holding on too tightly to the hope that everything would go back to how it was before, but I had been dreaming about Y/N again for many nights after months without doing so. It had never happened before, but the last few days had felt like she had never left my life and had always been there, just apart.
The last time I had that feeling it ended with me seeing her from a distance playing with a little girl she was probably babysitting to earn some extra money.
Obviously, I didn’t dare to approach her because she seemed... happy. Quite happy, actually.
“I’d like to keep talking about this, but I want you to stop thinking about Y/N, at least for a few hours, and focus on today,” my PR’s change in tone let me know she was serious. “We have a lot to do.”
“Then enlighten me, master.”
“First, you have a meeting with the team to discuss possible strategies for practice and what might work for tomorrow’s qualifying,” the blonde began to explain, taking out her planner and going over the day’s schedule. “Then I think you have an interview with SkySports with Nico Rosberg, and maybe a talk for a collaboration with a brand, but I have to check that again.”
“What time am I supposed to meet with the engineers?”
“Around nine-thirty, but...”
I yawned, not bothering to cover my mouth as my PR continued talking. The heaviness in my eyelids was getting worse, and I felt the exhaustion from the previous night starting to take its toll. I looked at my phone and saw that, unfortunately, it was only eight-fifteen.
Was the day going by that slowly?
“Understood,” I replied, pretending I had been paying attention to everything Britta had said. “By the way, do you mind if I go to my driver’s room to have some rest?”
“Sebastian...”
“I had a fantastic night,” I admitted, causing her to cross her arms and once again look at me with a stern expression, “but I didn’t sleep at all, and if I want to perform well, I need to sleep at least for a bit.”
“You have forty-five minutes at most,” the blonde snapped. “Don’t you dare be late, or we’ll have problems. Set your alarm and make sure your phone is on in case someone calls you.”
It won’t be Y/N, that’s for sure.
“I will, don’t worry.”
I left Britta after exchanging a few more words with her and hurried as much as I could. With every step I took, I felt more tired. I knew I should have slept at least six hours, but I succumbed to the temptation last night to, why not say it, have a good time and, as was more than obvious and had become routine since 2014, try to succeed in the mission of forgetting Y/N on her birthday.
Another year, it had been impossible.
I didn’t know if it was due to lack of sleep or lack of attention, but the voices around me seemed increasingly distant. The only thing I could hear as I walked through the pit lane was a growing murmur where the words “viral” and “song” seemed to be the main topics, especially from the mouths of Max, Daniel, and I’d swear Charles.
“Have you heard this song?” I heard Verstappen say. I stopped when the first piano chords began to play. “It’s like a pandemic; it’s everywhere.”
“I don’t know who the girl singing is, but she’s incredibly talented,” Ricciardo continued. “Do we know who...?”
“You don’t know if it’s a girl!” Leclerc reproached, hitting the Australian on the arm. “What if it’s a guy with a high voice?”
I laughed at the younger guys' antics, wondering if my former teammates saw me that way when I was their age.
Losing him was blue like i’d never known Missing him was dark gray all alone Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you never met Cos’ loving him was red
If my eyes were almost closing automatically, after hearing the chorus, or whatever it was called, it felt like I had taken an energy drink that had woken me up.
The moment that voice, both raspy and sweet at the same time, penetrated my ear, my hair stood on end. Its familiarity was incredible… but no, it couldn't be her. It was impossible.
"God damn, who can play the piano while singing?" 
"I have two questions," Daniel blurted out, ignoring Charles' words. "The first one is who the fuck it could be, and the second is how the hell they've gotten so much attention out of nowhere."
It's Y/N, who else could it be, I thought.
I tried to control all kinds of thoughts that were running through my head. I knew my ex-girlfriend's voice perfectly, and the one coming from the Dutchman's phone was quite similar to hers.
"Maybe it's a marketing strategy. At least that's what Fernando thinks," Max always had the Spaniard's name in his mouth. "What if it's a marketing strategy by some record label? It could be a plan to generate interest in an artist or a song."
"I highly doubt it. If they wanted to do that, the YouTube account wouldn't be named 151206010614."
Lewis appeared next to me out of nowhere. Quickly taking off his headphones, he also unplugged them from his phone, letting the song play at full volume.
"Seb, are you okay?" insisted the Brit.
"Yes, yes. I was just a bit distracted," I hurried to say.
He didn't seem very satisfied with my answer, but I didn't care. The only thing I was thinking about at that moment was how much I wanted to get to the hospitality area, and how much I wanted to take a micro-nap at this point.
"Are you also distracted thinking about that anonymous person?"
"I can't be distracted by someone I know nothing about other than what I've heard from them," I replied, pointing to the three drivers who were still engrossed in the conversation about the topic.
"I've managed to hear a bit, yes," replied the dark-haired one. "I think I understand music a little more than they do. I'm almost sure it has nothing to do with a record label, and that someone simply uploaded it without any expectations. And look how it went from them."
I looked at him intrigued, understanding little to nothing of what he was saying.
"Since you look confused, I'll explain a bit," Hamilton continued, realizing that I didn't seem to understand much. "It seems they uploaded this song, which happens to be called Red, to YouTube," he hit play and put it on again, now from the beginning, "It seems to be about a failed relationship, but no one knows who sings it or what the real story behind it is."
"Does no one really know anything?" I insisted, finding the situation very strange.
Why was the voice only familiar to me? Could it be because today was Y/N's birthday, and everything reminded me of her much more than usual?
"The only thing we know is that the song is wonderful. Really, I don't know who’s behind this, but if they discover that girl, if it is a girl, and give her a chance, I’m almost sure she can achieve great things."
We decided to move a bit further down the pit lane, exchanging a few words with those we met. Lewis kept talking about the song. I couldn't stop thinking and analyzing the melody, the lyrics, the voice, and especially the user. I knew there was something hidden behind that combination of numbers, and now the priority of sleeping a bit before the first free practice session had taken a back seat.
I tried all possible combinations. Numbers from front to back, in pairs, trios, and even quartets, but nothing seemed to convince me. While the melody of Red continued to resonate from the Mercedes driver's iPhone, my mind kept trying to get the information because something inside me, which was nothing like the feeling I had every April 27th, knew it was Y/N.
I managed to come up with the supposed answer shortly after, recalling some of the important dates for us. If I divided the username into three different sections, with two pairs of numbers each, the first one corresponded to June 15th, 2006.
That was the day I asked Y/N to be my girlfriend. 
If that was right, the second pair of numbers corresponded to January 12th, 2014. I was no longer dating Y/N at that time, but I knew her perfectly, and not to brag, but I was convinced that date must be extremely important to her if it was alongside our anniversary.
I wish I could know what it is that about.
“Are you listening to me?”
Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes
Tell myself it's time now, gotta let go
But moving on from him is impossible
When I still see it all in my head
In burning red
I ignored Lewis after hearing, for the first time paying extremely attention, that bridge. 
Somehow, the song described my feelings perfectly, and I didn’t know why I felt that way. I couldn’t let go of Y/N, not when she had been, and still was, the love of my life. 
I entered WhatsApp almost automatically and went into Y/N's profile. She had no profile picture, but I knew perfectly well that it was her because her contact was still saved with the same name. I quickly wrote to her that I knew it was her hiding behind the song and that somehow, I knew she was talking about me. 
I saw Britta approaching us quickly. She was also engrossed in her phone, her fingers constantly moving over it. I didn’t pay much attention to her because once I showed my desperation to Y/N, I moved on to conveying it to Hanna, trying to convince her to reveal that it was her best friend. 
“Seb, we need to talk,” Roeske hurried to say, almost out of breath. Her gaze was still fixed on her device.
“Britta, I can’t right now, I’m sending…”
“Sebastian Vettel, this is serious.”
When she yanked the phone from my hands and I made eye contact with her, I assumed things didn’t seem to be going very well. The moment she turned her gaze to Lewis and he walked away, patting me on the shoulder, I knew.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, quite angry. “Why are you acting like a neurotic who seems to have lost a million euros on a ridiculous bet?”
“I don’t want you to answer anything related to that song that went viral, Red. I’m telling you, Sebastian, don’t you dare answer anything about that damn song.”
And again, this was another sign that happened to make me feel like I hadn’t gone crazy.
“Sebastian, trust me,” Britta remained firm in her expression, crossing her arms. “I don’t want you to get into trouble because the song was uploaded by…”
“Y/N.”
I saw the answer in her eyes. I knew her and knew she longed to answer me and at the same time, she didn’t. 
Britta knew that, but I also had the feeling she seemed to want to hide something.
“It’s her the one singing, right?” I insisted, but she didn’t answer. “Britta, please: tell me.”
I was desperate, and it was more than obvious. A sigh and a few seconds filled with uncertainty preceded her response:
“If you already know, why do you ask me? You know the sunshine of your life, as you still call her, much better than I do. Of course it’s Y/N,” she revealed, lifting a great weight off my shoulders and, above all, making me believe I could have faith in the future.
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humanitys-strongest-brat · 16 days ago
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Kintsugi - ch.5
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Pairing: Coach!Levi x Injured fem!Reader
CW: themes of injury, depression, and hopelessness. 18+ minors and ageless blogs dni.
wc: 1.2k
a/n: so sorry for the long wait for this chapter, and for the shorter length. I can't even begin to describe how bad this one kicked my ass. but huuuge thanks to @tobbi-loves-levi for every second of help and @fromthechaoticmind for your hours of encouragement in the working nook <3 this is my first Levi pov and the struggle was real!!
previous / masterlist / dividers
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Levi couldn’t get your face out of his mind. He hated it. The moment your excitement washed away and disappointment took its place carved into his brain, the softness of your eyes before they glossed over. He couldn’t bear to see you like that. On ice he’d know exactly what to say, but this? He couldn’t do this. Knowing he was the one to hurt you like that.
Bursting into his office he went straight for his desk, tossing the ipad on his chair before swiftly pulling open the top right drawer. Reaching in he stops at the sight of his trembling hand, quickly shaking the feeling before feverishly fishing through the contents of the drawer. He finally finds what he was looking for tucked away in the back. A keycard to the Basketball Wing of the sports center Erwin had given him forever ago. Levi could probably count on one hand the amount of times he’d used it in the last seven years. 
Just as quickly as he found the card, he was out the door cursing the distance between the Ice Wing and his destination. Every step was more tortuous than the last as he fought to silence his mind. Once he reached the sliding doors he buzzed in. Unlike the Ice Wing, the Basketball Wing was hot. The air was thick and paired with a heavy metallic scent which was all too noticeable, especially now.
Levi made his way through, catching the gaze of a small group of players along the way. Immediately he noticed he’d forgotten his hoodie, he never walked through the center without it. Just as quickly he realized what they were staring at, he could always tell.
Ignore them. 
Erwin’s office was located in the gym, its entrance on the back wall of the basketball court. He let himself in and made his way straight for it. Without a second thought or a knock, he twisted the handle and shoved the door open. 
“Erwin.” He nearly barked out. The sudden burst causes Erwin to stand straight up, his thighs sending a rattle through his desk as they make contact from the startle. 
“..Levi,” he answered quickly once he registered it was him. 
“She asked me to be her coach.” Levi wastes no time as he steps inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. 
Erwin let out a sigh of relief, slowly lowering himself back down into his chair. “So, What did you tell her?” 
“I said no.” Levi says, almost cringing at the words he had told you verbatim. 
“Why?” Erwin asks, crossing his arms over his chest. Levi shoots him a knowing glare in return.
“Why?” He repeats as if to confirm he heard correctly. “I don’t know the first thing about being a coach.” 
“You can’t be serious.” 
“Not that kind of coach.” Levi corrects himself. “And what about work? Am I expected to just drop everything, travel from competition to competition?” 
“Levi,” Erwin starts, “you stopped taking clients to work with her specifically.” 
The room goes quiet, it was true. Levi knew that you needed the extra attention to get back to training for competitions, so he stopped taking new cases and slowly phased out his existing clients to provide just for you. In this moment, he hated that he mentioned that to Erwin. 
“I think you should reconsider it.” Erwin follows up. “I’ve seen the two of you in the studio, skating together before sessions. The chemistry..”
“You have no idea what you’re saying.” Levi protests. He can feel his chest tightening with every word being said. He could try to blame you, he could blame work, but Erwin saw right through it. 
“Really? From my perspective it stopped being about her ankle weeks ago,” Erwin treads carefully. “You didn’t want to see her step down-”
“Like I did? You don’t have to say it.” Levi says, his nose twitching just from saying it out loud. “She doesn’t need me to get to Worlds, she did it just fine the first time.” 
“She knows that, she wants to take you with her.” Erwin reminds him, leaning forward and placing his arms on the desk “I think you’re ready.”
Levi let out a low sigh, squeezing his eyes shut. “You know what they’ll say about me. I’ll be this year's shining spectacle.”
“Who cares what they say? You’ll be there for her.”
“I’d be on the sidelines, if something goes wrong there's nothing I can do. It’s different this time, Erwin.” Levi’s voice is just above a whisper. There it was. A small shred of the truth came through his excuses, and he knew all too well that Erwin was going to grab onto it. He always does. 
“Under you, nothing is going to happen.” Erwin comforts. “Even I can promise that.” 
“I thought the same under my coach.” Levi sighed, brushing his fingers underneath his eye over the healed scar. “You can’t promise that.” Erwin sits in silence for another few seconds, taking in everything Levi said. 
“She reminds you of her, doesn’t she?” 
“I didn’t come here to talk about that.” Levi scowls. 
“No, you came here hoping I’d agree with your choice about refusing to be her coach. I don’t.” Levi closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, closing himself from Erwin’s gaze. The only way he’d be able to say it. 
“She does. Is that what you want to hear? I saw the news and it killed me. When I got the call she had already shut herself out, not improving at the rate required to get back out there. It would have crushed her to try, I needed to step in.”  
“Sounds more like somebody else I know.” Rarely does he see Levi like this and he knows just how hard it is for him to talk about anything surrounding his accident. “I know you want to do this. You’re skating with her, I’ve seen it. You’re ready.” 
“I’ll think about it.” Levi sighs, letting his shoulders drop from their previously tense posture. He takes in what Erwin says, and to his surprise it strikes a chord in him. He watches Erwin sit back, an almost triumphant expression on his face.
“Good,” he breathes out and gets up from his seat. “Let's go. We’re taking an early day.” 
“That’s not necessary, Erwin.” Levi says as he rises out of his own seat.
“What? And let you go home like this?” Erwin shakes his head. “I’d be back on the phone with you within the next hour if I did.” Levi stares at him for a moment as if to argue against it again, then just nods as he makes his way to the door. Just as he starts to twist the door handle, he stops him before he can pull the door open. Walking across the room, he pulls a zip up hoodie down from the coat hanger in the corner of the room before approaching Levi again and draping it over his shoulder. 
Levi pulls the fabric down and studies it, running his thumb over the soft plush of the hood. A small smile spreads across his lips before pulling it on and making his way out with Erwin. 
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taglist:
@amywritesthings @littlerequiem @humanitys-strongest-bamf @hideandgopeep 
@thechaoticarchivist @sixpennydame @saccharine-nectarine @martins-rx 
@levisbrat25 
@yukithestar @reive-1
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leather-n-velvet · 3 days ago
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Right Person, Wrong Time- Part Seven
A Rafe Cameron x kook!reader SMAU
YN and Rafe were the power couple of Figure 8. Before college they had a very intense relationship. It came to a breaking point YN’s junior year of college. Rafe was heartbroken, but he knew he needed to spend some time reflecting on their time together. It took a lot of time, but he realized that their ending had been his fault. In order to fix that, he needed to change.
A few years later, YN returned to the island after college. Rafe realized just how much he truly loved YN, and he knew he needed to win her back. But he knew it wouldn’t be easy, and he questioned if he would truly be able to undo the past.
Series warnings: MINORS DNI, sexual themes, language, drinking, references to past drug abuse, past toxic relationship.
A/N: hope y'all didn't think things were just going to be drama free 😬
Dividers by: @cafekitsune
Previous Part // Masterlist
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[Present]
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Rafe and YN's Camera Rolls:
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A/N: Blair is back in town.... hmmm
Please let me know what you think! Don't forget to like and reblog. As always, my ask inbox is always open for any questions or thoughts you may have. I would LOVE to talk to y'all about this series!
Tag list: @blog-luvdance, @stoned-writer, @eddxemxnson, @mrsdrewstarkeyy, @a1m3esthings, @akobx, @hotch-meeeeeuppppp, @raeven-marie43, @sereneera, @drewstarkeyslover, @frankoceanluvr11, @6r4cie, @marleymarleymarleymarley, @jamimers, @jkrafe, @f4irywor1d, @rafegetinmybed, @pogueprincesa, @cali-888, @slut-4-gojo, @moustachecherryismyhusband, @rafeysbabydoll @cherryhoneybabe @hypnotizedstarkey @lolxdswag123 @cooper8224
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moonpascaltoo · 7 months ago
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joel miller
MASTERLIST • PEDRO PASCAL CHARACTERS • 07/08/24
˚‧⁺ ・ ˖ · ୨ৎ recs four
one two three five
𑣲 adoration I @cowboymarcs
𑣲 rough I @/cowboymarcs
jackson had made joel soft, and while you delighted in the domesticity of it all, some small, shameful part of you missed how hard he fucked you when the world was ending.
𑣲 sun bleached flies part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 I @sempersirens
old secrets are brought to the surface when a new arrival in jackson threatens to disturb the peaceful home you have spent seven years perfecting
𑣲 make a move on me I @freelancearsonist
You've been teasing Joel every day since he started remodeling construction on your house. He finally works up the courage to do something about it - but not in the way you expect him to.
𑣲 hard to handle I @punkshort
One year after Joel cheats on you and gets someone else pregnant, you run into him for the first time.
𑣲 the way we were I @/punkshort
You worked for Joel and Tommy a few months before the outbreak. When the outbreak happens, you and Joel get stuck traveling the country and keeping each other safe. Neither of you spoke about the feelings you had for one another pre-outbreak, and in a post-apocalyptic world, it seems like survival should be your only focus. But feelings can't be ignored forever.
𑣲 look what we’ve become I @/punkshort
You are tasked with taking a young girl back to her family while trying to salvage your relationship with Joel after certain events cause the biggest strain either of you have ever had to face.
𑣲 gym!joel blurb I @tightjeansjavi
𑣲 qz! joel hcs I @/tightjeansjavi
𑣲 twisted games I @jobean12-blog
You never win when you play games with Joel but while losing in a game of Twister you get an idea that might just make you a winner...or not.
𑣲 have a little pun I @/jobean12-blog
Joel has more than one reason to smile now. 
𑣲 after the rain I @mrsmando
when life as you know it comes crashing down around your ears, only joel can fix it.
𑣲 moon and stars I @alrightieaphroditie
joel rears his big, brown puppy dog eyes at you while you’re stitching him back together. a promise is made.
𑣲 the shop around the corner I @sawymredfox
Meet cutes only happen in movies, right?
𑣲 is it that sweet I @joelscruff
you probably shouldn't let some random middle aged man on the beach take nude photos of you, right? right?
𑣲 imperfect for you I @/joelscruff
you never thought joel miller would accidentally call you baby.
𑣲 his sweet secret I @ozarkthedog
joel fucks you over the kitchen sink.
𑣲 seven days, six nights I @hellishjoel
You get jumped in the QZ after a deal gone south and hide yourself from Joel to keep him safe. After eventually finding you and learning the truth behind your injuries, he heals you and promises revenge.
𑣲 a future together I @kteague
What if Joel had been in a relationship when the outbreak started? What if they were still together 20 years later?
𑣲 underneath the stars I @leviathanspain
you realize too late that he wasn’t just your best friend.
𑣲 she’s a gun I @cowgurrrl
Somebody didn’t give the new guy a heads up about talking about Joel Miller’s family
𑣲 my girl now I @psychedelic-ink
joel is used to asshole clients, and when one of them calls him an old man and basically demands him to finish his girlfriend's kitchen in time, he expects you to be the same. But you're the opposite. when he learns how you've been treated, he comes up with a plan to get back at your boyfriend.
𑣲 aquatic rehabilitation I @/psychedelic-ink
Joel has been experiencing knee pain for the past two months. When he finally sees an orthopedist, he learns that he has some minor damage to his meniscus. The doctor prescribes him anti-inflammatory medication and physical therapy, recommending swimming. At the pool, he meets you.
𑣲 perfectly wrong I @/psychedelic-ink
Joel thinks you have the car battery that he so desperately needs and doesn't believe you when you say that you don't.
𑣲 sleeping bag I @quin-ns
you can’t get comfortable in your sleeping bag, so joel invites you into his
𑣲 for you, anything I @mellowsaturns
joel do what he does best, smuggling and taking care of you
𑣲 one bed I @frannyzooey
𑣲 overloaded w/tommy I @katiexpunk
After catching your ex-boyfriend in your bed with another woman, you pack up and leave. With no money and no car, you end up hitchhiking back to Texas. You're lucky enough to catch a ride with a nice Trucker named Joel. Things quickly heat up between you two, and only get hotter when you meet his brother.
𑣲 i can’t sleep I @wingzsz
After settling in at Jackson, Joel broke up with you. You try avoiding him in order to get ahold of your emotions but that all backfires.
𑣲 untitled part 2 I @joelslastofus
Joel is secretly in love with Tommy’s girlfriend and comforts her while his brother is in jail.
𑣲 jealous joel pt 2 I @/joelslastofus
Joel deals with his jealousy as Tommy and you get more serious.
𑣲 forgive me I @mothandpidgeon
When Joel finds himself in possession of some sexy photos, temptation makes him question himself as he's fascinated by a woman he's never met.
𑣲 aunt flo’s I @/mothandpidgeon
After Sarah gets her first period, Joel is determined to be a supportive parent despite the fact that he doesn't know the first thing about menstruation. But when he goes to the pharmacy to shop for supplies, he finds himself in way over his head.
𑣲 picture I @/softlyspector
You really want to take Joel's picture. He can't really figure out why.
𑣲 sea salt I @/softlyspector
You need to escape an unwanted engagement. Joel reluctantly helps you.
𑣲 fake it I @hier--soir
does joel know you well enough to know when you're faking it?
𑣲 back to texas I @/hier--soir
joel goes back to his house in texas
𑣲 refined taste I @josephquinnswhore
joel relishes in the taste of you.
𑣲 give me tonight I @alltheirdamn
joel has to leave
𑣲 didn’t catch my bloody nose w/ tommy I @swiftispunk
the miller brothers are good at sharing their toys, but god forbid the toy should break.
𑣲 letting go I @supernaturalgirl20
you think Joel doesn’t care, the problem is, he cares too much.
𑣲 if you like piña coladas I @gutsby
You secretly make Joel a profile on Hinge. Then he shows you exactly why he doesn’t need one.
𑣲 trial and error I @thetriumphantpanda
Tommy has always been the loyal and doting boyfriend, the literal man of your dreams. Ready to take things to the next step, you soon find that Tommy is unable to have children. A family is all you’ve ever wanted, and neither of you are going to let this get in your way. Enter Joel, dark and mysterious and willing to do anything for his little brother, including fucking his girlfriend to get her pregnant. That’s what brothers are for, right?
