#I have the teaser playing rn

[the-pest1lence]

Now that the penumbra podcast finale has happened, it’s time for me to start it

[violetsareblue-selfships]

good morning!! <3

[highvern]

endpoint

Pairing: Jeon Wonwoo x f!reader

Genre: fluff, smut, angst, FWB to idiots to lovers

warnings:  cumshot/facial, unprotected sex, multiple sex scenes, oral sex (m & f receiving), rough sex, breath play (choking), mentions of exhibitionism, face fucking, virgin wonwoo mentions, idiots in love, edging (emotionally), impact play, sir kink (brief), alcohol consumption

Length: ~19.5k

Note: thank you to @gyuswhore my love, my life, for suffering through this with me. this fic is set in the same universe as her gyu fic for this collab so check it out (threat). also thank u @haologram and everyone else who beta'd this for me bc im sensitive. follow @camandemstudios for more fics!!! i will come back later and tag the people who commented on the teaser but rn im getting day drunk hehehe

summary: Senior year of college is meant to be full of celebration and smooth sailing. Years of work culminating in the final semesters that will send you off into the real world where clubs, sports, and weekends packed with hungover volunteering to pad your resume no longer mattered. It’d be a piece of cake if it wasn’t for your fuck buddy turned coworker having the same plan. But only one of you can get the department’s most coveted recommendation that all but guarantees your acceptance. Tension rises and the nearly four year thing you’ve had with Wonwoo approaches its endpoint.

collab m.list || m.list

This blog is intended for 18+ only! Minors/blank blogs will be blocked.

“What’s the difference between a proton and an electron again?”

“Shoot me in the fucking head,” Wonwoo whispers harshly.

He’s a seat over, a laptop covered in gaming stickers and a coffee cup containing a lethal amount of caffeine occupying the space atop the narrow lecture desk. It’s a feign to productivity. His screen is split between thesis notes and a countdown to a new video game release that unfortunately hits 0 in the middle of lecture. 

Dr. Wagner’s intro to chemistry  course isn’t difficult – freshman aside – which is why you and Wonwoo agreed to be her teaching assistants. Easy money and a way to get in her good graces come grad school application season. You’ve TA’ed the same course since sophomore year for different professors but it’s all the same; the metaphorical killing field before hopeful freshmen become cannon fodder in the real trial of will: O Chem. 

“Me first,” you whisper back. 

Wonwoo slumps in his chair, opening the shared drive keeping track of problem areas to touch on in lab hours, and typing “check for basic brain activity” under the class To-Do list. 

Fair enough. If they can’t understand the basics this far into the semester then you two are in for a world of hurt for the next practical. You're in for a world of hurt come next study hall when half of them will complain about failing their quiz this morning despite having the answers spoon fed straight from the notes.

[09:48] You:  be nice

[09:48] wonwoo: if they were smarter, id be nicer

[09:48] You: maybe they��re scared stupid

It wouldn’t be too far off. One time a freshman burst into tears while asking Wonwoo to check their practice work during lab hours. Wonwoo swears he didn’t say anything and the kid looked on the verge of a mental breakdown if the wind blew the wrong way.

[09:48] wonwoo: from what?

[09:48] You: the fact ur trying to kill them with your mind

[09:49 ]wonwoo : i wouldn’t kill them

[09:49] wonwoo: just maim or seriously injure so they dont come to class and say dumb shit

Dr. Wagner fields more questions in front of the powerpoint. More ‘dumb shit’ Wonwoo rolls his eyes at with such obvious disgust even you feel chastised. Luckily, no one can see his face from the front row besides you.

[09:49] You: you wonder why they like me more

[09:50] wonwoo: i know why they like you more

[09:50] You: oh?

Stifling an eye roll of your own you throw a glance his way as the next message comes through,

[09:50] wonwoo: nice ass

“Alright, Y/N and Wonwoo will be passing out the study guide for the next exam. We still have a few weeks so don’t worry about the back half but try and review the modules we’ve done so far and bring questions for them during study hours,” Dr. Wagner prattles off.

The gigantic stack of printouts is split in half for you and Wonwoo to disperse around the massive lecture hall. Over one hundred students sit in this lecture; the unfortunate ones who were forced to take a 9 AM course three days a week. Half look like their brain is melting out of their ears, other’s clearly haven’t paid attention at all, and a few are sound asleep. It’s Friday after all. They probably didn’t get back from their Thirsty Thursday night out until a few hours ago.

You wouldn’t even be here if Wonwoo wasn’t a built in insurance policy.

Dr. Wagner collects her things and heads towards the front exit with a cheery, “Have a good weekend!”

“There's a party at Sigma tonight,” Wonwoo shares as you both pack your own bags. The next class is already shuffling through the doors to claim their seats.

“I have work until eleven.”

“After?”

Shouldering your bag, you head towards the door where the next class is already trickling in to find their seats. “Don’t you have a tournament tomorrow?”

“I only have to be at the party for like an hour. I can come and walk you home.”

“Fine,” you nod. “But bring your laptop. I think Chan fucked up the last set of results and we need to fix them.”

It’s not unusual for Wonwoo to spend his Friday nights with you; or another night for that matter. He lives in a dingy frat house on the edge of campus with twenty other guys. It’s an act of mercy. A long standing tradition from the week before freshman year when you two were the only chemistry majors in your orientation group and that turned into a clumsy hook up at an upperclassman’s party. You didn’t know he’d be a virgin and he didn’t know your high school boyfriend dumped you less than twenty four hours before you left for college (but not before you lost your own virginity in the backseat of his car). 

It’d been…not good. 

Wonwoo was awkward and you were unsure. But he was sweet under the bravado; walked you home that night, pretended he wasn’t interested in the fact your roommate never moved in, leaving the suite empty. But he wasn’t a good enough actor to feign nonchalance when you invited him upstairs. Turns out sex was a lot better the second time around, in a bed that didn’t belong to an unknown upperclassman who could’ve burst in any minute. 

Wonwoo isn’t your boyfriend. You’re too busy piecing together the ten year plan concocted since junior year of highschool to even think about such frilly ideas. There’s barely enough time as it is; you’ve got work, a full class schedule, TAing, and all the random clubs you’ve wiggled your way into to pad your resume. 

And he’s busy too. Navigating a sports scholarship and one of the hardest majors left barely enough time for him to wipe his own ass, let alone date. Then came research hours and TAing and the fact volleyball, apparently, wasn’t just a one semester sport, there were scrimmages, workouts, and tournaments out of season. 

It’s been over three years of your arrangement which works best because you don’t have to spend precious brain power deciphering if some random guy you went out with once is playing hard to get or just straight up not interested. You have Wonwoo. He’s simple. 

So what you have now, friends. Who hook up. And work together. Who also happens to be applying for the same PhD program for next year. Not together but at the same time.

The application website stares back from your laptop with horror. 

It’s still too early to submit any materials but it’s been highlighted in bold red in your calendar since two years ago. Everything is ready to go the second it opens—except Dr. Wagner’s recommendation. It’s the sole reason you (and Wonwoo) agreed to be her TAs this semester; she’s one of the program’s most notorious alum, her words as good as gold in securing a spot. 

Someone hacks a cough and shatters the eerie silence of the library. The backtrack of sparse typing and the custodian shuffling around to have been the only company throughout your shift. No one would choose to rot at any of the weathered study tables late on a Friday night so early in the semester. 

With the abundance of free time, you fixed Chan’s mistakes in his set of trials easily, no thanks to Wonwoo who still hasn’t shown up. It’s good though. Your stoichiometry homework is submitted three days before the deadline and the mountain of emails clogging your inbox from hopeless undergrads is in the single digits. Half the labs from last week are graded for Dr. Wagner’s approval, the other half can wait until Sunday night. A long weekend of sleep awaits once the clock hits eleven and you’re free to run home.

Wonwoo stumbless in five minutes before the clock runs out. His duffle for tomorrow is slung over his shoulder and he’s already dressed for bed, rumpled sweats and a hat he definitely wore to the party with high hopes to cut out early. 

“You’re late,” you acknowledge, cramming your belongings back into your bag. He’s close enough to get a whiff of. “And you’re drunk.”

“I am not drunk,” he argues.

The lazy smile tugging at the corner of his lips says otherwise but it isn’t an argument worth having. All you want to do is get home and pass out.

He shoulders you bag, presenting his hand when you insist you can carry it on your own. The dry warm of his palm against your cold is pleasant enough you don’t argue as you tug him towards the automatic doors.

“Have a goodnight, Mr. Lee,” you call towards the security desk.

The guard, old enough to be your grandfather, calls back, “You too, sweetheart.”

Out in the balmy night, you tug Wonwoo down the street in the direction of your apartment. Two blocks and then a right turn leaving you outside the dowdy building with hallways that constantly reek of weed and new paint smell.

A pack of freshmen girls heading somewhere, marked by their matching uniform of jeans and black tops of various coverage, crowd the sidewalk straight ahead. Someone is crying, one is on the phone, and a few others stand dumbly waiting for their next movie like zombies — all incredibly wasted. You barrel through them without acknowledgement. A few drunken bitter ‘bitch’s hit your back but you ignore them to focus on the man struggling to push through the crowd without accidentally shoulder checking any of them.

On the other side, you ask, “Have fun at the party?”

“Some pledge puked on Jihoon’s stuff,” he huffs, nose scrunching.

“May he rest in peace.”

Wonwoo sways from side to side from the weight of your bag but also whatever radioactive mix was served at the party. The stairs provide an extra challenge since the elevator has been broken for weeks but thankfully it’s a short trip to the second floor.

He presents your belongings with routine ease once the front door of your apartment looms ahead. Music from the floor above shakes the walls; hopefully you can make up for the lack of sleep tomorrow morning.

There isn’t much space inside the four walls you call home – the ‘kitchen’ which is a single counter with a stove and fridge you’re barely around to use, fifteen feet away your bed in the corner, bordered by your desk at the foot cramped with a spray of errant papers and books you’ve been too busy to deal with. The monitor doubles as a TV and finally a tiny loveseat with a broken leg replaced by a stack of hard covers completes the room.

You beeline for the bathroom to wash away the filth of a long day and Wonwoo, keeping on trend, follows into the cramped space.

“Can I help you?” you ask, shirt tossed into the bin in the corner.

Wonwoo’s shirt goes the same and then his pants after a brief struggle. “You know I sleep better when I shower.” 

True.

“And I doubt you're gonna let me in your bed if I’m dirty.”

Even truer.

The water is still cold when you step in but the man glued to your back fights the worst of the chill away. Goosebumps prickle along your skin but have nothing to do with the vent that points directly into the stall (whoever designed the apartments must have had a sick sense of humor) and everything to do with Wonwoo’s mouth tracing the curve of your shoulder.

Forcing the heat blooming between your legs down to a simmer, you focus on washing up and getting into bed before it rolls into a boil and you do something stupid that’ll only leave you and Wonwoo struggling for balance. 

Shower sex is a dangerous sport. Shower sex with Wonwoo has left you both with bruises. Drunken shower sex with Wonwoo will get you both killed.

Soft hums tickle your neck as you clean up. There isn’t enough room for two people to stand in the spray at once so you take turns hogging the steamy water and braving the frigid cold until the last bits of soap swirl the drain.

Even when drying off you stay in each other’s orbit until the need for clothes and sleep drive you both out of the bathroom and back into the equally cramped space of your room.

It’s not until you’re laying on the mattress, darkness snug on all sides, that you feel Wonwoo roll atop you with purpose.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Wonwoo hums into your stomach, fingers crawling up your bare legs.

“That,” you inhale at the nip of his teeth on the curve of your thigh, “doesn’t feel like nothing to me.”

Wonwoo doesn’t answer but gives you plenty of time to brush him off while bruising your skin. You don’t. Instead you sink deeper into the blankets and let him push your shirt up until you're bare once more.

The fuzziness of alcohol lingers in his veins – just enough that he smiles into the strip of skin above your panties as you sigh and arch under the delicious weight of wandering hands and mouth at your nipple.

“Wonwoo,” you sigh and he’s up and kissing you with eager clumsiness.

A familiar prod at your core through his boxers crashes bubbles through your veins. You felt it in the bathroom but now is when you finally get to indulge with subtle grinds Wonwoo meets in his own search for friction. 

“Don’t you need to be up—ugh—early tomorrow?”

He kisses you slowly, tongue dragging along your bottom lip until your mouth opens under his. It burns you from the inside out. Mindlessly you shift your legs to frame his hips better but Wonwoo kisses deeper and all you can think about is giving in to whatever scheme he’s working up to have you both naked and panting.

He leans back a fraction to speak, giving in when you chase his lips before ducking to nip at your ear and mumbling a response. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I will worry about it when you snooze twenty alarms and your team hunts me down because I smothered their star player with a pillow,” you snort but heat under a squeeze of his fingers at your sides.

“Sleep when I’m done with this.”

“And what is ‘this’ exactly?”

A harsh suck at your jaw has your stomach tight. heavy and thick until need drips down your spine to coil in your gut and the emptiness between your thighs becomes unignorable. He hides pleased groans in the curve of your neck until you force a hand under the band of his underwear. Eyes opening, you watch the muscles of his back tense and flex as he rocks against you, fucking your fist greedily.

It doesn’t last long. Wonwoo gets antsy under the taunting pressure of your thumb and descends back down your body with burning lips. “Take your shirt off.”

“It’s cold,” you complain but do as he asks. 

He traces your figure clad in nothing but your glasses and a soiled pair of panties; damp at the crotch from his attention and Wonwoo slips a finger under the hem to tease you that inch closure to depravity.

Wonwoo laves against the hickey on the inside of your thigh from a week ago, it’s yellowed and perfectly shaped like his mouth. It’s tender under his attention, even the gentle tracing on his nose forcing you to wince in discomfort. 

He coos, kissing it before skating back to the hem of your panties, lips vibrating against your skin. “Sorry I didn’t come earlier.”

Why he brings it up now is a mystery. Or the fact he brings it up at all. Life happens. You’ve blown him off more than once for a late night in the library; no hard feelings.

“It’s fine,” you sigh as he tugs the last scrap of fabric off your body and pushes your knees up to display you like a meal.

Spreading you apart, he lands a wet kiss at your entrance before teasing with the heat of his tongue. 

In a beg for sanity you twist a tight grip in his hair; a tangled mess from his drunk endeavors. Wonwoo pushes harder, drowns in your taste with enthusiasm as you moan and sigh. 

“F-fuck.”

He won’t ask if it’s good. He knows it is. Nearly four years of hook ups attunes him to your pleasure, a well rehearsed routine that has you both ache in the best way. 

You lose yourself in shaking breaths, feet planted to drive up into his mouth for more. He sucks your clit and nearly gets his head crushed by your thighs. It doesn’t take much and he knows it. 

You chant ‘gonna cum’ in choked groans that almost die at the edge of your teeth but Wonwoo hears and takes it as permission to pull out the stops, hand at your thing with a harsh grip and fingers sinking home.

He’s memorized all the signs of your want; the wrecked echo of your throat and the sounds he pulls from you a clear tell. He flattens his tongue, holding steady as grind straight into mindless bliss. Spit pools and drips and slips down onto the sheets. Wonwoo hums praise, unintelligible but you vaguely know it’s something that’d make you blush you could hear it over the pounding in your ears.

Back arching, your vision flares white at the edges and when Wonwoo realizes what's happening he makes it last until your fist ball up and you’re floating.

Wonwoo backs down as you twitch through the tail end, sloppy kisses to your clit that could knock into another fit if he isn’t careful. But even as you tremble the only thing you want is the weight of his cock in your mouth, or inside you. You aren’t picky as long as you get to feel him cum too.

You finally manage to pry Wonwoo from between your legs with an ankle to his ribs. You’re not done with him despite the fatigue hanging around your shoulders like dead weight. He angles over top of you for a kiss that tastes too much like pussy for your liking but it’s hot knowing he’s covered in you so you push until his shoulders meet the sheets and you can claim his lap.

His dick strains through his underwear, preening when you rock back into the heat. His nostrils flare when you grab for it, stiff enough to sink onto easily. 

“Oh god,” he groans, head digging back into the pillows to watch you like a goddess.

His fingers web across the tops of your thighs, a harsh grip keeping you flat as he grinds up into the wet heat of your pussy. You whimper and sigh for him; all the sounds he loves to hear. You squeeze your chest, taut nipples framed between the slants of your fingers to entice him until he reaches around and knocks you forward for the sole purpose of taking one in his mouth.

Your eyes roll back, jaw locked open, drowning in the stretch and the bite of his mouth and the hands squeezing your ass so hard it hurts. Wonwoo groans, throaty and desperate. “Gonna cum. Wanna cum in you. Holy shit.”

He gets you on your back. Too absorbed in his own end, he’s dead weight with his tongue between your lips and harsh thrusts that take him right to the edge. It gives that grit against your clit that means you’ll come too, soaked in cum and spit and sweat.

You wish he’d flip you on your front and fuck you with a hand between you shoulder blades and the other tangled in your hair. That’s the kind of fuck that’d leave you satisfied the entire weekend he’s busy but he’s running out of steam just doing this, picking up speed in his thrust, the clap of bodies filling the room.

