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bratzkoo · 2 days ago

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into you | kim seokjin pt. 2

Author: bratzkoo | navi Banner made by: @shadowkoo Pairing: actor! seokjin x journalist! reader Word Count: 4.5k~ Genre: fluff, more fluff, angst, more angst Rating: PG-15 Possible Warnings/Note: enemies to lovers seokjin is *chef's kiss*

Summary: Kim Seokjin finds himself entangled in a complex web of emotions when he meets the journalist covering his new series, challenging everything he is.

taglist (hit me up if you wanna be added): @aretha170 , @jinniegenie , @mooniyooni .@we8joon , @njrwifey, @woncheecks, @armycarat2612

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Jin was staring at his reflection in his trailer's mirror, adjusting his cravat for what had to be the fifteenth time that morning. The period costume was immaculate – it had been for the past hour – but he couldn't seem to stop fidgeting with it.

"If you keep fussing with that tie, you're going to wrinkle it," Kyrie observed from her spot on his trailer's sofa, not bothering to hide her amusement.

"It's a cravat," Jin corrected automatically, hands finally dropping from the fabric. "And I'm not fussing. I'm ensuring historical accuracy."

"Mhmm." Kyrie's tone was knowing. "And I suppose that has nothing to do with a certain journalist starting her behind-the-scenes coverage today?"

The tips of Jin's ears turned pink, a telltale sign that Kyrie had hit the mark. He chose to ignore her, instead pulling out his phone to check the time. And if he happened to glance at the saved tab of Y/N's article about him – well, that was purely for professional reference.

A knock at the trailer door made him nearly drop his phone. "Mr. Kim? Y/N from Spotlight has arrived."

Jin's heart did a complicated little flip that he steadfastly ignored. "Coming," he called out, shooting one last glance at his reflection.

"Just remember," Kyrie said, her teasing tone shifting to something more serious, "we have a lot riding on this show."

The unspoken reminder of their complicated situation hung in the air. Jin nodded, squaring his shoulders. He was an actor. He could handle this.

That confidence lasted approximately three seconds after stepping out of his trailer, because Y/N standing in the morning sunlight was somehow even more devastating than he'd prepared for. She was dressed professionally in tailored slacks and a blouse, her hair pulled back in a neat bun – though a few stubborn strands had already escaped to frame her face. Jin's fingers itched with the inexplicable urge to tuck them behind her ear.

"Mr. Kim," she greeted, her tone perfectly professional. The same tone that had dissected his career in her article, seeing through his carefully constructed image with unnerving accuracy.

"Ms. Y/N." He managed to keep his voice steady. "Welcome to the 19th century."

Something flickered in her eyes – amusement? skepticism? – before she checked her notebook. "Shall we begin with the scheduled interview?"

And so began what Jin would later refer to as his own personal form of torture. Because Y/N, it turned out, was even more perceptive in person than in print. She had this way of looking at him when he gave one of his practiced answers, one eyebrow slightly raised as if to say 'really? that's what you're going with?'

It was infuriating. It was fascinating. It was definitely not making his heart race.

"You still haven't answered how you're approaching Lord Hawthorne's emotional complexity," she pressed during their third interview session. "Your previous roles have been quite different."

Jin resisted the urge to loosen his cravat. The period costume suddenly felt stifling under her direct gaze. "Every role requires finding the character's truth," he replied smoothly, falling back on his media training.

"That sounds rehearsed," Y/N said bluntly.

The honesty caught him off guard, making him forget his carefully crafted persona for a moment. He looked at her – really looked at her – and found genuine interest beneath her professional exterior. She wasn't trying to trip him up or catch him in a scandal. She actually wanted to understand.

It was terrifying.

"Perhaps we should move on to discussing the costume department?" he suggested instead of admitting how much her observation had affected him.

Later, during a break in filming, Jin found himself drawn to the library set where Y/N was examining the book collection. She was so absorbed in a leather-bound volume that she didn't notice his approach.

"Jane Eyre?" he asked, recognizing the edition in her hands.

Y/N startled slightly, nearly dropping the book. "You know it?"

"Rochester's a bit of an ass, if you ask me," Jin said before he could stop himself. "The whole 'hiding my wife in the attic' thing? Major red flag."

The laugh that escaped Y/N was bright and unguarded, so different from her usual professional demeanor that it made Jin's chest tight. He wanted to hear that laugh again. Wanted to be the cause of it.

The thought sent a jolt of panic through him.

- The ballroom scene that afternoon proved to be Jin's undoing. Every time he turned Kyrie in their practiced dance steps, his eyes would involuntarily find Y/N in the corner. She was taking notes, but her body swayed subtly to the period music, an unconscious movement that made her seem softer somehow, more approachable.

"That's the third time you've missed your cue," Kyrie murmured during their fifth take, quiet enough that only Jin could hear.

"Sorry," he muttered, forcing his attention back to the choreography.

"You're not exactly being subtle, you know."

Jin's step faltered slightly. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Cut!" the director called out, frustration evident in his voice. "Jin, can we talk for a moment?"

As Jin made his way over to the director, he caught Y/N hastily scribbling something in her notebook. Probably noting his repeated mistakes. Great. Just what he needed – more ammunition for her to see through his professional facade.

The afternoon dragged on, each scene requiring multiple takes. Not because of any particular difficulty with the choreography, but because Jin's focus kept betraying him. He'd catch a glimpse of Y/N biting her lip in concentration, or tucking those stubborn loose strands behind her ear, and suddenly his carefully maintained Regency manners would slip.

His phone buzzed in his pocket during a break:

Jungkook: "Saw the behind-the-scenes photos the crew's been sharing. Subtle as a brick, hyung 😏"

Jin groaned internally, shoving his phone back into his pocket. Was he really being that obvious?

"Here."

He looked up to find Y/N holding out a cup of coffee – his exact order from the cafe cart that had been set up for the crew.

"You seemed like you could use it," she explained, a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

Jin took the cup, trying to ignore how his fingers tingled where they brushed against hers. "How did you know my coffee order?"

A faint blush colored Y/N's cheeks. "I'm observant. It's part of my job."

"Right. Your job." The words tasted bitter in his mouth, a reminder of why he needed to maintain his distance.

Y/N lingered for a moment, as if wanting to say more. The late afternoon sun streaming through the set windows caught her face just so, making her eyes seem impossibly bright. Jin found himself holding his breath, caught in the moment.

"Y/N! Got a minute?" One of the crew members called out, breaking the spell.

"I should..." Y/N gestured vaguely in the crew member's direction.

"Right, yes. Of course." Jin straightened, rebuilding his walls. "Thank you for the coffee."

He watched her walk away, the coffee warming his hands but doing nothing for the cold knot in his chest.

"You know," Kyrie said, appearing beside him with her uncanny timing, "for someone who's supposed to be keeping his distance, you're doing a spectacularly bad job."

"Not now, Kyrie."

"I'm just saying." She leaned against the wall next to him. "Maybe if you told her the truth—"

"The truth?" Jin let out a hollow laugh. "Which truth would that be? That I'm involved in covering your secret relationship with Jungkook? That I'm supposed to be focusing on maintaining our public image but instead I can't stop thinking about—" He cut himself off, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

"About her?" Kyrie finished softly.

Jin's silence was answer enough.

Later that evening, after most of the crew had left, Jin found himself lingering in his trailer. Through the window, he could see Y/N in her temporary office, illuminated by her laptop screen as she worked on her article. She looked tired, but determined, occasionally pausing to reference her notes or check something on her phone.

His own phone buzzed with a series of messages:

Kyrie: "Stop brooding and go home."

Jungkook: "Everything okay? Kyrie says you're being extra moody today."

Kyrie: "He's not moody, he's pining."

Jungkook: "Ah. The journalist again?"

Kyrie: "You should see him when she's around. It's actually kind of adorable."

Jin: "I can see these messages. This is a group chat."

Jungkook: "We know 😉"

Jin was about to type out a retort when movement caught his eye. Y/N was packing up her things, but seemed to be struggling with her laptop bag. Before he could think better of it, he was out of his trailer and halfway to her office.

"Let me help," he offered, reaching for the bag just as she turned around.

They ended up unnecessarily close, the bag trapped between them. Jin could smell her perfume – something light and floral that made his head spin.

"Oh! Mr. Kim—"

"Jin," he corrected automatically, then immediately regretted it. First names were dangerous territory.

"Jin," she repeated softly, and god, he was not prepared for how his name would sound in her voice. "I... actually wanted to ask you something."

His heart rate picked up. "Oh?"