𑣲 endure and survive I @morallyinept
𑣲 move I @/morallyinept
A kind, but handsome, neighbour helps you out on moving in day.
𑣲 neighborhood walgreens I @deantfwinchester
A busy, sick Joel gets a little care from the people in his life - including the neighbor and friend he's been crushing on for the past few months.
𑣲 room for three w/ arthur morgan I @morning-star-joy
When Joel and Arthur get caught in a storm and need a place to stay, they weren't expecting to find you—a temptress who offers them shelter in your cabin, and wants nothing more than for the two rugged cowboys to keep you warm.
𑣲 a simple trade I @munsonownsmyass
When Joel spots some coffee, he's willing to trade just about anything to get it.
𑣲 stranded I @joelscurls
your shitty boyfriend dumps you on the side of the road after a fight. joel miller finds you.
𑣲 you gave me something to lose I @stylesispunk
Joel is afraid of losing you.
𑣲 blushing I @talaok
Ellie tries to convince Joel of how obvious it is he likes you.
𑣲 drooling I @/talaok
you find a lake and convince ellie and joel to take a swim, according to ellie, giving joel the perfect opportunity to confess his feelings for you.
𑣲 incentive I @/talaok
Ellie makes you convince Joel to not get back on the road yet, and you find a way to persuade him.
𑣲 not a thing part 2 I @pedrospatch
You and Joel had a private moment while Ellie was asleep. Or so you’d thought she was asleep.
𑣲 pistol I @cosmictheo
during a stormy night at bill and frank's house, joel teaches you how to hold your gun, and this opens up the perfect opportunity for the two of you to finally release all the feelings of longing and lust you've been repressed for each other over the past few weeks.
𑣲 jealously, jealously part 2 I @peterparkersnose
Joel is jealous seeing Y/N with another man across the bar
𑣲 lovers and love I @/peterparkersnose
Y/N tries to hide that she is pregnant and Joel finds out
𑣲 hairspray I @/peterparkersnose
Sarah finds Y/N’s hidden pregnancy tests
𑣲 daisies I @ohraicodoll
Because the women of Jackson have nothing better to do than set their eyes on Joel Miller.
𑣲 heart to heart I @neo-nomatrix
You’ve been traveling with Henry and Sam for over a year now. Once you meet Joel and Ellie your entire world changes.
𑣲 not-so formal introduction I @guess-my-next-obsession
𑣲 slice of paradise I @bubbles-for-all-of-us
Joel dream of having a farmhouse comes true. What makes it even better is that he's not there alone. He has his own little family to enjoy this little slice of paradise with him.
𑣲 butterfly I @/bubbles-for-all-of-us
When Joel thinks that his life is over his little butterfly sends him a new reason to stay alive. The only problem is that he doesn't know how to love but when you are the meaning of love itself how can he not fall.
𑣲 we bleed together I @/bubbles-for-all-of-us
what if the last day of humanity was different? What if instead of loosing Sarah, Joel lost you - the mother of his two children and the person who had built him up to a better man.
𑣲 cold as ice I @/bubbles-for-all-of-us
what happens when Ellie stumbles upon a memorial that turns out to have both your and Joel's kids names on it. When the past pain is brought back to the daylight even the coldest of hearts finally break.
𑣲 my heart is yours I @/bubbles-for-all-of-us
Jackson doesn't seem to kill the fears in Joel's mind, only awaking new kind of doubts. Can you actually be in love with him or is it a hopeless dream that Joel is chasing?
𑣲 don’t let me drown I @alloftheimagines
in which the reader falls into the river of death, and it's joel's job to save you and find shelter. featuring ellie.
𑣲 first kill I @/alloftheimagines
in which the reader is forced to take a life for the first time in order to save the man she loves.
𑣲 lament of my heart I @ay0nha
“Tommy…”  Joel let out a breath of frustrated laughter. He disappointingly shook his head, leaning over you, “That boy doesn’t know what he’s lost.”
𑣲 for her part 2 part 3 I @wardenparker and @absurdthirst
Low on supplies and needing rest, Joel and Ellie stop in a colony he has heard about to restock on their journey west, but Joel finds far more than be bargained for within the city walls.
𑣲 apocalypse I @nikka-v
two guests arrive, she found a herself crushing on the handsome, older man.
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asahicore · 2 years ago
Text
how to get back at your ex - lhs (m)
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this work contains smut - minors please do not interact
pairing. heeseung x fem!reader
synopsis. When you catch your boyfriend of four years cheating on you on the day of your anniversary, your first reflex is to get black-out drunk by yourself at a bar near your place. There, you run into your colleague and close friend Heeseung, and together, you come up with a plan to get back at Sunghoon for what he did. But as you carry out your pranks with Heeseung, you realize that maybe, what they say about love is true - sometimes, it is right there in front of you, patiently waiting for you to recognize to it.
genre. f2l, coworkers au, mainly fluff and smut but also some angst, heeseung is crazy about reader and sunghoon is the asshole cheating ex
word count. 19.9k
a/n. you’re probably thinking why the hell is there a cat pic between the 2 heeseungs… just read further and it’ll make sense 😇 hello everyone and welcome back to another repost from my old blog bc i currently have no time to write something new.. maybe next week will be the first fic of the 100 kisses event! but no promises 🥰 anyways i really enjoyed going over this again so i hope y’all like it and as always pls lmk what u think ok bye love ya
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Park Sunghoon, that fucking bastard. You were going to kill him. If your hangover didn’t kill you first, that is.
You wake up with a pounding head and an unquenchable thirst, groaning at the awful sensations you knew you wouldn’t be able to get rid of for the whole day. But worse than the dry mouth and the ringing in your ears, you had a broken heart, and to your disappointment, the alcohol hadn’t managed to glue it back together. If anything, it had only deepened the cracks and made you drown in self-pity. You felt terrible physically but you also felt sorry for yourself: what had made you think drinking four bottles of soju to yourself and probably double as many cans of beer would help you get over your asshole of a now ex-boyfriend Park Sunghoon?
You manage to sit up on your bed, eyes half-open from the bright sunlight that your thin curtains failed to keep from entering the room. You realize you’re completely naked, which doesn’t surprise you as you have a habit of completely undressing and collapsing in bed after a night out, never bothered enough to put on some pajamas or take your makeup off. Your room looks the same as always, but there’s a scent in your bed which you can’t quite put your finger on. It’s familiar, yet it feels odd, smelling it here. You turn your head towards your bedside table and notice a watch that clearly isn’t yours lying there. You pick it up and examine it more closely: you’ve definitely seen it before, but on who?
You manage to sit up on your bed, eyes half-open from the bright sunlight that your thin curtains failed to keep from entering the room. You realize you’re completely naked, which doesn’t surprise you as you have a habit of completely undressing and collapsing in bed after a night out, never bothered enough to put on some pajamas or take your makeup off. Your room looks the same as always, but there’s a scent in your bed which you can’t quite put your finger on. It’s familiar, yet it feels odd, smelling it here. You turn your head towards your bedside table and notice a watch that clearly isn’t yours lying there. You pick it up and examine it more closely: you’ve definitely seen it before, but on who?
The small clockarms of the watch let you know it’s 7:46 a.m. - you have no time to give any more thought to who might be the owner of this watch. You scramble out of bed, not wanting to be any more late for work than you already are. As you wash your face and brush your teeth, you curse yourself for drinking yourself into oblivion on a Tuesday, of all nights. Now you were going to have to face the whole office with one of the worst hangovers you’d ever had in your seven years of legal drinking.
As you enter the office and walk to your desk, you feel your colleagues’ stares and pitiful looks. You check the time on your phone: you weren’t late, had somehow gotten lucky enough to arrive at 8:30 on the dot, so why were they looking at you like that? Was it the sunglasses? You’d worn them in hopes of hiding your tired, puffy eyes, but they were probably just making you more noticeable.
You sit down at your desk and hold your head in your hands for a few seconds, catching your breath from having run all the way from the bus stop to your office building, and mentally preparing yourself for the day ahead. When you raise your head, two of your colleagues are standing next to you, looking at you with sympathy in their eyes. Your eyebrows perk at the sight of them, and you’re wary of what they might be about to say.
One of them, Miyeon, sighs, and starts speaking first. “Y/N…” she sighs again. “We just wanted to let you know that we’re here for you. We’ve heard about… you know,” she says. You slowly nod and turn your head away from them. The realization that everyone knows about your breakup with Sunghoon hits you, and no matter how nice your coworkers are, right now, you just want to get as far away from them and their unwelcome pity as possible.
“What he did,” the other one, Yuqi, picks up, “is really terrible. You know how rumors travel fast here, and, well, we’ve all decided we wouldn’t talk to him unless it was work-related,” she says, and you try not to scoff. As if work wasn’t the only thing they talked to him about anyway. Still, you know it’s coming from a good place, so you muster a smile and thank them, saying you appreciate it. You hope they’re done and will leave, but they hover around your desk, so you turn your gaze back to them with a questioning look.
Miyeon puts her hand on your shoulder. “You know… this happened to me too, a few years back. I know how shit it feels, to have someone you love and you thought loved you cheat on you. If you ever need anything, I’m here,” she says, and you give her a small but genuine smile this time.
“Yeah, anything,” Yuqi chimes. “Whether you wanna talk about it, or get drunk,” and you try not to visibly cringe at the idea of alcohol, “or punch him, just call Miyeon or me. Or both of us. We’re menaces together,” she says, and the three of you laugh.
“Thanks, guys. I’m glad you’re here.”
As you watch them head back to their respective desks, you feel somebody else staring at you. When you meet eyes with Heeseung, his face perks up and he gives you a shy wave. You’ve known Heeseung for ages, having joined the company as interns and getting promoted to full-time employees at around the same time. You’ve seen that face and that smile almost everyday for the past four years now, yet today it feels different. He’s never waved shyly at you, as if he was excited yet embarrassed to see you. You don’t mean to frown at him, but you’re so confused about the sudden change in how you see him that you can’t help it. His hand drops and he awkwardly turns his gaze back to his computer. You keep staring at him, trying to recall something that might explain this shift in his behavior. It was fine yesterday at the office… Could it have happened after work?
You try to go through the events of the previous day one-by-one in your head. Wanting to prepare something special for your four-year anniversary with Sunghoon, you’d gotten off work a bit early, a skip in your step. But when you came face-to-face with him kissing another woman in one of the stairwells, you halted straight in your tracks. You’d just stared at each other for thirty seconds, one surprised they’d been caught, the other trying to figure out whether their eyes were deceiving them or not. Sure, your relationship with Sunghoon wasn’t always perfect, but you hadn’t thought it was so bad he’d need to go stuff his tongue down somebody’s else throat - and that at your shared workplace, too. It’s like he wasn’t even trying to hide it, like he wanted you to find out. The embarrassment and humiliation were almost worst than the pain and betrayal.
“Y/N…” he started, making you snap out of it and realize that yes, this was your boyfriend of four years you had just seen kissing another woman. You took a step back as he moved towards you, shaking your head in disbelief.
“Y/N,” he repeats, “I’m- Listen, this isn’t- Let me just explain-” he scrambled for an excuse, but nothing came out. There was no justification for this.
“Save it, Sunghoon,” you spat. “Whatever you have to say for yourself, I don’t wanna hear it.” You continued past him down the stairwell, ignoring his pleas for you to stay and hear him out.
“Y/N, please, just give me a minute to-”
“No, Sunghoon!” you almost screamed out, turning around to face him. “You can go fuck yourself.” You hadn’t let yourself cry in front of him, not wanting to appear more pitiful than you already felt. As soon as you got in your car, you burst into tears, gripping the steering wheel as you sobbed like a baby.
You shake your head at the fresh and painful memory, not wanting to dwell on it any further. You’ll probably feel like shit for the upcoming weeks or months, so you’ll have plenty of time to rehash the painful memory later on.
After that, everything is a bit of a blur. You remember managing to get yourself home without crashing your car despite your tear-induced fuzzy vision, then throwing your bag and coat somewhere on the floor and immediately opening a bottle of wine, gulping most of it down in a pathetically short amount of time. And that’s about it.
The overwhelming emotions you were feeling along with the fact that you hadn’t eaten anything since lunch that day made the alcohol go straight to your head, and you were drunk very quickly. Foggy bits of your night flash in your mind: picking up your stuff and heading out, sitting at the counter at the nearby bar, chatting animatedly with someone else. The memories are hazy and nothing is coming back to you precisely, no matter how hard you try to focus.
You realize you had been frowning at Heeseung the whole time you were recalling the evening’s events. He looks up at you and returns your frown, seemingly upset at the look you were giving him. You suddenly see his face in your mind, except the Heeseung you picture then is different from the one you see everyday. He’s still in his work clothes, but the tie has been discarded and the top buttons have been opened. He’s smiling lopsidedly at you, as if he too has a few drinks in his system.
That’s when it hits you: you were with Heeseung yesterday night. Your frown turns into a suspicious gaze, which he imitates, tilting his head to the side as he peers at you. You text him to meet you in the break room in five, hoping he could fill in the blanks. You desperately needed a coffee anyway.
In the break room, you gulp down a bottle of water while you wait for the coffee to be ready. Heeseung struts in a minute later, a smirk you’ve never seen before on his face. He’s heading straight towards you, and your eyes widen when he doesn’t stop at an appropriate distance from you, just keeps walking until he’s towering over you. He’s definitely acting weird today.
“Miss me already?” he says as he leans in close to you, making the small of your back hit the counter behind you. The sudden proximity with your friend makes your eyes go even wider. He’d never been so close before and you could smell his cologne on him, an oddly familiar scent.
“W-what?” you stutter out. Registering your confused face, Heeseung takes a quick step back and starts fiddling with his thumbs, avoiding your gaze. His demeanor is a total 180 from the one just a second ago, and the change gives you whiplash.
“Sorry, I just- I thought since last night, you know, you would maybe want me to, I don’t know- I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me…” he trips over his words, still not looking at you. You open your mouth to say something but nothing comes out, trying to make sense of the situation. You look down at his nervous hands and notice he’s not wearing the watch he usually has on everyday.
The watch, his scent, his strange awkward yet flirty behavior, the fact that you’d remembered seeing him last night… Everything is starting to piece together. You gesture between the two of you. “Last night… did we…?” you ask tentatively, hoping he’d get the message.
He looks up at you. “Do you not- do you not remember?” he says, disappointment in his voice.
You cover your mouth with both of your hands as you gasp in shock. How could you have hooked up with your friend and colleague of five years and not even remember it?
Heeseung’s head drops and he lets out a dejected scoff. “Guess you don’t.”
You take a step towards him as you raise your hands, trying to defend yourself. “No, no, I do, a little bit. It’s just all… very fuzzy,” you say, hoping it’ll make things a bit better. You clear your throat. “Could you, um, tell me what happened exactly last night? Might help me fill in the gaps.” You smile at him but he doesn’t return it; he just sighs.
“Sure,” he says, and you breathe out a sigh of relief. “You know Jake and Jay?” he asks, and you nod. You’d met Heeseung’s friends at a few parties he’d hosted. “Well, we were out drinking last night ‘cause Jay got promoted. When we got to this bar, I saw you drinking by yourself at the counter so I invited you to come and sit with us, and you said yes. You looked really upset, but you got so excited as soon as you saw us.”
A scene suddenly flashes in your mind. You were losing yourself in your thoughts as you sat alone at the bar, two empty bottles of soju in front of you. Your head that had been resting in your palm was about to slip and hit the counter when you felt a hand clasp your shoulder.
“Y/N!” a familiar voice shouted excitedly, and you turned your head to find Heeseung grinning at you. The sight of him brought an immediate smile to your face, and you got up to engulf him in a hug.
“Hey!” he called out again, and you said ‘hey’ back, your voice muffled from having your face buried in his neck. Had he always smelled this good?
You took a step back and greeted Jay and Jake, who waved back at you, smiling. “What are you doing here all alone?” Heeseung asked, and the alcohol stopped you from coming up with a lie.
“Sunghoon cheated on me,” you answered, pouting. Now that you weren’t sitting and didn’t have Heeseung to lean on, you were swaying a bit. The three boys looked between each other with shocked expressions on their faces, not expecting this to be the reason you were solo-drinking.
Jay and Jake looked at you with sad smiles, saying they were sorry you had to go through that. Heeseung, on the other hand, looked angry. A deep frown made his eyebrows crease as he shook his head. “What an asshole! He has no idea what he just lost,” he exclaimed. Then, putting his arm around you and leading you to another table, he added, “Let’s go, Y/N! Come and drink with us.”
You look at Heeseung standing in front of you in the break room and nod slowly. “Okay, I remember that. Then what?”
“Then we just talked and drank. Jay and Jake left around midnight, but we stayed until the bar closed. I don’t remember myself that well what we talked about, but we definitely talked about Sunghoon, that jerk.”
You cringe at the mention of your ex. “God,” you sigh, “I hope I didn’t cry or wallow or something embarrassing like that.”
“Nothing like that,” Heeseung says, a smile teasing his lips. “If anything, you were cursing his name. You told me about all the shit he did that annoyed you, like how he would always forget to buy the milk or how he got overly mad at you for putting the pots back in the wrong cupboard. You were absolutely enraged. And so was I, to be honest. Look,” he says, pulling out his phone, “we made a list of ways to get back at him.”
He hands you his phone, the Notes app open. You read it out loud.
“How to get back at Y/N’s ex, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Disclaimer: none of this can back-fire against Y/N, so they must be small things that will mess up his everyday life but can’t be traced back to her, i.e. no keying his car or TPing his place, as satisfying as those things would be.”
You let out a chuckle. “We really thought this through, didn’t we?”
Heeseung laughs as well. “Yeah, I’m not sure how we did that considering how drunk we were.”
You start reading the list, all of its boxes left unticked. “Go into his office and mess up his paperwork. Buy a bunch of keys on Amazon, write his phone number on them and lose them all over town. Change the labels on his shower products and hide his TV remote when Y/N hands him back his stuff. Make him regret what he did.”
You look up at Heeseung. “These are pretty good ideas, actually. He always needs everything to be super organized, so he would definitely freak out at some of these. And the keys one would just make anyone go insane,” you say with a chuckle.
Heeseung smiles at you. “I know we were drunk when we made this list, but I promised you I would help you get revenge on him. So, if you still want to do it, I’m down. I can’t lie, I really want to see him suffer the consequences for what he did.” You stare at Heeseung for a bit, grateful that he’s willing to help but perplexed as to why he would do it. What would he get from getting back at Sunghoon?
He watches as you stare at him, the left corner of his mouth lifting into a small smirk. The action is simple, but it makes your stomach flip. You blame it on the hangover.
“Let’s do it,” you say, trying to make the tension in the air dissipate. “Let’s make his life hell. For a short while at least. Just until I feel better.”
“Yeah?” Heeseung asks, raising his eyebrows in an amused manner.
“Yeah.” You guys high-five, laughing at the childishness of your plan.
His eyes don’t leave yours for a second and you don't think Heeseung’s ever held eye contact with you for such a long time - the way it makes you feel is too unfamiliar and you have to look away. After a small pause, you timidly ask, “By the way, did we- last night, did we actually, you know…”
“We didn’t,” he says, making you look up at him. “We almost did, but we were both so drunk that we kinda just… fell asleep mid-way.” You slowly nod your head, memories slowly coming back to you for what feels like the hundredth time today. “We made out. Naked. But we didn’t actually have sex,” he finishes, finally averting his gaze from yours.
You remember kissing Heeseung in front of the bar and then running with him to your building, laughing like teenagers, and heatedly making out in the elevator all the way to your apartment, then to your bedroom. You remember bursting into fits of laughter every now and then, the both of you so drunk that you couldn’t take what you were doing seriously. Everything made you laugh: the lipstick stain on his lips because of you, your mismatched underwear, how either of you could barely walk straight and fell on top of each other on your bed. You remember falling asleep, your face buried in the crook of his neck, both of his arms protectively wrapped around your waist.
“How come you weren’t there when I woke up?” you suddenly ask, remembering your empty bed that morning.
“I woke up really early, but you were sleeping so peacefully, I didn’t want to wake you up. I would’ve left a note but I couldn’t find a pen anywhere, so I just… left. Sorry about that,” he apologizes, his hand coming up to the nape of his neck.
“That’s alright,” you say, but you couldn’t help wondering what it would’ve felt like to wake up next to Heeseung. Probably better than what you woke up to this morning, you think.
You’re about to say something when you hear the door open, and Heeseung’s piercing gaze towards the person who just entered tells who it is before you’d even seen him. You turn around to find Sunghoon staring right at you, his eyes already pleading with you.
“Y/N,” he starts, but you cut him off immediately.
“I’ve already told you I don’t want to hear it, Sunghoon. You can save your breath.”
“Can you at least let me apologize, please?” he asks. You look at him, and you’d be lying if you said this didn’t hurt like a thousand little papercuts. You hadn’t let yourself feel anything since last night, preemptively drowning your emotions in alcohol. Now that your ex stands in front of you, trying to apologize, his betrayal and the end of your relationship hits you like a ton of bricks. And it doesn’t feel very nice.
“Did you not hear her? She said she doesn’t wanna hear it,” Heeseung steps in, but you take his wrist, not wanting the two of them to get into a fight at the office. Heeseung and Sunghoon had never liked each other, your friend deeming Sunghoon wasn’t good enough for you, and your boyfriend judging Heeseung and you were too close for friends.
“It’s alright, Heeseung. Just go back to work, I’ll see you later.” He stares at Sunghoon for another second and turns to you, clearly not wanting to leave you alone with him. You mouth a ‘please’, and he reluctantly walks away. Before he can leave the room, though, he turns back around and says, “Oh, by the way, I think I left my watch at your place. Could you give it to me tomorrow?”
You pivot towards him with wide eyes, cursing him for mentioning it in front of Sunghoon, but he’s not even looking at you. He’s staring right at your ex-boyfriend, clearly having said this just to rile him up. You stutter out a ‘yes’ and Sunghoon starts towards him but you stop him before he can get to Heeseung. The latter finally leaves, a victorious smirk on his face.
Sunghoon’s eyes, who were apologetic just a minute ago, are now burning with anger. “What the hell, Y/N?! Is this your way of getting back at me or something? Getting into bed with the first guy who throws himself at you?”
You glare at Sunghoon, in absolute disbelief at his words. You want to scream, pull out his hair, kick him in the shins, but above all that, you want him to apologize - even though you have no intention of accepting his apology whatsoever. So you close your eyes, breathe out through your nose, and say, “I thought you were here to apologize, Sunghoon.” You open your eyes to see him still visibly angry but trying to stay calm like you. When he doesn’t say anything for a few moments, you add, “For your information, Heeseung and I did not have sex. And even if we did, you lost the right to get mad at me when you slept with somebody else while in a relationship with me. Just say you’re sorry, and leave me the hell alone.”
Sunghoon looks at you, appearing somewhat baffled by how calmly you’re taking things. You were usually sensitive and reacted emotionally and your serenity was throwing him off. He had always been the cool and collected one in your relationship, not you. He doesn’t like this sudden shift in your attitude, and he doesn’t like the fact that Heeseung thinks he can have you now. “You know what? I was going to apologize, because I know what I did was wrong, but I don’t want to anymore. I guess Heeseung was glad you were rid of me so he could finally fuck you, huh?” You flinched at his loud voice and prayed no one else could hear your conversation.