Chanting his name like a broken record, ‘Wonwoo, Wonwoo, Wonwoo’ breathy but loud enough your neighbors will leave another passive aggressive note on your door come morning, all you can think about is his cum. On you, in you. A sick part wants him to pull out and cum on your face – he hasn’t, not in a long time because priorities and responsibilities and you're usually lucky to have even five minutes alone before someone needs either of you. But you want it. God do you want it.

“Cum on my face,” you whimper. There’s drool on your lips and sweat in your hairline. Even if he doesn't, you'll need another shower anyway.

A strangled noise escapes from between his teeth at your neck. Then he’s driving forward so hard you burn; painfully so, mouth locked in a silent choke. Your orgasm rips through your insides, jagged at the edges where Wonwoo fucks himself into your guts. 

“Fuck yeah,” he grunts, pulling away and replacing the grip of your pussy with a tight fist as he straddles your chest. 

The taste of cock floods your tongue, heady and intoxicating. You get one, two drags against the stiff head and then he’s cumming, dripping his spend over your lips, then your cheek, then your glasses because he’s a sick freak. Even in the dim light from the window he twitches at the sight. You open your mouth and replace his hold, moaning as more comes to the surface. You swallow down as far as he’ll go which isn’t much in this position but it’s the thought that counts.

Wonwoo grinds to halt with an occasional kick of his hips that leaves you choking – rigid limbs locking in place until he melts with sticky satisfaction. 

He’s up and off, your glasses in hand for a thorough cleaning, not even bothering to flick on any of the lights but you hear the sink running in the bathroom before he comes padding back.

“God,” you whimper in disgust. “That’s so gross.”

“You’re the one who asked for it,” Wonwoo snorts, soft passes of a damp cloth on your skin focused on getting you clean enough to sleep.

“Because it’s hot but you aim for shit.”

Wonwoo tosses the rag somewhere, flopping down and pulling you close as possible with a kiss on your forehead. “Next time I’ll aim for your hair.”

“Bitch.”

The sound of music from upstairs pulses through your head as you drift off, Wonwoo asleep on your chest, fingers laced together on the sheets beside your indecipherably intertwined bodies.

Your week is divided into a simple pattern. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays you wake bright and early to attend Dr. Wagner’s chem lecture and then stay on campus attending every other class you could find to fill the gap between your evening shift at the library. Tuesdays and Thursdays are void of responsibility until your afternoon lab with the freshman near tears while learning basic titration for four hours, followed by office hours where said freshman finally come to actually cry about their grades. Those are the nights you, Chan, Wonwoo and a handful of other lab techs work on research that carries the same threat of waterworks. 

It’s there Dr. Wagner pulls you and Wonwoo aside.

“I know you both are applying to Dr. Collins lab for your PhD studies,” she starts. 

Her office reflects the same disarray as her personality; warm and lived in. Papers and exams are organized in chaos, thick stacks lining her desk waiting for you and Wonwoo to enter them into the online grade book. Books, some leather, some paperback, some the glossy cover of a textbook with cracked spines and yellowing pages are crammed into the bookshelves lining the walls until they threaten to collapse from the weight. It smells like coffee, plants, and the candle she always has burning. It’s a cozy hovel overlooking the rear courtyard of the science building that resembles the sterility of a hospital. 

Wonwoo occupies the other barrel chair with worn upholstery. You’ve barely seen him in the past three weeks, too busy with volunteering and working and classes while his own responsibilities keep him so exhausted it’s truly a miracle he’s even here. Dark stains ring his eyes beneath his glasses and he looks paler than usual. You’ll ask about it tonight when he comes over to work on your most recent stoichiometry project (which will be forgotten in favor of passing out during a movie while you play with his hair if history is anything to go by).

“I don’t think I’ve ever met two students who belong more in his lab,” she continues.

You try not to preen, but academic validation is a hell of a drug to caffeine addicted undergrads. Wonwoo perks up too. Three and a half years of barely being people for this moment and it’s finally in reach.

“However,” Dr. Wagner clasps her hands atop the dark wooden desk. “I’m writing only one recommendation this semester. It might seem unfair but I want to commit to the student that deserves it the most since my schedule doesn’t allow me much free time.”

It’s like being underwater. You hear her words but nothing registers, blinking rapidly in case this is a hallucination from falling asleep in the lab again.

“I know it might not be the news you hoped for but I know senior year is a lot, especially for students as involved as you all, and I thought this could alleviate some of the stress. You two are the only students I’m considering. So please, keep up the incredible work and we can talk again at the end of the semester when I have a more holistic evaluation of your progress.”

She stands to leave, snagging her purse and blowing out the candle with finality before abandoning the shit storm in your lap for whatever else she has to do on a Thursday night. Probably retell the events of the last five minutes to other professors in the department, laughing at the way you’ve turned purple from holding your breath.

“Have a good night you two! See you tomorrow!”

The office, once warm, feels hollow. You feel hollow. 

“What the fuck?” Wonwoo hasn’t moved either, glued to his seat as he stares at Dr. Wagner’s now vacant chair with his mouth wide in shock.

“Did that just happen?” you scoff in disbelief. “Is she serious?”

Wonwoo collapses over his knees with his hands scrubbing at his face like he also might be hallucinating. “I needed that recommendation.”

“Well, so do I,” you argue.

“I know. This is bullshit.”

“Did Changkyun say anything like this happened last year when she wrote one for him?”

“No, all three people who asked her got one.”

“Oh, so it’s just us she hates. Great!” you throw your hands up, sinking deeper in the chair. Maybe it’ll swallow you whole and the entire ordeal will cease to exist.

“She’s probably just trying to get in our heads so we don’t slack off this semester.”

“Have we ever slacked off any semester? I’ve been on the President’s Honor List since freshman year. You’ve been on the President’s Honor List since freshman year. We’re those people.”

Since starting college, since that one night during orientation where you and Wonwoo became a ‘we’. Not in the relationship sense, but in the way two lines merge. Same path, same goals, same classes, same PhD program prospects. There was plenty you two did separately but more you did together. Neither competing, but working together. 

But now that’s over.

Because only one of you can get into Dr. Collins lab, only one of you can get the recommendation, and only one of you can have what you both worked tirelessly for over the past three years.

“Listen—” you stand up and scrub at your own face. “It’ll be fine. We’ll figure it out.”

“We? Only one of us can get her recommendation. What’s there to figure out?”

Your face goes hot. He’s right. “Well, I need that recommendation.”

“So do I,” Wonwoo argues, eyes cold.

“Fine.”

That recommendation is mine.

“Fine!”

We’ll see about that.

Wonwoo stays in her office, flinching as you slam the door and flee.

The issue with fighting with Wonwoo is that as mad as both of you are, there are a million responsibilities you share that require close proximity.

Presently, it’s grading the last batch of exams. Seventy eight packets. And because Dr. Wagner doesn’t believe in convenience, it all has to be graded by the hand of two TAs running on nothing but caffeine and spite.

Which means it’s past midnight and the couch has a permanent impression of Wonwoo’s ass while you both silently fume and scratch through wrong answers with a heavy hand in red ink.

The weather reflects the atmosphere; pouring rain and thunder loud enough to shake the windows. The power has flickered in and out since the rain started but you're both too stubborn to call it quits – if there is nothing to keep you occupied then you might rip his throat out.

Wonwoo doesn’t even ask if you want more coffee before he snags your empty mug and moves to the kitchenette. You don’t look up when he sets it back down, and only grab it and take the first sip of perfectly steaming hot sweetness when he flops back on the couch without another word. 

Then the power goes out again, and doesn’t come back.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Using the flashlight on your phone, you search the drawers of your desk for candles. There nowhere to be found amongst the stacks of unopened sticky notes and tangled cords. 

Wonwoo shuffles behind you, papers landing on the coffee table completely abandoned. “We’ve been at this for hours. Let’s just go to sleep.”

“I have them in here somewhere,” you bite, another handful of chargers and a stapled you’ve never used and other things you didn’t even realize you own fill the drawer. You move to the second. “There’s only a few tests left.”

“We can do them tomorrow. It can wait.”

“No,” you spit like a curse.

Whatever Wonwoo was planning to say dies on his lips. “Fine.” 

His shirt lands over your head, you rip it off only to find him half naked in the dark, huddling under one of the throw blankets you keep on the back of the couch. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sleeping.”

“On the couch?” 

“Yep.”

“You’re too tall.”

“Well,” he draws like a pouty kid. “I don’t feel like sharing the bed with you.”

In a way it’s safer to argue about something trivial like this versus the entire reason you’ve iced each other out since that day in her office. Because at least like this, you won’t lose him. It’s stupid and petty but at least you’re speaking to each other; breaking through that wall of silence that’s been steadily growing more and more unnavigable as the inevitable draws nearer.

“Fine, then I’ll sleep on the couch and you take the bed.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. N. O.”

Fine.

It’s difficult to navigate in the dark. Your knees end up a victim to the edge of the coffee table and you trip over the edge of the rug, but you find the couch. Reaching down, you find his chest, then his shoulder. And once you’re sufficiently oriented you sit on him.

“Ow,” Wonwoo grunts as you flop down, elbow in his gut and his chin hitting your forehead. “What are you doing?”

You wedge in closer, slipping between his body and the cushions, bracing to kick him off by force if needed. “Sleeping.”

“Here?” he asks. Too aware of your plan, he turns as well, grabbing the back of the couch overhead to stay put.

“You’re too tall to sleep here.”

“And we’re both too big to sleep here together. Take the bed.”

“No,” you huff.

“No?”

“No. N.O. I believe you’re familiar with the word,” you spit.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“If you keep talking then neither of us will sleep.”

“Neither of us are gonna sleep anyway. You move too much to be comfortable like this.”

He’s right of course. Your hips already ache but if you move then he’ll find some way to pull you off. “I’m fine.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

You do the mature thing and bite him. 

The muscles corded around his pec twitch under your mouth as he flinches. “What the hell was that for?” 

You do it again.

“Stop.”

“Or what?” you ask, muffled in his skin as you move to leave another bite.

Wonwoo also does the mature thing and pins your wrists in one hand, maneuvering until you're sandwiched between the couch with his chest flat to your back.

“I can’t breathe like this,” you muffle into the cushions.

“Oh, how tragic.” You feel his words tickle the back of your neck rather than hear them. 

Wonwoo releases your wrists pinned to your stomach. His hand finds its way under your shirt, his shirt from some stupid frat fundraiser you’d been coerced into attending, flat to your belly with soothing circles. His calf hooks over your own to tangle your bodies together. He kisses the back of your neck, a simple brush of his lips that lingers.

It’s easier to feel everything in the dark. Your annoyance and frustration forged over the past weeks melts away and all that’s left is the need to have Wonwoo close. Just like this. Where there are no deadlines, or responsibilities. Where you both can drown in each others’ presence and everything else is washed away in the heavy drops pounding the windows outside.

Here, everything is uncomplicated.

The next rumble of thunder is loud enough to send you both in the air. Unfortunately, Wonwoo drags you backwards off the couch and to the floor. You land relatively unscathed but he knocks his elbow into the coffee table.

“Are you okay?”

Wonwoo groans and curses, cradling his elbow.

“Aw, tell the doctor where it hurts,” you coo, prodding his side.

He snatches your hand and pins it to his chest but not before lacing his fingers through your own. The gentle rise of and fall of breathing and the thud of his heart reverberates down your arm and straight into your own chest where something frozen softens. “Has anyone told you you’re annoying when you’re tired?”

“Yes. You. Lots of times.”

“Good. Wanna make sure you’re aware.”

Lighting turns everything white, a quick flash highlighting the room. There and gone and leaving you more disoriented than before. Rolling over, you hook a thigh over his lap which he welcomes, tugging you closer and absorbing the proximity like second nature. You’re a glutton for warmth –  Wonwoo’s warmth specifically – even in his sweater and his sweat shorts and his shirt, you still want more of him.

“We can’t sleep like this.”

You don’t want to move – laying like this, in the dark, nose dug into his chest as you twisting your fingers in his, squeezing and glowing pathetically when he squeezes back – all you want is to drown in him a little longer. Until you're forced to come up for breath.

But the sore spot between you two is still raw like a fresh bruise.

“Then sleep in the bed,” his lips drags over your knuckles as he speaks.

“No. You sleep in the bed, you’re too tall to sleep on the couch.”

“Fine.” Wonwoo jumps up from his place on the floor, grabbing your hands once again before dragging you around the coffee table towards the opposite side of the room. It’s ridiculously childish, especially in the dark where he bounces off the desk and the rug roughens the back of your legs.

He shimmies you around a corner and a cloud of laughter puffs between your lips. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sleeping in the bed, and you’re sleeping in the bed with me.”

“What if I don’t want to sleep next to you?”

“Then I’ll cry. Like that time we watched Steel Magnolias.”

“Have mercy,” you whimper.

“Then get your ass in bed.”

Deflating like a balloon, you stand. Wonwoo keeps his hands on you the entire time, guiding you down to the mattress and covering your body with his own just in case of an escape. He bunkers down in the safety of your neck, dragging your hands to his hair, mimicking the motions he craves until you take up the action and gently comb through the tangles.

A part of you wants to cry. Preemptively mourn the end of this – whatever this is. Late nights with Wonwoo, whispering in the dark about clueless underclassmen and annoying professors. Taking turns scrolling through adoptable cats at the local rescue. Cooing over them, rolling your eyes when Wonwoo finds Pixel still listed as available for adoption, a sign to him that he’s meant to have her except he lives in a frat house. Or the nights neither of you can sleep and take a trip to the local diner and tuck yourselves away in a corner booth to watch drunk people cling to consciousness over waffles and hash browns. 

There will be no more of that. Not by the time winter break comes. One of you is getting the gold ticket and the other will be up in the air with the hundreds of other people competing for the same handful of slots. And if one of you doesn't get in? 

“Was that so hard?” he whispers into your collar.

When you don’t answer, he looks up at. In the cast of lighting coming through the window he’s the same Wonwoo. The one you’ve been best friends with for years now. The one who is practically glued to your side whenever possible. 

The one who you’ll have to say goodbye to.

He meets your kiss lazily. Like he still thinks you have all the time in the world.

It makes the urge to cry that much worse.

The rain is gone by morning. 

The room glows from the orange light of the first minutes of sunrise. Sometime in the night you rolled to your side and Wonwoo pressed tight to your back. He’s awake, drawing shapes on your hip beneath the fabric of your shirt.

“Morning.” 

You hum and roll over to burrow in his chest, the crown of your head digging into his neck and away from the sun. “Morning.”

The warmth of his hands trace the curve of your back, pulling you closer; hiding his own discontent with such an early break in the tentative truce that only seems to exist in the late hours of night and earliest minutes of dawn. Days of sleep deprivation with nothing but sterile lighting in the lab leaves you both needy and vulnerable. So he hugs you tighter and sighs when you do the same.

He’s hard against your thigh. Clearly a result of biology more than need because he’s snoring against your hairline. Flashes of dreams rush forward – him beneath you, on top of you, behind you. It’s been weeks since you two last fucked. When you called him an idiot and he called you stubborn and next thing you were on the table with your legs spread for Wonwoo’s hand in a clumsy bump and grind while arguing about which one of you fucked up the biosensor callibration through gritted teeth and needy whimpers.

You’re wet. With his thigh pressed between your own the fact becomes more evident as the urge to curl into it nags.

Taking advantage of the exposed curve of skin beneath your mouth, you kiss and suck with lax intent until Wonwoo tips his chin up and gives a silent green light.

A heavy hand drags down his front, nails scratching bluntly through the fabric until it can slip beneath the waistband of his sweats and the curve of his cock sits pretty in your palm. Commando for convenience and comfort. More the latter because there’s no shot in hell he’s been getting laid lately.

His breath is sticky in his throat, vibrating beneath your teeth from thin pants as you work him through a loose fist. “Can I?”

“Yeah,” he huffs. “Yes.”

Slouching down, your head rests on his stomach, sweatpants bunched around his thighs. The first lick sends his hips up in search of more and you eagerly supply the soft suction of your mouth; lips catching around the flared head. A hand on the back of your skull keeps your hair from interfering as he plumps against your tongue. 

Eagerness fails to penetrate this moment slowed down by the greater need to drag this out. To savor every second because who knows when you’ll both stop being petty enough to just enjoy one another’s presence again.

“Might cum—fuck— don’t stop,” he grunts.

With the sun filling the room even more you’re running out of time, the warmth growing to leave sweat at the small of your back. He pushes harder into the curve of your throat and you let him, gagging wet with a lewd mix of spit and pre-cum that has you both moaning at the choked sound. Jaw slack, Wonwoo fucks your mouth with slow ruts; stomach tightening and the hand in your hair fisting tight enough you moan.

“Shit, babe—c-cumming,” he whines with a pathetic groan you’d make fun of him for later but all you can think about is the thick taste of cum and if there’s enough time for some attention between your own legs before life becomes unignorable. Not enough time for a real fuck but Wonwoo has a few tricks up his sleeve that promise satisfaction.

You bounce back down next to him and Wonwoo pounces, rolling on top of you, thing between your spread legs. He doesn’t shy away from your tongue against his teeth, dips a thumb beneath your chin and slips his tongue right along with it, sucks your lips until the swell, backing off only to bunch your shirt up. Lazy drags of his mouth on yours – not the ‘I need you’ kisses after a late night but the ‘I miss you’ ones after weeks of passive aggressive silence.