"Yesterday, in the costume department... that phone call seemed intense." She hesitated, studying his reaction. "Is everything okay?"

The genuine concern in her voice made his chest ache. For a moment – one dangerous, tempting moment – he considered telling her everything. About the pressure of maintaining appearances, about the complicated relationship he shared with Kyrie and Jungkook, about how her presence was simultaneously the best and most terrifying thing to happen to him in years.

Instead, he took a careful step back. "Everything's fine. Just business." His voice came out colder than intended.

The hurt that flashed across Y/N's face felt like a physical blow. "Right. Of course. Well, good night... Mr. Kim."

The return to formality stung, but isn't this what he wanted? What he needed?

Back in his apartment that night, Jin lay awake staring at his phone. Y/N's contact information glowed on the screen – obtained for "professional purposes" only. His thumb hovered over the message field.

He wanted to apologize for being cold.

He wanted to ask what she thought of Jane Eyre.

He wanted to tell her that her coffee order was one sugar, no cream.

He wanted...

A text from Jungkook interrupted his thoughts: "Meeting tomorrow about the album rollout. Also, hyung? She looks at you too."

Jin pressed his face into his pillow with a groan. He was so, so screwed.

- The next few days on set became an elaborate dance of avoidance and inevitable collision. Every time Jin tried to maintain his professional distance, he'd find himself gravitating towards Y/N like she had her own magnetic field. And she wasn't making it any easier – not with the way she'd watch him during scenes with those analytical eyes that seemed to see right through him.

"You're doing it again," Kyrie whispered during another take of their ballroom scene.

"What?" Jin muttered, trying to focus on the steps.

"Looking at her like she's the only person in the room."

Jin nearly missed his next turn. "I am not—"

"Cut!" The director's voice rang out. "Jin, what's going on? You nailed this scene yesterday."

From her corner, Y/N glanced up from her notebook, her expression unreadable. Jin caught her eye for a brief moment before she quickly looked away, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. The simple reaction sent his heart into overdrive.

"Sorry," he called out to the director. "Let's go again."

During their break, Jin overheard two crew members talking:

"Have you noticed how the journalist looks at him when she thinks no one's watching?"

"Please, have you seen how he looks at her? The sexual tension is insane."

Jin's hand tightened around his coffee cup. He shouldn't care about their gossip. He shouldn't feel this flutter in his stomach at the thought of Y/N watching him. He definitely shouldn't want to know exactly how she looks at him when he's not looking back.

His phone buzzed:

Jungkook: "The album's almost ready. We need to be extra careful now." Kyrie: "Jin's a bit distracted lately..." Jungkook: "I noticed. The photos from set are... telling." Jin: "Can we focus on the actual issue here?" Kyrie: "Your crushing on the journalist IS an issue, babe." Jin: "I'm not crushing on anyone." Jungkook: "Sure, hyung. And I'm not the most successful soloist of the year 😏"

Jin shoved his phone away in frustration, only to look up and find Y/N approaching his spot by the refreshment table. She hesitated a few feet away, and he could see her mentally debating whether to continue forward or retreat.

"Ms. Y/N," he acknowledged, hating how formal it sounded.

"I was wondering if we could discuss the emotional progression of your character," she said, all professional despite the uncertainty in her eyes. "For the article."

Always for the article. The reminder was like a bucket of cold water.

"Of course," Jin replied, gesturing to a quiet corner of the set. As they walked, he noticed she kept a careful distance between them, as if afraid to get too close. He tried to ignore how much that hurt.

"Your scene today," she began, consulting her notes. "It seemed... different from yesterday's take."

"Different how?" He knew exactly how, but he wanted – needed – to hear her perspective.

Y/N bit her lip, a habit Jin had noticed she had when choosing her words carefully. "Less... controlled. More authentic, maybe? Like you were letting real emotions bleed through."

The accuracy of her observation made him want to laugh. Or cry. Or maybe both.

"Method acting," he deflected, offering his media-ready smile.

Y/N's eyes narrowed slightly. "You don't do method acting. You said so yourself in your interview with Vogue last month."

Of course she'd remember that. Of course she'd done her research. Of course she'd see right through his excuse.

"People change," he said weakly.

"Do they?" Her voice was soft, almost vulnerable. For a moment, neither of them was talking about acting anymore.

The air between them felt charged, heavy with unspoken words and carefully maintained boundaries threatening to crumble. Jin found himself leaning forward slightly, drawn in by the question in her eyes.

"Y/N..." His voice came out rougher than intended.

Her phone rang, shattering the moment. It was her editor, Yannie, requiring her immediate attention. Y/N practically fled, leaving Jin standing there with all the words he couldn't say stuck in his throat.

"That was painful to watch," Kyrie commented, appearing beside him with a sympathetic expression.

"Don't," Jin warned.

"You know, this would all be simpler if you just—"

"Nothing about this is simple," he cut her off. "Nothing about us – about any of this – is simple."

Kyrie's expression softened. "Maybe that's okay. Maybe it doesn't have to be simple to be right."

Before Jin could respond, a commotion near the costume department caught their attention. Someone had dropped a box of accessories, sending period-appropriate jewelry scattering across the floor. Without thinking, Jin moved to help, only to find himself reaching for the same necklace as Y/N.

Their hands brushed, sending electricity up his arm. Y/N jerked back as if burned, the necklace falling between them.

"Sorry," they both said simultaneously.

Behind them, someone cleared their throat. Jin turned to find one of the crew members holding up their phone, having clearly captured the moment on camera.

"Just for the behind-the-scenes documentation," they said with a knowing smile.

Jin felt the blood drain from his face. Y/N was already backing away, her professional mask firmly in place but her eyes betraying her panic.

His phone buzzed again:

Jungkook: "We might have a problem. Some photos are circulating..."

Jin looked at Y/N's retreating form, then at the message from Jungkook, then at Kyrie's concerned face. Everything was spinning out of control, and he had no idea how to stop it.

The headlines that morning were particularly nauseating:

"BRIDGERTON'S GOLDEN COUPLE: JIN AND KYRIE'S CHEMISTRY SIZZLES ON AND OFF SCREEN" "FROM PAGE TO PASSION: ARE JIN AND KYRIE BRINGING ROMANCE TO LIFE?" "COSTARS TO LOVERS? INSIDE JIN AND KYRIE'S INTIMATE SCENES"

Jin scrolled through his phone with growing unease, hyper-aware of Y/N's presence across the set. She was interviewing one of the costume designers, but he caught her glancing at the entertainment news headlines on her laptop. Each time she looked his way, her expression would become carefully blank – a journalist's poker face that made his chest ache.

"We need to play this up more," his manager informed him during their morning meeting. "The publicity is perfect for the show. I want you and Kyrie to be seen having lunch together. Maybe take a walk in the park where paparazzi just happen to be."

Jin's jaw clenched. "More staged photos?"

"Whatever it takes. The networks love this narrative."

Meanwhile, Kyrie was dealing with her own storm of emotions. Jin watched as she checked her phone for what had to be the hundredth time that morning, no doubt looking for messages from Jungkook that she couldn't publicly acknowledge.

"He understands," she whispered to Jin between takes. "But it's still hard."

"I know," Jin replied, equally quiet. They both watched as Y/N made notes in her journal, probably documenting their apparent closeness for her article.

The irony wasn't lost on him – everyone watching them, thinking they were witnessing a romance blooming, while the real story was completely different. Kyrie's heart belonged to Jungkook, and Jin's... well, his kept betraying him every time Y/N walked into a room.

"Ready for the love scene?" the director called out.

Jin felt rather than saw Y/N's head snap up at those words. He desperately wanted to look her way, to explain somehow that this wasn't what she might think, but he couldn't. Instead, he took his position with Kyrie, both of them professionals playing their parts.

"Big smile," Kyrie muttered through her teeth as cameras flashed from the approved behind-the-scenes photographers. "We're madly in love, remember?"

Jin smiled on cue, all too aware of Y/N watching them with those perceptive eyes of hers. He wondered what she saw – did she buy into the publicity narrative? Or did she sense something off, the way she seemed to sense everything about him?

His phone vibrated in his pocket:

Jungkook: "The photos of you two are everywhere. You're trending again." Kyrie: "I miss you." Jungkook: "Soon. Once the album drops..." Jin: "...This is the gc, little flirts"

But focusing became increasingly difficult as the day wore on. Every staged intimate moment with Kyrie felt like a betrayal – not just of Y/N, who kept her professional distance but couldn't quite hide the hurt in her eyes, but of the truth itself.

During their lunch break, which they were required to take together at a visible table, Kyrie sighed. "This is exhausting."