“I just told you we didn’t have sex!” you whisper-shout back. Thankfully, he takes on the same volume as you.
“Then why is his fucking watch at your place?”
“That’s none of your fucking business anymore!”
Sunghoon and you just stare at each other for a few moments, and you fight back the tears pooling in your eyes. You’ve cried a hundred times in front of Sunghoon, and you want him to feel bad for how much he hurt you, but for some reason, it feels like crying in front of him would be giving in. It would be saying, You wanted to hurt me and you did. You wanted me to hate you and now I do.
“Just leave, Sunghoon, please,” you say, voice weak. It takes all you have not to fall to your knees and bawl your eyes out in this break room. Sunghoon calls out your name, and his voice is much softer than it was seconds ago, as if he finally realised just how much he’d fucked up.
You look up at him and a single tear rolls down your cheek. “Please, Sunghoon. Leave.” He opens his mouth and closes it again twice, lost as to what to say anymore. Finally, he just leaves silently, and you’re immensely disappointed but not in the least surprised. You’d always fought for your relationship, fixed things when they had gone wrong, apologized first after a fight even when it wasn’t your fault, and Sunghoonhad never returned your commitment more than half-heartedly. You’d foolishly hoped that maybe, this time, after such a big mess, he’d want to make things better.
You watch him walk away, taking a moment to gather yourself in the break room. When you finally muster the courage to leave the room and go back to your desk, you almost walk past Heeseung who had been waiting right outside the room this entire time. A worried look in his eyes, he asks if you’re okay.
“Let’s ruin this asshole’s life,” you say, and Heeseung grins at you.
That day at lunch, you and Heeseung start scheming. Hunched over your pasta salad, you discuss the first step of your evil plan, namely, ‘go into his office and mess up his paperwork.’
“Easy. We sneak in there when everybody’s left, and we fuck his shit up,” Heeseung says, stealing some of your lunch.
“What if somebody is working late?” you ask, nudging his fork away with your own.
“Well we’re not gonna barge in there. We’ll check that the room is empty.”
You hum. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
Heeseung looks up at you, registering your hesitant expression. “What? Already deflating?” he asks, a grin on his face. “C’mon, Y/N. It’ll be harmless fun… mainly.”
You meet his eyes and let yourself be convinced again. You lean in a bit closer, and he mirrors your action. “If we do this, we have to be subtle about it. We can’t just throw his papers all over the place, that’ll be too obvious and he’ll probably figure out I did it.” Heeseung nods his head, urging you to go on. “We need to put some files in the wrong folders, hide his color-coded post-its, exchange the lids on his pens, that kind of stuff. It’ll make him go crazy.” You bite down on your lip, trying to suppress your excited grin, but you can’t help it. All these years, you’d been subjected to Sunghoon’s obsession with having things neat and in order, no matter how tedious it was. The idea of him freaking out over a stapler in the bottom drawer instead of the top one brings a smile to your face, even though you know how petty such a prank was.
Some colleagues join you at the table, and you spend the rest of lunch chatting about work and making small talk. All throughout the afternoon, Heeseung and you exchange sneaky glances and giggle at the eye contact, both filled with childish excitement for your evening plans.
Eventually, your colleagues start trickling out, and by 7 p.m., only you and Heeseung are left. He joins you at your desk and tries to distract you from your work for half an hour, making stupid jokes and pointing at non-existent faults in your files. You think he must be starting to be bored out of his mind when he starts humming to ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’, so you pack away your stuff, shut your computer and announce it is time for the prank. He jumps up from his seat with a huge grin, shouting out, ‘Let’s go!’ before marching out of the office. You watch him go with an endeared smile, shaking your head at his antics.
You walk side by side towards Sunghoon’s office, looking around to make sure you don’t walk past anyone on your way there. The whole floor seems to be empty, and you get there without being noticed. You enter his office, the both of you tip-toeing to Sunghoon’s desk for dramatic effect, but quickly burst into a fit of giggles when you realize how stupid you must look. Lucky for you, everybody’s already left: every seat is empty and the lights are off, the whole office basking in the glow of the moon.
Heeseung lets out a low whistle upon seeing Sunghoon’s desk. As you’d described, it is very neatly arranged, to a point that it seems almost obsessive. Every load of paper is stacked so perfectly into place that if you peered at it from above it would look like there was only one sheet of paper, each pencil has been freshly sharpened, and he’s got three to-do lists (a daily one, a weekly one and a monthly one) on color-coded post-its. There isn’t a thing out of place.
“God, was he as much of a control freak in your relationship as he is at work?” Heeseung muses, peering in horror at your ex’s desk.
You can’t help but laugh at the comment, even though the truth behind it almost makes you wince. “Yeah, he kinda was. He would decide on every little thing we did, whether it was what we ate that night or how I should organize the cutlery drawer in my apartment.”
Without missing a beat, he deadpans, “How could he. Everyone knows you should never mess with someone’s cutlery drawer.”
You look at each other for a second, and you weren’t sure whether he was being serious or not; but when you see a small smile appearing on his face, the both of you dissolve into laughter at his stupid joke. Maybe the adrenaline of what you’re doing is also part of the reason why it takes you a few moments to calm down, but when you do, it hits you that you haven't laughed so much in a long time. Heeseung and you have been good friends for a while, and you’ve always known he was funny; but spending more time with him makes you realize just how giggly he makes you.
The realization fills your heart with warmth but you don’t want him to notice the growing blush on your cheeks, so you turn towards the desk, pretending to analyze its contents some more. You take a long look at it and decide where you should start.
You pick up the sheet of paper at the top of the neat stack on the desk and place it randomly somewhere in the pile. Heeseung snorts at the seemingly insignificant action and you can’t help but think it’s ridiculous as well, but you know it’ll strike a nerve in Sunghoon.
He joins you closer to the desk and starts picking up random objects only to move them by an inch or placing them in one of the drawers. You do all the things you said you would: exchange the pen lids so that he’d take a red pen thinking it was a black one, stick his post-its underneath the desk like schoolkids do with used chewing-gums, and slightly mess up his files. Neither of you can stop laughing at how ridiculous you’re both being; you thought you had this great idea for a prank, but here you are, hiding a pencil sharpener. When Heeseung simply flips over Sunghoon’s pencils so that they are eraser-up rather than tip-up, you hit your limit of stupid things you could do. You burst out laughing, bent over and clutching your stomach. Heeseung can’t help but follow you in your laughter, loving how much you’re enjoying this prank.
You’re barely catching your breath when you see the light from a flashlight appear at the door and you hurriedly grab Heeseung’s wrists, bringing him down with you to hide underneath the desk. You hear footsteps approaching, soon followed by a booming voice: “Hello? Is anyone here?”
It’s the security guard - either he’s doing his regular night rounds, or he’s heard the ruckus you and Heeseung are causing. You hear him mutter something under his breath, but quickly enough, he walks away. When you hear the door close behind him, you release a breath you’d been holding for way too long, and the feeling of your nervousness dissipating all at once makes you let out a laugh. You meet Heeseung’s eyes only to find him staring back at you with wide eyes, and that’s when the reality of the position you’re currently in hits you.
You’ve still got a tight grasp on his wrists and you’re holding them up to your chest, so that the two of you are sitting face-to-face, crammed close together under the desk. You realize just how close he is when he releases a shaky breath and you can feel it fan on your lips. Your heart starts to pound at the proximity, and with how close he is you’re scared he might hear it. His eyes drift down to your lips and you feel panic bubbling inside of you: what if he actually tried to kiss you?
You hastily release his wrists and try to get up from under the desk, but you’re so distraught that your head hits it, making you yelp out in pain.
“Y/N! Are you okay?” Heeseung asks, emergency in his tone, and he immediately wraps his arms around your shoulders to stabilize you.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, it was just a small whack,” you say, even though you feel a bit dizzy, which you prefer to think is because you hit your head rather than because of Heeseung’s gaze mere moments ago.
“That sounded like more than a small whack. C’mon, let’s go get something cold for that, you’ll get a bump on your head otherwise.” He gets up and extends his hand out to you to help you do the same, and you stupidly stare at it for a few seconds before finally taking it. He guides you to the elevator, and there he lets go of your hand to put an arm around you. You don’t have the heart to tell him you can stand up on your own. You garner a few weird looks from the security staff as you leave the office building, but ignore them and hurriedly walk to the convenience store across the street.
“Sit down here, I’ll go get something for your head.” He sits you down on the little stairs in front of the store and puts his jacket over your shoulders, heading inside before you can protest. He’s back in less than five minutes, a pack of frozen peas and two ice cream cones in his hand.
“I saw these next to the peas and I couldn’t help myself,” he says with a sheepish smile. “Chocolate or vanilla?”
He was holding up the two cones in front of his face, waiting for you to choose. Your heart skips a beat at the simple but sweet gesture; when buying food, Sunghoon would never ask for your preferences, assuming you’d want the same as him.
You take the frozen peas and the vanilla ice cream, thanking him in a small voice. The cold of the peas immediately appeases the pain and the ice cream tastes sweeter than usual. The two of you sit in silence for a while, occasionally humming and swinging in rhythm to the music playing in the convenience store. In this moment, you feel oddly peaceful.
From your side view, you notice Heeseung turning his head to look at you. You mirror his action and find an amused glint in his eyes. “Are you satisfied with our work?” he asks.
You look ahead of you, thinking for a small moment. The adrenaline of doing the prank has worn off, and you try to see how you feel now that it’s over. “Yeah. I think I am,” you say, turning to look at him again. You’re no stranger to Heeseung’s features: you’ve seen him almost everyday for the past four years of your life. When you close your eyes, you can easily picture his face, his eyes, his smile in your mind. Not that you’ve made particular notes of his habits, but you know how his eyes crease at the corners when he laughs really hard and how he seems to unconsciously raise one of his eyebrows when he talks about something he’s interested in.
But tonight, he looks different. You don’t know if it’s because of the way he’s looking at you or if it’s how the LED lights of the store sign are hitting him perfectly, making him look like he comes straight from a rom-com, but somehow, right now, you’re not looking at your colleague Heeseung. You’re looking at your friend Heeseung, the one who agreed to help you get revenge on your ex, the one who got you a pack of frozen peas for your insignificant injury, the one who shivered at your touch and looked at your lips not fifteen minutes ago. You find yourself wondering what it would’ve been like if he’d actually leaned in to kiss you. Would his lips be as soft as they look?
You shake your head, trying to rid your mind of such thoughts: your break-up was not even a week ago and you were in no state to get back into a relationship so quickly. It wouldn’t end well for either of you. So you turned away from him, escaping his gaze that made you feel too many things you didn’t have the strength to understand.
Heeseung nudges your shoulder with his. “I hope it makes you feel better knowing that he’ll get to the office with an unorganized desk tomorrow morning.”
You chuckle, but the mention of Sunghoon still makes your heart sting. Nothing you do will ever be enough to hurt him like he hurt you, but you don’t see much point trying to do that, anyway. Making his life a bit worse for a while will have to do. “It does,” you simply say, not wanting to dive into complicated emotional territory. You were thankful enough that Heeseung had helped you out tonight, you didn’t want to put your baggage on his shoulders as well.
When you’re both done with your ice creams and your head feels better, you decide to call it a night and head to the building parking lot together. Your cars aren’t parked on the same level, but Heeseung insists on walking you to yours first. You hug him goodbye, and you intend it to be a short hug, but he snakes his arms around your waist, bringing you close to him. You’re a bit taken aback at first, but his scent is comforting and you wrap your arms around his neck, grateful for the warm hug.
“Thanks for tonight, Heeseung. Really,” you say, voice a bit muffled from having your face buried in his shoulder.
“Of course, Y/N, anytime.” You don’t really want to pull away, but you also don’t want things to get awkward if the hug lasts too long, so you lean back, hiding your disappointment at the loss of warmth. You fumble around your bag for your keys and hold them up with an embarrassed chuckle when you finally find them. Heeseung is looking at you with a sweet smile and you curse your damn heart for pounding so foolishly, body and brain at odds with each other. With a last quick ‘bye’, you get into your car, wave him goodbye, and drive away, releasing a shaky breath.
You see Heeseung in your rearview mirror, hands in his pockets, looking at his feet as he kicks a pebble on the ground, and you think you even see a grin on his face.
You smile the whole way home.
Heeseung pours himself a cold, well-deserved beer as soon as he gets home. He flops down on an armchair in his living room, not even bothering to turn the lights on; the faint glow of the streetlights outside will have to suffice. He unbuttons the top of his shirt and undoes his belt, getting himself more comfortable.
You haven’t been off his mind for a second since you parted ways half an hour ago. To be fair, you haven’t been off his mind much since you too met way back when. He can still picture you, four years ago, as a fellow fresh intern, your curious eyes and polite manners he’d found so endearing. The both of you were often tasked to work on projects together, and he’d admired your drive, hard work and attention to detail since the beginning. But then he’d started to notice other things than your professionalism, like how you’d frown when you really liked the food you were eating or how your lips would form a straight line when you tried to not laugh at his stupid jokes. He’d quickly started to make those jokes just in hopes of seeing your cute attempt at hiding a smile or, even better, hearing your laugh. He’d ignored the swelling in his heart and the sweat in his palms every time he saw you as long as he could, until he realized he shouldn’t have ignored them. He’d convinced himself he wasn’t jealous of the way your whole face perked up whenever Sunghoon entered the room, but when you told him you were officially dating that asshole, and how completely smitten with him you looked, he couldn’t deny it anymore. Heeseung had the stupidest, fattest, most unachievable crush on you.
He’d had to see you experience your highest highs and your lowest lows with Sunghoon, even though he knew you always tried to keep your relationship problems at home and not bring them in the office. He’d tried to be as good a friend as he could, never letting onto his feelings for you. If he couldn’t have you the way he wanted, he’d settle for being what you wanted him to be.
When he found out what Sunghoon had done, he was angry beyond words. He wanted to punch that jerk, but more than that, he wanted to make you feel better. So that night, he let you drink as much as you needed, he made you laugh as hard as he could, he agreed to your revenge plan, and when, outside of the bar, you drunkenly pressed your lips to his, he let you. He let you take him home, and take off his shirt, and he’d be lying if he said he was only doing it for you; he has dreamt of your hands on him for the longest time now, but he didn’t want for it to happen like this. So he easily got you to stop and fall asleep before you could do anything you’d regret the next morning.
When he woke up next to you, he felt his heart longing for something that is so close and yet so far out of reach. He softly tucked a few strands of hair behind your ear, making you whimper in your sleep, and it took everything in him not to hold you in his arms as hard as he could right there and then. But he didn’t want to wake you up, and he didn’t think he wanted to be there when you woke up either; he wouldn't know what to say, how to explain his presence. He wanted a few hours to think and talk to you in the office later.
We all know what happened after that.
Now, he doesn’t know whether he’s inching towards his goal or he’s fucked everything up. He can tell you’re behaving differently around him; he’s noted everything about you, so of course he’d notice as soon as something changes with you. He hoped it wasn't creepy that he complimented your haircuts every time you got one without you telling him first.
He thought everything between you might have been ruined when you banged your head on the desk in shock when he looked at your lips, but your little moment in front of the convenience store and in the parking lot made him hopeful that your friendship might shift into something more. He knows you’ve too recently broken up with Sunghoon to be ready for a new relationship, and he’s waited four years, so he can wait a few months more; but he also wants to make sure you won’t go anywhere else now that he has a chance. He doesn’t think he could forgive himself if he let you go again.
The next day at work, you hear gossip going around the office about an apparent ‘tantrum’ that Sunghoon threw upon arriving at his desk. He was going on and on about his post-its being gone, his pens and pencils being all messed up and his files being disorganized. Everybody thought he was crazy, though, because his desk looked just as neat as usual. You and Heeseung exchange a knowing look, and you’re quite proud that it had the effect you had hoped for.
You don’t talk about doing another prank until the next Friday; you do want to do another one, but you think it’s best to not have them too close together, and you’re not sure if Heeseung wants to help you with it. You make a note to mention it to him after the weekend.
As you’re about to leave work, Miyeon and Yuqi enthusiastically step towards you, wide grins on their faces. “Y/N!” Yuqi calls out, making you stop in your tracks.
“Hey, guys! What’s up?” you said, sensing what was coming. They exchange a look before looking back at you.
“Come get drinks with us, please!” Miyeon says, and before you can protest, she adds, “we know you’ve had a tough week, but we think it’d be a good idea for you to get your mind off of things!”
You smile a bit sadly at them, genuinely appreciating their concern but wanting to spend a nice, quiet evening alone.
“No. Nope, don’t give us that look, it means you want to say no,” Yuqi scolds.
You sigh and say, “I’m really sorry, guys. Thank you so much for the offer, and I promise we’ll go out together soon, but I don’t think I can tonight.”
They sigh as well and take turns hugging you, Miyeon saying, “That’s alright, we did expect it a bit.” They start walking out of the office, but not without Miyeon pointing at you with her finger, adding, “But you better keep that promise!”
“I will!” you reply, watching them leave with a smile. You follow soon after and drive back home, looking forward to a tranquil night in.
And it is, until you hear a knock on your front door around 8 p.m. You haven’t ordered any takeout, so who could it be? You’re only wearing a tiny tank top and pair of shorts, so you quickly grab a sweatshirt to cover your figure and open the door. Heeseung is standing there, holding up an Amazon delivery packet in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other.
“Evening!” he beams down at you.
“H-heeseung? What are you doing here?” you ask, stepping to the side so he can come in.
He hands you his things as he enters, then takes off his shoes and jacket. “Well, I overheard at the office earlier that you weren’t going out tonight, and I thought it’d be nice to keep you company.” He notices your surprised face and immediately his eyes widen, stammering, “Oh God, that’s so rude of me, I just completely invited myself over, I’m so sorry, Y/N, I’ll leave-”
He tries to take back the packet and the bottle from you but you just giggle at his antics, reassuring him that it’s fine and that he’s more welcome to stay. “I said no to the girls because as sweet as they are, it’d be socially draining to spend the evening with them. It’ll be fine with you,” you said, not realizing how true the words were until they were out of your mouth. Being around Heeseung was effortless, you could just be yourself without having to worry about the clever thing to say or tip-toe around certain subjects.
He grins at you and you try to ignore how pretty his smile is. “I’m glad to know that.”
You tell Heeseung to go sit down in the living room while you go get two wine glasses. When you see him sitting on your sofa, something weird but not entirely uncomfortable settles in your chest. He’s been to your apartment a few times before, for office party after-drinks or for projects with other colleagues, but he’s never been by himself (well, except for Tuesday, but that doesn’t count, you tell yourself), and you’re not unaware of the implications of having an attractive man alone at your place and drinking wine with him.
“What’s in the Amazon bag?” you ask as you put the glasses on the coffee table and start pouring you both a drink.
“Something you’ll be very happy to see,” he says with a wiggle of his eyebrows. He opens up the packet to reveal a plastic bag full of keys with a “Ta-da!”. Each key has an unmarked keychain tied to it, and you remember your plan: buy a bunch of keys on Amazon, put his phone number on them and lose them all over town.
You start nodding fervently, a huge smile on your face. “Yes! Part two of the plan shall commence,” you say, and you hand him his glass so you can clink them together. But before that, he raises his hand, looking at you solemnly.
“I’d like to propose a toast,” he starts, making you snort at his fake pompous tone, “to you, Y/N, for not letting that asshole bring you down and still being the coolest person I know.”
You giggle as you clink your glasses with a cheers. You’re surprisingly touched by his words, but you don’t wanna turn the atmosphere all emotional and mushy, so instead, you tease, “I’m the coolest person you know? The people you hang out with must not be very cool then.” You look up at him from your drink with a mischievous smirk, and if you had any idea of the way that look made him feel, you’d probably be blushing hard.
“They are cool,” he insists, “just not as cool as you.” He stares back at you with that glint you can never figure out in his eyes, and it’s too much after five seconds so you look away with a huff.
“Whatever, let’s just get to work.” You go get two pens and plop back down in front of Heeseung, letting the keys spill from the bag onto the couch. The two of you chat and sip on wine while you write down Sunghoon’s phone number on a hundred keys each. He tells you about how he met Jay and Jake in freshman year of college and how they’ve somehow stuck together all this time no matter their differences, and you tell him about your childhood friends you only see when you go home from time to time but often keep in contact with. He brags about his karaoke skills and you make him promise to show you one day; he agrees in an instant. You say you’ve been thinking about getting a cat now that Sunghoon’s not around to complain about his allergy and ‘the mess it would make anyway,’ and Heeseung offers to come and choose one with you at the pet shelter. It’s such a nice thing to do, you think, and you try not to suffocate as your heart grows three times its size.
“Thanks, Heeseung. I’d really like that, actually,” you say, and if he notices that your eyes have teared up a bit, he doesn’t say anything.
“How are you, by the way?” he asks after a few moments of silence. “And don’t give me that bullshit you give everyone at the office. Tell me how you’ve been, really.”
You sigh deeply, willing your heart to get back to its normal size. “I tell everyone I’m fine because it’s so much easier and faster than the truth. I’m not sure how I am, to be honest.” You look up at him and his eyes softly tell you to keep going. “Sometimes I feel like there’s been a weight lifted off my chest and sometimes I feel like I’m gonna crumble under it all. I knew my relationship with Sunghoon was bound to end; we were both obviously getting tired of each other. This might be TMI, but we only had sex like once or twice a month towards the end, like an old married couple,” you say, chuckling a bit awkwardly. You could just blame it on the alcohol. Heeseung lowers his head so you wouldn’t see the blush creeping on his cheeks at the idea of sex with you.
“I think we lost feelings for each other a while ago, but it was easier staying in a fading relationship until we actually had a tangible reason to break up. Guess he provided that for us,” you say with a dry chuckle. “But in a way I’m happy it ended badly, because if we’d broken up amicably, I’m scared I might have had moments where I doubted whether it was the right decision or not. Now I know I’ll never go back to him.”
You wouldn’t go back to Sunghoon - Heeseung hopes you don’t hear his shaky intake of breath at that news. He doesn’t say anything, so you keep going.
“I think I’ve realized that ifI’m upset, it’s because of how humiliating what happened is, not because it actually happened. Does that make sense?” you ask, looking up at Heeseung.
He nods. “Yeah, I think it does. It’s just cowardly, isn’t it? If he wanted a reason to break up, there are a thousand more respectful ways to do it. Talking about it, for one.”
“Exactly. Which I think is why I want to do all this,” you gesture at the keys in front of you, “if I was actually sad because I lost him, I’d just be a crying mess right now. But I just want to piss him off, make him feel some kind of repercussions for what he did. He’s not a suspicious person originally, but I’d love it if this made him think he was being punished by the Gods or something.”
As Heeseung and you continue talking, you both keep shifting in your seats so that you end up cross-legged, facing each other and knees touching. You try not to pay it too much mind but it feels like all the heat in your body has gone to the spot you’re touching and you wonder if it would feel this warm if you touched him anywhere else.
After another thirty minutes, you’re done filling in all the keys and put them back in the bag to spread all over town the next day. Heeseung agrees to a movie, so you prepare some snacks as he gets the movie ready on your TV. When you come back in the living room, he’s got a blanket wrapped around him, lifting it and tapping the seat next to him when he sees you. Your heart melts like ice cream in the sun at the sight, and you curse it for doing so many weird things tonight.