He licks down your front, goosebumps blooming from the draft as he sucks a nipple until you arch and twist a hand in his hair. You give a lax stretch and sigh while his hand slips beneath the edge of your panties.

Taking the morning for what it is, you fall into the motions until the blare of the alarm clock signals the beginning of the end.

You push away and swipe blindly at the night stand to make it stop but Wonwoo has other plans. 

He pins your hips down, tongue flat to the crotch of your underwear with a pant. “Ignore it.”

“What?” You look at him and find tired eyes watching back from over the edge of your wrinkled shirt. His hair is a mess, stuck to the side of his head from sleep and your eager hands and all you want to do is comb the tangles out while he pulls your strings like a puppet master.

But you can’t.

“We’ve got class,” you gasp through a hot kiss on your clit.

A groggy groan of, “skip,” vibrates on your skin.

Fingers curling in the sheets, you grasp for disagreement only to find a moan as he pulls your hips closer and works a finger where you need it most.

“We can’t.”

“We can,” Wonwoo grunts, focusing on peppering greedy kisses to the sensitive insides of your thighs. “We’ve been early every time this semester.”

The hand not curling in your guts runs down the back of your calf, bending until it hooks over his shoulder.

“Fuck, Wonu,” you whine over the crude sounds of his mouth. You want to. God, do you want to. But you open your eyes again and they land on the stack of exams on your desk. Ungraded. Because Wonwoo said you could do them this morning. And now he wants you to skip class despite how important it is. 

You close your legs only for Wonwoo to take it as a challenge, pinning your hips in place and celebrating his perceived victory with a throaty moan as he rocks against the bed.

“Stop.”

He pulls back, mouth wet and brows furrowed. “Huh?”

The alarm on your phone pings again. Swiftly silenced this time as you roll out from beneath him and land beside the mattress on unsteady feet. “We can’t skip. We have to give exams back.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” he argues, flopping down into the warmth you left vacant.

The room is too bright, a clear sign your morning routine is behind. “You think now is the time to start slacking off?”

“It’s not slacking off.” Wonwoo snags his glasses. He looks more annoyed with them. “It’s a break. You clearly need one.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Just forget it. I’m not arguing with you about stupid shit.”

“And what's stupid shit? The job we signed up for? With the professor who controls our futures?”

Wonwoo fixes his pants and rolls out of bed. On the opposite side. As far away from you as possible. “Whatever.”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

“Good!”

“Good!”

You slam the bathroom door shut with finality. When you come back out, any trace of Wonwoo is long gone.

There aren’t many people in class. A benefit of Halloweekend is the partying starts Wednesday and doesn’t stop until the following week. Even with last night's rain plenty of students are battling hangovers which leaves a third of the usual lecture attendance to witness you and Wonwoo go head to head while Dr. Wagner sits at home with a mysterious illness she announced in an email three minutes after nine AM.

The few that are there snag their papers, lips curled in disgust at the plethora of red ink spilled on white pages. Their own faults for not paying attention during lecture but maybe the scarlet gashes were a little dramatic. Wonwoo’s jaw is tight, pointedly ignoring you except to hand exams over that someone is waiting for with dread in their eyes. 

You could’ve skipped. It wouldn’t even count as skipping because class is canceled and there’s no award for hauling ass at the crack of dawn when your advisor isn’t even here to see it. You could be tucked away in your apartment with him under your skin; firmly in the place between dreams and waking where you liked him best, nothing but warm skin and rough hands with his lips on your hairline and your head burrowed in his chest. 

There are too many witnesses to just drop the act and wrap your arms around him from behind until he gives in. Apologize for the stupid shit he rightfully called you out on. But as your courage grows with each student’s exit, Wonwoo makes to leave before you can make use of it. 

Barely an hour of fighting and it already feels like an eternity.

“Hey,” you call.

He freezes by one of the desks near the back of the room, like he’s shocked you’re even there in the first place. But he doesn’t turn around; just tilts his head so you know he’s listening even if he doesn’t want to.

“Sorry about this morning. I-I think the stress is getting to me.”

And the fact that I can’t be mad at anyone besides the universe for this incredibly shitty situation. And I miss you. Even when you’re right next to me.

“Okay.”

“That’s it?” you fidget with the strap of your bag; a million pounds heavier even without the weight of ungraded tests that Wonwoo snatched before you could divide the remaining work.

He turns around, eying you with an exasperated look. “What else should I say? You called me a slack off and implied I don’t do my job.”

“I didn’t,” you argue but it’s salt in the wound because—

“You did.”

“But—”

“It’s fine. I’ll finish grading the exams over the weekend.”

And then you're alone.

You’re alone in the study room you both usually occupy to work on the Nanochemistry project due at the end of term. The shared document has updates, the blink of his cursor mocking your from wherever he hunkered down. Away from you. The temptation to type ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again disappears once he logs out barely a minute after you logged on.

You’re alone at the circulation desk of the library through your shift, head whipping around to every squeak and cough only to find someone who isn’t Wonwoo. There’s an email from him, to Dr. Wagner with you CC’ed, about class averages and exam questions that should be thrown out.

You walk home alone. Other students in various states of dress and intoxication crowd the sidewalks, a few you recognize but they feel a million miles away.

Alone in your apartment, the two mugs from last night clean in the sink.

The good part of being alone is when you start crying, no one is there to see.

It’s near midnight and the chill of the breeze whipping down the street bites at your exposed skin. Already the should-be-condemned frat house pulses with life, the promise of a long night ahead thrumming through the symphony of drunk screams and music.

It’s not unusual for you to attend frat parties. Wonwoo’s favor guarantees free booze and a perch at the top of the staircase where underclassmen are barred from entering. But you’ll settle for watching drunk underclassman stumbling over the front lawn from one of the couches on the front porch (which are so broken in, no one sinks into the cushions – they just fall straight down until the worn springs catch them) because the inside of the house is too hot, and too crowded, and far too loud. 

A hail Mary apology is the only thing on your mind. Yesterday had been the nastiest spat in recent history between you two; notwithstanding sophomore year when Jeonghan asked you for tutoring and Wonwoo insisted on helping. “Helping” meant cutting off every question Jeonghan dared ask with a series of snorts and huffs until you left and refused to talk to him for a week.

He’d apologized in the most Wonwoo fashion – completing your Thermodynamics assignments for the rest of the semester and before going down on you until you threatened to kick him in the head through sensitive sobs.

Wonwoo is here – somewhere. Shuffling up the past, past the line of eager party goers looking for a way in, you scan the front porch, he’s not in his usual waiting spot to whisk you upstairs where the older members hang out with better drinks and better music. Not that he would be. He doesn’t even know you considered coming to this.

Instead, poor Chan, dressed in yellow and black stripes, mans the door with pilot Jihoon by his side.

“Jihoon,” you greet, before looking at the younger man. “Speed bump.”

Chan mumbles something under his breath but lays on the ground regardless. When Wonwoo went through the same hazing you only got a few chances to enjoy the ridiculousness before he dragged you upstairs and shut you up himself.

“Can you not torment the kids?” Jihoon grunts.

“I could. But, where’s the fun in that?” 

“Your boyfriend is inside. If you see Jun, tell him it’s his turn to watch the door.”

“Got it.”

Stepping over the underclassman still laying on the ground, you head inside and straight for the packed kitchen to get a drink. There’s barely any space between the hoard of bodies, forcing you to shuffle forward everytime there's a gap in the crowd; but it’s more like swimming against a rip tide. 

It’s difficult to see with nothing but a few strobe lights and some strings of Christmas lights to clear the dark. One glance up towards the upper landing of the staircase is all it takes to find him right next to Mingyu. Matching costume, two bean poles standing out from the crowd of shorter men. Mingyu makes a brief nod in your direction but before you can see Wonwoo turn you’re off into the kitchen.

It’s an even tighter fit in here. A pledge pours drinks from a cooler, for a brief second you’re tempted to indulge. The last time you did, freshman year, you ended up crying in Wonwoo’s room mid-hookup. You scan the slim pickings and settle on an unopened beer. The shots you took while getting ready are already catching up.

Forced between anxious isolation and drinking, a few of your friends come up and briefly make conversation. You feign interest, eying over their heads for a familiar mop of dark hair without success.

A few guys stop to compliment your costume. They give themselves away in glazed heavily lidded stares, single minded focus on your legs. They ask what your major is, boast their status as pledges to your disinterested grimace, and move on when you finally put them out of their misery and fib about your “boyfriend” being “president or something” but “I don’t pay attention to those things,” and they all disappear significantly paler than when they first appeared.

You bite the bullet of your pride and turn to leave, only to find Wonwoo barely an inch away.

His eyes burn over your figure, the short toga covering just enough for you to avoid public indecency. Good. It’s the entire reason you wore this stupid costume in the first place. He’s a horny loser for nerdy shit and this is the best thing you could’ve worn other than one of those video game character costumes forcing your boobs in your throat and leaving you at serious risk for public indecency.

It’s not the first time you’ve wrapped yourself in barely enough fabric to constitute an outfit for the sake of his forgiveness and it probably won’t be the last.

Wonwoo pins you to the counter with his hips, hands bracketing your figure on either side. The green hat with an ‘L’ is lopsided on his head but at least he didn’t wear the fake mustache. “So, what is your costume?” he hums into the space just below your ear with a kiss.

“Guess.” You tilt your chin, cocky.

“And if I get it right?” he asks, lips at your ear.

Heart pound, you ditch the beer and reach for his hips with purpose. “Whatever you want.”

“Dangerous words.”

“Think of it as my apology for being a huge bitch yesterday.” 

He sighs into your neck, arms tight around your waist in a loose semblance of a hug. It’s a farce. Your ass meets the counter with minor effort and Wonwoo claims the space between your legs before you can pretend to object.

He still hasn’t kissed you.

You want more than kisses. You want to feel him, all of him. Want to drag him to the living room serving as a makeshift dance floor and sink into the heat of his body pressed flat against your own for everyone to see. You want to pull him into that closet off the main hall, familiar from that hot night of freshman year when a drunk make out turned into a timid fingering and eventually Wonwoo handing over his first time on a silver platter. Or even run back to your apartment, pluck through the leftover Halloween candy you bought on discount and watch whatever horror movie has become his recent obsession. You just want him.

“Mingyu thought you were Socrates.”

Pressed this close on the sticky counter, his body is the only thing protecting what little of your dignity is left. Even then, there's enough of the slippery warmth of alcohol to tempt you into rutting against him right here for those stupid pledges to see. “Mingyu is an idiot.”

“Clearly,” he chuckles. “The rubber chicken gave it away.”

You shake it at eye level. “Behold, man.”

“Lame,” his kissing gets bold down the shaft of your neck, teeth scraping your collarbone.

“Oh please, I feel your boner.”

He doesn’t resist you when you nuzzle along the bare parts of his neck, a tease of soft kissing usually reserved for quiet moments tucked away in your apartment. Even in the chaos of the party, body heat turning the air uncomfortably warm, you crave more of his closeness. 

His hands feel nice on your legs. None of the timid gentleness of years prior when he’d touch you like it’d burn if he wanted it too much; trailing higher and higher but never under the short hem of the bedsheet turned dress. His fingers flex into the muscle at the outside of your thigh, hook behind your knees and drag you to the edge of the counter. 

You're sweating through your own skin when he kisses you. 

The need in your gut blooms at full force. Your mouth loosens, welcoming his tongue and teeth and whatever else he’s generous enough to give while you tug at the loose fabric around his hips to force more close proximity; the zipper of his pants is hot against your core and if you fucked him right here it wouldn’t look that different than the PG-13 make out happening right now. 

“Wanna show me your room?” You blink like some moony eyed freshman, glassy, pupils blown from vivid images of all the possibilities in the solitude upstairs. Wonwoo is fine with the game of whatever your apology entails even if it means you throw cheesy lines like that.

He ushers you off the counter, flat to your back as he pushes through the crowd with you ahead. Even in a drunken haze people part out of his way because of the mastery of resting bitch face only he seems to have despite the complaint putty that lies behind it. A private smile splits your lips. He can’t be that mad. Not with how he pulls you closer, in the protective way he so often does in the buzz of a single minded crowd with more alcohol in their veins than blood. 

Mingyu is standing on the landing. Girls in scraps of fabric eye him up and down, even in his stupid costume with the mustache but he ignores them in favor of pouting straight into a red cup.

“Why is your boyfriend moping?” 

“Fuck if I know.” Wonwoo focuses on sucking another bruise on your neck like no one's watching. 

You’re loose enough not to care about Mingyu’s annoyance as Wonwoo ushers you by. “Cheer up buttercup, I’m sure there’s a Peach here into charity fucks!” 

It’s meant to be encouraging, but Mingyu looks like he’s torn between strangling you and throwing himself over the banister.

Maybe you did lie about being Wonwoo’s girlfriend, but he is president and his room is the biggest and furthest away from chaos. Up on the top floor where the music isn’t as loud and the only people on this floor are other members and their guests for the night.

Wonwoo pushes you inside, kicking the door shut loud enough you wince before crowding you against the wood. You throw his hat away somewhere into the darkness, hand twisted in his hair as he kisses you. Sloppy and gross until he rocks into the softness of your stomach, gasoline on the flame.

“Turn around.”

He barely gives you enough space to do so, pressing you flat once again, cheek squished to the door and a rough pull at your waist. 

“If you’re thinking about touching my asshole, don’t. I have shit to do tomorrow,” you warn. 

On the other side of the door you hear footsteps but they pass by without stopping.

“Noted, but not what I’m going for,” he jokes. 

Your skirt flips up and a draft against the damp crotch of your panties sends a tremor straight through your core. “Share with the class.”

“It’s a surprise.”

“I’m shaking in my toga.”

“And you call me a loser.”

“I can call you some other things,” you grit, pushing back into the heat of his covered cock. “They aren’t as nice though.”

“Yeah, yeah. Take your panties off.” 

He’s a little bit of a freak. Sometimes he enjoys fucking you in nothing but your underwear and others he wants you in everything but. Maybe because of how this entire thing started; when you wouldn’t even take your bra off and he survived on the barest flash of nipple.

The flimsy soiled fabric barely passes your knees before he’s on you again, easily tempted by the arch of your spine. You hum content as he presses a finger into your cunt, then two. His other hand forces the neckline of your dress down and lo-and-behold your lack of bra delights like you knew it would.

Whatever bright idea that fluttered in Wonwoo’s brain is forgotten as he spins you back around for an eyeful of naked skin; a mouthful of your chest and your leg hooked around his hip for a pathetic dry hump into the heel of his hand.

“Oh, fuck,” you moan with extra emphasis and a caved stomach because there’s teeth and he makes it hurt. “Kiss me.”

Another rut into your thigh and his teeth are back at your bottom lip. It’s not exactly what you anticipated when you showed up tonight but there are far worse places than having a doorknob in your back while Wonwoo leaves a hickey below your ear; a perfectly good bed ten feet away but neither of you can be bothered to move much more than forcing Wonwoo’s pants down enough his cock leaks in your grip, head nestled at your entrance.

You surprise him by sinking to your knees. Head tipped back against the door, you tilt your mouth open to welcome him on your tongue. Wonwoo stares down at you; tits out, hand between your legs as you suck his cock in quick motions until he takes over and fucks into the curve of your throat. 

“Holy s-shit,” he hisses and you flatten your tongue to help him along. It feels good; seeing him reduced to so little just from the wet suck of your mouth on him. 

A choked gag forces Wonwoo back into his body, hips curving away so you can swallow air before leaving a sloppy kiss on the tip. Seizing him in a tight grip, you use the spit to jerk him off until he cringes with another pathetic moan. 

Someone giggles in the hallway, close enough you both hear. They’re far enough away you can still whisper to Wonwoo. “Remember that time we fucked in here last year?” 

“When you almost got us killed?”

Last year, at the same party, when you showed up in a skin tight Shego costume, Wonwoo pulled you to the only available room: Seungcheol’s. It’d been hot. Fucking when you aren’t supposed to, having Seungcheol pound at the door while Wonwoo came down your throat (no condoms and no hope to clean up).

“Do it again.”

His hand creeps into a loose collar around the base of your throat. You keep rubbing between your legs, working up a slick slide until your nails dig into the skin of his thighs.

“Really?” There’s no need for muffling the noise when it's his room and the only people at risk of hearing anything have done far worse. He pulls you to your feet, forces your cheek against the door and slides right behind you. Like he was made for you.

“Choke me,” you gasp before digging into the sick part of your brain that likes seeing him strung out, extra breathy just to see his eyes go wide. “Sir.”

Your skin sticks to the door, shamefully squeezed as he drags his cock through the mess of your pussy. “You can’t just say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because—”

“Because what?” you goad. “Gonna punish me?”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you? Show up wearing this,” he grits, tugging at the white fabric bunched around your waist, using the hand on your throat to squeeze your cheeks tight with authority you drool for.  “Asking to be choked and now you probably want me to spank you and call you a good girl.”

You grunt through the raw thrust at your gut, sending your head back from sheer enthusiasm. “N–not my fault you fuck me so good.” 

Wonwoo almost can’t control himself, hearing nothing but praise fall from your mouth as he fucks you limp against the door. “God.”