"Which part?" Jin asked, though he knew. All of it was exhausting – the pretense, the secrets, the careful dance of public perception.

"Jungkook saw the new photos," she said quietly. "The ones where we're 'gazing lovingly' at each other. He laughed it off, but..." She trailed off, staring at her untouched salad.

Jin understood. It was one thing to agree to this arrangement, another to watch the person you love being paired with someone else in the public eye.

"Y/N's watching us again," Kyrie noted, changing the subject. "She looks like she's trying to solve a puzzle."

"She's good at that," Jin muttered. "Too good."

"Maybe that's not a bad thing?" Kyrie suggested carefully. "If she figures it out—"

"She can't," Jin cut her off, even as his heart protested. "There's too much at stake. Your career, Jungkook's album launch, the show..."

"Your feelings for her?"

Jin didn't answer, but his silence spoke volumes.

Later, during a scene break, Jin overheard Y/N interviewing Kyrie:

"Your chemistry with Jin seems very natural," Y/N said, her professional tone perfectly maintained despite the slight tension in her shoulders.

"Oh, you know how it is," Kyrie replied with a practiced laugh. "When you spend so much time with someone..." She let the implication hang in the air, playing her part perfectly.

Jin wanted to scream. Wanted to tell Y/N that none of it was real, that the person Kyrie's heart raced for was currently in a recording studio across town, that his own heart was currently doing somersaults just watching Y/N tuck her hair behind her ear as she took notes.

Instead, he walked over and placed a gentle hand on Kyrie's shoulder, just as they'd been instructed to do whenever cameras were around. "Ready for the next scene?"

He felt Y/N's eyes on them, saw the way she pressed her pen a little too hard against her notebook. The urge to explain himself was overwhelming.

His phone buzzed again:

Jungkook: "The album teaser drops next week. Everything has to be perfect until then." Kyrie: "I hate this." Jin: "Just a little longer. We can do this."

But looking at Y/N's carefully composed expression as she watched them play their parts, Jin wasn't so sure he could.

The next morning brought fresh hell in the form of a gossip column featuring candid shots from the garden scene. The photos were artfully arranged to tell a story of blooming romance between costars, complete with "inside source" quotes about Jin and Kyrie's off-screen chemistry.

Jin found Y/N in her makeshift office, the article prominently displayed on her laptop screen. She quickly switched tabs when she noticed him, but not before he caught sight of her browser history – she'd been researching his previous projects, interviews where he'd talked about dating, articles about method acting and on-screen chemistry.

"Good morning," she said, her voice carefully neutral. Professional. Distant.

"The articles are exaggerated," he blurted out before he could stop himself.

Y/N's eyebrows rose slightly. "I wasn't aware you owed me any explanations, Mr. Kim."

The formal address felt like a slap. "I don't," he agreed, hating how everything he said came out wrong. "I just..."

"Places, everyone!" The director's voice saved him from fumbling further. "Jin, we need you in costume!"

He lingered for a moment too long, watching Y/N return to her laptop, her shoulders tense. His phone buzzed:

Jungkook: "Music video filming starts next week. Everything needs to stay under wraps until then." Kyrie: "Just saw the gossip columns. 🙄 You okay?" Jin: "Define okay." Kyrie: "That bad, huh?"

The morning's scene was particularly challenging – a quiet moment between his character and Kyrie's, full of loaded glances and unspoken feelings. The irony wasn't lost on him that while everyone thought they were watching two actors falling in love, they were actually watching two friends trying to protect someone else's romance while his own heart was being pulled in a completely different direction.

"Cut!" The director called out. "Jin, you're supposed to be looking at Kyrie like she's your whole world, not glancing off-camera every five seconds!"

Jin's ears burned, knowing exactly who he'd been unconsciously looking for. Y/N was studiously taking notes, but he caught the slight flush on her cheeks. She'd noticed too.

During their break, Kyrie cornered him behind a set piece. "This is getting messier by the minute," she muttered.

"I'm handling it," Jin insisted.

"Are you? Because from where I'm standing, you're about five minutes away from either kissing that journalist or having a complete breakdown."

"I'm not—" Jin started to protest, but Kyrie cut him off.

"You literally brought her coffee this morning. Her exact order. And yesterday you snapped at a crew member for interrupting her interview. And don't even get me started on how you keep finding excuses to walk past her office."

"...Is it that obvious?"

"Only to everyone with eyes." Kyrie's expression softened. "Look, I get it. Trust me, I understand complicated feelings. But we need to be careful right now. Jungkook's album—"

"I know," Jin cut in. "I know, okay? The album, the show, our careers. I know what's at stake."

"Do you? Because every time she looks at you with those big questioning eyes of hers, you look about ready to spill every secret we have."

Before Jin could respond, they heard voices approaching:

"—just think there might be more to the story," Y/N was saying.

"Like what?" Another journalist's voice. "It's obvious they're together. The chemistry—"

"Seems practiced," Y/N cut in. "Almost... choreographed."

Jin's heart stopped. Beside him, Kyrie tensed.

"You're too cynical," the other journalist laughed. "Next you'll tell me you think it's all for publicity."

"I just think..." Y/N paused, and Jin could picture her biting her lip the way she did when choosing her words carefully. "I think there are layers here we're not seeing."

The voices faded as they passed, but the damage was done. She was getting too close to the truth.

Later that afternoon, following their manager's instructions, Jin and Kyrie had to do a "candid" walk through the set's garden, knowing photographers were stationed nearby. As they strolled, arm in arm, Jin caught sight of Y/N watching from her office window. Her expression was carefully blank, but he saw her hand tighten around her pen until her knuckles turned white.

"She's hurting," Kyrie whispered.

"So am I," Jin admitted quietly.

That evening, as most of the crew was packing up, Jin found himself drawn to Y/N's office again. She was alone, staring at her screen with unfocused eyes.

"The article's not going well?" he asked, trying for casual.

Y/N jumped slightly, then composed herself. "Actually, I'm looking at your old interviews. Trying to understand..."

"What?"

She turned to face him fully. "How someone so supposedly transparent in interviews can be hiding so much."

Jin felt the blood drain from his face. "I don't know what you—"

"Don't," she cut him off softly. "Please don't lie to me. Not again."

The plea in her voice undid him. For a moment, he wanted to tell her everything – about Jungkook and Kyrie's secret relationship, about the album collaboration, about how every staged romantic moment with Kyrie felt like a betrayal of not just the truth but of his growing feelings for Y/N.

Instead, he took a step back. "I should go."

"Jin," she called after him, dropping the formal address. He froze. "Whatever you're protecting... I hope it's worth all this."

He didn't turn around. Couldn't. If he looked at her now, he might break.

His phone buzzed one last time as he fled:Jungkook: "One more week. Just hold on for one more week." Kyrie: "We're losing him..." Jin: "I'm fine." Kyrie: "No, you're not. And neither is she."

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inpolariis · 2 years ago

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Fanart for Here’s A Health To Our Company by niar.art on twitter!

#hahtoc fic #friend art #I am going absolutely insane about this by the way #buggy the clown #buggy one piece #buggy op #cross guild #op fic #one piece fic #just lOOK AT ALL THE DETAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#I haven't stopped staring at this for an hour #the hair and the pose and the clothes and the lighting and the expression and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!#go follow them on twitter!!#<3<3<3

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shotaumino · 4 months ago

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He's trying his best!!!

God Bless DDT Sapporo Day 1

#kazuki hirata #yukio naya #ddt pro #ddt wrestling #god bless ddt 23 sapporo #the wrestle #my gifs #this took a ludicrous amount of time but now i get to stare at it whenever i want #both of them are my best friend #i haven't even finished the match btw i stopped for 2 hours to make these gifs #i'll get better eventually

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keeps-ache · 1 year ago

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[uses the word 'image' five hundred thousand times]

#just me hi #[just kind of stares at it for a bit]#[ignores it anyway]#hbvasfhvhsvf #i am a one-word at a time kind of pal. can only have One descriptor at a time. that descriptor is Image #/anyway i gotta stop looking at that screenshot bc it's doing unscientific things to my brain hfvbahf #i might change my computer pfp to the guy with the spagetti. i literally #i [grabbing and shaking gesture]‚ ya know what i mean :)#why am i talking about it so much? it is making my brain produce Chemicals! that is all we know at this time. no more questions loll #//now i am Goooing to finish this piece- what was i working on actually #how did i forget hfvbsh #ah yes. ref #now i'll finish this ref at some point‚ hopefully today :>#//suddenly it's very important to me that you know what it sounds like to me when i'm in text form #in my head its like a silly faux high-pitched voice with ridiculous highs and lows in pitch but never really dropping further than an octav #like. how do i explain that this is the Silly Voice i use when i haven't eaten in 10 hours and i'm trying to make my siblings laugh #//anyway it's almost one a.m.!! i have very important person things to do. such as.. drawing :) and sleeping i guess‚ but mostly drawing :3 #so Boo! see you !!