The movie is a rom-com you’ve seen a thousand times, so you use that excuse to focus your attention on the man next to you rather than what’s playing on the TV. You’re scooted close enough to him so that your sides are touching, and your theory from earlier turns out to be true: it feels hot in all the spots your bodies come into contact. You want to fall into him because somehow, you trust him enough to catch you. You settle for resting your head on his shoulder, and his arm comes immediately around you as if he’d been waiting for you to make a move. He starts to rub gentle circles on your shoulder with his thumb and your whole body relaxes under his touch.
You turn your body towards his, and you hesitate for a few minutes because you’re afraid he might hate it but his soft caresses tell you it’s okay, so you shyly put your legs over his lap, your arms coming up to wrap themselves around his neck. “Is this too much?,” you mumble and he tries not to shiver at the feeling of your lips moving against his neck. You’ve been longing to have someone close for months now, but all your attempts at giving Sunghoon your love had been turned down so coldly that you were fearful to try it with anyone else.
“No, no, not at all. You could never be too much, Y/N,” he mumbles into your hair, and your heart races (because it just won’t settle down, tonight) at his words. You don’t think too much about it, though, otherwise your brain might short-circuit.
When you feel your eyelids getting heavy, you gather the strength to say, “I‘m getting sleepy, Hee,” the nickname leaving your lips before you can stop it.
“That’s alright, you can fall asleep,” he whispers back, and drifting off to sleep wrapped up in his arms feels like being in a cloud.
The next morning, the sunrise drowns your living room in warm yellow light, and the brightness wakes you up. Your eyes flutter open and you find yourself pressed to Heeseung’s chest. You can feel his heart quietly beating against your cheek and the sound of his soft snores fills the silence in the room. So this is what it feels like to wake up next to Heeseung, you think, and you really like it.
You lean back very slightly to raise your head and get a better look at him. His mouth is wide open, and there’s a small pool of saliva at the corner of his lips, but you’ve never found him more adorable. You suppress a giggle at his cute state and bury your head back into his chest, hugging him a bit tighter. You’re not sure whether you should do this or jump away from him, but the first option feels right. Plus, if you fell asleep like this, he surely wouldn’t mind waking up the same way, right?
Heeseung feels so warm in your arms. Now that you’re awake, you’re having a bit of a hard time staying still. You hike your body up his a little bit, intertwining your legs even more, and engulf your face in the crook of his neck. You take in his scent and it’s almost dizzying. His cologne has practically worn off even though hints of it are still there, but it’s the smell of his skin that makes your mind cloud. It should feel odd, being in such an intimate position with someone you’ve considered a friend and colleague for so many years, but it’s somehow comforting. You smile into his neck, nuzzling your nose a bit further into it.
He squirms a little in his sleep, and he tightens his grip around your waist so that instead of having his arms loosely wrapped around you, he’s now holding you closer to him. He lets out a low hum as he slowly stirs from his sleep and the sound makes your stomach flip. You sigh into his neck and feel him shiver at the feeling. You start rubbing his back and he hums again. “Are you awake?” you murmur softly, lips moving against his skin.
“Mh-hm,” he sleepily replies, slipping his warm hands underneath your shirt. Goosebumps appear where he touches you but your skin is on fire. As your breath gets quicker, you feel something you haven’t felt in a long time bubble in your stomach: need. Right now, you need Heeseung. His hands on you and the proximity of your bodies are intoxicating, but you need more.
The feeling is overwhelming and you don’t know what to do with it; you feel it in the tips of your toes and the palms of your hands, and it makes your head spin. You bring yourself somehow even closer to him and you bury your whole face in his neck, desperate for something, anything, and you hope he gets what you’re trying to convey.
His hands that were resting on the low of your back ride up against your shirt, exposing your back to the cold air. You exhale at his touch, squirming and biting back a whimper when his hands trace the line of your waist, making you arch your back and bringing your chest closer to his. He likes how sensitive you are and caresses you along your sides so he can hear you whine because of him. He’s just touching your back, but it’s sending you into a frenzy, and you can feel wetness pool between your legs and the knot in your stomach get tighter. You hear his breath hitch when you press a soft kiss right underneath his jaw.
“Y/N…” he breathes out, and the thought that he might want you as much as you want him right now makes you double down on your ministrations. Oh, if only you knew. If only you knew how long he’d been waiting for this, and how he thought he might be dreaming it all, not believing that he was actually holding you right now and that he could feel your lips on him.
Your soft kisses turn hungrier and sloppier, and soon you’re leaving wet marks all over his neck and jaw. His hands snake down to your ass, grabbing it tightly as he brings your crotch down onto his, and the friction makes you mewl. You untangle your leg from between his to hook it over his hips so you can feel his growing erection against you even more. As you grind against each other, you’re both breathing and moaning loudly, and his needy whimpers make your brain draw a blank. Keeping one hand on your ass, the other comes up to cup your jaw, making you look up at him, and he kisses you ravenously, tongues meeting in a desperate clash. You moan into the kiss as your hips rock together, his erection rubbing perfectly against your core. You pull back to catch your breath, but keep your lips close together so that you’re breathing each other’s air, making you feel dizzy with pleasure and want. You rake your hands through his hair, tugging at the strands, and he breathes out a curse at the feeling. He dips his hand under your shirt, tracing the outline of your breast with the knob of one of his fingers before playing with your nipple, softly twisting it between his digits.
“Fuck, Heeseung,” you moan, “that feels so good.” Your mind is completely blank, overwhelmed with the intense pleasure you’re feeling, and you feel like you might cum without him even touching you down there at all. “How does it feel so good?”
“I don’t know, Y/N. I don’t know either,” he purrs in your ear. “I think I might cum in my pants like a fucking fifteen year old,” he says, and you choke out a laugh.
“Me too. It just feels so fucking good.” As you utter those words, the knot in your stomach starts to get tighter and tighter, and you feel it might break apart anytime now. “Fuck, Heeseung, I think I’m gonna cum. I can’t cum like this, fuck, it just feels too good.”
Heeseung presses his fingers into your hips, surely leaving marks for you to find later there, bringing you even harder down even harder against his clothed cock, and you whine out at the feeling. “Please, please cum for me, Y/N. It’s okay. Please cum for me,” he begs, and his words send you over the edge. The knot breaks as your orgasm ripples through you, making you moan out a string of curses and Heeseung’s name. He doesn’t stop for a second, desperately chasing his own high and slightly overstimulating you.
“Say my name again, please.”
“Hee- fuck, Heeseung, you cum too, baby,” you stutter, unable to bite back the moans that escape your lips as he continues rutting into you. He brings his forehead to yours, resting them against each other. You kiss him all over his face. “Heeseung, fuck, baby, cum for me.” With one final thrust, his movements still, pleasure written all over his face as he shoots out his release, making a mess all over himself. You kiss him softly on the lips as he comes down from his high, the both of you catching your breaths.
You meet his gaze and burst into a fit of laughter, him following soon after. “Fuck, what was that?” you ask between giggles.
He rakes a hand through his hair then covers his eyes with forearm, grinning from ear to ear. “I don’t know, but it was fucking amazing.”
The two of you stay there for a few moments, arms around each other, basking in the sensation of your orgasms, and you can’t stop smiling. After a few minutes, Heeseung breaks the comfortable silence.
“As much as I’d love to stay like this for hours, I’m really sticky now,” he says with a laugh. “Shall we go get cleaned up?” he asks, a tempting glint in his eyes.
“Sure,” you reply, smiling at him. “Head first, I’ll join you in a minute.”
Heeseung nods, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead before heading off to the bathroom. You lay there, closing your eyes as you try to make sense of what just happened. You and Heeseung had just gotten off on each other, and it had felt damn good. You wanted more of him; all of the cells in your body were screaming at you to get up and follow him into the shower. But it was also so confusing: you broke up with Sunghoon just a couple weeks ago, and here you were, lusting after your co-worker and friend. You aren’t blind, you’ve always known that Heeseung is an attractive man, but the sudden change in the way you see him these past few days makes you dizzy. Whatever this is, you don’t want it to be because you suddenly feel free and jump at the first man in sight or because you need someone to fill a Sunghoon-shaped hole in your heart. You don’t think it is, but you also don’t fully trust yourself to have your head screwed on right at the moment. All you know is Heeseung deserves better than being someone’s rebound, and you’re scared you won’t be able to give him what he should have.
The sound of the shower turning on wakes you from your thoughts and you get up from the couch, joining Heeseung in the bathroom. Your breath hitches in your throat at the sight of him in all his naked glory. He’s standing back to you as he lets the water run over his head and down his toned back, and you try not to gawk at the muscles there. You want to trace the outline of them with your fingers, you want to feel his shoulder blades move underneath your hands, you want to press kisses down along his spine, you want to see goosebumps on his soft skin at your touch. You want him. But you also don’t want to hurt him.
So for now, you take your clothes off and join him under the hot water that’s already started to fog up the mirror and the glass walls of the shower. He lets out a soft gasp when you place your hands on his waist and he turns around to look at you. He looks just as perfect from the front as he does from behind.
“Hi,” he says quietly, smiling down at you.
“Hi,” you say back, roaming your thumbs over his sides. He leans down to trap your lips in a kiss, and you let him, even wrapping your arms around his neck to bring him closer. You open your mouth for him when he traces your bottom lip with his tongue, and you only pull away when the both of you are breathless.
You look down to see that he’s gotten hard again and you both laugh at the sight. “Sorry. Can’t really help it,” he says, grinning. You shake your head and give him a peck on the lips. He could probably slip right in, with how wet you were, but there was a line between you two that you were a step away from crossing, and you didn’t know if you should or not.
“Heeseung,” you call, holding his face in your hands. He hums in response, closing his eyes and leaning into your touch, and your heart feels heavy with unexplainable emotions.
“I’m scared,” you say honestly. He opens his eyes again at your words and his hands come up to cover yours, intertwining your fingers together as he brings your arms down so that they’re hanging at your sides.
“Of what?”
“Of this. Of all the things you’re making me feel that I shouldn’t be feeling right now.” You drop your head, not wanting to see the potential disappointment on his face, but he takes your chin in his hand to bring it back up. The look he gives you makes you feel more naked than your actual lack of clothes.
“Why shouldn’t you be feeling them?” he asks, eyebrows slightly furrowed. You get the sense that he’s not upset at you, however, just genuinely confused. “Because you just got out of a relationship?” he asks, and you nod. “But didn’t you say you lost feelings for him months ago?”
“I did, but it’s still a shock, breaking up after four years of being with someone. I don’t wanna string you along.”
“Y/N, you could drag me through dirt and I’d thank you. I’ll take anything you give me if it means I get to be around you,” he says, and his words pierce right into the deepest crevices of your heart, filling them to the brim. “I mean it. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m desperately in love with you. I haven’t particularly tried to hide it, especially this past week, and I’m sorry, I should’ve realized you’d need time before getting into another relationship. That is, if you’d even want to be with me.” His eyes never leave yours as he confesses his feelings for you. All you feel now are his hands around your waist, the water hitting your skin long forgotten.
“You- You’re in love with me?” you stutter, shocked by the sudden news.
“Yes, but that’s not what’s important here. If it’s time that you need, I’ll give it to you. I’ve been waiting for almost five years now, I can handle another few months.”
“Heeseung…” you start, but all you can do is hug him close to you and bury your face in his neck. Words aren’t enough to express how grateful you are for him.
“I’m sorry if I’ve pressured you. I just think I finally saw a chance and jumped on it, but the last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable.”
“You’re not,” you say into his neck, “you’re not. You could never. Thank you for understanding and being patient.”
“Of course,” he says, keeping an arm around your waist and the other one coming up to stroke your hair. You lean back to take a look at him. How did you not realize how perfect he was all these years?
“I’m sorry. You deserve better than someone who makes you wait while they get their shit together.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t apologize. I’m happy you’re even looking my way at all. Don’t even get me started on how ecstatic I am to be in a shower with you right now,” he says, making you both laugh. You bring your lips to his and he kisses you back like it’s second nature. Before it can get heated again, you pull away and smile at him. He looks at you like you hung the moon in the night sky.
You should feel shy being completely naked in front of Heeseung, but for some reason, it doesn’t faze you at all. The love in his eyes makes you feel like there’s nothing to be shy or embarrassed about. It’s worlds away from Sunghoon’s cold gaze you had gotten used to.
You press some body wash in your hand and lather it all over his torso and back, letting your hands roam down to his butt with a giggle. He does the same thing for you and your heart pounds as you feel his hand all over you. You try not to moan when his palm brushes over your sensitive nipple.
“You’re so pretty, I could eat you right up,” he says as his eyes rake your body up and down, voice lower and eyes darker than they were moments ago. When his gaze meets yours, his face however immediately softens. “But I’ll wait before I do that,” he adds, pressing a soft kiss to the tip of your nose.
Later, you get out of the shower and dry off, then get ready for the day ahead. You spend it going around the city hand-in-hand with Heeseung. Even though the goal is to spread the keys all over town, it just feels like one day-long date. You let your footsteps take you in any direction, through paved alleys, over bridges and along tramway tracks, making sure to drop keys here and there, sometimes leaving them out in the open or hiding them behind flowerpots, so that they’d be found either in the next hour or in a year.
When you start getting hungry, you buy sandwiches and sodas from a convenience store and sit down by the pond in the park, enjoying the sun on your skin and each other’s presence. You can talk freely about anything with Heeseung without feeling judged in the slightest, and even when you’re rambling on about a show you watched or your latest random obsession, he listens to you like you’re telling him the solution to world peace. He laughs at your jokes and makes you blush with compliments and you don’t even think for a second about the reason you’re doing this in the first place. That is, until you run head-first into him.
You spent another few hours walking around and dropping keys, but got too tired and decided to get an early dinner in a bar-restaurant in the center of town as a reward for your hard work. It’s one of Sunghoon’s favorite places, and you were hesitant to go there at first, but decided that it was time to make new memories and replace bad ones with good ones. The restaurant hadn’t done anything to you, so there was no reason to avoid it. Except that the chances of running into your ex here are somewhat bigger, and of course, he had to be there now of all times.
You’re almost done eating when you see him. Or rather, you hear him. He’s screaming at the TV that’s playing a baseball game and apparently, the team he’s rooting for is losing. At first, you think the sound you hear is a fragment of your imagination: Sunghoon doesn’t get drunk and scream at TVs, especially in public places. Hell, he doesn’t even keep up with baseball. You think it’s just someone who sounds eerily like him, but you turn your head and find him hunched over the bar counter, four empty pints of beer in front of him. Sunghoon doesn’t drink beer, you think.
You gawk at him, in disbelief of his behavior, and soon enough he turns his head and sees you as well. He squints his eyes as if he’s having trouble figuring out whether that’s you or not he’s seeing, and when he confirms it, his eyes go wide and he immediately gets up, heading towards you like a drunk bull towards a red cloth. He’s teetering and you think he might fall down when he gets to your table, holding onto it for dear life.
“H-hey, Y/N,” he says, eyes looking at you but not quite focussed. He doesn’t even spare a glance at Heeseung. This isn’t the man you were dating for four years, you think. This cannot be the same man that organizes his desk maniacally or considers one glass of wine heavy drinking. But it is, and it’s a side of him you’d practically never seen before because he keeps it in the deepest corners of himself. It’s the side of him that lets go of any control, that finally doesn’t care about anything. It’s probably the side of him he hates most.
“Hi, Sunghoon.”
“Wha-what are you doing here?”
“I’m having dinner,” you curtly reply, nodding towards Heeseung. Sunghoon takes a look at the man in front of you, eyes widening then squinting again.
“Heeseung? Seriously?” he says as he clearly tries to suppress burps, slurring his words. “God, I should’ve seen this coming. You always made googly eyes at my girlfriend.”
“I’m not your girlfriend, Sunghoon. Not since you cheated on me,” you say, staring hard at him. His head falls and he drops to a squat, still holding onto the table. He looks back up at you and does something you’ve almost never seen him do before, and definitely never for you.
He cries.
His eyes are red and already puffy from the alcohol, but now tears swell in them as a tear rolls down his cheek and his lips start to quiver. Then all of a sudden, he’s full on sobbing in the restaurant, garnering curious looks from other customers.
“Oh, God,” you say under your breath, holding your head in your hands. There have been so many times he could’ve done this, showed you that he actually cared, but he just had to choose now. When he takes your hand in his and brings it to his face, Heeseung seems to hit his limit. He gets up and you think he’s going to manhandle Sunghoon out of the restaurant, and he does do that, but only after paying for the unfinished meal. When he comes back from the till, he takes Sunghoon up by the armpits and makes him walk to the outside of the restaurant, you following close behind.
The chilly night air hits your face, calming you down slightly. It’s still infuriating to see Sunghoon acting this way, and it takes everything in you not to just punch him in the face when he starts towards you again, trying to take you in his arms.
“I’m sorry, Y/N, I really am, please just give me another chance. Or at least let me talk to you! I promise I’ll be better,” he screams out between sobs as Heeseung holds him back from you. You just cross your arms and stare coldly at him, willing the tears forming in your eyes to not fall. If there’s one thing you don’t want him or Heeseung to think, it’s how sad this is making you. Your tears are angry, frustrated ones; not heartbroken ones.
“You’re drunk, Sunghoon, I don’t wanna talk to you right now. Actually, I don’t want to talk to you, ever.”
“I’m not- I’m not drunk, I swear,” he says just before tripping over his own feet, almost face-planting on the pavement had Heeseung not been holding him steady. “I just had a really bad day, people kee- people keep calling me about keys, and I miss you so goddamn much, Y/N. I’m sorry. Plea-please, come back to me.” His words all sound meshed together and it takes effort understanding what the hell he’s saying.
“Why don’t you go to whoever you cheated on me with?”
“She doesn’t- she’s no match for you, Y/N. Please. I miss- I miss you.” You just roll your eyes in response.
He continues begging and making false promises, and you order an Uber after two minutes, not able to take any of this anymore. You sit him down in front of the restaurant, telling him to stay put, then take Heeseung’s hand and start walking away. You don’t even bother checking that he got in the Uber safely; he’s not your responsibility anymore.
You walk in the direction of your apartment. It’s silent for a few minutes until Heeseung speaks up, softly asking you if you’re alright. “I’m fine, just pissed off,” you reply colder than you mean to. You don’t want to take your anger out on Heeseung, but you feel like you’re going to explode if you bottle it in. He tries to get more out of you, to get a glimpse of how you’re feeling, but you’ve spent the last four years not talking about emotions because Sunghoon considered them a nuisance and you don’t have the strength to unlearn that behavior right now. You find yourself snapping at Heeseung when he asks you questions, and he quickly figures out that now is not the best time to talk to you.
You spend the rest of the walk in silence, Heeseung’s presence next to you the only thing keeping you from hitting a wall or screaming into the night. When you get to your apartment building, you’ve calmed down, and you apologize for acting that way towards him.
“I’ve just never seen him like that before, and it makes me so angry that he does this now. The sheer audacity of this man to cheat on me and then make a scene in front of everyone. He’ll never go to that place again, I’m sure,” you say with a dry chuckle.
Heeseung takes you in his arms, resting his chin on top of your head and slowly rubbing your back. “I’m sorry about him. All I can think to explain his behavior is that he has nothing to hold onto now, so he comes back running to you. I can’t lie, I really wanted to punch some sense into him, but I didn’t wanna make anything worse.”
You take a step towards him and nuzzle your face in his chest, warmth spreading all over you. “I had such a good day as well. I’m mad it had to end that way.”
“I know, me too,” he sighs into your hair.
You lean back to look at him and he brushes some hair out of your face. “Thank you so much for today, Heeseung. I had an amazing time. And I’m glad to hear he’s already been bothered about the keys,” you say with a laugh.
“Anytime, Y/N,” he says, placing a kiss at the top of your head.
“I think I want to be alone tonight. Just to think a little bit.”
“Of course. I’ll see you Monday at work, then?” he asks with a smile, which you return.
“See you Monday, Hee.”
He kisses your head a second time and walks away, and you already miss him. You call out to him when he’s a few yards away, and he pivots, still smiling at you.
“What’s the next thing on the list?”
The next day, Sunghoon sends you a text thanking you for the Uber and apologizing for his behavior but still asking to meet up so you can talk. You tell him you’ll drop his stuff off at some point after work this week. Then you block his number.
Being at work feels different now that you know about Heeseung’s feelings for you. You like to catch him staring at you then tease him about it during your breaks. You have lunch together, laughing hunched over your tupperwares, and if you weren’t so engrossed in each other, you might notice the knowing look Yuqi and Miyeon exchange whenever they see you acting like highschoolers. Now that he doesn’t have to hide how he feels, he gets you coffee every morning and gives you little notes that never fail to make you smile. In the evenings, he texts you about random stuff, and then apologizes about how he might be coming off too strong. You tell him that it’s fine and that you like it a lot; more than you should, probably, but you don’t say that. The two of you aren’t even properly together, yet you’ve never felt so cared for by anyone in your life.
On a Thursday night, you decide to go to Sunghoon’s and drop his stuff off together. At first, you say you should probably go alone, but Heeseung insists on accompanying you.
“I don’t want you going over there by yourself, what if he’s as drunk as last time? Plus, it says it right here that I need to be there for the prank to work,” he argues, and you agree that it’d be reassuring to have him with you. You re-read the list you’d drunkenly made together: Change the labels on his shower products and hide his TV remote when Y/N hands him back his stuff. This is a two-man job, after all.
Once at your apartment, Heeseung loads the trunk of his car with the two boxes of things Sunghoon had left behind and that you’d already gotten ready while you mess around with his shower products. You exchange the shampoo and conditioner labels and empty the bottle of body wash, replacing it with shaving cream. Sure, he’ll quickly figure out what happened and know you’re the one behind it, but you don’t care about that anymore. It didn’t matter that he knew what you were up to; this was the last prank, anyway.
Heeseung drives the both of you to Sunghoon’s apartment. When your ex-boyfriend opens the door, he seems taken aback to see the both of you there but quickly masks it, his poker face back on. Now that’s the Sunghoon I know, you think.
“Hi, Y/N. Heeseung,” he curtly greets, stepping aside so the two of you can come in. “I’m guessing you’re here to return my things?”
“Yes,” you say, looking around the familiar apartment. Nothing’s changed: it’s still as white and tidy and squeaky clean as it’s always been.
“Right. Just put them over there then, that’s fine.” Heeseung puts them down where Sunghoon points, then there’s a silence for a few seconds.
“Well, if that’s it, then…” you start and head for the door, not wanting to be around Sunghoon for longer than you needed to.
“Wait!” he suddenly calls out, making you and Heeseung look at him expectantly. “Y/N, can I uh, can we talk for a minute? Alone?” he asks, poker face suddenly crumbling.
“Um, fine, sure,” you say, and follow him into the kitchen. When his back is turned, you gesture at Heeseung to go into the living room and hide the remote as per the plan. He gives you a thumbs up as you enter the kitchen.