Someone screams, “Leave room for Jesus!” from the other side of the door and you almost rip it open to kill them if Wonwoo wasn’t dragging you to the bed. 

He folds you onto your front, both standing at the foot of the bed. A deep roll of his hips and you’re filled completely. 

“O-oh, fuck me,” you moan, uncaring if the idiot outside the door is still listening. Wonwoo has a hell of a hand and puts it to use against the curve of your ass. The coil in your gut pulls taunt as he delivers one after another.

He fucks deeper, a the hand not burn against your bottom between your shoulders. “You look so good— ah —taking my cock like this.” His voice waivers with the same stunted rhythm of his hips. 

“W-want,” you choke on spit, drooling into the comforter. “Wanna taste you.”

The animalist need to suck both your flavors off his cock nearly sends you into a fit but Wonwoo’s there, hooking his hand back around the front of your neck with a subtle squeeze. You want the stupid dress off, you want Wonwoo’s clothes off, you want to fuck him where there’s no one around to catcall in the hallway like twelve year old boys. Want. Want. Want.

What you get is enough pressure from his fingers that your mind blanks. Wonwoo gets a tight enough squeeze on his cock that he’s forced to a grinding halt. 

Then his rhythm goes deeper, harder. Course curls against the resistance of your ass until you almost collapse against the edge of the bed. His cock hits that spot like it was made for your body. “Touch yourself.”

You comply without further command. You’re wet, soaked, arousal smeared down your thighs from Wonwoo’s treatment. Your fingers bump against his length as you match the pace of his strokes. “Fuck, Wonwoo — hmmm.” 

“Tell me how it feels,” he gasps like it’s his first breath in hours.

“Wet, so wet,” you croon, arching harder, joints locking. “Gonna cum. Oh my god.”

He reaches low, grabbing your hand from between your thighs and pulling it to his mouth for a taste. His tongue slides between your digits, liquid slick with a soft suction your crave on your clit. 

“Beg for it.” Wonwoo bites your shoulder hard enough you cry. 

Stuffing your hand back between your legs, you play with your clit clumsily. Until pink crowds the edge of your vision and it hurts. “Please, please! I need—Want it. Wanna come for you. Please, sir.”

Wonwoo strains to hear your pleas over the clap of bodies. He’s worked you near the middle of the bed, practically laying on top of you as he fucks in quick succession. 

“Harder, fuck me,” you demand. “Yes, yes, y–yes!”

If you were on top you’d fall straight off, jerking tightly under Wonwoo’s weight, turning your face to greet his tongue between your teeth and mewling sensitivity. He doesn’t show mercy, continuing to fuck you through the worst of it.

“Holy shit,” you whimper, head throbbing. Wonwoo forces you back on your knees and you fight through sore muscles and sensitivity to preen under the weight behind his hips. 

“Can I come in you?” he asks in a shivery breath.

You nod with closed eyes, tugging the hand around your throat to your lips and sucking his fingers like it’s a cock. He finishes with a choked breath, flooding your insides with sticky warmth you’ve never gotten used to in all the months you’ve fucked without condoms. 

His breath fans against the nape of your neck, another swivel of his hips from the sensitivity. Your walls squeeze as Wonwoo pulls away. 

You roll onto your back with a bounce, Wonwoo jostling you when he joins. Shoulder to shoulder, you stare up at the ceiling while catching your breath. “Do you think you’ll pop a boner when your students call you a sir next year?”

Wonwoo heaves a long breath, amusement in his voice. “I come inside you and that's the first thing you think of?”

Immediately you regret the joke. Since Dr. Wagner’s announcement weeks ago neither of you had broached on the topic of what happens after graduation. Mostly from fear. But also because it’s a long discussion you’re not exactly sure what you want out of.

“Answer the question.”

“I hope not.”

The bed shifts beneath your knees as you crowd over Wonwoo, laying with his arms behind him to keep from sinking flat. The tired lines of his face look deeper in the lamp light. He’s nothing more than a big softie that wants to cuddle half naked in his bed while you play with his hair until sleep finds its place.

“It’s our last Halloween party.”

“Wow, just like old times,” you snort. “Should I start crying? Then it’ll be just like freshman year all over.”

Wonwoo laughs, his hand snatching yours and lacing your fingers together. “You wore a bra and bunny ears freshman year so if you’re gonna whip that out too – by all means.”

“God, we were so lame,” you announce matter of factly. Crying in lingerie and animal ears in one of the supply closets downstairs all because—

“Don’t rope me into that, miss ‘crying-because-she-didn’t-know-how-to-suck-dick’.” Wonwoo rolls on top of you, hoping to silence whatever argument bubbling in response with a teasing press of his lips. You're still sticky with sweat and spit and cum, nipples and pussy out and the thought of his dick, limp against your thigh, makes you sensitive all over.

“That’s former miss ‘crying-because-she-didn’t-know-how-to-suck-dick’,” you trail off into his mouth. “And you’re one to talk. Remember the time you cried about how happy you were that we were friends.”

He bites your lip in retaliation. “I didn’t.”

“You did. I have the video from Mingyu.”

“I thought he was an idiot.”

“He is but he’s good for blackmail.”

You might consider staying the night if he keeps tracing his nose along the arch of your collarbone. But a shrill giggle and some pornographic moans ring through the walls of the neighboring room. Not the side Seungkwan occupies. Hoshi’s. And it’s only the start.

“We can’t sleep here.”

Wonwoo collapses, tugging you with him. “I can’t ditch again, I’m on pledge duty.”

“You’re hiding in your room with me.”

“Okay, technically I’m on pledge duty.”

He wouldn’t stay here if he wasn’t required. Wonwoo hates party nights, especially Halloween. Too many variables requiring all hands on deck; too many needy people demanding his presence for some issue that could’ve been handled if they used their brain to think farther than the tip of their nose. Rarely, if ever, does he sleep in his own bed when you have a perfectly good one tucked away in a private apartment without thirty other men tripping over each other. 

“Well, I’m not sleeping with that.” On cue, another whimper, clearly a man’s, breaks through the tentative silence. Are they fuck against the shared wall?

Wonwoo sighs, scrubbing his face before moving for his phone. “I’ll send one of the kids to walk you.”

“Wow, a pledge escort. How thoughtful,” you sneer.

He huffs again, unwilling to start a fight that’ll leave neither of you satisfied. “Text me when you get home.”

You don’t.

There is an unspoken habit between you and Wonwoo that Sunday mornings are spent at the only reasonably priced coffee shop just near your apartment. A charming hole in the wall, with hanging shelves displaying layers of tchotchkes, paintings lining whatever free space between them, and wobbly tables with equally unbalanced chairs. It’s always packed because the coffee is decent and they have outlets. After last night, you hope he’s too exhausted to even think about showing up.

Mugs click against dark lacquered tables, the dull murmur of conversation churns over the music swelling softly through the speakers. The smell of pastries and espresso wake you enough to slide into a vacant table in the corner and set to work. 

Or you would’ve if someone didn’t sit down first.

“Oh.”

Wonwoo already has a mug and a little brown bag as he looks up at where you stand dumbly.

“I can just go…sit somewhere else…” You turn to leave, except there are no other tables. Couples and groups claim every single seat except the one across from Wonwoo.

“Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know, probably because I’m mad at you.”

He unpacks his laptop, shaking his head. “You’re not mad at me.”

“Yes, I am,” you emphasize. 

“You’re a bad liar.”

Neither of you are good at lying. Even worse at fighting. Incapable of committing to real anger when it takes all your energy to stand up straight and not fall asleep in a pile of ungraded papers and half finished assignments. Besides, you're only pouting because he passed up a night at your place to clean up pledge vomit. 

You can’t tame the annoyed grin cracking your face.  “Fine, I’m not that mad at you. Buy my forgiveness in the form of coffee.”

“Too much caffeine will kill you.”

“I can only hope,” you sigh, arms cradling your head against the hard wood of the table while he joins the queue at the register.

Wonwoo orders your drink and a cheesy pastry the size of your head, the smell of greasy carbs first thing in the morning softening the ice in your veins. He knows your weaknesses too well. 

“Is this penance?” 

“Something like that.” He tears the crispiest corner off and pops it into his mouth.

“Did you look at the study guide for Calc yet?”

Two hours later you approach the counter for a second round of coffee and snag one of the jammy tarts Wonwoo likes but rarely buys for himself. Whatever chaffs between you two melts under the constant stream of note checking; Wonwoo’s hand on your knee under the table helps too. 

“If I look at this anymore, I’ll run into traffic.”

“We’ve got the Nano project that needs some work,” you suggest. 

He stretches wide, a sliver of skin visible between the hem of his sweater and the band of sweat pants. “I’ve got practice in an hour. We can do it tonight when I’m done.”

You try not to stare and instead return to focusing on the screen of your laptop burning your retinas.“I’m tutoring Seungkwan.”

“After?”

“He’s gonna be a bitch and the last thing I wanna do is look at more school stuff.”

“Then no school stuff,” he decrees with finality. “I’ll bring mushroom pad thai from that place on Market.”

“Are you trying to bribe your way in?”

“Is it working?”

You hum a dismissal but watch him through your lashes. He looks good – washed in late afternoon glow, hair a mess with glasses and a sweater that hangs off his shoulders. It all screams ‘drag me to bed and nap the rest of the day’ which is trouble for you because you still want to be mad at him if only to see how fair he’s willing to go for your forgiveness.

“We can watch Yellowjackets,” he barters, packing his bag.

Another group eyes your table with hope to claim it the second it’s available. Sadly, your ass is firmly planted for the rest of the afternoon. With or without Wonwoo.

“You’re really trying to butter me up, aren’t you?”

“I cannot sleep in that house,” he deadpans. “Please take mercy.”

“Oh, so you’re just using me for a place to sleep. Even after I wore that stupid Halloween costume?”

He pauses, eyes glazing like it’s a distant memory and not less than twenty four hours ago. “You looked hot.”

“You made that pretty clear.”

“Anyway, I’ll come over after practice. You can bitch about Seungkwan until you pass out.”

“Fine, but if there is no pad thai then don’t come.”

“Whatever my woman demands,” he snorts, dropping a kiss to your lips before turning towards the door.

Two hours and another coffee later, Seungkwan occupies Wonwoo’s abandoned chair. There’s no reason for him to be taking an intro chem class as a Creative Writing major other than the fact he’s a bit of a masochist. He’s not half bad at it and doesn’t really need any tutoring but you get paid for showing up even if it’s complete silence as you pick your nails until he needs something.

You’re marking through his latest attempt when he finally speaks up, “You're dating Wonwoo, right?”

Red pen scratches through the edge of the paper. “What?”

“You and Wonwoo.”

What is the absolute configuration of the two carbon atoms in this compound? More red ink.

“What about me and Wonwoo?”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes with exasperation, like you’re on the outs of some obvious joke. “Dating.”

If an alkene has 24 hydrogen atoms, how many carbon atoms does it contain? Another X.

“No.”

“Oh, I thought—”

“We’re just friends.”

When 10 g of 90% pure lime stone is heated completely, the volume (in litres) of is liberated at STP is… Wrong, again. Which makes no sense because Seungkwan is good at this level. He’s fucking with you on purpose.

“Huh,” he comments, grabbing the worksheet back from your claws.

“‘Huh’ what?”

“I heard a rumor he had a girlfriend last night, that’s all.”

It's not the first time someone assumed there's more between you and Wonwoo then there actually is, your fib last night clearly fanned the flames of even more speculation. But neither of you date; not enough time, willpower, or patience to entertain someone around packed schedules. If you and Wonwoo didn’t have the same life within the chemistry department then you’d never see each other. It’s convenient as it can possibly be. 

Maybe at one point there was. Summer of sophomore year when he studied abroad in Spain and the usual substance of correspondence morphed from memes and jokes to something softer; I miss you’s and you’d like it here’s. Late night phone calls that lasted hours, refusing to hang up first until one of you fell asleep and the other finally canceled the call. 

But the opportunity to tip over the edge came and went without coalescing into whatever was on the other side. 

Seungkwan can pretend it’s an innocent suggestion but he stares you down until you crack with your own curiosity. “Who told you that?”

“Some pledges said they accidentally hit on his girlfriend. I don't even think he knows another girl beside you. Plus you were at the party last night.”

Stupid fuckers, you mutter under your breath. “We’re not dating.”

“But you guys are always together.”

“We work together. You and Vernon are always together, are you two fucking?”

“My room is next to his and it doesn’t sound like work to me.”

“How does me failing you sound?” you spit. 

Seungkwan doesn't so much as flinch at the threat but returns to the practice sheet with a smile nonetheless. 

Typically, fall break is spent hidden away in a pile of blankets with you and Wonwoo alternating movie choices throughout the weekend. Dead Poets Society (him), When Harry Met Sally (you), Over the Garden Wall (him), Fantastic Mr Fox (you), and so on and so on.

This year, you have a strong feeling Dr. Wagner’s favorite pastime is seeing her TAs squirm. It’s the only explanation for the unique brand of humiliation she subjects you and Wonwoo to. Tonight, Friday and technically your first night off for the long weekend, she decides to engage in a new sort of torture. A fancy dinner that neither of you could ever hope to afford, and even as her treat, you still eye the menu prices nervously. 

But Dr. Collins sits across the table, in the flesh, so you pull out the skills you learned in the ridiculous theater class you took freshman year to “diversify” your transcript and smile through the anxiety. 

Wonwoo does a little better; in a button up you’ve only seen him wear a handful of times when his usual wardrobe is sweatshirts and free shirts from campus events, he looks more comfortable than you feel.

“Jill, tells me you both work on Epitranscriptomic mapping in her lab?” Dr. Collins asks after another sip of his drink. Two whiskeys at dinner. 

It’s not an official interview. Not anything close to it, according to your advisor. Nothing is set in stone, even if Dr. Collins laughs at Wonwoo’s awkward jokes and nods enthusiastically to your stories about working in the library (he also worked in the library in undergrad, but used it to nap more than actually work). But it feels like a step in the right direction. 

“Yes, sir.” Wonwoo and you nod in tandem.

Dr. Wagner’s research focuses on how different RNA modifications vary across various cell types and states. It’s high level stuff that no one but Wonwoo understands when you rant about the broken Cellraft machine. And his complaints about NovaSec’s constant crashes that leave him without work fall on deaf ears except when they’re directed at you. 

Half the reason you two started speaking during orientation is because the overly enthusiastic intern asked what people were looking forward to the most during school. You and Wonwoo were the only ones who seemed to think she meant school-related and not where to buy a fake ID. Apparently, the best person to get a fake ID from was a junior in Dr. Wagner’s lab that year. Go figure.

“I’ve seen you two listed down the line as co-authors,” he nods. 

The waiter brings dessert, spiced toffee cakes and ice cream. You’re starving but the knot in your stomach from when you sat down is even tighter and all you can do is pick at the plate.

“Well, Y/N does a lot of the troubleshooting for the RNA degradation issues,” Wonwoo shares. 

Your face heats at the unexpected but not undeserved compliment. Dr. Wagner’s work isn’t cheap and the thought of wasting valuable money, money that could line the pocket of an extra set of hands, forced you to run a tight ship. The other researchers in her lab could say what they wanted behind your back but Dr. Wagner nods with fondness and you try not to preen.

“We’d be a mess if it wasn’t for her,” Dr. Wagner agrees. “The lab techs should write her a card.”

Not wanting to leave him out, you shoot a look to your left where Wonwoo pulls at the napkin in his lap. “Wonwoo is the one that made sure the parameters made sense for the last publication.”

“Also true.” Dr. Wagner smiles. “I told you, Harry, they’re my best students. Excel a mile past my TAs last year. They work together exceptionally well. If I could keep them both for next year, I would.” She says it with finality. There might very well be an opportunity to stay here and continue in her lab, even if your ambition has outgrown the place you’ve called home for four years.

The table is cleared, your plate full of mashed cake and melted ice cream with not a single bite missing. You’re exhausted. Mentally, emotionally; physically from the three all nighters you’ve pulled this week. There’d be an earful from Wonwoo about the dangers of sleep deprivation (hypocrite) but he looks like he’s seen a ghost tonight and won’t sleep himself.

Dr. Collins glances at his watch with a muffled yawn, “My, my! Look at the time! My apologies I didn't mean to keep us all out so late. I know you two probably have far more interesting things to be doing than spending the evening with a couple old timers like us.” He winks at Dr. Wagner, who rolls her eyes and hands the check back to the waiter who can’t be more than nineteen. “It looks like I’ll have some tough decisions to make in the upcoming weeks. Best of luck to the both of you.”

Hands shakes all around, and an awkward shuffle at the door and Dr. Collins and Dr. Wagner disappear into the night, leaving you and Wonwoo alone on the long walk back to campus.

You don’t beeline to your apartment for a debrief. Or even to ignore the obvious awkwardness cracking between. A bench to the side of the campus green is where you find yourselves, across from the fountain that upholds the tradition of drunken seniors taking a dip during finals when they’ve given up. 

You want to drown in it.

“Wonwoo,” you whisper. “What happens if one of us doesn't get in?”