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saintedbythestorm · 2 months ago

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Stomach... I don't know what the fuck you're doing... but stop it!

#CAN WE STOP THE FUCKING SIDE EFFECTS PARADE ALREADY?! FUUUUUUCK #i have just about had it with all of this.#like yey ok no sad i guess but like... i also can't do anything i like.#i rather take the hours of crying if i can do things i enjoy all day in between. 😮‍💨#i know I'm still in that time frame where they say the side effects may not have chilled out yet... but like...#... i don't like being completely unable to do the things i love. big shocker. i know.#like... being able to play my games or watch a movie or whatever... they bring joy ✨️... and now i can't fucking do it.#if i hadn't kept binge watching supernatural I'd fucking passed already. and that only works cause it's the only show i even remotely...#... find interesting right now. and i just keep going back to it cause at least it is SOMETHING more than staring into a wall.#but like... i am so restless at this point.#it just feels like suddenly i have symptoms i didn't before and it's an even bigger issue than before.#like i was tired before... now im TIIIIIREEEEED. it's like a good x10 worse.#like normally I'm only like this when severely ill. i haven't been like this since we thought i had covid. these meds are bullshit.#and i can't even fucking cry about it 👍#ryder speaking

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dawnwriterimagines · 4 months ago

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Traitors Among Us

SIMON 'GHOST' RILEY x Fem!Reader Task Force 141 x Fem!Reader (Platonic)

PART 2

Part Three: The Guilty Plea

Part Four: The Verdict Due

Summary: You're a rat, a traitor. At least that's what Task Force 141 believes due to the evidence and claims scattered against you. It doesn't matter what you say, everyone's against you, ready to end you for it...until the truth comes out.

Warning(s): Torture, Heavy Angst, etc.

If you liked this would you Buy my a Coffee?

---

Drip.

Drip..

Drip...

Your shoulders seize up involuntarily as freezing droplets continue to hit your skin, eyes squeezed shut to try to ignore the sound that had been going on for who knows how long.

Another drop of water hits your spine from the faucet placed above you, it's cold as it runs down your bare skin. It feels like ice. Hitting the same spot over and over and over...

Drip...

Not even able to take a deep breath, you release a strained cry, it can hardly leave you, not that you hadn't cried enough already. You could feel the dried blood, tears and snot still on your face and a testament to your torment. You haven't been able to get the metallic taste of your blood of of your mouth since you got in here.

You breathe slowly, trying to relieve the pain in your chest. Body positioned downwards, chest pressed down to your knees, a leather buckle holds you down and over a metal stool. Wrists torn open by old shackles and stretched upwards to connect to the steel pipe in the middle of the room.

The stress position had been Johnny's idea, putting you in it to begin with. The bastard...

Kyle had been in and out to collaborate with Price on the interrogation, he didn't have the heart to do you any harm like his Captain. But, that didn't stop him from stomaching your screams as he turned the handle up, piercing cold crashing down atop you, it beats down on your back, by the time it's done your shaking, and your skin a bruising purple hue. It goes on like that for hours, even as you beg. He reads you the files again.

Price would then take the baton from the corner of the room, the side of your face already swollen from the last strike, you were seeing red out of your left eye and soon you wouldn't be able to see out of it if the swelling continued.

"Please..." you shivered, miserably.

"Over in a jiff, love, but i need somethin' from you, you know that." Was his reply, he tapped the baton against the metal below you, the reverb makes you jump each time, leaving you to stare at it as you watched his boots walk around you.

"Cap'n, It's not...It's not--me..." you tried, breathless. "I'd never.."

The steel baton came down on your shoulder, first. There was an immediate response from your constricted muscles, limbs that had all tensed up at once despite their numbness. Pulling at the shackles that kept you in place, the hit shocks you, nearly silencing you completely, it hurts, then it burns. Mouth open in a silent scream, you squeeze your eyes shut in an effort to block out the pain that crawled through your shoulder. "It's not me!"

You've been suffering from hypothermia for a few days since then. Your shoulder crushed right out of place or just plain broken, you weren't sure. It's not like you could feel much of your arms in this position.

It hurt. Not just the painful strain that this position was currently putting on your muscles, but everything else...

Of course, you've handled torture alike this before. Captured and tortured by enemies, ransomed for pay and fought tooth and nail to live, then found your way from that hell...only for the men who you'd kill for, to do the same thing to you with no remorse.

In the quiet of the empty room, you sobbed in agony. Squeezing your fists, but you couldn't even feel them, as far as you knew your fingers could only twitch in response to your demand.

You weren't sure what you were doing here.

Well, you knew. There was a mole, all evidence pointing to you, whatever it was had completely stunted their mission earlier in the week, left them hiding in a safe house for days until they were picked up by evac. Apparently, you'd leaked mission details to some hostiles over seas, you weren't sure which ones, they were hoping you could tell them. You had absolutely nothing, lost.

Of course, they didn't believe you. Although you expected to have at least a sliver of trust, someone to speak up against these claims and believe you...

It must've been too much to ask.

It came out of nowhere, at first you had been in bed with Simon, your fucking Fiancé, then that meeting with Price, then just...they'd cornered you in that room. Knocked you out without even an explanation, woke you up strapped down, confused, stripped of your uniform and feral as you demanded answers. Nobody listened to you.

That first night you thought you were gonna die. The second night you thought you had. The third night you were just convinced this was your hell.

You were soaked to the bone, and unable to stop shivering. The only sound you could hear was your own chattering teeth in this never-ending void of darkness.

It was so fucking dark in here, your eyes darting around to every corner, hoping for even a measly crack of light that your eyes could adjust to. Every sound, scratch, scrape or click made you jump, you couldn't see shit in here, so just about everything made you hyper aware. You couldn't help your anxiety as the sound of the faucet, the constant drops against your spine, the jingle of your shackles and the whimpers that echoed against the walls as you struggled to comfortably breathe. Maybe it was the thought of a mouse crawling up the stool and along your skin, or someone in here just staring at you in the corner, or the door finally opening for Price to start slicing into you demanding answers you didn't have.

You were on the cusp of losing your mind. If you hadn't already.

But it's been a few hours since then...

Maybe even a few days...

It could even have been a week.

You weren't too sure.

Simon had been the last one in here. He'd pulled the strap loose around your neck, hauling you up to an upright position by your jaw, eliciting a whimper from your lips. Able to breathe a bit easier, your lungs finally decompressing and you gulp down air greedily, "Simon..." this had been the first time you'd seen him since. He wears his balaclava, he is Ghost, not your Simon Riley.

As your bloodshot, swollen eyes raise to look into his cold ones, so unfeeling. You hadn't even realized you were so hopeful for his trust in you until then, looking at you like you were absolutely nothing to him, the same look he always had before pulling the trigger. "Simon, please, stop this..." your words slurred by your shivering, exhausted. "You know me...please."

Your tears slide over the leather of his gloved hands, while he holds tight to your face and cuts your pleads short with a painful squeeze. "Shut up," he says. His eyes are blank, but his voice is low and seething. "Shut the fuck up!" Simon harshly grits out to you, jostling you harshly. You squeeze your eyes shut, weeping miserably, throat closing up to your agony.

He had to know that you would've never done this to him. He should've known that. Given you the benefit of the doubt at least. You'd have never done this to him...

"I'm sorr-" you try, he squeezes harder to silence you swiftly, and snatches a tiny bowl off the tray he'd brought in. Raising your jaw a bit higher, he pours down a chunky broth into your mouth, letting it all just fall down to your throat. It's disgusting. He doesn't ease up for even a second as you toss and turn your head to breathe.

"Don't say a fucking word," he seethes, his hand enveloping your neck and keeping your head raised upward. "As if I should believe you..."

He then takes the next cup to do the same, your eyes bloodshot wide and you jerk away from him as you choke, unable to stomach anything, but he doesn't let you. This time you inhale accidentally, blocking your airway, eyes watering as you writhe for oxygen, your shackles clang violently as you attempt to retaliate, the first fight you've put up in days. His grip doesn't let up, even as you struggle and start to vomit up whatever he decided to shove down your throat.