Once you’re in there, you cross your arms, waiting for a clearly struggling Sunghoon to start. “Right. You know I’m bad at stuff like this, so I’ll just make it short,” he says, and you try not to scoff. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I really am, for how things ended, and for getting drunk and being embarrassing like that the other night.” He shivers at the memory. “I said a lot of things I know I shouldn’t have said, and even though I kinda meant them, I should’ve kept them to myself.
“I don’t have a great excuse for what I did, and I don’t think you want to hear a made-up one. Things between us hadn’t been great for a while, had they?” he asks, and you shake your head in agreement. “It was painfully obvious that neither of us wanted to stay in the relationship, but… you weren’t saying anything, and I didn’t know how to bring it up…”
“So you found a way to end things without having to talk to me about it?” you say, unable to keep the emotion out of your voice. You know it’s hard for Sunghoon to talk to you like this, but you wish this had been the way you broke up. It would’ve saved you a lot of pain.
Sunghoon lets his head hang. “Yeah, I guess. If I could do things differently, I would. I’m sorry, Y/N.”
“Yeah, well… Nothing we can do about it now.” You both stand there in silence for a while, avoiding the other’s gaze. You don’t know what to say next but it feels weird leaving now, like there’s still something unsaid.
He breaks the silence first. “So. What’s um, what’s with you and Heeseung?”
You look at him, surprised by his question. “I’m not sure. We’re figuring things out,” you reply cautiously. He nods his head slowly, taking the information in.
“So, he’s not like a rebound or anything?”
You scoff and roll your eyes at him. “No, Sunghoon, he’s not a rebound. If I needed a rebound, I’d have gotten one months ago.”
“But we would've been together then…?”
“So? That didn’t stop you,” you say coldly. “Anyway, I think this conversation’s over. Thanks for apologizing, I guess.”
Sunghoon doesn’t try to stop you, and you try not to be disappointed. It would’ve been a nice ego stroke.
Walking back to Heeseung’s car, you nod and exhale through your nose when he asks you if you’re alright. You ask him where he hid the TV remote, and he says he stashed it between towels in a cupboard in the bathroom: “There’s no way he’ll find it there anytime soon. You guys were talking a while, so I also changed some books’ places on his shelves in the living room.”
In the car, Heeseung gives you silence, which you’re grateful for. You need some time to think about what just happened, and what will happen now. Your talk with Sunghoon could’ve gone somewhat better, but you shouldn’t have expected that much from him; him sincerely, soberly apologizing already makes you feel better. You think about the final thing from the list: Make him regret what he did.
“Hey, Heeseung?” you call out, and he hums in response, turning his head slightly towards you but keeping his eyes on the road.
“About the last thing on the list. I guess that’s already done, no? I don’t think there’s anything else we can do that’ll make him regret what he did more, is there?”
He seems to think for a minute, pouting his lips in reflection. “I guess not. I’d say he seems pretty regretful as well. How did your talk with him go?”
“It was alright,” you sigh. “At least he wasn’t drunk, this time. I’m happy he knows what he did was wrong, and I’m glad he found it in him to apologize. In all our years together, that must’ve been the third or fourth time.”
“Wow,” Heeseung breathes out. You turn to look at him and see that he’s clenching his jaw. He notices your stare and chuckles, explaining: “It’s just frustrating knowing you had to go through that for such a long time. I could already tell you weren’t happy with him, but I didn’t know how bad it was. If I had, I think I would’ve had a savior moment and tried to rescue you from there.”
You laugh with him, and contentment suddenly fills you. It’s so easy, being around Heeseung. It’s easy, and it feels good. “Well, you’re here now, aren’t you?”
He stops at a red light and turns to look at you, his eyes trapping you in. “Yeah, I am.”
Another comfortable silence settles in the car as you face the window, hiding the blush creeping on your cheeks. Heeseung takes one of your hands from your lap, holding it on your thigh as he keeps his other hand on the steering wheel. He doesn’t let go of it until he parks in front of your apartment, turning to you with a smile.
“So, what now?” you ask, feeling giddy under his gaze.
He giggles at you and brings his hand up to pat your hair. “Whatever you want.”
You’re not used to being given the right to make decisions, and the fact that Heeseung so easily gives you the reins takes you aback. You try to figure out what you want, but it’s a bit hard; there’s nothing you want to do that jumps out at you, and so you tell Heeseung that.
“That’s alright. Do you know if you want to be by yourself? Or should I stay with you?”
You take another moment to ponder, checking the time. Your phone screen blinks back 8:03 p.m. “I think… it’s already quite late, I think I want to go to bed early. By myself, if that’s okay.”
“Of course,” he says, smiling at you. “I’ll let you go, then.”
You kiss his cheek goodbye, then head to the entrance of your building, waving at him when you reach it. He gestures for you to get in, and you like that he waits for you to be inside before driving away.
Heeseung is so patient. He doesn’t make you feel bad for not giving him a straightforward answer after a month, he just keeps on smiling at you, making you laugh, and doing sweet gestures. He reminds you everyday that he’s there through his actions but never pressures you. As promised, he comes with you to the pet shelter, and together you choose an orange tabby that you’d fallen in love at first sight with.
One day after you’ve gone out for drinks with Yuqi and Miyeon and you’re not thinking very straight, you call him in drunk tears, apologizing for making him wait and saying you don’t want him to be upset with you.
“I could never be upset with you, Y/N. I’ll wait however long you need, and I’m happy as long as you are too.” His words stick with you and they echo in your mind whenever your gazes meet.
One Friday night, Miyeon invites everyone in the office out to celebrate her recent promotion. Heeseung sits next to you and holds your hand under the table. You find yourself wishing you didn’t feel the need to hide your intertwined hands from your colleagues. You turn your face towards Heeseung who’s engrossed in a conversation with your manager, and you love how his face lights up and how animatedly he’s talking. He looks so beautiful and you hold his hand a bit tighter. He turns to you for a second with a smile on his face, squeezing your hand before turning back to the manager, and it’s all you need to know you’re ready for him.
You and your colleagues close the bar, and Heeseung and you stand outside for half an hour, making sure everyone gets safely into a taxi. Heeseung had said he didn’t feel like drinking that night, and you had stopped as soon as the realization had hit you, wanting a clear head.
When everybody’s left, you and Heeseung shyly avoid each other’s gaze, kicking small pebbles on the ground, bursting into a fit of giggles when your eyes meet.
“So…” he starts.
“So…” you repeat, looking up at him with a grin.
“I live quite close to here, if you’d like to come over,” he offers, voice quiet.
“I’d love that.” He looks at you, a hopeful glint in his eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” You both laugh again, and you think it’s crazy how he manages to make you feel fifteen again. He takes your hand in his, swaying it back and forth the whole way to his apartment. He opens the door for you, grandly gesturing for you to go in. You’ve been here before for after-drinks with him and your colleagues, but just like when he had come over at yours a few weeks prior, being here now by yourself feels different. Heeseung’s apartment is cozy, inviting and very him. Old books stand on the same shelf next to the latest PS5 releases, he’s got framed pictures of him and his family next to his TV; there’s even a few which you’re in. A colorful knitted throw covers the brown leather couch, and he shyly explains that he’s found a new hobby these past few months.
“It started out when my niece was born, I wanted to knit her a small hat…” he says, and you want to squish his cheeks with how adorable he is.
You take another look around the living room before your eyes settle on him. He hopes you can’t hear how loud his heart is beating right now. He clears his throat. “What do you, um, what do you want to do?” he asks nervously.
You know what you want to do. You feel it burning inside you, but you don’t know how to put it into words. You take a step towards him, your eyes never leaving his.
“Do you want a glass of wine?” You shake your head. “Water?” You shake it again, taking another step closer to him. He closes his eyes and releases a shaky breath when you’re standing right in front of him, mere centimeters separating your bodies.
“Heeseung?” you say, and he hums at the sound of his name but keeps his eyes closed. “Thank you for waiting.” You wrap your arms around his neck, pressing the side of your face into his chest. His arms immediately come around your waist, hugging you closer to his body.
“Of course.”
“I don’t want to make you wait anymore,” you say quietly, and when he doesn’t answer after a few moments, you think he might have not even heard you. He leans back to look at you, and you swear his eyes have gotten a shade darker.
“Are you sure?” he asks, eyes trained on your lips.
“Yes. Kiss me, please,” you say, and he doesn’t need to be told twice before pressing his mouth to yours.
You find release in his lips. The kiss starts out slow and careful at first, as if he’s scared you might go back on your word at any moment, but he’s quickly reassured that you won’t when you tilt your head to deepen the kiss, your hands finding purchase in the soft strands of his hair. You can feel all those years he’s waited to do this in his kiss, all of his desire and need and desperation. You hope the way you kiss him back makes him understand how happy and safe he’s made you feel these past weeks.
He bends down and picks you up, making you yelp in surprise at the sudden action, then carries you bridal-style to his bedroom, laying you down gently on the mattress. He places feather-like kisses all over your face, ears and neck, making you giggle at the ticklish sensation. You grab his face to bring his lips back down onto yours, and he gladly reciprocates the kiss, the both of you smiling into it. The shots of soju you had hours ago have nothing to do with how light-headed you feel.
You untuck his button-up from his trousers, dipping your hands underneath it to feel the warm skin there. He shivers at your touch and kisses you more hungrily, his tongue asking for permission inside your mouth. Your hands come from his lower back to his chest and you start to unbutton his shirt from the top down, marveling at the sight of his toned chest and abs once the shirt is off. You push down on his shoulders so that he lays on his back as you straddle his hips. You dip your head down to press warm kisses down his shoulder and between his collarbones, your hand caressing his stomach and feeling him squirm at your touch.
When his hands come to hold you at the sides, you sit up and let him take your top off, laughing together when it gets a bit stuck around your head. His big hands brush against your stomach and come up to cup your breasts over your bra, which you quickly unclasp. He breathes out a ‘wow’ at the sight of you half-naked on top of him, and you think there’s no way you’ll ever get tired of that look of admiration in his eyes.
He leans in and wraps his soft lips around your nipple, licking and nipping at the sensitive bud, making you moan and arch your back in pleasure. He keeps one arm around your waist and uses his second hand to tend to your other breast, making sure they both get attention. You graze your fingers through his locks, tugging at them when it feels particularly good. His actions make a fire burn in your core, and you’re so desperate for any kind of friction that you start rubbing yourself over his growing erection, making him moan around your nipple.
He kisses from your breasts back up to your lips, trapping them ravenously as his hands snake underneath your skirt to grab at your ass, bringing you down even further onto him. You let your arms hang around his head as you bury your face in the crook of his neck and he continues pressing kisses in your hair.
“Want you inside me, Hee,” you croak out, voice weak.
“Hmm. You have no idea how much I want that baby, but I want to take it slow with you. Make you know how much I love you,” he says, his words sending shivers down your spine.
His arms come around you as he lays you down on your back again and hovers over you. “L-love me?,” you ask quietly.
He kisses you once on the lips and looks you in the eyes. “Yes, love you. So much.” He starts kissing down your body, sucking a mark right underneath your collarbone. “More than you could ever know.” He sucks a second mark in the same spot, and you look down to see that he’s formed a heart with his love bites.
He hooks his fingers under your skirt and looks up at you, asking for permission. You nod your head and he pulls your skirt and underwear down your legs, discarding them somewhere on the floor next to the bed. He rakes his fingers up and down your sides, remembering from last time how sensitive you are there. “You’re so goddamn beautiful, Y/N. I can’t believe I get to see you like this,” he says as he openly stares at your naked body in front of him.
He sits up at the end of his bed, undoing his belt and taking his trousers off so that he’s left in his boxers, the fabric stretching around his hard member. Your mouth waters at the sight, and you reach out a hand, laying it in his chest. “Please, Hee. I need you.”
He smiles softly at you, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “I’ve waited so long for this. Do you think you could be patient for me tonight? I promise I’ll give you what you want. I just want to take my time,” he asks and you nod fervently, eyebrows furrowed. He’s right; you’ve made him wait for such a long time, the least you could do is let him go slow tonight.
He hovers down your body, taking your left foot in his hand and placing a soft kiss on top of it. He kisses all the way up from your foot to your thighs, gently biting the soft flesh there. “You’re so pretty, all spread out like this for me. Do you know how pretty you are? Hm?”
You can only hum in response, mind too clouded with pleasure when he’s barely touched you yet. “Please,” you breathe out.
“Please what?” he asks, still nipping at your thighs, making them shake in anticipation. There was a fire between your legs and you didn’t know how long you could take it. “Use your words so I know what you want, baby.”
“Plea-please touch me, Hee.”
“Touch you where, baby? Here?” he says as his thumb strokes up your folds, already soaking wet, making you moan at the sensation.
“Fuck, yes, right here, please,” you whine, bucking your hips up, craving more of his touch.
Heeseung could cum at the sight in front of him, of you so needy for him, of you begging for more. He feels like he’s dreaming, but your moans and your grip on his arm remind him that this is real, this is actually happening. “You have no idea what you do to me, beautiful,” he breathes out before diving into your core, his tongue lapping up all of your juices, licking stripes up your folds and sucking at your clit. He eats you out like he hasn’t had a meal in ages, and you feel a knot forming in your stomach much sooner than you’d like to admit. You tug at his hair and claw at his shoulders, not wanting to hurt him but needing something to hold onto.
You’re a blubbering mess underneath him, and it only gets worse when he slips a finger inside you, quickly adding a second one when he sees how wet and accommodating you are around his fingers. Not even a minute later, you’re moaning out his name like it’s the only thing you know to say and bucking your hips into his face and hand as your orgasm comes crashing down on you, taking your breath away for a few seconds. You hold for dear life onto his shoulders as he helps you ride out your high, then kisses all the way back up to your lips, letting you taste yourself on his tongue.
He lets you catch your breath for a moment, kissing your face softly and telling you how well you did, how pretty you are. When you’re rested, you grab his face, kissing him with all the desire in your body. Your hand snakes down to palm him over his boxers and you see him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and you can’t help but kiss him there over and over again. You help him out of his boxers, letting his erection spring free as it slaps against his stomach. You take him in your hand, spreading the pre-cum all over him as you bite at his neck and earlobe, reveling in the sounds he’s making for you.
“Need more of you, Hee,” you whisper in his ear.
“Mhm. Anything for you, beautiful. How do you want to do this?” he asks, looking at you with hooded eyes.
“I think… I want to ride you. I want to look at you.” He nods and sits up back against the headboard, taking you in his arms with him and sitting you in his lap. Feeling him against you is enough to make your mind draw a blank. He reaches for his drawer, saying, “Let me put a condom on first,” but you stop him.
“I’m on the pill. Want to feel you without anything, if that’s okay.”
He lets out a shaky breath and nods. “That’s more than okay,” he says with a smile.
You raise yourself on your knees, taking him in your hand and rubbing his tip between your folds a few times before finally sinking down onto his cock, the both of you releasing heavy breaths at the feeling. You sit there for a minute or two, chests pressed together, letting yourself adjust to his size as he grazes his fingernails up and down your back.
“Take your time, baby. You’ve already done so well. And you feel so good just like this.”
“Mmh. Feels good for me too, Hee,” you murmur in his neck.
“Yeah? I’m glad,” he says, letting his hands roam down your back to your ass and behind your thighs. Feeling ready, you move a little bit in his lap, tentatively rolling your hips over his, and the sensation takes over your whole body. You both moan at the same time, and when you pick your pace up, Heeseung can’t stop muttering curses under his breath.
“Fuck, just like that, Y/N. That feels amazing. You’re so perfect.”
He hands grab at your ass, massaging the soft flesh. You then start raising your hips and slamming them back down onto his and he bucks his up to meet yours, repeatedly hitting your g-spot. You try to keep up a quick pace, desperately chasing your high, but soon enough your thighs start to tire and you don’t have the strength to go as fast.
“Heeseung… Need help…” you breathe out, collapsing on top of him.
Without a word, he places a hand between your shoulder blades, pressing you close to him and making you raise your hips. He then digs his fingers into the sides of your hips and starts pounding into you at a much quicker pace than you could ride him, the sound of flesh hitting flesh and your gradually louder moans filling the room. “I’m gonna cum, Hee,” you warn, voice breathy and high-pitched.
“Fuck. Me too, baby.” You’re a moaning mess on top of him, and you can feel his thrusts getting sloppier as he approaches his own high. He grips his fingers tighter in your skin as his orgasm hits him, curses and moans escaping his lips. The sinful sounds he’s making and the feeling of him shooting his seed inside you are enough to send you over the edge, and you cum all over his dick, muttering his name over and over again.
You stay locked against each other for a few moments as you regain consciousness, feeling him getting softer inside you. He pulls out, making you hiss slightly, and rests his head against the wall behind him, looking at you with a cheeky grin and heavy eyelids, his thumb rubbing gentle circles on your hips.
You lay down on the bed, body feeling heavy, and rest your head on his thigh, your hand coming up to caress his other one. You place a kiss on the inside of his thigh, then another one of his hip bone, and wrap your arms around his waist, closing your eyes and letting his hand in your hair lull you to sleep.
“Hey, lovebug, don’t fall asleep on me. Let’s get you cleaned up first,” he says, and you let out a low hum, letting him unwrap your arms from around him, get up and help you to the bathroom. “I’ll go and draw us a bath, okay?” he asks softly, placing a kiss on the top of your head.
When you’re back from the toilet, the bath is all filled up with water and he’s laying in it, arms resting against the sides of the tub. He opens his eyes when he hears you coming and he sits up a little bit, gesturing for you to get in with him. You settle yourself between his legs, his arms wrapping themselves around you and rest your head against his chest. You hum at the feeling of the warm water enveloping the both of you and of him against you.
“I think I could stay like this forever,” you say, hands coming to cover his on your stomach.
He lets out a small laugh. “Me too, only if it meant we didn’t get pruny fingers and feet.”
“Ew,” you laugh with him. The two of you chat for another twenty minutes, talking about this and that until the water gets cold and it’d feel cozier being under the sheets together rather than in the tub. He helps you out of it, drying the both of you off with one towel, making you laugh when he wraps it around you two.
You get into bed naked together, and you breathe in the scent of his skin that’s already become so familiar and comforting. Before you can drift off to sleep, you call out his name softly.
“Yes, love?”
“You won’t hurt me, right?”
He feels his heart ache for you, for how right you deserve to be treated and for all the love he wishes he could’ve given you this whole time. “Never in a million years, Y/N.” That’s all you need to hear to fall asleep peacefully.
You wake up in the same position you had all these weeks ago, your back to Heeseung’s chest and his arm lazily over your waist, and it's the most perfect way to start off your day. Your mouth feels dry so you sit up, reaching for the bottle of water on the nightstand, but Heeseung’s arm around you tightens as he sleepily mumbles, “Stay here.”
You turn around to face him and press a kiss on the tip of his nose. “I just need some water, Hee.” He lets out a small groan but lets you go, and you gulp the water down.
“Should I go make us breakfast?” you ask even though you already know the answer.
“No,” he says, drawing out the vowel, “stay here. Come here.” He opens his arms wide, inviting you in his hold. You bury your face in the crook of his neck and you feel at home.
“Good morning, Y/N,” he says, hugging you tight to him.
“Good morning, Heeseung.”
“Hm, don’t call me Heeseung,” he whines. “Call me Hee. Like you did last night. I like it more.” You laugh at his cute behavior, making him whine even more. “Hey! Don’t laugh at me!” He starts tickling your sides and you laugh even more.
“Sorry! Sorry!” you say, trying to catch your breath. “Sorry, Hee.” He hums appreciatively and stops tickling you, kissing your forehead.
“Better?” you ask teasingly.
“Better,” he says just as his stomach starts growling, making you snort.
You give him a small tap on his butt, and, ignoring his whines, say, “C’mon, let’s have breakfast.” You manage to escape his grasp and rummage around his drawers, finding a t-shirt and pair of boxers of his for you to wear. He watches you get dressed with a lazy smile.
“Are you trying to get me hard again, baby?”
“No, I’m trying to make you get up so we can eat.”
“I can just eat you.” You grab a pillow from his bed to throw over his face, making him laugh. “Sorry, sorry,” he says between giggles, and gets up, grabbing clean clothes for himself.
You spend the day lazing around his apartment, fueling up on snacks and kisses from each other. You can barely keep your hands off of him; his skin is warm under your hands and you feel at peace when you can feel him against you. Sunghoon had never much liked skinship, and you’d always had to stop yourself from reaching out and touching him. But Heeseung melts under your touch every single time; he kisses your palm when you cup his cheek and caresses your hands when you wrap your arms around his middle from behind and strokes your hair when you rest your head against his shoulder. His moans and whimpers are the prettiest sounds you’ve ever heard; you go down on him while you’re watching a movie and then again in the shower just to hear them over and over again. He eats you out like you’re dessert, telling you you’re the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted. When he spoons you on the couch, neither of you can keep it innocent for long before you ask him to cockwarm you, and he readily obliges, burying himself deep inside you.
“Y/N?” he calls out when you’re in that position, watching the nth movie of the weekend.
“Yes, Hee?”
“I’ve been thinking about that list. You know how ‘make him regret what he did’ is the last thing on the list?”
“Yeah, and we said that was already done, didn’t we?” you say, not really wanting to talk about anything related to Sunghoon anymore.
“Yeah. But I was thinking, the only way he’ll really regret it is when he sees how happy you are without him, don’t you think?”
“I guess…” you reply, curious as to what he’s getting at.
“Would you let me do that? Make you happy?”
You let out a small ‘oh’ at his words, and immediately feel tears welling in your eyes. It’s hard, wrapping your head around the fact that someone wants to be there for you and look after your happiness without asking for anything in return. “You already make me so happy, Hee.”
He giggles, burying his face in the crook of your neck and leaving a kiss there. “I do?” he asks, and you don’t know how he doesn’t see it.
“So much. And I want to make you happy, too.”
“You do that just by being here, lovebug. You don’t need to do anything else.” You take your hand up to your mouth and kiss him all over his fingers and palm.
“What should we tell people at work?” you ask, gently biting his knuckle to annoy him, but he just lets you, biting your neck in return.
“About what?”
“About us.”
“Us?”
“Yes?”
“Well, I think everybody already knows I’m in love with you. I was, well, still am, pretty obvious about it, so I’m not sure how you never saw it.”
“Sorry,” you say, kissing his knuckle in apology.
“It’s okay. What do you want to tell them?”
“I don’t know. Should we let them figure it out without saying anything?”
“Figure what out?”
“That we’re together.”
“We’re together?!”
“Of course we are!” you laugh, gently tapping his hand.
“You didn’t tell me that!”
“I thought it was obvious!”
He joins in your laughter. “We need to stop thinking we’re being obvious and just tell each other how we feel.”
“I agree. How do you feel?”
“I love you. How do you feel?”
You pause for a second, and because it feels right, and because it feels like the truth, you say, “I love you too.”
It takes Yuqi and Miyeon approximately two days to figure out that Heeseung and you are together. And once these two know, everybody in the office knows. To be fair, the two of you do try to keep things professional; it's not your fault that Yuqi walked in just as you placed a quick peck on Heeseung's cheek in the break room, or that he spends more time at your desk than usual, always pretending there's nothing he needs to talk to you about.
“The two of you are like Jim and Pam,” your manager complains jokingly when he walks past you.
Heeseung and you just exchange a knowing glance, trying not to burst into laughter in the middle of the office. You look at him and he looks at you, and you’ve never been happier.