“I–I don’t know.” He peers down at you with what you think is grief and the white noise that follows his quiet admission chokes painfully. There’s no plan B for something like this

If you got in, then Wonwoo did too. An unfounded assumption that wherever you went he’d be there too, based on almost four years of something between you. Too much to be friendship but too scared to call it something else. Something more. All the stereotypical college firsts had been with him or witnessed by him, you assumed grad school would be the same.

But it can’t be.

“Then we should end this.”

The words are out like shaken champagne, a dramatic explosion you can’t take back; a mess in the slimmest inches of space between your bodies on the bench in the freezing air.

“What?” he says.

You can’t swallow back down the idea. Wonwoo won’t let you. Maybe you don’t want to. You stare at the fountain across the green with a twitch in your jaw. 

“One of us is gonna move to Boston and the other is gonna have to figure it out and I’d rather not hate you or you hate me when it happens.”

You won’t take it back but you won’t look at him either. 

“You think I’d hate you?” 

He’s staring at you. You can feel the burn of his gaze on your cheek where embarrassment heats as well.

“I would.” You ignore the break in your voice at the complete lie. “I’d hate it if you got in and I didn’t. Even though you deserve it and I couldn’t be mad about it. I’d hate it. All I’ve wanted since freshman year is to go there, and I won’t ruin it for you just because I can’t have it.”

For a painstaking moment, he doesn’t say anything. His shoulders are still rigid and he props his weight into his knees, head bowed so you can’t even see his face in the stark street light. He doesn’t do anything until you do, until you slump with utter defeat.

“Fine.”

“Fine?” Your voice pinches in your throat.

“What else is there? You’ve already decided for the both of us. That stupid fucking program matters more to you than—”

You heat close to explosion.“It’s not stu—”

Wonwoo rushes off the bench. “It is! It is because we’ve been dating for the past three years but you won’t even fucking admit it! You’ll tell some stupid pledge I’m your boyfriend but everytime I think we’ve worked it out – that you’re finally ready to talk about it – you pretend nothing is happening.”

“That wasn’t—” you shake your head.

“It’s fine. I’ll get over it.” 

You move quicker than he does and find his hand, but he doesn’t want to stay and you can’t stop him from leaving. “Wonwoo.” 

“Stop.” His voice is stoic, whatever emotions previously controlling him locked up tight behind faux dismissal. “Just…stop.” 

If you’re going to lie then the smallest favor you can do is obey his command. You hide your face in your hands, cheeks hot and eyes stinging. Because if you look at him then you’ll break into a million pieces. You’d admit to lying to his face; that you could so much as entertain the idea of hating him.

Wonwoo waits but you say nothing. No argument, no final comment. 

When you finally look up he’s far enough down the sidewalk that the pathetic croak of his name is unheard.

Endpoint: a critical moment in a chemical process where a specific change indicates that the reaction is complete. 

Two days later, when you finally get the balls to call Wonwoo and apologize, to tell him he’s right and that you’re an absolute idiot, he’s already blocked your number.

In a game of passive aggressive pettiness, Wonwoo takes gold.

He won’t talk to you outside of class and lab hours. Even then, he refuses to look at you; talks straight around you. Any form of correspondence you receive has Dr. Wagner’s name attached and anything you send without it is loudly ignored. 

Other people notice too.

In study hours, the students notice, whisper to each other when Wonwoo snubs your attempt to discuss a batch of graded homework in favor of focusing his attention on a cowering freshman who looks like he might piss himself when Wonwoo calls him by name. All the others bury their heads in their textbooks in fear he’ll pick them next.

In Nano, when he shows up just in the nick of time to leave his self-assigned seat next to you empty, and instead sitting next to the door. You feel the eyes on you, hair standing on end at the back of your neck when Dr. Lim stutters through his intro with wide eyes at the scene.

Seungkwan shows up to tutoring significantly less interested in your love life. Or he pretends he isn’t. He doesn’t ask outright and there’s pity in his eyes, thick enough you want to burst into the tears you’ve waited to come for the past two weeks. Instead you feel hollow. 

Even Mr. Lee, the night guard at the library, eyes your solitary exit with something like concern. Even going so far as to call campus public safety to escort you the short walk home.

Your other friends try to take you out, get your mind off the tilt in your world axis. You go. Sit at bar tables and laugh when you're supposed to, make empty conversations with strangers but you don’t care. You want to go home and curl up in your own misery like a blanket and cry until your eyes swell shut and pass out from exhaustion. Eventually, they stop asking if you want to come and just leave ice cream and bottles of wine on your doormat as support.

Your grades don’t suffer, and that’s the only thing you can cling to right now.

In Dr. Wagner’s office, an impromptu meeting under the guise of setting final exam expectations and tinkering the schedule, Wonwoo continues the harsh coldness of silence; content to pretend you don’t even exist. 

You work through it easily enough. You and Wonwoo have the same finals so there's only two schedules (Dr. Wagner’s and your shared one) to coordinate for extra study hours. The entire ordeal takes ten minutes to complete the shared calendar, pack it full of final lab meetings and deadlines for grading.

And when it’s over, you move to rise but Dr. Wagner stops you short.

She looks sheepish which is an odd sight. Immediately, you go to the worst. You grit and swallow and sit back down in the same upholstered chair from the last time she dropped a bomb in your lap. 

This is the bandaid rip you’ve waited for all semester. Whatever is at the end of this meeting means you finally know if you’re good enough or not. If karma does justice and gives Wonwoo the spot in Dr. Collins lab next year because you committed the sin of wanting it too much, sacrificed too much.

“It seems my attempt at friendly competition had some…unintended consequences.”

Where sizzling anger would once flourish and bloom, nothing but empty exhaust stutters to life. “What?”

“Last year, the second my TAs found out I’d recommended them, they slacked off. Missing class, incorrect results in the lab. Now I know you two are hard workers but I was afraid senioritis might set in and I’d have to lay down the law. I don’t like being harsh with my students, not directly anyway. I want the best out of them, and I knew I could anticipate the best from you two. I was always planning to recommend both of you to Dr. Collins. I told him he would regret it if he even thought about not making space for you both next year.”

“What?” you repeat again.

There’s a weight on your knee. You don’t even need to look to know it’s Wonwoo’s hand. He doesn’t look before flipping it over when you place yours on top, fingers knotting together; holds it tight like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he lets go. You unconsciously squeeze and he mimics without thought.

“So what does this mean?”

“Dr. Collins can’t outright say it but he’s on the admissions board and decides who gets to join his lab. He was adamant that both of you join him in Boston.”

“But we haven’t even—”

“I know, but the application is a formality at this point.” She waves a dismissive hand. “Your work speaks for itself.”

Wonwoo is still there, clenching your hand for dear life. Waiting for the other shoe to drop because there is no way – no way – it’s this easy. Months at each other's throat from the tension and for nothing. You’re sweaty, heart thumping loud enough it might break from your chest and skitter on Dr. Wagner’s desk. She keeps talking and you still haven’t looked at Wonwoo.

“I’m so proud of you both!” she beams. “And I’m sorry if I’ve…complicated things…for the two of you. It was never my intention. Now, go! Rest! Take the day off and celebrate. Send me the links to your applications and I’ll do my part so you can finally relax before finals.”

The pair of you shuffle outside like zombies. In broad daylight, the world keeps spinning and someone drops their coffee a little further down the street and curses a storm; a car honks at a biker, there's packs of students shuffling around where you stand dumbfounded. Your sweater does little to block the chill of late November wind.

Wonwoo still hasn’t let go of your hand.

“Did that just happen?” he asks.

“What the fuck.”

“What the fuck.”

Your laughing, deranged and fatigued cackles that earn several looks but on the cusps of finals it’s not uncommon enough to stop anyone out of concern. “What the fuck!”

You’re not sure what to do. Celebrate? Cry? 

It’s a little bit of both as Wonwoo swoops in, wrapping his arms around you tight enough to squeeze a surprised scream from your lungs. He’s not done, lifting and spinning you around in a quick circle before crying, “What the fuck!”

You laugh, snorting ugly cackles as he almost drops you with both of you gasping for breath. Completely deranged but what just happened that the rift between you momentarily heals.

Wonwoo sets you down gently but keeps close, his hands your waist like he’s afraid to let go. Like he’s missed you just as much as you’ve missed him. You finally look at him, and it’s the first breath of air after drowning for hours. The creases around his eye, the happy wrinkles around his nose. His hair is long enough it brushes your skin where your foreheads almost touch. His hold is like a cocoon of warmth.

“I’m sorry!” you blurt. “I’m so fucking sorry. I’m stupid and stubborn and I’ve been so caught up in this program that I—”

“No,” he shakes his head, arms tightening as you squirm in his hold.

“Let me finish.”

“No,” he says. “I like that you're stubborn and a pain in the ass. And it wasn’t fair that I expected you to just push aside something like grad school for me. I was being selfish and—”

“I love you.”

You might say it again just to see the way he chokes and turns purple; pulls you closer. He’s at a loss for words and you capitalize on the moment.

“I’ve thought about what would happen if I didn’t get in, like a million different possibilities and never once were you not there. I felt like…I don’t know, honestly. Like I was losing you and it was easier to be upset about the program than admit that. It was stupid and I’m stupid, and I’m really bad at speeches so…feel free to shut me up or whatever.”

You wait for him to process what you’ve said – a million emotions swiping across his face. Ridiculous some people act like he’s the embodiment of stoicism because if you know what to look for then they’d realize he’s terrible at hiding the way he feels.

“You love me?”

All that crying you did in the past few weeks means nothing because you could cry right now. But you don’t look away, you don’t ever want to look away from him again because you’d miss the way his face softens.

“Well, we’ve been dating for the past three years. It’s about time I told you.”

Wonwoo doesn’t speak, facing morphing into confusion before he scoffs with disbelief. “You’re so annoying.”

“Hey!” you stomp but Wonwoo pulls you closer, buries his face in your neck and squeezes so tight something feels on the verge of popping in your spine. His ears burn red as he whispers those three words back quietly enough you strain to hear them. He bites your shoulder just to be an asshole.

“What the hell was that for?” 

He does it again.

“Stop biting me you freak, we’re in public.” You pinch his side for good measure and only then does he smash the side of his face to yours and begin walking you backwards, in the direction of your apartment.

“Whatever, you love me.”

He lets you walk normally at the cross walk, your hand in his, both tangled in the warmth of the pocket of his sweatshirt because it’s fucking cold and the wind isn’t helping. Wonwoo drags you straight home, up the stairs, and crowds you against the door and kisses you until you can’t breathe.

“Why are you crying?”

You are. You don’t even realize it had started until you reach up and feel the dampness on your cheeks.

“Probably because I haven’t slept in two days and I missed you, idiot.” Wonwoo kisses you flat on the mouth again at the confession, smiling big enough it’s less of a kiss and more of teeth pressed together. But it’s good. You like it. You speak into his mouth, “I promise I would have really ‘sloppy I love you sex’ but I’m so tired I think I might throw up.”

“You missed me.” he hums, more of a statement than a question.

“Yeah, big head, I missed you. Now let’s sleep.”

“God,” he moans, biting his lip in mock pleasure. Maybe even real pleasure at the idea of a Friday afternoon full of nothing but hazy dreams in silence rarely found in a frat house. “I love you too.”

You undress straight down to your underwear. Cotton with a conservative cut because in no universe did you think you’d end the day with Wonwoo back in your orbit. Wonwoo who loves you, Wonwoo who you love back. But he eyes you like you’re a grand prize and all he wants is to touch you. But the rush of adrenaline keeping you conscious is burning out quickly.

He strips too, nothing but boxers and circles under his eyes but he’s happy. It radiates off him in waves and if you weren’t part of it, you’d throw something at him because it’d be annoying. You might just be glowing too.

You slip under the covers and Wonwoo snuggles up behind you, a second skin with his hand flat to your stomach to keep you from going anywhere. Not that you would. You don’t even remember falling asleep. 

When you wake up, it’s dark outside; which could mean it’s been minutes or hours since the winter sun likes to deep beneath the horizon early in the afternoon. It’s the best sleep you’ve had in weeks.

Everything is warm; your body beneath the comforter, where sweat sticks at your back, the lips dragging across the curve of your neck, Wonwoo’s crotch firm between your legs.

“Good morning to me,” you sigh.

He hums in happy agreement, tongue traces the shell of your ear before kissing across your cheek and chin and finally landing on your mouth with a kiss that can only be described as sappy.

“Got started without me?” Your hands press under his underwear, two palms full of his ass holding him still enough to grind up into. Something about a sleepy make out has you hungry to lay there and take whatever he’ll offer.

“I’ll catch you up, don’t worry.” 

You snicker, “No wonder those freshmen have crushes on you.”

“What do you mean?” He traces your naked sides with his fingers.

“I’ll catch you up,” you mock, then wince from a razor of his teeth as he shifts down your chest. “If you were my TA, I’d try to fuck you.”

“I’m trying to have’ sloppy I love you sex’ and you’re trying to goad me into some student teacher shit?”

He bites your side, just a nip but you flare and blush anyway. “Ooooo, tell me I’m bad.”

“You’re annoying.”

“You love me.”

“As I was saying,” he whispers into your stomach, fingers tugging your panties off. “Sloppy I love you sex.”

“Okay, okay.” You sink a hand in his hair only for him to tug it away, fingers laced together over your sternum as he strokes you to life. “O-oh, that’s—fuck.”

He hikes a leg up over his shoulder, out of the way for the fingers that satisfy the empty squeeze in your gut. Your tongue prickles with another goad but Wonwoo senses it first and swiftly works to silence you with a hot kiss to your clit that makes your vision bleed red.

The cold of the room works in his favor, pinching your nipples tight until you cave to the need to touch yourself. If the light was on then he’d watch and you get the urge to pause the action just for the chance to watch him watch you.

“Don’t stop,” you grunt. 

He eats it filthy, spit and arousal forming a wet mess slipping down your ass. The way his tongue lashes is nothing short of despicable and you know you’re the one that taught him that and you can’t help but flare with pride. “I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum, I’m—” you chant blindly.

The warmth between your legs surrounds, suffocates until your thighs go numb and your shoulders pull away from the mattress with a groan rivaling porn; but you mean it. Wonwoo means it too. 

You clench harder, revitalized in the stretch of another finger and a clip of teeth on your clit.  You tug at your still clasped hands on your chest, bite into the meat of his palm and let the flood consume you with stiff legs and tears in your eyes. “Oh, Wonwoo – u-ugh. Fuck. Fuck.”

Wonwoo takes it, mouth waiting for every eager roll of your hips; completely unphased until you melt back in the sheets with a pathetic mewl.

He kisses up your body, mouth and cheeks wet and warm. When he reaches your mouth you resist the urge to lick him clean. Something about that feels decidedly unlike sloppy I love you sex. So you slip your tongue between his lips instead and spread your legs until his crotch is level with the raw sensitivity of your own.

“Roll over,” you pant.

Like an asshole, he laughs. And then he drops his weight behind his hips and you actually see stars. “Wanna do it like this.”

“Make love to me,” you croon.

He doesn’t even pretend to stifle the obnoxious snort. “Don’t ever say that again.”

“What happened to sloppy I love you sex?” 

“Getting to it. You like it when I come inside you?” Now he’s the one goading and you’re blushing like you’ve never fucked him before. To be fair, you haven’t fucked him as the man you’re in love with so it’s a first time for the both of you. Wonwoo’s drunk on the power of having you stutter through something so familiar yet new.

“Love it.” 

“Good,” he agrees with a saccharine peck to your nose that makes you feel like a doe eyed virgin again. “I love you.”

Your need for games and pretense dissolves. You just want Wonwoo, all of him, until you can’t take it any more. 

Wonwoo senses the change, noses against your cheek before kissing you. He’s still holding your hand, the other cupping your jaw, thumb tracing the curve of flesh. It’s vulnerable and soft and something you probably could’ve experienced years ago if you weren’t willfully blind.

“I love you, too.”

You whisper the confession so quietly it doesn’t even make a sound but Wonwoo figures it out because he surges into action, pulling you to the center of the mattress in all your naked glory. The flood light from the side of the building reflects back in through the slats in the blinds and Wonwoo sits up to soak in what he can see in the limited light.

Twisting a hand in his hair, you pull him down for a kiss; forcing all the emotions you have to the surface. He doesn’t make you wait. Instead, he drops flat, flat together from head to toe as he slips inside. You’re still tight and sensitive, squirming at the feeling of being stretched so thin with Wonwoo wrapped tight in your arms.

“W-wonwoo,” you mewl. You know he loves the sound of his name, any time, in desperate moans and sleepy coos. You’ll say it as much as he wants to hear if he kisses you like he is now – with something new at the edge. Something needy. “More.”

He wraps your legs around his hips, folding you clean in half with a heavy rut into your pussy you’ll feel for days. You both want to drag this out – take hours to come apart and come together again and again – but Wonwoo is already working a hand between your bodies; stroking you over hot coals just to hear you moan his name again.

In record speed, you feel that familiar burn creeping along your spine. He fucks you into a wet mess and it’s all you can do to hold on and claw up his back. Breaks you into something limp and pliant, hands twisted together over head; tugs at that loose thread over and over until you unravel beneath him and Wonwoo watches like it’s magic.

“Oh- oh, Wonwoo–” you cry. Actually cry. Tears he swipes away with a thumb before pressing his mouth to yours.