When he finally lets go, you curve over and heave up whatever's left in your mouth, hyperventilating as you empty your guts on the floor. Hacking up whatever you can, it hurts, your throat burning from the sobs that leave you in between coughs. "If you love me, if you--ever had--" you spat at him. You'd given him everything, every part of yourself, nearly given him your life in the battlefield, and yet...it wasn't enough. "You would fucking believe me!" your voice cracks with the effort it takes to scream at him, to curse him to hell.

"My trust? That's what you want," Hollow eyes stare back at you, his attention flickering around to the uncomfortable shift of your shoulders in those cuffs. Your swollen left eye that had been hit so hard, the white of it had filled with blood. The black and blue littering your sides and your spine, the loss of color in your skin from the stress position and the cold that had you uncontrollably shivering. "You've had it before. You must've sold that to them too."

Your head drops to the stool again, releasing a heavy breath. "It wasn't worth much, if it was so easy to lose..."

Usually it's not very easy to set Simon off, you've known him always to be quite mellow, besides the barely concealed rage he had settled in his chest since you've known him. But, today, you were an exception.

Fisting a hand in your hair, Simon yanks at it, pulling you upwards for your to face him. His other hand coming up to wrap around your throat before your tortured scream can even manifest. In that moment, it feels as if he'd snapped your spine in half, having not used the muscles to stretch that area in over a week. Your shackled wrists shifting in the cruel position.

His eyes are wild and rageful, the balaclava that covers him twists just the same, his grip very telling to his violence as he squeezes down any chance at air or even a sentence. "Easy to lose..." he repeats, spitting in your face as he strangles you. "Easy t'lose your life! If you don't tell me the fucking truth," he pulls out the knife you'd seen him slit so many throats with before, you hear the familiar sound of it first then its cold steel pressing into the side of your ribs. "I'm gonna carve out your heart, and I'll take it real slow, let you feel every little thing I do to you in here," he shakes you harshly as a startled cry escapes you, your tears are burning hot against your cheeks. "You don't get to cry. Or whine. Or beg!"

"Stop--" you try to squirm away from him, to get as far away as possible, from this place, from this moment.

"Just tell me the truth," Simon's face twisted in agony, for just a second, his thumb drags along your jaw, meaningfully. "You'd be doing us both a favor..."

As his vast hand finally loosed around your neck just enough to hold you up, awaiting the bitter truth. Simon's knife catches on the protrusion of your ribs, nicking the skin, drawing blood on purpose. You stare up at the ceiling, the flickering old lights, the dripping faucet that's tormented your already fragile state for weeks now. "The truth..." you spoke, hoarsely. "You've all shown me...it doesn't matter to you. If it ever... Believe what you want--" you close your eyes, you're exhausted. Sleep had evaded you for days. "You and your truth and this team, you can all go to hell."

And finally he lets you go, letting your fall forwards, unable to find the relief of a cold floor but back to the strenuous position you'd been placed in. "AH!" nearly popping your shoulders out of place, or maybe they had, you bite down on your tongue, shaking in silence.

If you could see Simon's face, you could've relished in the uncertainty flickering in his eyes, the sudden doubt that led his knife back in its holder and his nails to bite into the flesh of his palms. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing leaves him, instead he stands there.

You can't say a thing to him now, everything that's happened was just a little reminder that whatever you said, whatever you did, it didn't matter. Their minds had already been made. You really would die here.

Simon stands there a little longer, he doesn't say anything, you're not sure if he stays there to watch your suffering a little longer or to wait to say another heart-wrenching thing. Maybe he's just there to wait for you to die. But, he just watches as you wretch and cry in a ball atop that stool.

He leaves not long after, he didn't bother to strap you down this time. He left the old light on, but it must've been older than you thought.

The single bulb fizzled out completely hours ago. Not unless one of them decided to cut the silence and turn on the light to start another 'questioning', so suddenly being able to see more than darkness wasn't anything to be excited about.

They'd leave you in the dark until then, to await the next moment any of them would grace you with their presence.

To be honest, you'd imagined you'd be stronger than this. But, there was nothing to hold onto, so what did strength matter?

It was too late anyway.

They'd broken you days ago.

---

The truth had come out, two days later.

"Oh god..."

"Oh my fucking God," Simon rushed down the corridor, Price tailing right behind him. "Oh my God!" his normal monotone voice now a mess of fear and panic, breathing harsher, on the cusp of hyperventilating with every stride as he ran faster than he ever had in his life.

Finally getting to the interrogation wing of the department, he bangs his fist on the plexiglass of those silently monitoring the rooms, "Open the fucking door!" he's buzzed in before he can pull on the handle another time.

Rushing down the hall to the now green lit room, lights flickering to life with every step closer down the hall of empty rooms. He nearly rips the door off its hinges as he bursts inside, the lights of the your tiny prison don't come to life as they should. Light spilling into the cell, to hit your limp figure first.

He doesn't deserve to say your name. "(Y/n)," Simon rushes over, to his knees instantly. A puddle of vomit, water and spoiled broth soaks through his uniform.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry," he sobs out his mistakes, unhooking your chains and cutting through your buckles as fast as he could. "Oh my god, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" he catches his fiancé as you collapse, turning over and off the stool, your legs having lost all sense of feeling. You fall into his arms, catching you carefully. "Price!" he cries out, desperately.

"They're on the way!" Your captain assures, he sees the medical team rushing down the hallway, a stretcher, a box of medical supplies. Christ.

You're freezing to the touch, your skin a hue of blue, not to mention the bruises, the cuts and the swollen areas throughout your face and spine. You suddenly inhale, sharply, coughing terribly. You're sick, breathing shakily, "Simon...?" you breathe, confused. You can't see. Your eyes swollen shut from your torture at their hands.

"It's me, it's me," Simon assured, although he knew it probably brought you no comfort. He snatches the blanket offered up by Price, your captain a mess of himself, holding himself together at the doorway, nails biting into the steel.

As Simon wraps you in the first glimpse of warmth you've had in days, you ease up a bit, fingers twitching upwards to pull the threads closer around yourself. "It wasn't..." you shiver, Simon listens intently as he rises with you in his arms, running off to meet the medical team halfway. "It wasn't me..." you gasp out. "It wasn't..."

Simon can't say a thing as he hears your tormented voice stutter in fear of him, lips pressed tight together, heart sinking and as the nurses take your body, he collapses to his knees.

Part 2

#simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #cod x reader #ghost x yn #call of duty x reader #cod angst #simon riley angst #ghost angst #simon riley angst x reader

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zephyrchama · 5 months ago

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Can't stop thinking about the brothers calling MC "master" since that new teaser trailer came out. The game is called "One Master to Rule Them All." It's always been called that. This massive potential has been right in front of our eyes the whole time.

Lucifer, who only uses it in private when he's feeling particularly devilish. He wraps his arms around you, looks you right in the eye, and asks, "how does my master feel today, hmm?"

Mammon, who has an empty wallet and the urge to gamble: "Maaaster! Can I borrow some cash? I can, right? I'm your first, after all. I'll just take it from your wallet."

Leviathan, who wants to go to an anime collab cafe but is too anxious to go alone, so he begs you: "Please! Master! It's only open this week and I just have to collect all 24 limited edition cafe coasters! It'll be easier if we go together!"

Satan, who catches you when you stumble and jokingly asks, "are you okay, master?" He likes seeing the little sparks of wrath in your eyes that mirror his own.

Asmodeus, who thinks the word is hot and enjoys your reaction when he comes to steal you away from other people by saying "hey! I need to speak with my master. I'll be borrowing them for a while. I'm sure you don't mind."

Beelzebub, who hungrily stares at the food in the fridge with your name on it. He knows he needs to butter you up to have any chance of success: "Hey master, are you gonna eat that?"

Belphegor, who uses it at the most unexpected times. He texts the group chat, "does anyone know where our master is? I can't find them." It sets off a long chain of messages. "Master's not in their bedroom?" "Master? Haven't seen 'em." "Did you try yelling 'master!' and seeing if they respond?" "I saw master getting something to drink about an hour ago." "Master, are you reading our messages? I know you are." "I can't believe master is ignoring us." Several crying emoji are sent in quick succession.

Solomon and Barbatos, who witness the brothers doing this on occasion. Solomon turns to the latter and says, "You never call me your master. Want to give it a try?"

Barbatos looks at him with barely repressed revulsion. "I only have one master, and that is the Young Master. If you ever make such a joke again I will have you tried in court for lese-majeste."

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hydrobunny · 25 days ago

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never took me quite where you do

tags: established relationship, fluff, silliness

a/n: based on king of my heart. (which was also my eras surprise song!!)