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© asahicore on tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, translate or plagiarize my works. reblogs and feedback are always appreciated!
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minniesmutt · 8 months ago
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I saw your asks are open, idk if you are still taking rq for this or not https://www.tumblr.com/askgametime/705287969574158336?source=share but if you are can you do
11, 13, 29, 42, 50, 61, 79, 93. With Seung?
🌷
☾ ━━━━━━ 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠
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☾ ━━━ PAIRING: SEUNGMIN X READER ☾ ━━━ PROMPTS: 11; DP/TP/SPITROASTING 13; ROUGH SEX 29; CRYING DURING SEX/ EMOTIONAL SEX 42; MULTIPLE ORGASMS 50; TENTACLES 61; OVERSTIMULATION 79; CUM INFLATION/BELLY KINK 93; ANAL SEX/PEGGING ☾ ━━━ CONTENT: ASTRONOUT!READER, ALIEN!SEUNGMIN, ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP, MONSTERFUCKING, BREEDING, ROUGH SEX, STRENGTH KINK, NIPPLE PLAY, TENTACLES, FINGERING, SLIGHTLY SADISTIC SEUNGMIN, PRIMAL PLAY (?), SPIT-ROAST/TRIPLE PENETRATION/ DOUBLE PENERTATION, ORAL (M.REC), UNPROTECTED SEX (ANAL + VAGINAL), DACRYPHILIA, CUM INFLATION (MORE SO DESCRIBED AS A FEELING THAN IT BEING PHYSICAL), MULTIPLE ROUNDS, OVERSTIM, MULTIPLE ORGASMS, CLIT PLAY, ☾ ━━━ WC: 2K ☾ ━━━ 18+ work!! minors and ageless/blank blogs DNI! you will be blocked, put an indicator on your blog somewhere that you are 18+ before interacting with this work/blog
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     How Y/n’s ship had made it out of the Milky Way was a miracle to her. What wasn’t was a crash landing on an exo-planet. She had zero clue if it was even safe for her to be here until she met Seungmin. He looked human but she learned quickly he wasn’t. Nonetheless, she still trusted him. However, she didn’t feel like she had much of a choice at this point. 
     Seungmin gave her a place to stay and managed to learn her language easily. She learned she’d landed on the planet called MIROH. Something she didn’t know on earth. Meeting his friends whom he threatened swore to secrecy. Not trusting many other people on the planet when it came to other species. Y/n didn’t mind staying in his home much. He was clean and he helped her adapt while she tried to figure out how she was going to get back home.
     His friends had taken a look at her ship with her and they’d concluded that it was fixable but it was going to take some time. It was damaged from its travels— most ships from Earth didn’t last long past the Milky Way galaxy. So she was here for a while.
     The eight aliens—or was she the alien now?— were great company in all honesty. But when you lived with one for so long and he was better than any other man she had met on earth, things were bound to happen. 
     After a good year— in MIROH’s orbit, not Earth orbit— of living with Seungmin, she’d come to realize she had developed feelings for him and she did her best to hide it since she could be leaving at any moment to go back home. But as the year dragged into the next, it looked less likely that she would be home on earth anytime soon. So, MIROH started to become her home and she became okay with having feelings for her roommate. 
     Seungmin on the other hand, had had an inkling of his feelings for her since he found her crashed ship. And like her, he kept to himself since she could leave at any moment and only acted on them when it appeared clear to him and his friends that her going back to Earth was highly unlikely. And if it weren’t for Jisung’s loud mouth, he would have kept them a secret too.
     But seven months after the incident, he was glad his friend had said something rather loudly.
     “Morning,” Y/n kissed her boyfriend’s cheek as he was making her a cup of coffee— or as she described it, coffee adjacent.
     “Morning,” He smiled as he turned and pulled her to him. Y/n smiled and wrapped her arms around him
     “Oh! Can I ask you a question?”
     “You just did but I’ll give you a second one.”
     “Haha, very funny. I was talking with Hyunjin yesterday—”
     “Terrible idea.”
     Y/n glared at him for a moment before continuing, “Anyways. He asked about our sex life.”
     “Why?”
     “Specifically about something I didn’t know you had.”
     “I have no idea what you are talking about.” He did. But he was deciding the best way to bury his friend’s body at the moment
     “Were you ever going to tell me you had tentacles? Or a breeding season?”
     “You’ve lived with me for two years and you didn’t know I had a breeding season?”
     “You were not around much when it occurred.”
     Seungmin sighed, “I was going to tell you eventually but I know it’s not something you’re used to and I didn’t want to scare you away.”
     “Min, respectfully, where am I going to go?”
     “I guess you’re right. But it’s still a lot more than what we do now.”
     “Well, tell me about it.”
     “Are you sure?”
     “Yep,” Y/n reached behind him, grabbed her cup of coffee, and dragged him over to the couch. Making him tell her every detail of it.
    His species breeding season was a few weeks away so they’d planned to just lock themselves away in the house until it was over, most of the aliens on the planet did anyways so it wouldn’t be weird. Seungmin had gathered supplies before the season started— most of which he had in the house anyway. He honestly wasn’t too sure how this was going to affect Y/n. He’d unfortunately heard from Chan and Minho that their species females were hyper fertile during the season so he didn’t know what to expect from his human girlfriend.
    Once the season changed, Seungmin felt it. They were up late again, Y/n was in the kitchen fixing something to snack on when she heard a loud groan from the living room. “You okay Min?”
    “No,” he groaned
    “What happened?”
    “It started.”
     It took Y/n a moment to remember what he was talking about. At first, she questioned if the men of MIROH got periods but then she remembered. Breeding season.
     “Come here, please,” Seungmin called.
     Y/n put her snack in the fridge and joined her boyfriend in the living room, at least for a second. Seungmin had stood quickly and picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder.
     “Minnie!” She squealed, surprised by the strength she didn’t know he had to begin with.
     “Sorry,” He mumbled as he got into their bedroom. Practically throwing her on the bed.
     Y/n’s face grew warmer at the action. Watching as he stripped away his shirt and pinned her to the mattress, lips immediately attaching to hers. Y/n moaned into his lips as his hands pinned her wrists down to the mattress. Y/n was so used to him being more on the softer side, only sometimes being a little harder— explaining it linked to his species’ tendencies. Now she knew it meant their breeding season.
     Seungmin’s lips moved down to her neck, giving her a quick warning about his tentacles before two appendages were snaking up her shirt. They felt warm, not slimy like the movies on Earth would describe them. Though they were strong. They managed to tear her shirt off her and then wrap it around her breasts. Kneading them and playing with her nipples.
     “Min,” Y/n moaned as she arched into him
     “Fuck, you sound so good,” Seungmin moaned as his hands moved down from her wrists to pull down her bottoms and underwear. Getting rid of both pieces in one go.
     His middle finger slid inside her, pumping in and out of her. The two appendages that were on her breasts moved up and wrapped around her wrists. Holding her down against the bed as he marked up her neck, finger pumping in and out of her.
     “More,” Y/n whined
     “Yeah?” Seungmin teased as he slipped another finger into her. Y/n moaned in reply before he pushed his lips back to hers. Tongue finding its way into her mouth and twirling around hers. 
     His fingers moved in and out of her as she tried reaching for him. Needing to hold him but the tentacles holding her wrists kept her from doing so. Seungmin smiled against her lips, feeling her struggle against him. He pulled his fingers out and grabbed hold of her hands. Y/n laced her fingers with his as his tentacles moved and pushed down his pants and boxers. Y/n barely noticed until the appendages spread her legs. Seungmin pushed himself right against her. 
     Y/n moaned against his lips as he ground against her. Tentacles holding her legs open before they flipped her onto her stomach. Seungmin’s hands were on top of hers and kissed down her back. 
     “I love you,” Seungmin mumbled
     “Love you too,” Y/n mumbled 
     She felt two more warm—slightly wet— tentacles on her body. Prodding at both her holes. Y/n moaned as she pushed back against him. Seungmin smiled as one pushed into her cunt. Listening to her moans. The slipperiness of the tentacle helped slide in easily, the other tentacle worked slowly past the tight rim of her ass. Y/n moaned and squeezed around him. 
     Seungmin mumbled praises into her back as both slimy appendages made their way into her. Her fingers tightened around his before he pulled her head up with one tentacle. “Open your mouth for me, baby,” Seungmin commanded. 
     Y/n opened her mouth like he said to and a tentacle slipped down her throat. Y/n moaned around the appendage as the one inside her pussy started moving slowly out to push back in her. The tentacle in her throat moved with it. The only one staying still was in her ass. Seungmin still letting her adjust to him being in there. 
     Slowly the pace picked up a bit and the third one joined in. Y/n moaned as tears pricked her lash line. Seungmin held onto her hands as he mumbled praises into her back. Somehow she felt the tentacles getting deeper in her with each thrust. She felt him everywhere. In parts, she didn’t know that could be reached. It made her eyes almost roll back. Her jaw relaxed fully, hearing the noises that came from the tentacle fucking her throat. 
     “Fuck,” Seungmin groaned. One hand went under her and rolled her clit. Her walls tightened around him as he stimulated the little bud. Her moans were silenced by the appendage in her throat. His fingers worked quickly on the bud as she tightened around him more. Her hips started to buck erratically against his hand as he kissed her shoulder blades.
     She felt warmth in her throat as she was about to tip over the edge. Warm and sweet. Y/n’s eyes rolled back as her orgasm hit while he was filling her throat with his cum. Seungmin groaned behind her as the other two tentacles released his load into her. Pushing deep inside her and letting the cum fill her. Y/n moaned as she came down from her high while the tentacle left her throat. She caught her breath as Seungmin held her close to him.
     “Minnie.” Y/n’s voice was hoarse.
     “Sorry. It’s gonna take a minute,” her boyfriend told her
     She could feel the cum making its way into her. After a couple more moments, he pulled out of her and turned her around, laying her on her back and pushing into both holes again. 
     “Min!” Y/n gasped
     “Gotta make it stick baby,” He said as he started thrusting into her. “Gotta fill you up.”
     Y/n threw her head back as the tentacles kept her arms and legs pinned to the bed. Not letting her move her limbs. She felt another on her clit. Sucking on the bud as Seubgmin held onto her waist with his hands. Watching the tears fall from her lashline from the overstimulation. He did not know how much she could handle but he was almost blinded by the need to breed.
     “Minnie! I’m gonna cum!” Y/n cried out
     “Cum. Cum all over me baby,” Seungmin groaned
     He watched her hand clench and her limbs spasm slightly. Feeling the familiar warmth of her cum coating his cock as he started picking up his pace. Fucking her through the high then pulled her closer to him as he fucked her to his second high. Wrapping his arms around her as the two tentacles pumped into her before burying themselves deep in her again. Seungmin held her as close as he could as his cum filled her
     “Min,” Y/n mumbled
     “I’ve got you,” Seungmin kissed the side of her head
     “Sleepy,” Y/n groaned
     “I’ll clean you up when I’m finished then we can go to bed.”
     Y/n nodded and weakly wrapped her arms around him. Once he finished, he took her to the bathroom, getting both of them cleaned up and redressed.
     “Feel okay?” Seungmin asked as he got her in bed
     “Full,” Y/n grumbled
     “Oh baby, we still have a whole month left.”
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daddysfangirls-marvel · 2 months ago
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Polyamorous: Baby Tax
Steve rogers x female! reader x Bucky Barnes/ Stucky x female!Reader
Warning: fluff, baby talk
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Ian West Rogers- Barnes, formally known as Ian West, was 15 months old and had been in the Roger-Barnes home for seven months since being released from the hospital. After being told his younger mother's story, they also received her ashes as well. They now sat in the living room along with a picture of her. She would not be forgotten or replaced. 
The Rogers-Barnes family had come together to welcome Ian into the home. Ash took three months off of work to get to know her new little brother and take care of her parents, yes, parents. As she had read somewhere that new parents often struggled the first few months and didn't take care of themselves. And they weren't letting a lot of people around or help due to Ian's health issues. So she stuck around to make sure they had help, took care of themselves, and that they adjusted well to the new arrangement. Going for that Daughter of the Year award.
Steve and Rogers also took three whole months off and then returned to part-time routines. Part-time routines, as in they returned to work as part-timers, but they route which of them would go to work and who would stay home and work and switch every two weeks. Unless something important or urgent happened, one of them would always be home. And this arrangement would last for the next six months. 
(Y/n) however, was and would always be home as she was a licensed and veteran nurse, and Ian had health issues. She took the first four months off completely to focus on baby Ian and only returned to work from home. She also allows herself to be put on call, but only for emergencies. She would not return to the compound until Ian's health issues were resolved or were no longer a serious threat. Everyone understood and did their best to never need her. 
Seven months into this arrangement, everyone they should be was back to work, to some extent. And the parents had rightfully given up.
NOT give up on Baby Ian but given up on all the parenting books and mommy and daddy blogs, realizing that they weren't helping any and, if anything, were causing more frustration and creating unattainable standards. They simply did the best they could and as they pleased as long as baby came out healthy and happy. 
This is probably why Pepper was looking at (Y/n) so bewildered. 
Pepper was seven months pregnant and came over to ask for some parenting advice to help prepare. Now she was currently sitting at the kitchen counter and watching (Y/n) with Ian on her hip make a drink and watching Ian stick his little fingers in every ingredient she pulled out. 
"Um... is that sanitary?"Pepper asked as she held her glass of water closer. 
" His hands are clean, and it's only a little milk and whipped cream. The consequences will be in his diaper, and I'll pass that on to Steve." (Y/n) joked. 
"Does he always do this?" 
"If I'm holding him and making something, yes. He likes to taste mommy's food. I don't hold him while I use the stove and such."  (Y/n) gave him a pacifier so she could have her frappuccino in peace. 
"You said you wanted advice? Don't be afraid of germs or messes. This baby is very messy and touchy. I can assure you your baby's fingers will be in everything. Their mouth, your mouth, your hair, your food, everything." 
(Y/n) moved to the living room, and Pepper followed. She put Ian on the floor mat with some toys before joining her on the couch.
" I don't think I have a lot of advice, and the advice I do have, I don't want to"
Pepper looked at her, confused. 
"My baby has sleep apnea and underdeveloped lungs. I'm not going to give you advice on that, Pepper, because I pray your baby won't end up like that." It was then Pepper truly looked at her and realized how exhausted (Y/n) looked, not in the way of not sleeping but in the way of someone who worried and pulled out their hair. Someone who had experienced and felt so much that they just couldn't anymore. She could still feel, but she could no longer find it in herself to react to her feelings. 
" If you ever want-"
"Absolutely not."
"I didn't -"
"You were going to say, 'If you ever want to talk about it, I'm here'. No, Pepper, you worry about your own baby, but I'm not going to dump any of mine on you. I won't do that. Not right now, at least. Maybe once he's healthier and started biting my ankles. But not when he is like this... I'm sorry." 
"You're sorry?"
"You came for advice. I don't have much to give." 
 " But you have." Pepper pat her on the back " You have shown me little of what I am to prepare for. Tiredness, fingers in all my food."
"Bucky calls it the Baby Tax—payment for always having baby close. Don't be discouraged by the sanitary implication or the mess, Pepper. It's a very good price." 
"She's right," Steve said as he came around the corner. It was his time to be home. He kissed (Y/n) forehead and squeezed Pepper's shoulder before joining Ian on the floor. "I, too, thought it disgusting and unhealthy at first, but over time...it's just adorable now. In the realm of Baby taxing, keep your baby clean and watch what you eat or make. Everything should be fine."
"The way you talk, you'd think this was your 3rd baby," Pepper chuckled. 
"I think we just got into too many parent blogs and books. Dove head first into those too many expectations and high standards. I think those Blogs forget each situation, and each baby is different." Steve said as he pulled Ian onto his chest. " Hey, that's some good advice. Your baby is different from all the other babies in the world. Remember that, and You'll figure out the rest on your own."  
"While we can't give you advice on birthing or raising your pretty baby, I can advise you on cleaning messes and where to buy certain products such as toys, clothes, and food."
-
"How is prep going?" Bucky asked Tony. 
Tony was aware Pepper was at his house and caught a ride with him after work so he could bring his wife back without taking another car. 
"Prep?"
"Prep for the baby. You got less than 10 weeks left."
"Yeah, the nursery is done. Diapers, wipes, and toys—we got all the goods." Despite talking it out over the years and getting past the obvious, Tony found it awkward having this conversation with Bucky. The two weren't friends, more like a friend of my friend type of situation. Besides the initial short talk about his parents, the two had never had a conversation with just each other, nor were they ever left alone ( unless for work/a mission).
"That's good. If you need anything, Steve and I are here for dad stuff." That was definitely not what he was expecting. He didn't really know how to react to that.  They sat in silence for a few minutes with just that. 
"How is the dad stuff?"
"It's ah going pretty good. A few hick-ups, but that's to be expected.....It's actually ... I'm not having the problems I thought I would."
"Like what?" Tony asked cautiously.
"My arm," Bucky whispered, looking down at the medal appendage. Bucky had two different prosthetics. One for work - heavy vibranium metal, bulletproof, explosive proof, with super strength ( a quarter stronger than his actual strength), with a heating and cooling system. And one for home- lightweight, light Vibranium metal, bulletproof, with an attached nerve system, so he could feel everything like a normal hand. "Thank you, by the way."
"She knew you'd worry about it," Tony said. (Y/n) had approached him about Bucky's arm before they adopted the boy. She knew his fear and asked Tony to make something infant-friendly. Truly, all he did was make it more lightweight, take away the strength, and make sure he could feel his child with both hands. " I was happy to help."
"My dreams,"  while his trip to Wakanda cleared his mind, he still had nightmares from time to time and woke up violently. Fortunately, Steve and (Y/n) were always there to bring him back. "Work, enemies. We've got a lot."
"yeah, we do," Tony said. " Good thing we got Stark and super soldier security. No one is getting through our front door unless we want them to." 
"And if they do, we'll kill them."
"So violent." Tony walked back to his workbench.
" Don't dive into parenting books and blogs. That is my dadvice to you."
"Dadvice"
"Oh, diaper duty is your duty, at least for the first month." Tony made a stink face and shivered. Bucky Chuckled " Should have worn a condom then."
Inspired by Tiktok
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yatagarasuhonyaku · 3 months ago
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The Raven of the Empty Coffin: Chapter 1 "Shigemaru" Part 1
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Disclaimer: This is a fan-translation japanese-english of the original novel. The events of this novel follow after what's already covered by the anime. For an easier understanding, I recommend first reading the few scenes of previous books I've already translated.
Blog version
For the Prologue, you can find it HERE
Previously: Prologue
⊛     ⊛      ⊛
Chapter 1: Shigemaru (Part 1)
“Excuse me!” A high-pitched voice reverberated through the dirt floor.
I took a look outside. A tiny shadow was just behind the open shoji door, obscured by the sunlight at his back.
“Oh, hey, what brings you here?”
The boy, who was probably around seven years old, wasn’t anyone I knew. Could he have gotten lost? I wondered. However, as I tried to approach him, the boy cast his eyes down and tightened his grasp on the sleeve of his kimono.
“Well, eh, well, Mister Upper Quarters…”
“I’m from the upper quarters, yes, what do you need?”
My big size tended to scare little children, so standing up in front of him was out of the question. I quickly knelt down, crouching until I reached his eye level. Meanwhile, the boy seemed to have finally found his resolve and raised his head.
“You see, Mister, we actually have a package for you. But nobody is home right now so… could you wait here instead?”
Huh, his parents probably sent him here, then. And what a cute kid he was, so desperate to repeat the message properly.
“I don’t mind. So, you’re here for an errand, right? Where did you come from?”  I asked.
It was at that moment that the boy finally seemed to realize I wasn’t going to eat him alive. His body visibly relaxed.
“The lower quarters.”
“Oh, so you’re that couple’s son! You must be very brave to come here all alone from so far away.”
The lower quarters was a big, old house close to the old commercial road(1). It was, in fact, quite the walk to get there. The road was just one straight line, yes, but we had barely any contact. It truly wasn’t a distance a young child could easily cross on their own.
“I flew about half the way here!”
“Oh, that’s impressive! So you can fly already.”
“Just a bit.”
“And that’s still amazing. I’m Shigemaru, what’s your name?”
“I’m Eita.” 
My conversation with the boy was soon interrupted by the sound of loud footsteps. My younger brothers had just returned, running at full speed.
“Shige(2), is that a guest?”
“Oooh, who are you?”
All being similar ages, it took no time for the kids to befriend one another. They spent the entire time until Eita’s family arrived playing without a break. From tag to spinning top, they busied themselves with any and all kinds of games.
When the time came, it was obvious the poor kid didn’t want to go back home. He had too much fun here, it seemed. So, as we were saying our farewells, I had an idea: I decided to give him a little present, a newly made spinning top.
“Ah, that must be your best one yet! It looks so much better!”
“That’s so cool! Shige makes the best tops, so you better treat it well!”
“...... Is it for me?” Eita’s eyes sparkled. “Really? Can I have it?” 
He was oh-so-visibly hesitating. How nice of him, he was nothing like my brothers or the other village brats. I was bursting into laughter before even realizing it.
“Why so timid? Eita, you did amazing today even though it was your first time playing with these. So, take this and practice for the next time you come over. How about that?”
“Next time…?” Eita whispered.
My brothers immediately took it upon themselves to start a ruckus.
“Yes, of course! Nothing stops you from coming back if you want to, right?”
“Let’s play again! This doesn’t have to be the last time.”
“And make sure to bring the top with you next time. That way we can have a match!”
Eita’s lips curved into a big happy smile. He nodded enthusiastically.
“See you! Come over to play again.”
“You better not fail us!”
“I won’t, see you!”
I watched as, under the sinking sun, his tiny frame became smaller and smaller on his way home. Again and again, he kept on turning back to look at us.
That day was the first and the last time I ever got to see Eita.
⊛     ⊛      ⊛
It was a fresh and invigorating morning. The blue sky was that particularly soft shade unique to spring. No better day to take on a new step in life, he thought to himself. The gentle, bright sunlight poured down and the blooming cherry blossoms that stretched under him gleamed. To him, they looked like drifting white clouds. 
As he flew through, enjoying the chance to view the flowers from high up in the sky, he started to see figures slowly walking up a slope. He also started to notice horse riders appearing from all over. Everyone was headed in the same direction: a number of temple buildings lined up halfway up the side of the mountain. The walls surrounding them were huge, their appearance imposing enough to subdue any would-be-intruders.
In front of it all there was a plaza, which stood right before what one could surmise was the main entrance. Some horses had even landed there already, he noticed. 
——That had to be it.
Shigemaru turned beak first towards the plaza, gliding down as he grasped the very air with his wings. Then, just as he reached the ground, he applied force to his entire body. In a mere instant, his form went from that of a massive raven to that of a human. Dust flew around flung by his wings, which quickly turned into impressive-looking tanned arms. His three legs, all ending in sharp claws, also shifted into a pair of legs that were just as imposing. He flexed, as if making sure everything was in order with his muscular body, and took the wrapping cloth bag hanging from his mouth.
Shigemaru raised his head in satisfaction and found himself face-to-face with a group of boys, all shocked by the giant who had just come down from the sky. His fellow new trainees, he surmised. They were the people he would sleep and eat with for the following three years.