You’re swollen and stiff, muscles taunt while they twitch from a rush of complete bliss.

“M cumming, baby – oh my god.” Wonwoo bucks into the tight squeeze of your legs, deeper, harder, more. “Love you—fuck.”

He hides with soft sighs in your neck, skin sticky where you both slide together. You cradle him to your chest, fingers rushing through the sweaty tangles on his hair gently. A kiss to his head, his brow, his nose that wrinkles from pure content.

But you’re not done yet.

You wiggle from beneath him, peeling yourself off the pillows, lower half still numb from one hell of an orgasm. But you want more, insatiable and doped on years of repressed fondness. “Can you go again?” 

Wonwoo looks like you asked him to run a marathon. “You want me to die?”

“Worse ways to go,” you coo, sinking low enough to take his cock in your mouth. It tastes like you and him and it makes your eyes roll.

“God. I didn’t know sappy sex meant you’d try to kill me,” he moans airly under your ministrations, a hand at the back of your head when you show off with a nose to his crotch before sliding off. “You’re evil.”

“I’m in love with a sexy nerd and I'm horny,” you sigh dreamily, thrilled with the way he pulses in your hold.

“Yeah, well…” he gives up on whatever rebuttal under the weight of your body on top of his. Nothing he can argue with in that statement anyway so you tease him with a kiss, smile when he chases your mouth, roll when you realize he can taste the mix of you both off your tongue.

“You know…I’ll need a roommate in Boston.”

“Huh,” Wonwoo feigns. His focus is on the way your tug at his cock, spit and cum webbed between your fingers. This isn’t the best way to have this conversation but you’re both high on sleep deprivation, love, and orgasms and it encourages loose lips.

“Know anyone interested?”

He shudders back into the pillow, leaving his neck open for your teeth with a choked, “Yeah.”

“Who?”

“Me.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah —fuck—wanna wake up to you every morning.”

“Even if I’m a cranky bitch?” Your knees bracket his hips, cunt split on his cock as you grind against the underside.

His stomach caves as he responds with a thin voice, “yeah.”

You like waking up to him too. Falling asleep with him tangled in your body, listening to him hum in the shower when he thinks you aren’t listening. Sometimes he even sings with a little encouragement like those times you were sick and the only thing that got your mind from exploding like thunderclaps was the lullabies from his childhood that he cooed into your hairline.

Starting and ending everyday with Wonwoo sounds nothing short of blissful.

“Okay.” You tangle his fingers with your own, rising on your knees to distract from the sheepish smile splitting your face in two.

“Really?”

“I like having you around,” you admit, sinking down on his cock. “Makes me feel better.”

Weird conversation over the back track of slapping skin and pathetic muffled sobs but you like it. Feels well overdue.

“A-about?”

Everything.

He gives a tender squeeze to your thigh, cradles your face in both hands, eye contact that you fight not shutter away from because it’s terrifying he can see you clearly. 

He’s lost; completely mesmerized by the way you bounce on the length of him, grind back into his lap like you’re possessed.

“Can’t last—” he chokes.

“S’okay,” you press the words into his cheek, his jaw, the bones jutting from around his collar. “Just wanna feel you.”

You bend and strain for his pleasure, to watch it dance across his brow as he cums inside you again, his hands heavy on your ass, your thighs, whatever he reflexively grips in a bid for grounding, nails leaving streaks of color. Twitching and jerking in sensitive painful bliss, his eyes roll back with a quick exhale. “Fuck-k.”

You're sticky and used between the legs but you take comfort in the feeling and bask in the glow on top of him. Nothing but a pile of satisfied boneless goo where you lay with sweaty skin and heat you feel from the top of your head to your toes. “Good?”

“Great,” he hums, pulling into one last toe numbing kiss. 

When feeling returns to your bodies, you spend the rest of the night eating greasy pizza on the couch in nothing but his shirt, drinking wine straight from the bottle in celebration. You kiss Wonwoo whenever you want, which, admittedly, is a lot; a flurry of sappy pecks over his face leaves him blushing and dewy. When you fall asleep after making love once again, the last thing you hear is him saying he loves you too.

Epilogue

4 months later…

There’s a certain level of comfort that comes with receiving an official acceptance email. The words you’ve been waiting to hear since Dr. Wagner all but confirmed your future in a fifteen minute meeting last semester.

On behalf of the Chemistry department, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted as a part of…

The big envelope in the mail today helped too.

Wonwoo sends a photo of his, unopened, because you promised to open them together tonight. On your date; which is nothing more than grading assignments and eating leftover take out on the couch like so many nights have been spent already. But this time he’s your boyfriend. And after all the worksheets are graded, and you get to cuddle deep into the worn couch cushions, you get to tell him you love him and he’ll say it back and the flutter in your veins at the thought is nothing short of magical. 

And this time you have a surprise waiting for him and he might just cry. Or you hope so. You’ve got $50 riding on the possibility.

You’re sweating through your shirt from putting the new piece of furniture together for the past three hours by the time he shows up with a bag of takeout, Thai food from the place on Market where they know you by order, and a kiss you’ve been missing since the morning when he left for one of his stupid workouts. 

Wonwoo sets the bag on the counter, immediately pulling you into his arms before sagging like a deflated balloon. “Pixel got adopted today.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He’s moping. He accepts your placating kiss with a pout, and starts unpacking the food.

You feel the smallest flutter of guilt but it's worth it.  “That sucks.” 

“She needed a good home.” Wonwoo confirms and that's the end of the conversation.

Even in your final semester, your schedules are still packed. Crammed full with meetings, exams, work, Wonwoo’s volleyball stuff that you attend with posters and sit near the other girlfriends. It’s weird but not because its the same stuff you two were doing for years. But it’s exhausting.

So you don’t blame Wonwoo for not noticing the newest addition to your apartment until he’s inhaled his food and the last third of yours.

“Babe.”

“What?” you ask, focusing on cutting another red slash into the white paper.

“What’s that?”

He points at the gigantic cat tower in the corner next to the couch. It’s cramped in tight but in two months you’ll both be in Boston with a bigger apartment with real bedrooms so it’s only temporary.

You shrug and make another mark. “Oh, just something I picked up.”

“You don’t have a cat.”

“Huh. Weird.” Your eyebrows furrow in mock confusion but you keep grading papers or else it’s game over and the need to watch him puzzle together your plans is all you want. “Then what’s the thing in the bathroom?”

“You didn’t.”

“I did,” you confirm.

Wonwoo stares open mouthed, between you and the bathroom door and back to you. He might pinch himself but he flies off the couch with childlike eagerness and your face hurts from smiling already.

Pixel spends the rest of the night curled up asleep on her new dad’s lap and you’re $50 richer. Mingyu’s girlfriend is already offering to catsit despite Mingyu’s pouts about losing money.

Taglist: @tomodachiii @cvpidyunho @miniseokminnies @ddaengpotate @arycutie

@gaebestie @primoppang @gyuguys @mine-gyu @doremifasire

@missminhoe @toplinehyunjin @crvs4vldtn @prettygyuuu @sliceofwoozi

@writingbarnes @dokyeomkyeom @christinewithluv @minwonfairy @idkjustlovingbts

@wobblewobble822 @futuristicenemychaos @seungkw1 @horanghaezone @jespecially

@scoupsjin @isabellah29 @luvseungcheol @crisle19 @iamawkwardandshy

@lukeys-giggle @aaa-sia @tinkerbell460

[leatherbookmark]

watching a video showing results of an enstars song popularity poll and shaking my head through the entire duration of it

[celestie0]

does anyone wanna be on taglist for this gojo x reader fic? 🧚‍♀️✨

edit: first chapter is out!!

HI BABES after much deliberation i am starting a new gojo fic series :””) I PROMISE I WILL STILL BE ON THAT KICKOFF GRIND but ugh i just had too many ideas and i just neeeeeeed to start this series rn

it's based on this concept idea i had (changed a few things though. also, if you commented on this post, i'm alr gonna tag you haha so dw ab commenting under this one too)

here’s a bit of info about it:

ᰔ title. TO BE DECIDED STILL

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader

ᰔ genres. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, slow burn, mutual pining, gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, lots of jealousy, an insane amount of profanity, suburban shenanigans; btw gojo in this fic is in his early 30s n reader is in her late 20s

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency dept, just got broken up with your boyfriend of seven years, n have been taking care of your sick mom ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation with him is worth any amount of money.

some side quests. your ex bf is a cop and is determined to prove your marriage is a sham because he's jealous, it appears gojo's love life history is not as simple as it may seem either, also there will be lots of secondary angst because of reader's mom's sickness :'') i will really be delving into a lot of the struggles of having a sick family member (in this fic, alzheimer's & cancer)

here is a little teaser.

and here's another lil teaser i posted yesterday

BUT ANYWAYS yeah please comment below if you'd like to be on the taglist!! tysm for your support :'') the first chapter will likely be posted tomorrow (4/19) if not saturday (4/20 eyyyy)

[illuminakisser]

EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT THE PHIGHTING APRIL FOOLS TOWER AS OF NOW, THIS WILL BE UPDATED AS MORE INFO IS DISCOVERED OR MORE THEORIES ARE MADE.

ok info about whats theorized to be medkits nightmare GO

Title of game : . (its a period)

Icon is the same as base game, background is the default one

The music playing is just overtime slowed down by a lot

1. MAP

You spawn on a road with sidewalks that have candles, you have a lantern in your inventory.

As you walk you will occasionally see an exit sign.

Halfway, pillars stretch up from the ground, most are normal but some are shaped like hands that reach to the sky. On top of the hands are weird figures with glowing green eyes and horns that look like something from the flaming horns series?

(thats the closest thing i could find,,,)

At the end of the road is the default Happy Home, though with minor modifications. An exit sign is right at the stairs and pointing at the door. Tube tvs are inside the home, a giant one at the middle against the wall with two stacks of tvs in the corners. The left side has one tv off, while the others are full of red static. They don't do anything when interacted with.

Note: This sorta resembles the thumbnail for scythe's teaser.

They also look like the TVs in broker's secret room (i reached the image limit so cant show ough)

Outside to the left and on top of the house are the same weird green eyed figures.

2. DIALOGUE

There are many figures running around saying various phrases,

phrases that ive seen:

"Help!"

"you traitor"

"do something"

"be useful"

"please help me"

"Useless support"

"Help me!"

"help"

"please just heal me"

"Please heal me"

"How's your eye?" (Idk if this is random dialogue or subspace dialogue)

Though, some of these figures are saying things from medkit ally dialogue.

Ingame dialogue phrases:

"Do I really want to work with a rebel on my team?" - Banhammer

"Hey!! Great seeing you!!" - Subspace

"How's that eye doing??" - Subspace

3. THE OVERSEER NEXTBOT OR SOMETHING IDK

You are chased by an overseer eye, it can't be stopped permanently. Though, it can be halted by positioning yourself in the right area, however, it has good pathing and can jump extremely high, so you can't hide from it.

Getting caught by it results in an image showing up on the screen, this rewards you a badge the first time you see it.

Random note: the eye is weirdly clean? im not sure if its medkit's eye or not since I remember soda saying that subspace just threw the eye away,, (not sure if this is still canon)

After this you get kicked from the game with the message "You must kill him to become him."

The interesting thing is that this is the description of the overseer eye cosmetic.

This probably means something like "you must kill overseer to become him" or something but what does that mean who is killing overseer huh what

↑ ok theories have been made (thank u discord user ankles0560 for the medkit part)

The one killing him might be either medkit or katana.

KATANA : there is dialogue between katana and ban hammer

Ban Hammer: "You can't get involved with the business of the dudes higher up." Katana: "And who will stop me?"

↑ I will expand on this later but im eepy rn help

MEDKIT : ok the whole thing is about Medkit so the kick message is probably the overseer eye talking to Medkit,,

Soda has said that if Katana knew more about Medkit, he would kill him. This could mean multiple things but very interesting hm

Another interesting thing is the jumpscare noise, it is a jumpscare noise used in old games.

The interesting part is what it is, the noise is actually the sound of the subspace tripmine slowed down, whether this was just coincidence or because of the subspace thing is unknown, it might even be both?

EXTRA . CHURCH OF THE TRUE EYE INFO

Not really related to the tower but just what we know about the cult

A religious group within lost temple, not everybody from lost temple is a member of it.

It is mentioned in Medkit's phone dialogue.

Every member of the cult is missing an eye.

Soda has mentioned that the reason why Sword's eye isn't missing is because he wasn't born in lost temple.

CORRECTION: Sword was born in lost temple, but wasn't raised in it. The point still stands that this is the reason why he hasn't lost an eye.

Based on dialogue between medkit and banhammer, it has been around for a while now. (THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME)

It is unknown what the goals or structure of the cult are currently.

They have a uniform, Medkit, Scythe, and Broker share the motif of outfits of mostly teal.

Scythe calls Vine Staff "blessed" in her dialogue with her, this is related to the cult somehow since in the same conversation Vine says "No! You and your creepy family can buzz off!"

^ According to broker, her curse is rare but she isn't the first one to have it.

They call themselves a family, and call Overseer their Father.

Overseer info:

There is barely any, but this is what we know.

They are referred to as a leader, it is unknown whether they are the faction leader or just the cult leader.

Scythe refers to him as a deity, whether they truly are one, manipulated the cult into believing they are, or the cult simply calls him a deity is unknown.

An alternative is that she isn't talking about overseer here at all, though if that is so we don't know if she's talking about a sfoth deity or a different one. ← if it is a sfoth deity, it is most likely to be darkheart or venomshank (or maybe even ghostwalker? idk)

btw soda said this. soda wdym

Feel free to add more info or things i missed/got wrong in reblogs or comments!!

pls do say more info if you have it im making this based on what the guys im theorizing with are saying i didnt have time to do more than 1 playthrough

[wintaerbaer]

things we don't say: part 5 TEASER (kth)

banner credit: @itaeewon

summary: Three years after graduating college, everything seems to be falling into place for you: stable job, cozy apartment, and a long-term boyfriend with a ring box hidden in his desk drawer. But when a mutual friend makes a remark that your best friend of nearly two decades is clearly in love with you, you realize that life may not be as simple as it seems.

pairing: Taehyung x Reader (with some VERY brief Seokjin x Reader and Yoongi x Reader)

rating: 18+

genres: best friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, slow burn, angst, fluff

word count: 721 (for the teaser; full chapter is expected to be 8-10k)

chapter warnings: weddings!, feelings, seventeen is here now because i fell into a rabbit hole and needed fill-ins, jimin kinda ruins everything, jk is relatively well-behaved, kissing?!

a/n: given that it's been the craziest time of year for work (and i may be focused on a jk oneshot rn), i figured i'd throw out a teaser since it's taking me longer to write! i'm heading into my job's off-season soon though, so i'll have more time to write and will aim to have this next part out by end-of-year :)

PART 4 // SERIES MASTERLIST

You look up to find Taehyung's eyes gazing steadily down at you, a small but confident smile playing on his lips.

"Dance with me?"

And in spite of the unease that had plagued you only moments ago, you don't hesitate to let him wrap up your small hand in his large one and lead you to the dance floor. His palm settles on your lower back to pull you in close, and maybe it’s the proximity or the intoxicating smell of his cologne that weakens your resolve, but you find the words spilling out.

"Did you get her number?"

Taehyung looks at you quizzically, brow furrowing in confusion. "Whose?"

"The woman at the bar."

His face relaxes as he realizes. "Oh, yeah. I did."

"Good." You manage a smile. Why does it feel so hard? "It really is…good you're getting back out there. Are you going to ask her on a date?"

He laughs, mischief in his eyes. "I don't think her fiancé would like that." And now it's your turn to look confused.

"Her fiancé?"

"I met the two of them through Hoseok a couple times so we've chatted. Nice people." He nods his head, and you look over to see the woman now dancing with a man not too far from you. "They just got engaged, and she knows I'm a photographer so she asked if I'd be interested in doing the wedding. I said I'd call her this week to talk about it."

"Oh." You can feel your face flush, but there's no doubting the relief that floods through you. And Taehyung surely notices, grinning down at you in amusement.

"Were you jealous?"

"No!" you say, but perhaps a little too quickly because Taehyung laughs, his fingers applying a gentle pressure to your back to pull you closer.

"I'm here with you," he murmurs matter-of-factly.

You shake your head at him. "It's fine, Tae. If someone catches your eye…like I said, it could be good—"

"I'm here with you," he repeats, more firmly this time. He releases your hand for a moment to tuck a stray curl behind your ear, and you have to look away. You spot Hoseok and Sunny swaying together in the middle of the dance floor, pressed closely together and smiling at each other like they're the only two people in the world. What it must be like to have someone look at you like that, you think, to hold you like you're something precious to be cherished. You had thought Jace made you feel that way, but now, watching your friends gaze at each other so delicately, so in love, you're no longer sure he even came close.

"What are you looking at?" Taehyung's voice rouses you out of your thoughts, and you suddenly notice his hand has drifted a little higher to where the back of your dress dips down low, exposing your bare skin.

Trying to pass off the shiver that involuntarily runs through you as a nod, you gesture at the newly married couple. "They're so good together."

Taehyung follows your line of sight, watching Hoseok lean down to murmur something in Sunny's ear that makes her giggle and press her face into his chest. "They are."