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

"you haven't had a girlfriend?" you ask, surprise coloring your voice.

rin itoshi stares at you like you've suddenly got infinitely stupider. "not before you."

"that's," you start, then stop. actually, now that you're really thinking about it, it does make sense. "you know what, yeah. seems about right."

offense glares in his eyes as he leans away from you. "the hell does that mean?"

you raise your brows. "what do you think, rin?"

he fully untangles his limbs from yours at that, shoving himself off of the couch. you protest at his motion - a little halfheartedly, but the effort is there .

standing up to his full height, rin itoshi glares down at you.

you blink up at him, smiling with all the innocence you can muster. "yes?"

"do you know how much fan mail i get?" he grits out. "how many chocolates i've gotten on valentine's?"

it takes quite a lot of effort for you to not start laughing. "i do know how popular you are, yes. you should see the edits on tiktok."

"so why-" rin falters. "edits?"

"go on."

it takes him a second. "i could've had a girlfriend if i wanted to," he says at last. "i just didn't."

you nod, still biting back a smile. "mhm. i'm sure all the girls would've loved you after seeing that personality of yours." you scoot over, offering up the space on the couch again.

rin continues to stare, but you can see his will weakening. "not like anyone wanted to date your lukewarm ass either," he says with a finality.

you snort. "i thought you grew out of that word."

he rolls his eyes.

"also- factually untrue. i've had boyfriends before."

and rin's entire demeanor switches. "what?"

you wave your hand, dismissive. "not like a lot, but. an average amount to have for a high schooler, i think. none of it was ever serious. not like you," you grin.

rin doesn't return it. genuine shock bleeds through his face; he turns on his heel. "i'm going to bed."

"wha- rin?"

forty five minutes later, you breeze into your shared bedroom. your teeth are freshly brushed, your skin lotioned, and you're almost ready for a good night's sleep.

"are you actually still mad about- what the hell are you doing?"

rin freezes, one hand still on the computer mouse. from your vantage point, you can see every pixel on that screen.

"is that my high school boyfriend?"

he turns in the swivel chair, very clearly not in bed. the classic 'itoshi indifference,' as you've coined it, masks itself over his face.

you step closer. "rin. is that, or is that not, the instagram profile of my ex."

he nods, slowly.

"can i ask why you're looking at his profile?"

he begins to shake his head, and then changes his mind (a good choice). but rin itoshi has never been too good at keeping himself calm-

"he's unemployed."

there's a beat of silence.

"sorry?"

"jobless. a leech on society. useless as a human being," rin continues. "a complete ass of himself, basically."

you stare at him. he stares at you. and then-

you burst out laughing. "are you serious?"

rin seems surprised by your reaction. it makes you laugh even harder.

"oh my god- you've been stalking his socials? for the last, like, hour?' you broke your stupid athlete sleep schedule for this?" there are genuine tears welling in the corner of your eyes. "for a guy i dated years ago?"

a little self-conscious now, rin stands up. "i was trying to sleep for the first twenty minutes. after that.." he trails off.

and you slam into him with a hug, still laughing. "i love you so much."

he stiffens at the initial contact, but gives into your touch the moment after. "i love you too?"

you hum into his ear. "they don't matter anymore. you know that, right? they never did- not seriously enough. you're the only one."

rin doesn't reply.

"and i know you could have any girl you wanted. but that doesn't matter to me. because you want me. and i will never get enough of you, rin itoshi."

his voice is a low murmur. "me neither. no one's ever compared to you."

and he presses a kiss onto your lips, and it's better than anything you've ever had.

#hydrobunny #blue lock fluff #blue lock #blue lock x reader #itoshi rin x reader #rin itoshi x reader #rin x reader #might possibly be ooc but i tried so insanely hard #big day for reputation lovers

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ugh-yoongi · 2 months ago

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ex-conomics | csc

you supported seungcheol through years of being an aspiring athlete, and all you got to show for it was your undergraduate degree and an awkward, stuttered apology when he dumped you to go semi-pro. now he’s back after an injury derailed his career, and there’s only one problem: you’re the only one available to tutor him. you - 0; the universe - 1. talk about no return on investment.

⚽ pairing: choi seungcheol x f. reader ⚽ genre: exes to (lite) enemies to lovers; university au; angst, fluff ⚽ rating: while there is nothing explicit in this fic, there are two brief references to smut. while i can't stop anyone from reading this, i would prefer minors do not interact with this or any of my work. ⚽ warnings: cheol is some degree of famous, reader is a grad student/TA, mentions of an injury and coping with the aftermath of it, lots of economics talk that even i do not understand, swearing, one mention of alcohol, some misplaced jealousy, rom-com tropes, dino is kind of a loser but we love him anyway. probably a lot of other things i missed, but this is actually pretty tame for a fic of this length. ⚽ word count: 13.4k ⚽ thank you: a lot of people looked this over for me in the process and i'm sure i will forget some of them so if i do i'm sorry: @the-boy-meets-evil, @hot-soop, @highvern, and @haologram, who also gave me some wonderful ideas for the vlogs. thank you to MIT for opencourseware existing. i took microeconomics and dropped it, so i couldn't have done this without you. everyone in the discord server for helping me along the way and keeping me motivated. ⚽ author's note: i haven't posted a fic in nearly seven months, so i think it goes without saying that there are parts of this i like and a lot more i'm not 100% happy with. i'd love if this was more fleshed out and 10k longer, but i was able to write anything at all so it's good enough. this was written for the back to school with seventeen collab, hosted by @camandemstudios. thank you both for letting me participate! please make sure to check out the rest of the stories! everyone worked so hard and this collab was a ton of fun to participate in. <3

You look down at the paper. Back up at who handed it to you. Down at the paper again.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

The poor freshman kid laughs, all nerves, and even though the sound is grating, you remember what it’s like to be forced into work study. How far away graduate school seemed; how large your professors loomed over you with all their power and knowledge and credentials; how you constantly felt like the dumbest person in nearly every room you walked into for four straight years.

“Um—”

You sigh, just barely resisting the urge to slam your head onto your desk. “I—it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” Your words do little to ease Freshman’s nerves. He’s still hunched over in the doorway of your office, wringing his hands as he shifts his weight back and forth, in for a lifetime of body pain with the way he’s squaring his shoulders. “You’re sure about this, though? Like, I’m really not being set up?”

“I don’t think so?” he offers, slowly starting to turn green right before your eyes. “Dr. Lee ga-gave me the paperwork himself, I don’t think he would’ve messed it up? Oh no, did I mess it up? Should I go back to Student Services and conf—”

Good god, this kid’s anxiety is gonna stink up your office for weeks. “No need!” you interject. “I’ll just…” Sign it, you want to say, but the longer you stare at the sheet of paper the quicker you’re losing your resolve.

TUTORING REQUEST FORM Student Name: Choi Seungcheol Degree: Undergraduate Major: Business Course: ECON04101 Introduction to Microeconomics Instructor: Lee Yeonseok, PhD. Recommended Tutoring: High (3-4 hours per week)

You curse under your breath. Of the two names on the paper, Dr. Lee’s does not come as a surprise. He’s a notorious hard-ass with an infamous attrition rate—most students don’t last more than a week in any of his classes—but he’s also the sole reason you were able to pay for someof your grad school tuition out of pocket with all the tutoring money you made.

That, however, was two years ago.

“Does he know I don’t tutor anymore?” Stupid question. The kid stares blankly back at you, as if to say I don’t know any more than the people in Student Services, let alone Dr. Lee. It is literally my first year here. “I’m Dr. Ahn’s TA this year. I’ve got my hands full with her bullsh… stuff—”

Immediately, you know you’ve said something wrong, because the kid’s eyes light up, all that previous anxiety disappearing like smoke. “Wait, the same Dr. Ahn that teaches the crypto course?”

“No, that one died,” you say quickly. Kid deflates. “Anyway, I don’t really tutor anymore, especially for econ. As you can see”—you gesture vaguely around the cramped four walls of your office—“they’ve upgraded me. They even put my name on a little placard by the door! Go look! They spelled it wrong! If that doesn’t sum up this university I don’t know what does.”

You heave another sigh. Try to school your face and tone into something that exudes professionalism and finality. “Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I tutored Dr. Lee’s students for, like, three years in undergrad so I’m sure they just… forgot that wasn’t my actual job here. Who’s in charge of tutoring these days? I’ll shoot them an email and explain all this.”

Freshman gives you a name, and it takes less than a second to find them in the employee directory. You expect that to be the end of it, but he’s still taking up space in your doorway. You quirk an eyebrow. “Yes?”