But, was there something they wanted to say? He tilted his head in a wordless question. However, the boys, who had finally come back to themselves, ignored it and looked away instead, setting off towards the entrance. Across the door, multiple long tables were placed all over. From the looks of it, they were doing the new trainees’ reception there. A group of adults, most likely administrative officers, were taking in the boys as they arrived.
“Your letter of recommendation?” one of them said to him as he approached.
They didn’t even give him a chance to speak first.
“Here.”
“Name and place of origin?”
“Shigemaru of Shimaki.”
“A recommendation letter from the Headmaster and the Township Lord. All in order.” The administrative officer confirmed the contents of the letter and scribbled something down in a form. “Then, please, first head to the lodging houses to your new personal room. There should be a senior waiting there to guide you, just follow his instructions.”
The officer offered him a paper that said ‘second building, tenth room’. The moment Shigemaru tried to pick it up, however, the man gave him a wry smile instead.
“...... Still, you got some guts to come up to the entrance in bird shape,” the officer said, surprise in his voice.
Shigemaru gave him a blank look.
“Did I do anything wrong?”
“Oh, not particularly. It’s not like there’s any rule about it, but the Court Ravens will make fun of you, you know?” the officer warned him in a whisper and, finally, let him pick up the paper. “You’re from a rural area so you may not realize it yet, but central nobles are all like that. If you’re aware of what you’re doing, I won’t stop you. Just be careful.”
Shigemaru didn’t really get what he had to be careful about exactly, but he could at least tell the man was talking out of concern for his well-being. So, a sincere show of gratitude later, Shigemaru took off in the direction of his assigned lodgings.
Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t help but to notice that the other boys who were, just like him, carrying their luggage towards their rooms were all dressed in colorful clothes. Yatagarasu like Shigemaru and the others could alternate between two forms, bird and human, but to do so they had to weave a feather robe, black clothes made from part of their bodies. Once generated, which required a conscious effort on their part, it would automatically shift into their feathers when they transformed.
Kimono made of silk and hemp, however, only got in the way when shifting.
It wasn’t rare for people to spend their entire lives in their feather robe, at least for those who struggled with money. However, and rather unsurprisingly, it seemed such people were scarce among the Unbending Reed Monastery’s young trainees. In short, he was already sticking out and he had only just arrived. 
Shigemaru found himself standing there, scratching his head, when he caught sight of another person with the same all-black look in that expanding sea of blues and browns. There was no mistaking it, right over there was another newcomer wearing a feather robe.
Shigemaru immediately ran towards him and enthusiastically patted the boy’s back.
“Hey! You must be from the countryside, just like me, right?”
His fellow trainee, who almost tripped from the sheer force of the impact, somehow managed to bounce back and turn around to look at him. He was quite tiny for someone his age. The boy stood there looking at Shigemaru, mouth open and dumbfounded, perhaps taken aback by his large frame. He wasn’t only small, his features too were still soft and childlike.
“Ah, I know I may not look like it, but I’m also a newcomer. I’m from the Northern Region as well, so to be honest I don’t have any idea of how things work here in the Center. Let’s get along, fellow country bumpkin.”
The boy kept staring at him for a while, before finally breaking into a smile.
“What are the chances? I’m also from the North!”
“Really? I’m from Shimaki.”
“Taruhi. I guess that makes us neighbors,” the boy said in a polite tone.
He introduced himself as Yukiya. He seemed like a nice person, Shigemaru thought to himself. Especially with that gentle look of his.
To top it all off, Shigemaru got a look at Yukiya’s paper on their way to the lodging houses. To his surprise, it turned out they were to share a room. Both were in the tenth room in the second building.
“Oh, we are in the same room as well.”
“Now that’s just fate, isn’t it? Nice to meet you then, here’s hoping we get along,” Yukiya bowed his head.
“I hope so too!”
From there on, they talked a bit about themselves as they moved across the different facilities. After a short walk, they finally reached the dormitory rooms. They both went on to check the door signs, but Shigemaru was the one to call Yukiya over. He had found the room, and it turned out their assigned senior was even someone he already knew. Shigemaru truly felt lucky that day.
Their mentor-to-be, Ichiryuu, was what one would call the stereotypical modern young man. Both for better and for worse.
He used to have quite the rebellious side. This, on top of his eccentric taste in clothes, made the Township citizens worry quite a bit about him back in the day. However, it seemed like his time at the Monastery had done him a lot of good and turned him into a splendid trainee. He had quite the foul mouth and a mean look in his eyes, but Shigemaru knew well that there was an upright character hidden underneath.
At the very least, and from the looks of it, Shigemaru wouldn’t have to worry much about roommate problems for the following year. He let out a quiet sigh of relief.
However, upon seeing Yukiya, Ichiryuu immediately turned white as a sheet.
“W-What are you doing here!? You said there was no way you would come to the Monastery, didn’t you?” he shrieked.
“Oh, about that, you see, the circumstances have changed a lot,” Yukiya gave him a pained smile. His attitude was still impeccably polite. 
In the meantime, Shigemaru just stood there, giving alternating glances to his polar opposite roommates. Finally, he tilted his head.
“Wait, did something happen between you two?”
“Oh no, don’t worry,” Yukiya replied with a smile before Ichiryuu—whose face was contorted beyond belief—could say anything. No space was left for arguments. “We are childhood friends, after all. Everyone gets into one or two silly childish fights in their lives. But we aren’t kids anymore, so there’s no reason to hold a grudge, right?”
At Yukiya’s question, Ichiryuu froze for a second.
“Y-yes, of course. Who would hold a grudge over something that happened so long ago! Let the past be the past,” Ichiryuu agreed enthusiastically.
Yukiya’s smile, on the other hand, slowly deepened. “That said, I’ll make sure to not overstep just because of our past together. Ichiryuu, I trust you to guide us well as our senior.”
Yukiya bowed respectfully, and Ichiryuu’s face twisted once more as if he had just seen the world end.
“...... Yes, fine with me… Nice to meet you again…”
After a long period of silence, Ichiryuu finally opened his mouth again. His eyes looked dead—like those of a fish stuck on land—for some strange reason. For a moment there, it had looked as if his soul was going to leave his body. It worried Shigemaru quite a bit, but, by the time they left the dormitory hall for a tour around the Monastery, it seemed like Ichiryuu had finally returned to his usual self.
“We wake up as the sun rises,” Ichiryuu explained, his tone oddly desperate. He covered the details of Monastery life as they walked through the premises. “When to wake up, plus the start and end of the lessons, is all indicated by the ring of the bell tower up there. You won’t have to worry about missing meals as long as you pay attention. Be careful with the ‘ambushes’, however.”
“‘Ambushes’?”
“They simulate emergencies, so they happen without any prior notice. The alarm bell could sound at any time, even during lessons or during sleep. When that happens, we are supposed to gather at the plaza in front of the grand lecture hall. You should bring your Ornamented Blade(3) in hand, nothing else.”
“Ornamented… Blade? What’s that?”
“This.”
With the swooshing sound of the attached crimson strap being unfastened, Ichiryuu took off the tachi on his hip and showed it to them. Upon further examination, it was much lighter than it looked. The scabbard was covered in black lacquer and the ornamentation was simple but exquisite.
“It may look like the real thing, but it’s just a very well-made bamboo sword. They’ll give you one soon, it’s what identifies us as Monastery trainees. As for the decorative jewels, Evergreens have black ones, and white is for Saplings. For your generation, I think it’s supposed to be green. You should keep it with you at all times and, no matter what, never lose it.”
It was part of their duties as trainees to return their Ornamented Blade to the Monastery when they left. Hence why, if anyone lost it, they were summarily kicked out no matter the circumstances. “If you manage to overcome the Trial of Storm and are chosen for the Yamauchi Guard, however, you’ll be given the real blade in exchange.” 
After they thanked him, Ichiryuu returned the Blade to its original spot with practiced ease. “Once you wake up, there’s always morning training. We eat after that. Both breakfast and lunch are made for us, so you just have to go and pick up a tray but, once you’re done, you’ll have to clean it yourself. Seeds stay behind afterwards to arrange the desks for their own lectures.”
Lectures took up most if not all morning classes. After lunch, however, it was all practical courses. “As for the dojo, whoever uses them last has to clean them up. Dinner is prepared in turns by the different dormitory halls. Turn assignments are hung at the dining hall’s entrance at the start of every month, so make sure to check them out.”
Unless there was some sort of night training session, which wasn’t common, there were no classes after dinner. Did that mean there was nothing to do, then? To that question, the answer was no.
“You’ll be getting plenty of homework. Until you get used to it, expect to be very busy keeping up with lectures. You may even need to skip sleep. There are study groups, however, and some seniors organize training sessions on weapons that aren’t covered by our classes. You can join those once you grow comfortable with the workload.”
During the tour, Ichiryuu also showed them to the biggest hall in the Monastery. Deep in the massive room with wooden flooring, there was a huge altar, hidden away by bamboo curtains. Yamagami, the Mountain God of Yamauchi, was lavishly enshrined there. The ceiling, supported by endless pillars, was so tall that it was a struggle to look up to it. From there hung a sublime canopy of gold.
Initially, the Unbending Reed Monastery was a temple dedicated to Yamagami. It was the reason behind the luxury of its facilities and why its grounds were vast enough to include a swimming pond and even a grove of trees the trainees used for practical training. 
Their tour went on until dusk, as Shigemaru and Yukiya followed Ichiryuu through the enormous premises. Once it was time, however, they headed straight to the dining hall, where most trainees were already gathered.
Huge containers full of warm rice and pots filled to the brim with steamed vegetables and chicken dumplings awaited them in a corner of the room. Following Ichiryuu’s instructions, Shigemaru and Yukiya each took a set of trays(4) and utensils from the piles lying alongside the wall and proceeded to fill them with as much food as they could actually eat.
The three of them settled down in a circle in an empty spot among the other chattering trainees. They clapped their hands, said their blessings, and finally started to eat.
The meat dumplings were so juicy they leaked when one bit into them. The oily liquid had a golden tint and tasted like glory, with a flavor only achievable by boiling in large quantities. It was delicious, and Shigemaru simply couldn’t have enough of it: he had flown the entire way to the Monastery, after all. He devoured all his food with great enthusiasm, aided as he was by his empty stomach.
It all happened once they were putting aside their trays after dinner.
A group of seniors, most likely Evergreens given their apparent age, suddenly came in with a bunch of packages in hand. From them came the unmistakable, delicious aroma of sake. Apparently, it was tradition to hold a welcome party for the newcomers and so they had taken it upon themselves to go out to buy the alcohol and appetizers.
The seniors took care of all the preparations, setting up the entire party and refusing any help from some offering newcomers. The Evergreens busied themselves with hearing out some very nervous new arrivals as the Saplings efficiently moved around the room and made sure to distribute everything.
Finally, once everyone had a cup of sake in their hands, one of the Evergreens stood up to talk, aided by a push on the back from a friend. “To all newcomers, congratulations on joining the Monastery. We welcome you! There won’t be any time for fun from tomorrow onwards, so it’s our wish for you to enjoy the atmosphere at least for today.”
“However, you’ll have an awful time tomorrow if you get actually drunk! Be careful if you aren’t used to it.”
“There’s no way you can get drunk from this little.”
“Now, now. Don’t be spoilsports, let them drink all they can!”
Despite the constant interruptions from the sitting Evergreens’ banter, a toast followed soon after and, at last, everyone got to enjoy their drinks. Shigemaru, who had promptly finished his cup in one go, busied himself with chatting with his fellow newcomers and the seniors in his immediate area.
However, just a while later, the newcomers’ self-introductions started in earnest.
By that point, most were sober or slightly drunk at most, but a few were already wasted: their faces were completely red and they were incapable of properly articulating anything. The mood was quite good thanks to the sake, so laughter often found itself mixed in between the newcomers’ attempts to share their names, places of origin and reasons for joining the Monastery.
As soon as they were done, they returned to their seats with a bow and, immediately after, another newcomer close by would stand up to take their place.
“I’ve been assigned to the tenth room, second building. I’m Yukiya and I’m from Taruhi in the North.�� Finally, Yukiya’s turn came. The boy, who had been sitting beside Shigemaru until that point, spoke without any hesitation. “My uncle used to be part of the Yamauchi Guard, so I’ve heard all about how hard the training here is ever since I was a little kid. I don’t know whether I'll be able to keep up, but I’ll do my best. Pleased to meet you all.”
As far as self-introductions went, Yukiya’s truly was the very epitome of average and unremarkable. An unenthusiastic applause followed it, after which Yukiya tried to sit back down with him. But, at that moment, someone else raised their voice. 
“Wait! What about your reasons for joining the Monastery?” the boy outright protested, oddly enough.
The one who spoke out was a boy with reddish brown hair, and Shigemaru couldn’t help but gasp when he saw his face. He was incredibly handsome, with the kind of looks you rarely if ever saw back in the countryside. To Shigemaru, it was like having the chance to admire some rare unusual creature in the wild.
Yukiya, however, faced the other boy without giving any hint of being surprised or impressed at all.
“Well, I don’t really have a reason worth mentioning, you see. My only desire is to become a splendid Guard and work to protect Yamauchi.”
“To protect Yamauchi? Is that truly all there’s to it?” the boy asked once again, plain incredulity painted all over his stunning face.
Seemingly unbothered by the strange demands, Yukiya visibly blinked.
“...... Excuse me, may I know who you are?”
“My name is Akeru. I’m Akeru of the Western House.”
The instant the red-haired boy introduced himself, gasps of surprise filled the dining hall in what quickly developed into a ruckus. So that’s him! they whispered to each other. Even Shigemaru, an authentic country bumpkin, knew just how powerful and important the Western House was even within the nobility.
In practice, the lands of Yamauchi were governed by the Four Houses, the highest ranking of the noble families. The Eastern, Southern, Western and Northern Houses each had control over the territory in their respective cardinal direction. They were said to descend from the First Golden Raven’s four children. Any member of the aristocracy, and this included the Center nobles, who held power in the Imperial Court had sworn allegiance to one of them. There were virtually no exceptions to this rule.
Akeru, as a scion of the Western House, one of these powerful families, therefore held one of the highest ranks among any young boy in the entire country.
“Oooh! So you are the oh-so-famous favorite of His Highness Wakamiya,” someone else interrupted in a mocking tone.
Shigemaru turned his head in the voice’s direction. There was a senior reclining arrogantly, surrounded by his followers. Despite being a Sapling, he had remained seated the entire time, even as others worked tirelessly to organize the party. 
He was not Akeru, that much was certain, but he still had a beautiful face. His features were noble, unified by a nicely-sculpted hooked nose. His shoulders were wide and he was noticeably taller than his fellow Saplings, with unusually long arms and legs. Despite his above average looks, in his eyes was blatant contempt towards others, which made him the kind of man that most don’t want to get involved with.
“And you are?” a perplexed Akeru asked.
The senior’s eyes glistened in defiance. “Kimichika of Minami-Tachibana.”
In response, Akeru let out a small ‘oh’, as if that had just explained it all. His eyes turned to pierce back at Kimichika. “Your reputation precedes you.”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, but here I’m your senior. So you better be careful when opening your mouth.” Kimichika stood up, all puffed up, and returned Akeru’s gaze with arrogance. “I cannot care less whether you were Wakamiya’s close aide or whatever, and it doesn’t even matter here. You’ll have a bad time if you keep up with the big attitude.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Oh, if that’s how you want to take it, for sure. I mean, Wakamiya? Imagine being scared of that simpleton.”
“You can say whatever you want about me, but I won’t tolerate any insult to His Highness,” Akeru frowned and, all of a sudden, turned towards Yukiya. “What are you just standing there for? Shouldn’t you be saying something too, Lord Yukiya?”
Yukiya, who had so far been watching them with concern on his face, was rather confused. He obviously didn’t expect to be brought into the conversation. “Erhm, excuse me? I don’t really get what this entire conversation is all about, you see, so it’s not like I have much to say…”
His floundering, however, did little else than deepen Akeru’s frown. 
“....... You realize he’s insulting His Highness Wakamiya, right?”
Yukiya remained silent, yet something about him changed the very moment he heard that question. Deep annoyance burned deep within his eyes. He had an answer, Shigemaru realized, but that didn’t mean he wanted to give it. 
And so, Shigemaru couldn’t bring himself to stay out of the conversation any longer.
“Well, no matter how much you ask, people like us won’t have much to say about that.”
In a second, the entire room turned to stare daggers at Shigemaru. Why are you opening your damn beak, you ignorant fool?
“Nice to meet you, my name is Shigemaru. I share rooms with Yukiya and, like him as well, I’m from the Northern Region,” Shigemaru stood up and soon placed his hand on a shocked Yukiya’s shoulder. “My turn wouldn’t come no matter how long I waited, so I’ll take it nevertheless. Much like my friend here, I came to the Monastery with the goal of protecting Yamauchi and, as someone with similar circumstances, I must say that answering Lord Akeru’s question is impossible.”
Shigemaru’s tone was joking, and Akeru was left at a loss. “Why?”
“I mean, it’s not like us country bumpkins have even had the chance to meet those in the Imperial Family. You can’t judge a Yatagarasu you haven’t even met, at least not from what others say about them.”
Akeru was speechless, and he wasn’t the only one. Kimichika too seemed to have been caught off-guard by Shigemaru’s carefreeness as he muttered., “And who do you think you’re going to swear fealty to when you graduate?”
“I don’t even have a way to know that, do I? That’s a problem I’ll face three years from now,” Shigemaru laughed nonchalantly. “And, before that, I have to work hard to become strong and skilled enough to even be chosen for the Guard. I’ve heard our destinations are chosen according to our results, so I don’t know who I’ll be serving among the Imperial Family. Not like I care about who or where I serve as long as I can work for Yamauchi.”
Shigemaru’s argument was truly the simplest thing ever, yet it silenced the entire hall for quite a long while. Finally, someone broke into long-held laughter, an Evergreen who had been limited to listening until then. Just like that, the tense mood dissolved into nothing.
“Now, now, he actually got a point there. I’m with Shigemaru!”
“Looks like this year we got a new fun guy!”
“Kimichika, go back to your seat. We got sake for once, let’s not ruin it,” another Evergreen soon intervened.
Kimichika, who had been looking at Shigemaru with venom in his eyes, reticently closed his mouth. Akeru too decided to back off. He was obviously displeased with how everything played out, and his followers were busy trying to appease him.
Once the self-introduction picked up again and everything was back to normal, Shigemaru sat back in his original spot.
“Thank you, Shige(5),” Yukiya whispered to him.
“Don’t worry about it,” Shigemaru waved his hand as if it was nothing.
Finally getting to relax, he extended his hand to get himself a snack. However, right at that moment, Ichiryuu returned to their spot with a scowl.
“You two, come with me now.”
Immediately, Ichiryuu dragged them both out of the dining hall.
Their destination was, apparently, the Monastery’s bathhouse.
“Now this is the best!”
“It’s truly nice, isn’t it?”
It was, in fact, the biggest one Shigemaru had ever seen. Yukiya and he had finally gotten inside the bathtub, both relishing the chance to relax, when Ichiryuu brusquely opened the door from the washing area.
“Just how happy-go-lucky are you two!?” he yelled at them as he came in. “Why do you think I went through the trouble of dragging you two out of the party!? Because the Evergreens told me to!”
Ichiryuu kept on ranting, not even giving them a chance to answer. “They warned me: ‘make sure to teach them fast, before they end up starting something worse!’ That scared me shitless!” 
“Did we even have an option? I didn’t start it, you know, that young lord of the Western House came after me,” Yukiya protested, clearly fed up with the entire situation.
Ichiryuu quickly recoiled at that, switching targets. “What about you, Shigemaru!?” 
“Shige was just trying to help me. He knows nothing about Imperial Court politics, what other option did he have? Besides, I wonder: is it truly right for you to go and blame him for helping when you didn’t even try? Huh, Sapling Ichiryuu?” Yukiya attacked back, all prickliness.
Ichiryuu’s only answer was a pained groan. This was clearly escalating.
“..... Did I mess up anything?” Shigemaru asked meekly.
“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Despite the dark environment, he could still feel Yukiya softly laugh. “It’s all just worthless Imperial Court power struggles.”
Huh, thinking about it, why does Yukiya know so much about that sort of thing? Shigemaru wondered. Yukiya seemed to notice it.
“Well, you see, to be honest,” he explained to him as he scratched his head bashfully, “I didn't really explain myself properly before, but I’m, like Ichiryuu, the son of a Township Lord. Taruhi’s second son, to be more precise. On top of that, I was on Court service until not that long ago.”
“Oh, so that explains it!”
Yukiya’s demeanor was strangely sophisticated for someone from the countryside, so it all made sense to him. The feather robe may have initially misled Shigemaru, but Yukiya was still a nobleman. A rural one, but a noble nevertheless.
“Now, talking about that, you are probably way better suited than me to explain this entire mess to him. Will you?” Ichiryuu suggested.
“Fine then,” Yukiya repositioned to face Shigemaru, “Shige, do you know anything about the inheritance conflict from 10 years ago? The one to decide who would take the position of the Crown Prince: His Highness Wakamiya or his older brother—Lord Natsuka.”
Yukiya fully shifted into explanation mode. In answer, Shigemaru just shook his head.
“Just rumors, not any details.”
Until very recently, people in the Center fought over who should inherit the throne and become the next Golden Raven: the elder or the younger brother. That much he had heard about, as it was a Yamauchi-wide problem. That aside, he only knew that, at some point, they had settled on Wakamiya as the future Golden Raven.
“But, well, the rumors at least said that the imperial brothers really didn't get along…….”
“Oh, that's not true, actually. This may sound strange, I know, but their relationship is actually excellent. I would dare even say it’s the opposite: Lord Natsuka is a surprisingly dedicated and loving brother as far as I’ve seen.”
Just as surprising was Yukiya’s way of speaking, it was as if he knew them both personally. He went on to tell Shigemaru the actual reason the Court settled on Wakamiya as the Crown Prince, despite the Imperial Family upholding primogeniture: it was all Animiya's doing.
“For starters, the reason His Highness Wakamiya became the Crown Prince in the first place was because the imperial priests declared him a ‘True Golden Raven’.”
The Golden Ravens were the leaders of all Yatagarasu, and were further divided into ‘Acting’ and ‘True’ Golden Ravens. Within those two categories, ‘True Golden Ravens’ were said to be born rulers, possessing everything and anything they would ever need to govern Yamauchi. When one was born, he got to inherit the throne regardless of birth order or his mother’s station.
Only in the absence of one was the eldest brother to take over the position as a replacement. Those who ruled in their stead were therefore referred to as ‘Acting Golden Ravens’.
“We call both Golden Ravens, but you could say that the rightful ruler, the True Golden Raven, and his Acting replacements are entirely different figures. It was the priests who determined that His Highness Wakamiya was, in fact, a ‘True’ one.”
“Wait a moment,” Shigemaru said, hand on his forehead. “In short, that means the older brother gave up his position as Crown Prince to his younger brother because of his status as the ‘True’ Golden Raven, is that correct………?”
“Yes, exactly.”