"Can you imagine loving someone like that?" Your voice is a bare whisper as if the words slipped out of their own accord, like a wish you didn't even realize you were making.

Taehyung's fingers splay at your spine, gently tugging you in until your hips are bumping his. Startled, your eyes snap back to him, breath catching in your chest. He's gazing at you intently, but as opposed to the intense fire that you've seen from him at times, there's only a deep warmth to his brown irises that you're not sure you've ever seen before. He looks at you with softness, with both a sense of familiarity and wonder that can only be attributed to your many years of companionship, and you see it all swimming behind his eyes—every day spent together seeking refuge from your families, every stupid childhood fight, every time you comforted each other through the bad days. And before you can deflect, can explain away the question as a rhetorical slip of the tongue, you hear his answer come out on a breath.

"Yes."

[jhkfan123]

enchanted- tom blyth | ch. 6 (includes ch.7 TEASER)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

✦vi.

when you woke up, you woke up to notifications. and lots of them. texts from all your friends. they were all something along the lines of, 

"were you on a date with the guy in your movie?"

"girl, have you checked tmz?"

"im so jealous rn. check instagram." 

oh. god. you immediately opened instagram, and there it was. the first post. 

"actor y/n spotted with tom blyth on coffee date!" connected to the headliner, was a photo of the two of you through the window of the coffee shop. this was going to blow up. it already had, according to your friends. you weren't sure what to do. do you reach out to tom? is that weird? you were going to see him tonight anyways. you texted your closest friend, who reassured you that if you wanted to shut this rumor down, you could. but did you want to? what if you didn't, and tom did? the only thing you could think to do was bring it up to tom at the party. 

...

the playlist you had made to get ready for tonight was unbeatable.  you were always the playlist maker in high school. there was always a song that fit the vibe perfectly in your back pocket.  you had named this playlist "what is even going on." you felt it fit right because truly, what was going on. why all the sudden hints, and now the articles? you weren't complaining, per se, but the switch up was pretty weird. 

according to tom's completely blunt description of the party, it was 'less formal', which gave you the idea that he didn't want to tell you it was a rager. so, you dressed appropriately. on your way there, you stopped for food, because you weren't sure what type of food would be there. when you arrived at his rental home, there was a valet outside, which made you question if this was actually a rager.  you valeted your car, tipped the worker a few bucks, and made your way inside. 

when you walked in, the lights were dimmed, there was pop music playing, a bar, and a group of people dancing. but it was nothing compared to what you imagined. you realized that maybe hollywood people don't have full on ragers. it looked like a lot of fun. you placed your coat on the coat rack and walked in. you headed straight for the bar. you needed a shot for confidence. when you approached the bar, you ordered, and took your shot. then, you wandered. looking for anyone you recognized. 

eventually, you found yourself talking to someone you had met at an awards ceremony a few years ago. they were a year older than you, and according to them, had just landed a major role. 

"well, remember me when your famous." you said. she laughed. you ended the conversation as she found another friend of hers. you looked around, but it was a sea of unknown faces, and still no tom. you decided to plop yourself on the couch. hopefully someone would approach you. you began to watch the people.  

you loved people watching. watching people dance, drink, laugh, you loved it. it was so nice to see into other peoples lives, and forget about your own. just by watching their actions, you could tell so much about a person. you could watch people for hours on end. 

"i had thought you bailed." you heard. someone sat down next to you, and tom got your attention. when you looked at him, you swore you felt lightheaded. he was wearing slack-esqe pants, with his silky button up shirt not very buttoned up. in fact, there was maybe three buttons still buttoned. jesus. you weren't sure how much more of this you could take. 

"i would never. i've just been lost in this sea of people, couldn't find you." you replied. he laughed. his hair was slightly wet, which gave you the inclination to believe that he had been dancing. that must have been why you didn't see him. there had been at least 30 people dancing in that pile. you noticed the thing chain around his neck, and his one earring. not many people talked about his earring. but you noticed it the first time you met him. you loved it. 

"i'm assuming you've seen the stories?" he asked, his smile dropped slightly. you thought you were going to have to bring it up first, but clearly not. 

"i would have to live under a rock to not have." you replied. he nodded, thinking for a moment. you decided to keep talking. "but look, there's nothing we can say to change the stories. i'm trying not to think about it or get to involved." you said. he nodded again.

"you're right. you're so right. and I'm glad you are because honestly i came over here and had no idea what to say about it. so thanks for being on top of it." he replied. you smiled at him. he smiled back. and then you were silent for a few seconds. 

"so, this is quite a party." you gestured to the room. 

"it's really not. but thanks anyways. i was originally going to have a quieter party, like rachels, but my friends convinced me to have a bit more, 'fun' with it, i guess? it's stupid. we're not in college anymore." he looked around the room before returning his gaze to you. 

"sometimes people need this kind of fun though, especially in this industry. every single party and gala and ceremony or gathering is on television and photographed, and it's nice to just have a fun party again." you commented. he agreed with you. 

"im going to go get us a drink, ok? what do you want." you told him he could bring you anything, and he was off. however, it was not long until someone took his seat. you recognized him as brady, from rachels party. although this time, he was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. his hair was a mess. clearly he didn't put himself together for this. and mostly, he reeked of alcohol. you did not want to talk to him. 

"hey pretty, remember me?" he said. he plopped his head down on the cushion. you rolled your eyes. 

"yes, i do, brady. what do you want." you asked. he threw his arm up on the cushion on the couch. not technically on you, but it still made you uncomfortable. you scooted away slightly. 

"nothing, nothing, i just wanted to know if you were enjoying the party?" he was slurring his words. looking at him, he looked tired. even worse, he had another drink in his hand, probably after a lot of others. 

"yeah, i am, but shouldn't you lay off the drinking dude? you look pretty drunk." he did not like that. 

"i am literally fine, back off girl." you were searching for a way out of this situation. no one was paying attention to the two of you. "besides, i want to keep talking to you." this time, he put his hand on your knee. that was enough. 

"alright no, i'm not doing this." you tried to get up but he moved his hand from the cushion onto your shoulders, and applied pressure. he was trying to trap you. "hey, dude get off. i'm serious." you tried to remember the self-defense you had learned, but in this moment of panic, nothing came to mind. you froze. "get off. get off!" you kept repeating it, but he kept getting closer. he tried to kiss your neck, and he was trying to slide his hand up the back of your shirt. 

things were starting to blur, nothing was helping. you starting kicking but you couldn't get your feet where they needed to be. the room felt like it had started spinning. the music louder, the people louder and faster, the lights darker and darker. 

"hey! hey! get the fuck away from her." you heard someone begin to speak, but he wasn't getting off. then you heard a crack and a few thumps. he stopped. someone grabbed your hand and you followed them into a room. your eyes were blurring from tears, but the lights were on in this room. "sit down." your eyes finally cleared, the spinning had finally stopped, and you finally recognized that tom was standing in front of you. 

you took a few deep breaths. 

"are you ok?" he asked. he sat down next to you, and put both hands on your shoulders, signaling you to try to stop tensing, when you finally did, he let go. you hadn't responded to him yet. you were still processing what just happened. 

"i think so. i mean, obviously no, i'm not, but i'm doing ok." he got up and entered the bathroom, and returned with a box of tissues. you took one and wiped your nose, and eyes. 

"good. i'm going to text someone to call the police on him, make him leave." he assured you. his voice made you realize what he had actually done for you.

"tom, did you actually hit him?" you asked. 

"um, yeah, i beat the shit out of that man." you couldn't help but laugh. he had managed to make you laugh after everything that just happened. "i may have broke his jaw, but then again, i wasn't aiming for any particular area. i wasn't thinking. i just needed him to get off you." you saw his face grow more somber. you remembered him mentioning to you that he had known brady almost his whole life. "i wouldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams that brady would have done that. he just lost all my respect." 

"thank you, tom, for getting me out." you saw him peer down at his phone. 

"don't thank me. i feel so guilty that i left you there. i should have known , or something." 

"hey. there is no way that you could have known that was going to happen. don't beat yourself up about it." out of impulse, you placed your hand on his face. he didn't shift, didn't move, nothing. in fact, you swore you felt him relax a little at your touch. 

"i already have. why would i assume that with all the men at the party, not one would touch you?" 

"it's not something anyone expected to happen.  please, please don't get mad at yourself." he nodded. then he looked at you, and he didn't stop.  the two of you seemed to be getting closer, then. you realized that you were. the two of you were leaning in. eventually, you closed your eyes expecting a kiss. 

"no." you heard. you opened your eyes. he was shaking his head, looking down. 

"what?" you asked. your stomach immediately dropped. 

"i won't kiss you. not right now." he answered. you straightened up your posture. 

"why not...but..you just.."you began to stutter. 

"y/n, you were just panicked, and almost taken advantage of, and even though, i really would like to kiss you, i feel like by doing so i am also taking advantage of you." he seemed to be kicking himself over this. "your in a state of shock that i have seen before. if your not thinking straight, i don't want to do this, not right now at least." you sat there for a moment. was he right? you realized that it was really hard to decide. you said nothing. "y/n, listen. the police are here, and i'm going to go talk to them. stay in here." then he left. 

after he closed the door. there was only one thing you could think about:

'i really would like to kiss you'

but he didn't. you didn't kiss. he got up, and left. 

...

next thing you know, he was driving you back to your house. you had heard some yelling when the police arrived, and the party ended as soon as they arrived. you supposed that no one really wanted to party anymore after a man was arrested for attempted assault. 

about five minutes later, once you heard all the voices stop, tom came back in. he told you he was taking you home, and then, once you had stood up, he hugged you. you held the hug for an entire minute. you really needed it. 

on the way home, you called your closest family member and cried to them. 

once home, tom waited for you to shower, and get in bed before he finally left. 

what a night. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TEASER FOR CHAPTER SEVEN

you had spent the entire rest of that second day in bed. you canceled the meeting you had planned, and just sat in bed. you slept a little, cried a little, and most of all, you had texted with tom occasionally. he checked in almost every hour of the day. 

when you woke up the day after that, you woke up to no notifications. so you decided to check social media. bad idea. after a few scrolls, another post from tmz popped up. but it wasn't about you and tom. instead, it read: 

RACHEL ZEGLER AND TOM BLYTH DATING RUMORS ARISE. 

[benevolentcalamity]

Love and Deepspace Husbands To Someone Who Has Not Played It

Quick note this is not meant to be malicious/disrespectful/etc. Just trying to vibe out here, man.

Rafayel

Merman, this I know. He has the same energy of Rudeus from Mushoku Tensei, in that he hides his trauma/real feelings behind a cool, charismatic demeanor. (Course he does this better than Rudeus imo, and this is minus being like a 40 year old pervert reincarnated.) May need actual therapy because homie I ain't the mental and spiritual Bob the Builder. I'd pick him first tho if I had to.

Zayne (Had to look the game up to remember this poor man's name.)

Doctor that genuinely wants the best for you. Don't know what his deal is, quite frankly know if I wanna. He's an okay petunia, good job and isn't some cold heartless bastard needing to rediscover the Christmas Spirit. 10/10, if he got a dog I'd petsit for him.

Btw don't know if this has merit and forgive me if this seems flippant, but he feels very autism-coded. (I can elaborate on this if you want.)

Xavier

Smol boy. Tiny. Does not know anything, does not know ABC's. Seems like he'd give a guy you hate a wedgie and then in the next moment excitedly tell you he found a boba place. Man's got the raw energy of a shameless male Sanrio fan and you know what? I can vibe with it. Again, no idea what the deal is and who Lumiere is, I invite people to blast my inbox with lore.

(Help)

Sylus

So the moment y'all have been waiting for.

I got massive vampire vibes when I saw his teaser on IG, and while I am mildly disappointed that isn't the case, supernatural Yakuza isn't exactly bad either. Huge and has a bite meaner than his bark for sure, which I respect; would shoot someone point blank without letting them finish a dramatic ahh dialogue. Also has this weird duality of "I'm going to fuck you up" and "I dropped my monster condom that I use for my magnum dong." You know what? I can deal, he seems like a whole hoot and a half.

Also you know that French man who lost points in pole vaulting because his dick hit the bar? ... That's Sylus, I'm just gonna say that rn. (Seriously, this man's dick means he qualifies as a monster, thus Sylus fuckers are monsterfuckers. I don't make the rules.)

[ar3s-r4t-qu33n]

My Thoughts and Theories on the new Rush Week Teaser!!

• New Johnny outfit!!

Obviously based on the 'Wildflowers bring out the rattlesnakes' quote from the Lore Stream by Ronnie Hobbs

Hopefully it's not event exclusive and we can wear it all the time because 👀

Maybe new fits for the whole gang? That'd be nice.

• The music reminds me of 80s horror and we are yet to hear about a frat/Sorority house being attacked on the radio. Obviously, there were the three girls in Plugerville, but I feel like we know all about that already? He broke in, killed one, got his scar, and escaped and is now wanted, probably his biggest failure ever (sorry Johnny baby but you get ahead of yourself way too much). That would date this to be the October of 1972.

That leads me to think this is set in the future maybe? Either still 1973, the Halloween after the game, or possible even in the 1980s.

It's a big jump, but with the almost definite arrival of Choptop, it might bridge some of the aesthetic gap between him and the rest of the family (I'm not saying we're about to time jump the whole game 10 years, but just visually speaking)

• New Characters!

I have a feeling we'll be locked in to play as Johnny as he hacks and slashes his way through (possibly like a Hitman mission? Like, he has to complete a certain goal and not get caught??)

But it's POSSIBLE that we are at the University of Texas and we might get to meet June, Sonny's girlfriend

Or like I said, set in the 80s with a brand new cast of victims to either play as in evading Johnny (unlikely, at least to me) or to hunt down and kill as Johnny

The blonde girl reminds me of a TCM OC I've seen before. This is a HUGE stretch, but POSSIBLY she's her..? Heavily doubt it but it'd be really cool since people really want that OC in the game

• Set during Halloween

Meaning it HAS to be either PRE Maria's disappearance (before March/April of 1973) or AFTER her disappearance AND the movie (August of 1973)

Still clinging onto the hope that she's alive

I'm thinking possibly that Johnny has killed Nancy and run off with Hands? It'd make the leather jacket make sense

Not that it needs to, Johnny would totally wear that as is

But if I hear him mention a 'gal back home', I'm losing my mind-

I'm just saying, him killing Nancy and taking off with Maria after everything would be a perfect ending to me, whether she's traumatised or not (I didn't say she had to be all hunky dory, girlie will be BROKEN after all of this but I just cannot see Johnny killing her off, not after he and Grandpa and everyone else have gone through so much effort to keep her alive)

Those are all my main thoughts rn for the teaser!! We literally don't know anything about this game mode yet, but making Rush Week be like, Frat/Sorority Rush is such a fun idea since the story is so connected to the University of Texas. And like, it probably IS the Plugerville incident, but idk, I'm holding out hope for a little bit more, ig?? Idk. Let me know what you guys think, I'd love to talk theories and ideas!!

[jelly-of-many-ships]

COMPLETE OFMD S2 CONTENT LIST:

To anyone looking for a complete list of trailers, vids, and photos released for OFMD season 2, here ya go.

(I’m not rly active on anything other than tumblr rn so i’m sry if I missed smth)

! LINKS CONTAIN SPOILERS !

So, first of all we have the official teaser trailer, released on August 30th: TEASER LINK

On September 14th we finally got the full length trailer. I’m assuming we’ve all seen these already: TRAILER LINK

There was a promo vid containing new s2 scenes that some people were getting on their TVs and recording and uploading to twitter. What some people don’t know is that that the official OFMD facebook account recently uploaded the same promo thats actually good quality and not just recording off a tv screen. Anyways if there’s a scene you’ve been seeing but it wasn’t in the trailer or teaser, its probably here: PROMO VID LINK

Here’s the links to some of those twitter vids if you don’t know what i’m talking about: twitter vid, twitter vid, These have the same content as the facebook link, just shitty quality.

Oh also Vico Ortez (plays Jim) posts a lot of s2 things on their tiktok. Nothing with spoilers just BTS (not the k-pop band I swear to god) I guess this doesn’t count but some of it’s rly funny: Vico Ortez tiktok

PHOTOS:

The first batch of season 2 photos we got were from Vanity fair on august 24th, but those photos plus a bunch of others are now available together somewhere i’ll say in a sec. Here is the article that showed us the first look at s2: VANITY FAIR ARTICLE

So, warner bros discovery gave us an *almost* complete collection of currently released photos. This does include the vanity fair photos but most of these you can’t find anywhere else. they say which episode every photo is from and let you download them too which is pretty cool. The site also has some great articles in the media releases section but they’re not that relevant. Go to the images section to see the s2 pics: S2 PHOTO COLLECTION

The final thing I found was the exclusive photo “The Streamr” posted on twitter. In fact there’s this whole thing happening with the OFMD twitter fandom and The Streamr and apparently they’ve posted exclusive photos that aren’t in the Warner Bros collection. Once again I am not actively on twitter so I don’t really know that much. I was only able to find one exclusive image posted by them but if there are any more please let me know. THE STREAMR EXCLUSIVE PHOTO

EDIT: found another photo on twitter! YET ANOTHER EXCLUSIVE PHOTO

EDIT: There’s a S2 behind the scenes vid from the max YouTube channel and it’s got so many extra clips it’s practically a third trailer!!! Also apparently there are some more articles that just released and I’m a bit busy rn but I’ll find and add them soon behind the scenes vid

EDIT: OMG THE MAX YOUTUBE CHANNEL POSTED A SCENE FROM EPISODE 1 AND IZZYS CRYING AND THE CREW IS COMFORTING HIM ITS CANON S2E1 SCENE

that is all that I personally know of but if there is anything else you think should be included please add it or lmk, I want this to be a complete list. If anything new comes out I will try my best to add that as well.