The hand-wringing returns, along with an embarrassed flush that disappears beneath the neckline of his school-branded sweatshirt. “I just—um. Maybe you could, uh. Send that now? Before I get back there?”

You blink. “Don’t you have to go all the way back across campus? How slow do you think I type?” He shrugs, and you give up on the idea of getting rid of him. “Fine. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Lee Chan. I’m a sophomore. Do you know that guy?”

“Oh. I thought for sure you were a freshman, but you’re gonna need to be more specific, Lee Chan, Sophomore.”

“The guy they want you to tutor.” You freeze. The guy they want you to tutor is—“Choi Seungcheol,” Chan tacks on, and, yeah, you know—knew, you correct yourself—someone with that name, once upon a time.

But there are a lot of Chois and a lot of Seungcheols. It’s been years since you’ve spoken to the Seungcheol you knew, and that was when he’d broken up with you to—“I heard he’s a football player? Well, used to be, I guess. The girls in the office were freaking out so I guess he’s pretty famous, but I don’t know anything about sports, do you? They said they have photocards of him. I thought they only did that for idols.”

You think about being kids together in Daegu. Think about the exasperated looks you’d share when your parents would drag the two of you to festivals: Palgongsan in the autumn, Biseulsan in the spring; transformation and rebirth. Think about being eight years old and watching your father cram into the small space of the Chois’ living room, standing around the TV with Seungcheol’s dad, shouting at Park Jonghwan. Daegu FC made the FA Cup quarterfinals that year, and you think, of everything, that’s what you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

You think about falling in love slowly. Sixteen and clueless, the pair of you were. Didn’t really know any different, just that you’d look at him and feel butterflies. That you’d hold hands in secret. Text beneath the dinner table. That you’d watch him on the football pitch and be consumed by pride. That the future felt impossibly far away, that life would never catch up to the two of you.

You think about all the football jargon you didn’t understand—the academies, the teams, the implications. You think about, I’m thinking about trying out for the FC Seoul U-18, I just don’t think there’s much more I can do here in Daegu. You think about replying, Oh, I applied to university there.

You remember thinking it must’ve been fate, how easy that had worked out. How easy that first hurdle had been overcome.

You think about how fast everything happened. The try-out, the acceptance, the explosion. Remember being unable to go anywhere those first few months without seeing Seungcheol’s face, touted as the next big thing. Think about applying for scholarships when he was applying for international visas. Think about studying for midterms when Seungcheol was studying English for interviews.

You think about the last few weeks of your relationship, when it felt like you were desperately trying to cling to ghosts. Think about how Seoul had once felt endlessly big, both in opportunity and size, and how it now felt suffocating. You think about, So you’re just giving up? Is that what you’re saying? Think about, I don’t know what else to do. It doesn’t feel fair to you.

You think about all the places you’ve watched him. On countless football pitches; shy glances in school hallways; in the passenger seat, wracked with nerves on the drive to Seoul; poised above you in bed, hairline dotted with sweat as he rolled his hips, telling you how much he loved you.

You think about watching him walk out the door, and how you never watched him again.

So you fire off your email, concise and to the point about why you can’t tutor Choi Seungcheol in Introduction to Microeconomics, and turn to Lee Chan, Sophomore.

“No,” you finally answer. “Never heard of him.”

For all intents and purposes, your rejection should’ve been the end of it.

A few days go by. You hold office hours, attend lectures, work on your thesis when you have both the time and the energy. Try to ignore the feeling of bees beneath your skin, anxiety needling each time you check your email. You were well within your right to decline the tutoring request, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve done something wrong. That someone somehow knows who Seungcheol was to you and will pull you up on it. That those girls who’d gushed about him to Chan are somewhere laughing at your expense.

But you don’t hear anything at all about it… until you do.

Sunday evening. You haven’t moved from your couch in hours, some variety show playing in the background, barely audible over your keyboard clacking. Much to your detriment, you don’t write many papers these days, so you’re out of practice. Feels like you haven’t done anything besides formulas in years, all of your academic knowledge reduced to fucking math, so you’re about ready to toss your laptop out the window long before the email even comes through.

You see, From: Lee Yeonseok. You see, Subject: Choi Seungcheol - Tutoring.

Your stomach plummets to the floor.

You scan the body quickly. You see the words personal favor… friend of his father… urgent matter… and your hands start shaking. Whether it’s from the sheer audacity of this man or anxiety, you aren’t sure, but it’s not like it matters. There aren’t a whole lot of people on campus brave or dumb enough to go up against him twice.

“Motherfucker,” you spit, bitter the only taste in your mouth.

Where did you go wrong to wind up here? You’d followed the script: got the grades, passed the exams, received half of the required education for the Respectable Career, helped a few others along the way chase dreams that may or may not have been their own. You’d fallen in love. Only had a broken heart to show for it, but that’d been in the script, too: The First Love, followed by The First Heartbreak.

The split from Seungcheol was supposed to have been the end of that chapter. You’d planned on never seeing him again, and you never would have, had it been up to you. Apparently the universe has other plans, participation required.

“Did you spill onion dip on the rug again?” You startle, sending your laptop flying. Kaori, your roommate, is perched halfway in between the living room and the kitchen like a cryptid, clearly not expecting your reaction. “Oh. Were you watching porn?”

Face burning, you fetch your laptop from the floor. “In a common area? Kaori, please, I have far more decorum than that.”

She snorts, resuming her trek to the fridge. “See, that’s what I thought, but then I walked out here and you threw your laptop so fast it was like watching my ex get caught watching furry porn all over again.” She pries the lid off a large container of yogurt. “You think this is still good?”

“Dunno. What’s it smell like?”

She sniffs it and pulls it back to check the label. “Vanilla, I think, which is concerning because it’s supposed to be strawberry.”

You shrug. “What’s the worst that can happen, you get extra”—you pause, trying to remember the correct order of things, before giving up entirely—“...biotics?”

“Mm, so close. Care if I just eat this with a spoon?”

Nose scrunched, you wave her off. “Couldn’t pay me to eat yogurt on a good day, let alone if it’s expired. All yours, babe.”

Spoon in hand and a pleased smile on her face, Kaori collapses onto the couch beside you. You try to return your attention to your paper, try to find your momentum again, and it works for all of ten minutes before you’re groaning and slamming the top closed.

You don’t even need to look over to know Kaori’s staring. “What’s up with you?” she asks. Before she can answer: “Wait, is this serious? Because I can’t have a serious conversation in this t-shirt.” You steal a glance sideways. Ask Me About My Hemorrhoid! it says, and you exhale loudly. “Don’t breathe at me, I lost a bet.”

“And continued wearing it?”

She jokingly rolls her eyes. “God forbid a girl has hobbies.” Nudges you with her foot. “C’mon, spill.”

Kaori doesn’t know about you and Seungcheol. Most people don’t, aside from a few old classmates from Daegu who found you on social media and tried befriending you once he started making a name for himself in Seoul. After that, it was just easier to keep things private while you were together. New friends knew you were seeing someone but not their name or how long you’d been together. Any curiosity surrounding why the Choi Seungcheol was following you on Insta had been waved away easily. Our parents are friends, we grew up together. Then you broke up, and there wasn’t any evidence to delete, and he wasn’t following you on Instagram anymore, and it was easier that way.

So, yeah—even though you hadn’t met her until years later, Kaori knows you have an ex. She knows you’ve had a few flings and situationships in the time since, too, and it’s why she’s none the wiser when you ask, “It’s nothing, really. Just—do you follow football at all?”

“Nah, not really. The new guy’s pretty into it and keeps trying to get me to watch the games with him, but it’s so fucking boring? I dunno, I can’t get into it. Not in real life, anyway—I binged all of Captain Tsubasa in an embarrassingly short amount of time, though. Why?”

“Student Services asked me to tutor someone the other day and I had to turn it down. I just don’t have the time, you know? This semester’s already killer, and Dr. Ahn’s been riding my ass nonstop about grades. Turns out it’s some football player, so Dr. Lee emailed me asking me to do it as a personal favor, which means, on top of all the other shit I have to do, I’m now tutoring some football player four hours a week in Microeconomics.”

Her face distorts. “God, that guy’s such a prick. Like wow, you’re good at the economy! Good for you! Who cares! Why don’t you go balance the national debt or something instead of torturing university freshmen!”

You also wrongly assume that’s the last you’ll hear of it from Kaori.

Two days later, after Student Services replies to your email with the days and times you’ll be tutoring Seungcheol, she materializes in the living room to harass you.