According to Natsuka himself, to have a replacement was pointless when the real one existed. He was a just man and had never been the ambitious sort to begin with, so Natsuka had been perfectly content giving up the position to his brother once he knew he matched the legends.
However, not everyone was happy with his decision.
“Oomurasaki no Omae, the Empress, couldn't bring herself to accept that—she's Lord Natsuka's mother, you see. She's the legal wife and hails from the Southern House. Meanwhile, His Highness Wakamiya's mother was a concubine from the Western House.”
A long, long time had passed since the last time a ‘True Golden Raven’ had even been born, a fact that played a key part in the Southern House's adamant refusal to accept the situation. On the other hand, the Western House welcomed this development with open arms. Hence, the Imperial Court was divided into the Wakamiya Faction and the Animiya(6) Faction, even though it went against Natsuka’s own wishes.
“The South supports Animiya and the West, Wakamiya. This is why they are opposed to each other and, for some reason, it seems like their conflict is affecting even a place like the Unbending Reed Monastery. Did I get that right?”
Yukiya gave a pointed look to Ichiryuu, as if fishing for information.
“That’s right, yes,” a clearly exhausted Ichiryuu replied, “I think you have realized this much already, but Kimichika is a South-affiliated Court Raven.”
“And Akeru is a scion of the Western House, remember? So, Kimichika belongs to the Animiya Faction and Akeru to Wakamiya’s.”
“Argh, what an annoying mess!” Shigemaru exclaimed.
Maybe because of the sudden explanation, but he couldn't make any sense out of it. “So, let’s put it like this. There is a wife and her son, who is his father’s heir. Said father owns a lot of fields, but he cheated on his wife and secretly had a lover and yet another son somewhere else. This second son is truly gifted, however, so the legitimate heir wants to give up the fields to his brother. The wife absolutely refuses, and so her family and the lover’s family have somehow also gotten involved and it's all a complete mess. Did I get it right?”
For a second, Yukiya and Ichiryuu stood there in complete silence.
“That’s quite the way to put it…”
“It is, yes… but he is not wrong, really. So, using Shige's metaphor, Kimichika belongs to the wife's family, and Akeru to the lover's.”
“Good. I finally got it,” Shigemaru said.
“Now, whatever you do, avoid both of them as much as you can,” Ichiryuu insisted. “They’ll only give you trouble. To not approach what you can avoid is wisdom.”
“I have to agree. As long as they don't come after us, it's probably better to give them a wide berth,” Yukiya added.
“Well, now that this matter is resolved, I'm getting out of here. I can't believe you two are here like it’s nothing.” As Ichiryuu said that, he stood up with a stagger. It was only upon watching him go that Shigemaru realized that he himself was also entirely covered in sweat.
Refreshed after their bath, they all returned together to their shared room. In preparation for the following day, they started to set up the room as soon as they arrived. A worn-out screen, covered in repair marks, was soon placed in the center of the room, dividing it in two halves. The one further back was for Ichiryuu, while Shigemaru and Yukiya shared the half facing the entrance. Their futons, thin from much use, were all piled together in a corner. The three of them chatted as they arranged them.
After a while, the conversation turned back to their reasons to come to the Monastery.
“I also wanted to ask you about it, actually. Especially you, Yukiya,” Ichiryuu peeked through the screen. “I completely missed the chance to ask you earlier. You said that you didn’t want to ever come to the Monastery, didn’t you?”
Ichiryuu gave him a sour look as he said that. Shigemaru, surprised by the revelation, also turned to look at Yukiya, who shrugged bashfully.
“That’s true, yes. I once thought I would actually die if I ever joined the Monastery, and that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the training. I hated the idea so much, in fact, that I chose to go to the Court over the Monastery when that choice was forced upon me.”
“Then, why did you even come here?”
“I couldn't remain a spoiled child, not after last summer.”
‘Last summer’. Shigemaru and Ichiryuu both instantly straightened their faces.
“...... When the ‘Monkeys’ attacked,” Ichiryuu muttered.
Yukiya nodded, silent.
Unimaginable fear assailed all the Yatagarasu in Yamauchi that summer. The incident took place in small border settlements: Monkeys attacked and murdered all inhabitants. There were no survivors in any of them. At first, nobody knew why they did it or where they had come from. However, it soon became clear that their Yatagarasu victims were nothing more than food to their assailants. Those giant Monkeys had assaulted their villages to eat them. 
Legends said that Yamauchi was protected by a barrier created by Yamagami, the God of the Mountain. They had never before suffered any kind of outside attack because of it. These unprecedented events shook everyone in Yamauchi to their very core.
The Imperial Court frantically searched for the Monkeys’ invasion route. A while later, they found out about ‘passages’ in the barrier that had, most likely, allowed the Monkeys to enter Yamauchi. Once they successfully blocked them all, the Imperial Court released an official announcement declaring the problem solved: the Monkeys wouldn’t ever be capable of returning to Yamauchi.
“However, those are simply the central nobles’ vain, silly hopes,” Yukiya argued, not mincing any words in the process, “‘For now, we have closed every hole we have found, so it would be nice if the monkeys don't ever return’. That's all it amounts to. Apparently, their aim was to keep the population calm and avoid an even bigger upheaval, but that way you only get them to lower their guards and ruin their chances at self-defense. To declare everything solved haphazardly like that just hurts us in the end.”
Yukiya’s irritation was palpable as he spoke. He seemed to be extremely bright, which made for quite the contrast with the easygoing, head-empty attitude he had kept up until that moment. 
“Oh, I see now, so that's what you meant by ‘protecting Yamauchi’! You too came here to fight off the Monkeys, then.”
“Well, yes, that's the gist of it,” Yukiya answered Shigemaru before further adding., “We can't leave it all up to the Imperial Court, after all.”
As if he had just realized something, Yukiya then glanced at him. “Wait, ‘you too’...?”
“Yes. I came here for the same reason as you, really. I didn't really get to mention it earlier, but I was actually born and raised in Sazaki, Shimaki.”
“... Sazaki!” As expected of fellow Northerners, Yukiya and Ichiryuu’s reactions were striking.
“No way, by Sazaki, you mean that Sazaki, right? ——The one that the Monkeys attacked,” Ichiryuu whispered in horror.
Shigemaru nodded. Two villages were raided by the Monkeys: Sugou in Taruhi, and Sazaki in Shimaki. Compared to Sugou, where the entire settlement was annihilated, Sazaki had it slightly better: only one house, away from everyone else's, was affected.
Everyone focused on Sugou when the topic of the Monkeys’ victims came up, but what happened in Sazaki had been just as terrifying for the locals: they knew that, if things had played out ever so slightly differently, they could have been the Monkeys’ food instead.
“We called the place the Monkeys attacked the ‘lower quarters’.”
It was an old house and, from what he knew, originally the main building of an entirely different village. Once the old commercial route went out of use, however, their population quickly dwindled and, as time passed, only the so-called ‘lower quarters’ remained. They had recently become more or less self-sufficient, from what it seemed, so they didn't have that much contact with Sazaki’s other inhabitants.
“That summer, the Township Lord sent us a notice, asking us to confirm that everyone was safe in the area. I can hold my own in a battle, at least by countryside standards, so I was sent to check the situation there.”
What Shigemaru found in the lower quarters was a veritable bloodbath.
Everyone there had vanished. Endless amount of flies fluttered around as the stench of the horses’ rotting corpses, still trapped in the stables, filled the air.
The edges of the house’s hearth were dyed black. By what, he couldn't really tell at first glance. At least, until he found all those pearly white bones scattered all over the place. With them came the realization: those dark stains were what remained of a sea of blood.
He may not have been particularly close to them, but they weren’t strangers either.
However, at the moment, what had worried Shigemaru the most was the safety of that young boy he had just met the other day. He ran through the entire house, calling for him. Eita, where are you!? Then, in one corner of the house, he found it.
The wide wooden floor was covered in dark stains, as if ink had spilled all over the place. There, in the middle of all that blood, was one tiny, all-too-familiar spinning top.
——He wouldn’t ever forget what he felt that day.
Neither Yukiya nor Ichiryuu said anything. They must have noticed Shigemaru's odd silence, and didn’t press him for details. Finally, he sighed and gave them a bitter smile.
“So, well, that’s why I'm here.”
Shigemaru had been invited by Monastery associates over and over again, being asked if he wouldn't at least consider taking the entrance exams. He ignored them all, as he had never felt the need to do so. He truly believed that he could handle most anything all by himself. After witnessing the Monkeys’ massacre, however, he came to realize how truly naive he had been.
“So, you wanted to further improve your battle skills for self-defense, I take it?” Ichiryuu’s expression was severe, different from anything before. He seemed to realize how personal this was to Shigemaru.
“Not really,” Shigemaru denied. “No matter how much I train myself, it's not like I could do anything worth a damn if a large number of Monkeys were to ever attack. Besides, learning that these ‘Passages’ are in the Center made me realize something. That, if I truly wanted to protect what I love, I couldn't just stay there, swinging around some club in front of my house. To be honest, it's not like I even know right now what I can achieve as a Yamauchi Guard either.”
But, at the very least, it beat staying home practicing with sticks. He didn't want to ever be in the position of picking up a bloodied toy with his very own hands. Not again.
“I truly couldn't stand the idea of regretting it all later. If something like that were to ever happen again, to find myself thinking——‘I should have joined the Guard’; ‘if only I hadn't been self-complacent, maybe, maybe I could have done something’.”
The realization came to him at the very last moment, a few months from losing his chance forever. He found himself quite fortunate for that.
“Yes, I get exactly what you mean,” Yukiya muttered softly, and yet, for some reason, his expression was one of pure, undiluted joy. “I'm so glad we became friends, Shige. Let's become Guards together, no matter what.”
However, Shigemaru couldn't really share Yukiya's optimism.
“But,” he looked up at the ceiling, “honestly, I was in the very last place at the entrance exams for theory courses. Can someone like me even graduate?”
The moment Yukiya heard that, he burst out in merry laughter.
“Don’t worry, I'll help you out! Theory won’t be any problem.”
—————————————
Next: Shigemaru (Part 2)
1: The commercial roads are the main paths that connect the Center with the countryside. A lot of big settlements are built around them to provide for merchants. Sometime ago, the “old” ones were replaced with newly built ones that followed another route. The villages reliant on them struggled and became smaller and much more isolated.
2: Shigemaru’s little brothers call him 茂兄, or Shige-nii. Brother Shige, but said in a very affectionate way, essentially.
3: The original term for Ornamented Blade is 珂仗 (Kajou). It’s a wordplay on 儀仗 (Gijou), the word for ‘ceremonial weapon’. 珂 is a kanji for ‘jewel’ that doesn’t see that much modern use.
4: These trays are actually 食膳, four-legged trays that were used instead of tables in ancient East Asia. Dining tables weren’t in use back in the Heian era Yamauchi mostly resembles.
5: The specific way Yukiya calls Shigemaru is 茂さん, or Shige-san.
6: Much like Nazukihiko is referred to as Wakamiya (若宮, or ‘young imperial’), his siblings have similar titles. Natsuka’s is Animiya, 兄宮, or the ‘elder brother imperial’. For consistency sake, I’ll be keeping all -miya titles.
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ist4rgirlo · 2 years ago
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𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐬𝐨? : 𝐈𝐈𝐈
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Summary: Growing up with the Conklins and the Fishers has been a wonderful experience for you; you feel as if you were a part of another family. Your days of stress as a child were over, well at least you thought that was the case not until you had to choose between your two childhood bestfriends, the one who did you wrong and the one who has been waiting his entire life for your decision.
Prev || Steven Conklin x fem!reader || My blog
Warnings: PURE FLUFF (lmk if i missed anything!)
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Steven’s Pov
It has been a year since Conrad gave me his blessing, a year since he decided to let y/n go. I have been helping y/n a lot and it honestly made our bond so much special. We were literally inseparable and I would not trade it for anything else.
Despite my feelings growing over the years, I have fallen in love with her. It all began when we were young. She had just moved into the neighborhood and became our neighbor. She was my first playmate, she was the first girl that made me feel all tingly.
Whenever we played together back then, mom would always call it a "playdate." it was corny but I loved the thought of it. I realized my love for her when we were seven, when we accidentally kissed, a silly little peck. It was still funny back then. My mother and her mother witnessed the incident, and even captured it on video.
She has been always important to me. Mom has always believed we would be together, not until the Fishers came. When it was supposed to be Steven and Y/n, it became Conrad and Y/n but I never hated Conrad, I never fought with him about it.
They were both my childhood best friends, so I let them be.
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Your Pov
After a year since the incident with Conrad, Steven has been a great help to me. He has helped me move on and carry on with my life. He was the reason why I’m still here, living and breathing.
During those times when he was helping me, I began to develop feelings for him. But I couldn't tell him - no, it was too fast, I don't want him to think that he is just a rebound.
“Y/n?” Steven tappped me, snapping me out of my thoughts.
I turned to him and smiled. He smiled back, offering a hand — pulling me up from my seat. “You ready?” he asked.
Steven decided to take me out today - it was a friendly date, well that’s what I thought, what I assumed.
I never wanted to make the same mistake again, Steven is a good person — he really is, I know that he’ll never hurt me like that but can you really blame me if i’m just being cautious?
I nodded, following him outside the door. We walked towards his car — he opened the door to his car, guiding me. These were the bare minimum but it sure made my heart flutter.
Steven went around his car and sat at the driver’s seat.
“So.. how’s your day going so far?”
“Steven, we’ve been together all day” I said, throwing my head back — laughing.
“Hey! Is it bad that I’m asking my bestfriend?” Steven frowned before poking me on my side — tickling me.
Yeah “bestfriend” — would lie if I said that it didn’t hurt me a little bit. “Focus on the road!” I giggled — pushing his hands away.
“Sooo.. where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see” Steven said — looking at me, smiling gently.
TIME SKIP
We arrived at the beach, we were in Cousins — the last time I went here was when I got my heart broken.
Steven hopped out of his car and went around it to open my door. I smiled at him as I take his hand as a support.
I took a deep breath and looked at the beach, Cousins has always been beautiful. We both sighed in amazement. He pulled me closer, putting an arm around my waist as we walked towards the shore
“So why exactly did you take me here?” I asked, looking up at him.
He shrugged “Just wanted to make new memories” he looked down at me — smiling.
“Plus I knew how much you love to watch sunsets, and this place was special to you so I decided to take you here” he answered while smiling at me and taking my hand into his
Steven made me feel special in this moment, he always did. He was always the one who remembered the littlest details about me. He always knew how to make me happy. I wonder why I was unaware of it at the beginning.
When we reached the shore, he placed a mat on the sand and sat down — patting the space beside him, telling me to sit down.
I love this place, I always loved Cousins, I always loved the beach house. It was a wonderful escape from the hectic of life to come here and enjoy the breeze of the ocean.
“It’s so beautiful” I whispered — wind blowing against my face. I looked at Steven, smiling gently. He was also admiring the ocean, this is where we grew up, our second home.
Steven turned to me “It is huh? It’s always been beautiful” he smiled — I nodded.
“You know what, let’s put on some music”
I reached for the bag and gave it to Steven, he pulled out the speaker and placed it gently on the mat. He pulled out his phone and started to play our favorite song.
Moon river, wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style someday (someday, day)
A dream maker (maker)
My heart (you heart) breaker
I smiled at him — he stood up “Come on, I wanna dance with you” he said before offering me a hand, pulling me up.
I giggled — he twirled me before placing both of my hands around his neck, his hands placed on my waist.
Wherever you're goin'
I'm goin' that way (the same, the same)
“This feels nice” I hummed — we both moved in a tiny circle, my head leaning against his chest.
Steven moved his hands away from my waist, putting a small space between us. My heart was pounding so rapidly, I felt like it was going to jump out of my chest.
Steven tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear before saying “You look beautiful” — he smiled gently, his cheeks red.
I slapped his chest gently “Gosh, you’re so corny Conklin” I laughed.
Two drifters off to see the world
There's such a crazy world to see
We're all chasin' after all the same
Chasing after our ends
He chuckled before pulling me close again — now his arms wrapped around my waist, my arms wrapped around his neck. He swayed us side to side, still dancing to the song.
The fact that I am this close to him has only confirmed how much I like him, how much he really means to me.
I pulled away gently, “Stev-“
I felt him pull me closer - he leaned then next thing I knew his lips were against mine. My eyes closed — melting against him. Both of us stayed there for a while before Steven pulled away — rubbing my cheek with his thumb.
I opened my eyes and looked at him. “I- I’m sorry” Steven paused, his voice shaking “I just wanted to do that for so lon-“
My lips pressed against his, cutting him off as he began to melt against me - I could not help but smile against his lips - this answered my question, he likes me too like how much I like him.
I pulled away, catching my breathe — looking at him in the eyes, I smiled gently.
“I like you”
“I like you”
We both said at the same time. We giggled — relieved because we both felt the same. Steven was about to lean towards me again but his phone rung.
I chuckled — he smiled awkwardly before answering his phone, it was his mom.
“Hey mom” he said before kissing my forehead, I pulled him closer and hugged him — he hugged me back using the arm that his other arm — wrapping it around my shoulders.
I left small kisses on his cheek, I felt so inlove — he giggled, his face flushed.
Who knew being in love would feel like heaven - it is absolutely euphoric to know that the man you like, also likes you. His need for me was the same as my need for him, and he wanted me as much as I wanted him.
It feels so nice having this kind of love, it feels so nice having this with Steven.
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taglist : @joeybandthings @scysuxx @fangirl-kimora @avengershoeee @tasha13-blog2 @lemon-lav
so this is the last chapter for this fic !! i hope everyone likes it - i honestly couldn’t wait and just went and got them together I MEAN THEY BOTH DESERVE TO BE HAPPY SO WHY NOT :))
lmk if you guys have any requests i’ll happily do them !!
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yridenergyridenergy · 8 months ago
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On the eve of the seven-year mark for this account, let's address the biggest hate point about me: how I insist that people either ask before, come and say thanks, simply link to or credit this page when they share/repost the content.
Even if I manage to convince a handful of peopIe, I will continually have to argue and work with people on this because it's not inherent. For example, I come from an online community where, decades ago, we were shocked when we learned that Japanese artists were mad that some people had simply copied and pasted their fanart. It's obvious when you stop to put yourself in their shoes, but for a lot of people, it takes some personal effort to accept the realization that: "Oh okay, I see where you're coming from." In no way am I comparing fanart with most of my content, as artists deserve a ton more praise, but the concept of being grateful for where you got stuff and not simply saving and reposting stuff is the same. And guess what? People outside of that aforementioned community, and even probably newcomers to that community, are still sharing uncredited fanart. It's not inherent, I get it.
For almost seven years, I have posted twice daily, at least, and this requires quite a lot of budget, time, innovation and effort. And absolutely, the content comes from the band themselves, I'm not the photographer(s), the live show recorders, the interviewers, etc. However, you also wouldn't have that GIF, JPG, etc. if it wasn't for me. I do it to share the love, the passion. If I don't mention the source in my post, then it's either directly cited on the picture or the band has not mentioned the source either, like for memocas.
Also, each perpetrator thinks of themselves individually, but imagine my perspective too: it's not just one, but dozens of people who keep reposting my content to their own crowd of followers without any context. When you don't mention a source and just display new content out of nowhere, you are indeed claiming it as if you were the benefactor.
So, am I fighting for the "clout" or whatever? Well, maybe in the same capacity as those people are clearly attracted to. Whether we are or not, it's just about the principle behind the whole situation that reposting is not the proper way to show that you are grateful about something. Unless it came from a robot or some big corporation without feelings or humanity. If you don't wish to interact and ask permission or say thanks at all, let alone like or reblog on Tumblr, then the least you can do is to mention where you found stuff. To whom you owe the pleasure of having seen that content and being able to share it.
And it's so stupid because on Twitter, for example, you benefit from 280 characters now, plus a link gives a preview of the images that are on the landing site. There is zero excuse for not mentioning your source right there in the post where you repost an image (or screenshots of a translated interview, mindblowingly enough), in addition to whatever small comment you want to make regarding the content, instead of in a subsequent reply that nobody will bother to check.
A lot of people will still disagree on this and hate me, and that's fine. If you don't like me, then don't engage with what I share, because that's just hypocritical. This really shouldn't be that controversial, it's just that your feathers are temporarily ruffled. People added watermarks on their GIFs and scans etc. way before I did.
And the descent from "Please credit if you repost" to "Do not repost" came because people didn't do even that anyway. But if someone comes to ask me if they can nevertheless, I'm super likely to say 'yes'.
At the end of the day, I want to keep this blog positive, I want to foster a good environment to lift people's mood day by day. We have enough bullshit in our lives. I've heard of the Dir en grey community being toxic at probably more than one stage of its existence, but hopefully we can keep avoiding that.
As for me, I am eternally grateful to those who keep up with my apparently insufferable self.
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bisexualbrainrots · 2 months ago
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first snippet from chapter 2! next morning at the clinic and test taking. I will always abide by suspension of disbelief with this since I know very little of healthcare.
They kept chatting in whispers until a guy, a nurse, came out calling for them, and Tommy decided to carry Scotty himself as they woke him up, receiving a lot of complaints from the child who kept rubbing his little eyes to try and desperately get them to stay open. 
The nurse, Xavier Ramos, explained to them the procedure: they would take a sample from Buck and Scotty's mouth using cotton swabs, and they all could be in the same room if they felt safer that way. They looked at each other for a few seconds and agreed to it, waiting for nurse Ramos to bring them items needed for the test.
They could've bought the home kits to take the test privately, since they were doing a personal paternity test and no legal procedures were required. However, they had been so nervous about it that they practically begged the nurse at the reception to let them take it there, and she was kind enough to get them a spot.
“Are you still okay to hold him after this long?” Buck asked as he read a pamphlet about genetic testing he had grabbed from the reception, glancing up to meet with his fiancé’s eyes.
“It’s not a problem really, Evan, I… it sort of helps that I can't keep freaking out when a seven year old is hugging me like this” he gave Scotty a soft smile, the kid had his arms wrapped around Tommy’s neck like a koala and didn't seem to want to get down.
“Six and a half”
“You won't let me forget it, don't you?” 
Buck grinned, kissing Tommy in the cheek “Not until you get it right without me reminding you” 
Tommy rolled his eyes and planted a chaste kiss on his partner's lips before explaining to Scott why he had to get his arms off his neck, just in time for the nurse to appear with the kits. The kid was turned to the other side, facing the table, receiving praises from both Ramos and Tommy while they swabbed his inner cheeks, and the cotton swabs were out, placed inside an envelope.
The same steps were taken for Buck, although the only one complimenting him was Tommy, which made the younger blush and the nurse giggle.
“Your husband's very loving Mr. Buckley” They both smiled brightly at the confusion, the word ‘husband’ feeling like music to their ears.
“I’m not his husband… yet”
“We’re engaged” Buck said proudly, a smile so big you'd think it was going to hurt his face.
Nurse Ramos’ cheeks turned a bright shade of red and he apologized for the mix up “It’s just, I mostly see married couples act the way you do, that and the rings” they all chuckled. Tommy and Buck have been compared to a married couple for so long that now that it was going to be a reality they realized they loved it when others assumed they were already one.
chapter one snippets: one, two, three
link to ao3 here
tag list!
@beanarie @crimsonwildcat-blog
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