I was pretty confused where everyone was getting all the s2 info and I couldn’t find a complete list anywhere so I decided to make my own. hope this cleared it up for anyone else🤗

[felassan]

DRAGON AGE: SOUNDTRACK 4LP BOX SET - DISC 4 SIDE A (BONUS DLC TRACKS) 1. I AM THE ONE (DARK FANTASY VERSION) [DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS] (4:10) 2. MAIN THEME [DAI DESCENT DLC] (2:58) 3. AFTERMATH [DAI DESCENT DLC] (1:29) 4. DARK SOLAS THEME [DAI TRESPASSER DLC] (3:01) 5. QUNARI ATMOSPHERE [DAI TRESPASSER DLC] (2:41) 6. LOST ELF THEME [DAI TRESPASSER DLC] (3:58) 7. D'READ KODA (1:08) [HIDDEN TRACK]

I find the arrangement of the tracks on Disc 4 Side A "Bonus DLC Tracks" in the Dragon Age OST vinyl interesting. it's called "Bonus DLC Tracks" but the first track it features is "I Am The One (Dark Fantasy Version)", which isn't from DLC, it's from basegame DA:O, and ofc the last track is new. this disc is the only one of the discs to include songs from multiple games (and not even just two, but three: DA:O, DA:I and DA:D, assuming that "D'Read Koda" is from or tied to DA:D). and the order the Trespasser tracks are included in is different to the order they appear in on the Trespasser OST, at least going by the Trevor Morris album (on there it's Dark Solas Theme, Lost Elf Theme, Qunari Atmosphere). I wanna say that the way it was arranged was intentional, like the specific arrangement of the tracks on this disc is like hinting at telling a sort of a story or a tease. he's lost, and then things come to an end (his story and.. something else?). a passage of music that brings the music to a close (coda), that brings a piece or movement to an end. I think of when Flemythal said

Alas, so long as the music plays, we dance.

and when Solas said

 I walk the dinan'shiral. There is only death on this journey. [death is an end, and it can be a metaphor for the end of something too]

my eye is also drawn to:

I am the One (Dark fantasy version) [...] Dark Solas theme

especially since there's a different version of I Am The One ("High fantasy version") that could have gone in there instead (which as the second song on the DA:O OST, the high fantasy version is more of a 'where this all began' song).

the idea that "I Am The One" is about Solas/Fen'Harel and what happened in ancient Elvhenan (and what his intention is in the future) is a common fan theory, and not a new one. [link to English translation of the lyrics] the lyrics could be applied to a lot of things, or nothing at all, but back then there was a war (both within the Evanuris and one they fought before that), a divide between the gods, the sky was held back/there was great destruction when the Veil was raised (but despite that there was a flicker of hope in that the elves were freed from the Evanuris), the nature of time for the ancient elves was changed (elven immortality/mortality), he references the potential for the world now to burn in the raw chaos if he succeeds, In Your Heart Shall Burn/From The Ashes etc. he ended up being one of the only survivors who lived on from the event and fears dying alone, is one of the only elves in modern Thedas who remembers, he's asked for and turned to for guidance at various points (Lasa ghilan / Ma ghilana mir din'an / Ma ghilana, vhenan / Fen'Harel ma ghilana), he believes he's the only one who can fix it now in the modern day, etc.

listening again to D'Read Koda, the echo-y, pulsing aspect and how it rises to a crescendo reminds me of the music in the Dread Wolf Rises teaser (which is still such a banger). and the discordant notes remind me of the same here and here in the 2020 trailer music. the 'discordant note' hook is also present here in the in-game cinematic (also at the start and throughout it sort of underpinning it), and the general ominous atmosphere of the 'koda' also echoes that of the various bits of music we've heard in trailers and the in-game cinematic before.

anyways, since I don't have a vinyl player I made the tracks as a lil playlist for myself on Spotify and have been listening to that then playing one of the videos with the D'Read Koda audio in it (since ofc it isn't on Spotify rn) to have the same effect, and it's interesting.

[aha-chuu]

My thoughts on the Fontaine characters rn (pre 4.0)

I saw someone making a post about their thoughts and they were tragically wrong and I disagreed. So here I am, being opinionated.

I'm not gonna discuss leaks, I'm just talking about the character designs and what lore we know from the trailer and teaser :))

Lyney

So, Lyney is great. I love that he's kind of sussy, and his teaser that recently came out is almost... Sinister. And yet, he also checks the boxes of being really fun and extroverted! Venti vibes tbh.

Design wise? His animations are the best in the game, hands down. They suit the performance aspect of his character perfectly and are almost enough to make me pull for him.

Tragically, his character design isn't really for me. I think the simplicity works with the bombastic animations, and I'm glad to see he's wearing a reasonable outfit for the job he does (a rarity in Genshin). And yet, I'm a bit too much of a lesbian to be uber interested in the twinky direction his design leans.

Not pulling.

Lynette

So she's super cute. We have got a lot of cat girls already (I think Lyney should have also been a cat-person tbh) but I love that Lyney isn't actually doing cat things. Like, she's this subdued introvert, no meowing during her attacks or curling up in boxes like Kirara. She's just a person.... Who's also a cat.

I like her character design better than Lyney's; the blue just stands out a lot more than his red does, and the big bow is a better centerpiece to her design than Lyney's hat is to his. Plus, her animations are also nice.

We're getting her for free so I likely won't pull, but I am already preparing artifacts to build her on my account.

Freminet

Have I said how much I like sibling dynamics? These three actually seem pretty close and like they will gasp interact with each other! In comparison to the likes of the Kamisatos, this is miraculous.

I know several people who love this guy, and I do think he looks good. I saw some complaints about his hair cut (I think it's adorable), and the chunky boots & coat really serve to emphasise his awkwardness without sacrificing aesthetics.

Unfortunately, he's a physical claymore character, so it's a big skip from me.

Focalors/Furina

Well she's a brat huh. I worry after Raiden that they'll destroy Furina's character arc in order to make her more palatable, but I want her to go full Marie Antoinette. All the lore with the Oceanids disliking her and the general stuff about using the court for entertainment make me very interested in her.

As a design, I just dislike the twin tails. I love the blazer and the huge gem and the hat that's actually a crown!! Like, Furina is extravagant and over the top, obviously self obsessed - she looks perfect in that regard.

Since she's the archon and she's Hydro, she'll probably be broken meta wise. I'll likely pull, but mostly to make cool teams with her, not because she's a fave of mine specifically.

Neuvilette

... Father?

FR though, I understand why several people are crazy about this man. I do wish he looked a bit older since that's sort of where his characterisation is - he's done with Furina's shit and he's doing all the actual work of running Fontaine. With the elf ears, I expect him to be some sort of long-life species - he has no visible Vision and his hair kind of looks oceanid-like, so I figure he's not actually human. That along with the slits in his eyes. I hope he turns out to be older than Furina, and that he has a kind of reluctant dad & spoiled daughter relationship with her; we do see him tell her off in the teaser.

Neuvilette is the most feminine tall man character and the hair is a great aspect of the design. The colour palette is good and I do like the robes since he's a Judge, however I think it might get a bit boring to look at when you're playing as him - which is probably why the hair is so dramatic, in order to bring interest to the design.

He'll probably be Hydro and he'll probably be a catalyst based on that outfit (it's not exactly maneuverable enough for anything else ':))). I am interested in pulling almost a 100%.

Wriothesley

Another man???

I don't understand people talking about the lack of husbandoes in Fontaine, like look at these fine gentlemen.

We don't have much official info on Wriothesley so I'm gonna dip a little into leaks here, skip if you don't wanna know. He is some sort of prison warden which I bop with - it's an expected expansion on the justice landscape of Fontaine. He's on the rough side of the Fontaine infrastructure, in comparison to most of the other characters. That interests me since it feeds more into the duality themes of Fontaine, though currently we're unevenly biased rn to the more santized characters.

Design wise he's one of my favourites. White/black/red looks so good, as does his kind of punk esque chains. The tie puts me off somewhat, like he looks sort of smart and put together, but then the rest of the design undercuts that.

Leaks say Wriothesley is a physical standard banner five star. This fills me with fear. I also don't know what his actual personality will be, so let's say I'm undecided on pulling him.

Charlotte

I liked her personality and en VA in that one TCG event, unfortunately much like that event, Charlotte looks boring. She's cute, whatever, but she doesn't seem particularly story relevant and her design hasn't captured me.

I'm just not that interested.

Sigewinne(?)

Okay, she's cuter than Charlotte she's a sea slug person so immediately more interesting. She was also hanging out with Wriothesley, which is so adorable considering how different they seem.

We're dipping back into leaks here, but it seems like she might be another Hydro healer. I've seen people annoyed by this, but I'm perfectly fine with it - I don't have Kokomi and I like Nilou bloom as much as the next person.

If Sigewinne is a four star, I hope she's on a banner for a cool five star.

Navia

I know a lot of people like this woman. Taylor Swift etc (I am not overly into Taylor Swift), but I think Navia could be cool.

I find her design overcrowded. I do think this suits the fact that we're playing with French Revolution ideas and she's part of the bourgeoisie, so ofc she's overdecorated and elaborate in her fashion. Even though it makes sense, I still don't like the arsthetic of it.

On the other hand, I do like the yellow - it's not a colour we see in too many Genshin designs. I don't really like how it fits with the blue jewellery though.

Personality wise, I worry a bit that she's gonna be our waifu bait, but they did Dehya's characterisation really well without falling into that trap. Navia could be very fun and I think there's a lot of promise in the idea that she might be a class traitor, teaming up with us against the Fontaine government (wow Genshin loves a corrupt government huh).

Will I pull? She's a geo claymore user and my triple crowned Itto is already collecting dust. That's a no from me.

Clorinde

Everyone say hello to my wife:

(I'm waiting)

I've seen so many people mad at Clorinde when I think she looks great. Her outfit is simpler than is typical for Genshin, but that's cos she's a no-nonsense fighter type! Like how we saw with Lyney, more muted designs often mean more dramatic animations, and we already saw Clorinde doing some dynamic fight stuff in the trailer.

She really interests me in that she's a champion duellist, strong enough that even Childe wants to fight her. We see Clorinde works directly beside Neuvilette in the trailer, so she must be high up in position. A gun and a sword? She's trying to kill Navia, but the Devs describe their relationship as "complicated"??

Clorinde is an Electro woman and these are always queer fyi.

I hope she's pretty straight laced, but not quite in the Sara way. She's boring tbh, mostly because she is always answering to someone else, and she gets so little screen time. For Clorinde to work, I think she needs to have independence and apt presence in the story to be explored - not just a prop/obstacle.

Her personality makes me fearful, but rn I'm pulling 100%.

[jeonqkooks]

canine conundrum | pjm (teaser)

part of the Paw Prints Academy collab! 🐾

The perfect conundrum consists of three variables: You, Park Jimin, and a golden retriever who does not give a flying fuck where he takes a dump.

pairing: jimin x f!reader

genre: strangers to lovers, dog trainer au, pure chaotic fluffiness, smut, minimal angst, jimin the dog trainer has a dark secret, full list of warnings in the final fic

release date: sometime in april or may!

word count: 414 (for the teaser)

note: i haven't written a proper oneshot in a hot minute! posting this rn to hold my own ass accountable to finish this fic lol. if anyone wants to volunteer to send me pics of blond jimin and golden retrievers for inspo every day then i'd be eternally grateful 🐣

For some goddamn reason, Mochi charges forward like he’s a freaking rodeo bull, ramming his fluffy little head into the back of Jimin’s knee as if there was an invisible bullseye there. Jimin’s eyes fly open the second he feels himself lose balance, and you totally would’ve laughed at the look on his face if you weren’t caught in his downward trajectory.

His hands shoot out to hold onto something, anything, but all they find is you. 

Then everything plays out in slow motion, just like it did the other night. Only this time, he’s falling with you too.

“Eek!” you squeal when your back hits the couch, and you have exactly 0.1 second of relief that you landed on a soft surface instead of the floor or the coffee table, before you feel Jimin’s whole weight on you. The force knocks the fucking wind out of you - not even in a good way - but then something stills. Your breath doesn’t return to where it’s supposed to be.

You catch his gaze, and neither of you makes a move to untangle from the other. 

The room goes silent, save for the light scuffing of Mochi’s paws on the floor, and the faint rhythmic drumming that you’re not entirely certain is coming from your own heart.

Jimin hovers right over you, some strands of his golden hair tickling your forehead, kissing your hairline. You unconsciously bite into your bottom lip, making his eyes dart down to stare at your mouth. His Adam's apple bobs slowly, hesitantly. 

He says your name, so impossibly quiet, half a warning, half a prayer. “Don’t do that,” he mumbles, then brings a hand up to tug at your chin, making you release your lip.

“Why?” you ask.

Jimin takes a beat, just to continue staring at your mouth. “Makes me wanna kiss you.”

Oh.

It’s your turn to gulp now. As you carefully watch his face, his brown eyes turn a few shades darker, until they almost look black.

You’re emboldened by the way his gaze focuses on your lips, by the absolute want that you see in his eyes. Your hands slide up his chest, momentarily pausing over his heart to feel the beats pick up, before they wind around his neck. He lets you pull him closer, and closer, until your chests are pressed together, your lips brushing. Close enough for him to hear your words even when they come out as a whisper.

“Why don’t you?”

[aviatrix-ash]

Bit of a WiP teaser panel of this lil mini TFA comic I'm playing with rn. Aiming to have the finished comic up sometime in the next day or 2.

Bumblebee and Seaspray seemed like good pals in G1, so I thought I'll play with a TFA spin on em and give Seaspray more of a friendly mentor role. He's definitely going to play a bit of an "unhinged war vet uncle who's seen hell and will gladly trash talk Bee's superiors in order to pep him up. He's also the kind of guy who'd give the kid a lazer sword and take him on a zombie space pirate fighting adventure to help him clear his mind- and teach him there's more to being a real Autobot than trying to be some Elitest Guard's soldier drone. Adventures coming soon, stay tuned! :D

[rah-nee-yah]

i literally planned to post this like two weeks ago but i was scared people would think im delusional (i am, actually)

BUT im on a high rn after that vi clip and im just bouncing off the walls and im actually so excited and after linkin park was finally announced to be part of the ost i really wanted to post this…

but what if chappell roan is the mystery artist on the ost…

I KNOW WHAT UR PROBABLY THINKING BUT JUST HEAR ME OUT DUDE (this is a joke pls dont take this seriously 🙏🙏)

HERE IS MY EVIDENCE:

i made a post of how chappell and jinx have a joan of arc inspired getup

this one is obviously a very big stretch because anyone can reference joan of arc, so i would like to turn your attention to her vma performance.

first off, the obvious reference is she has two braids for jinx. but lets observe the prop she has in her hands. a crossbow headed for a castle…almost a parallel to an ultra mega death rocket hitting a certain council building…

when she shoots the crossbow, spark effects form an X and the lighting turns BLUE, not an expected red or orange, again another reference to jinx.

i think what really made me start developing this theory is this pose chappell does. she does it twice during the performance. i think it might be a reference to jinx’s obsession with guns and this little moment. also why tf would she go out of her way to make this pose?? when she’s singing in this part, she isn’t saying the lyric “shoot another shot” (which is when u would expect her to make this pose).

this may also explain why track ten has been hidden. around a year ago, when someone from arcane said they were in contact with a big artist, which im assuming is linkin park (theyre ranked like 34 on spotify), chappell wasnt a huge celebrity yet. it wasnt until around april that she really started to gain popularity, and i mean A LOT of popularity, probably to almost the same degree as linkin park. at this point, the team prolly just decided to hide her song for shits and giggles like they did with the linkin park song.

anyways this is the part where my theory is based off pure no evidence speculation and personal indulgence, but if this ends up coming true, i hope her song ‘subway’ is the one for arcane cuz it fits caitvi so well and i need that banger released NEOW. not to mention, if it is track ten, it would be played in the middle of the season, which is during the speculated caitvi divorce arc. (also, im pretty sure chappell started performing the song in early june and yk what else came out early june?? THE ARCANE S2 TEASER)

either way, it probably isnt chappell roan (EVEN THOUGH I WOULD LOVE IF IT WAS). im dying to know who the track ten song belongs to. why is it still hidden?? is it somehow an artist bigger than linkin park?? someone mentioned rihanna since fenty worked with riot on mel’s design, and i really like that idea (although it is DEF not happening rihanna is too big of an artist). now that i think about it, i would love a song about mel…

anyways this is a complete shitpost (that i spent WAY too much time on) if ur reading this and somehow put up with me yapping about my delusions, thank you ur a real one 🫡🫡