“You didn’t tell me your football player was Choi Seungcheol.”

The panic is instant. You know how she means it, but it’s not how your body interprets it. All of a sudden it feels like an interrogation, an accusation, and a whopping serving of guilt takes up residence in the middle of your chest for not being entirely honest.

“Explains this weird text Ken sent me.”

She slides her phone over to you, open to her text thread with her current flavor of the week. Beneath an article about Seungcheol enrolling in classes at your school:

doesn’t ur roomie TA there Why are you calling her “ur roomie” like you don’t know her name?? Rude. Also yes. ask her to get me an autograph No babe pls he was my fav player before he got injured No 🙄 fine. can i come over later? Starting to think you’re using me for my roommate. Get your own job 🙄

You hand her phone back. “I didn’t think you’d know who Choi Seungcheol even is.” It’s the best you can do, even though it just digs you a deeper grave. “You said you’re not into football.”

“I’m not, but unfortunately I am into that stupid man.” She sighs, wistful and longing. “Babe, you have to understand. His dick is so big.”

You hadn’t wanted to stay in Seoul for your graduate degree, let alone the same university you’d gone to for undergrad.

You’d applied to schools all over—Japan, Europe, even a few in the States. Romanticized the hell out of NYU, went window shopping for an overpriced apartment, picked a favorite pizzeria based on nothing but vibes and online reviews. In those few months after graduation, there wasn’t a whole lot tying you to Seoul. Your and Seungcheol’s relationship had been old history by then, your parents split. Your dad stayed in your childhood home and your mother moved a few hours closer to her sister. They’d waited until your brother was old enough to be out of the house.

And it’d just been… a lot. Overwhelming. Some days you could barely shower or feed yourself, let alone move halfway across the world, so you’d stayed in the familiar and tried not to let it feel like failure.

But the good thing about familiarity is you learn its tricks, figure out the hiding spots. Early on, your first or second week of grad school, you laid claim to a study room on a floor of the library everyone else ignored. You write notes on the whiteboard with faded blue markers that are still there days later. The chair on the opposite side of the table is always exactly where you left it, the space between it and the table enough to only accommodate you. Sometimes you leave books—old paperbacks littered with notes in your writing—or papers, just to see if they move.

They never do.

And all of this is why it feels like a punch to the gut when that sanctity is tainted. When you’re halfway through a stack of Dr. Ahn’s exams and the doorknob rattles behind you. When you don’t even need to turn around to know who it is, because he still sounds the same, still has that overwhelming presence. You’ve always sensed him before you felt him.

“There you are,” Dr. Lee says, ambling into the room before you can protest. He, too, is overwhelming, just in different ways. Immaculate posture that anchors his slight frame that’s always dressed impeccably and expensively. Wears a watch that’s triple your tuition. Shoes polished so bright they’re nearly blinding. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

This time it is an accusation.

Well, you found me, you want to say, but just knowing Seungcheol is behind him, lingering in that half-study room, half-hallway space, is enough to keep you quiet. Like if you speak you’ll summon him closer and you’ll no longer be able to pretend this is nothing more than a nightmare.

You plaster on a polite smile. Say, “Ah, here I am, kyosu-nim,” and put all your energy into trying to glue Seungcheol to the floor with your mind.

Which is fruitless, because Dr. Lee moves further into the room. Gestures for Seungcheol to follow him with an impatient huff, and the study room is small, sure, and with three people it feels cramped, but that’s not the reason it feels like all the air’s been sucked out of the room.

Seungcheol looks… different. He looks as anxious as you feel, and he sticks close to the wall like he’s trying to disappear. Dr. Lee introduces him with grave importance, unaware of your history, and the forced smile he offers you almost looks embarrassed.

You know Dr. Lee is still hammering away, probably giving you a stern talking-to for rejecting his request the first time, but you can’t tear your eyes away from Seungcheol. Feels like the world around you has reduced to a pinhead, all hyperfocus; feels like your lungs are sucking in stale air one at a time.

“...his father is a very good friend of mine, so I expect…”

You expected to feel nothing. Seungcheol had left to chase his dream—one you’d always been so supportive of that it sometimes felt like your dream, too—and, perhaps naively, you thought the distance and the years would’ve been enough. You expected your heart to have hardened. You expected all those nights you spent crying to hit you at full force. You expected anger, hurt—indifference, at the very least.

“...as many hours per week as you both can manage…”

But you should’ve known better. Should’ve expected the butterflies, the way your palms grow clammy, the way your heart rate spikes. Should’ve expected everything to feel upside-down. You should’ve expected to look at Seungcheol and feel sixteen and in love all over again.

“...you are responsible for his academic progress…”

And that simply will not do. You’ve spent the last few years pulling yourself out of that hole, clawing your way back to something resembling normal. You’ve purged the thought of him from your mind—let his scent fade from your sheets, an old sweatshirt he’d left behind; forgot the way his lips felt against every inch of your skin; forgot the way his entire being lit up when he laughed; forgot the safety he encompassed, the way he whispered all those sweet nothings.

You cannot go there again.

So you roll your shoulders back, smile politely. Say, “Ah, kyosu-nim, Choi Seungcheol-ssi seems very intelligent, I’m sure he is capable of being responsible for his own academic standing, don’t you think?”

Dr. Lee cannot disagree without all but calling Seungcheol an idiot, so he hovers before you in shocked silence. Makes a show of huffing and checking his watch, like he’s all of a sudden remembered he’s late for something and being inconvenienced by this conversation he started, and then he’s halfway out of the library with a terse, “Discuss and figure this out amongst yourselves,” thrown over his shoulder.

You have an entire dramatic exit planned in your head. Gather your things, fake a phone call that makes you sound authoritative and important, and brush past Seungcheol wearing your nicest perfume as if all of this is so far beneath you you can’t even bring yourself to care about it.

Of course, you actually have to brush by him for any of that to happen, and since you’ve already decided you will not go there again, you quickly scribble your email address onto a piece of paper and slide it across the table at Seungcheol, who has steadfastly remained planted just outside the door. “Here’s my email. I don’t have time to discuss this right now.” Seungcheol cocks an eyebrow. You start throwing things into your bag haphazardly. You know you look frantic and affected, but there’s not much you can do about that. “What? Send me a copy of your syllabus and what you want to prioritize. It’ll be easier to get through this if we have a plan instead of winging it.”

He seems to catch on to your distaste because he mirrors it. Scoffs as he rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah, no use spending more time together than we have to,” and if you hadn’t gone years without speaking, you would’ve seen right through it.

But you did, so it stings all the same.

As it typically does, the planet keeps spinning after your run-in with Seungcheol.

You grade Dr. Ahn’s coursework. Try running off your anxiety at the gym, even though it’s pretty good at keeping pace with you these days. You meet Kaori’s maybe-boyfriend sneaking out of your apartment early in the morning and he has the good sense not to mention your ex, but you chalk that up to the mess of hickeys covering his neck and not any sense of social decorum.

Other people’s embarrassment saves you a ton of your own, you’ve come to learn.

Throughout all of this, Seungcheol only emails you once to send you his course syllabus. Doesn’t mention tutoring or provide you with his schedule or ask for yours, so when you’re sitting in a bar with your friends, three or four drinks deep and feeling a little petty, you forward him the original tutoring request and make sure to bold, underline, and highlight the “Recommended Tutoring: High” part for good measure.

He doesn’t take your bait—electronically, at least—but he does show up to your office hours the following Tuesday.

Bag tossed onto the floor, he flops unceremoniously into the chair across from you and says, in lieu of a greeting, “They spelled your name wrong. On the door thing.”

“I know,” you reply, your smile polite and terse. Incredible how he has the ability to raise your blood pressure in milliseconds. “What can I help you with?”

“Depends. How long do you have?”

“Well, considering you’ve shown up to my office hours on time, I’m assuming you already know I’m here every Tuesday and Thursday from four to six. So”—you glance at the clock above the door—“assuming no one comes by who needs my help more than you do, you have approximately one hour and fifty-eight minutes.”

Seungcheol is quiet for a moment as he takes you in. His stare is weighted; it makes you feel a little green around the edges. Clinical and sharp, so far removed from the way he used to look at you. You clear your throat. “I looked over your syllabus. The good news is there’s only a midterm and a final and the rest is problem sets. The bad news is there’s only a midterm and a final so they’re weighted quite heavily. You really need to know this stuff inside-out to have any hope of passing.”

“That’s why you’re here, right? Dr. Lee specifically requested you.”

You huff a breath through your nose. “I’m here as supplemental help. I can’t take your exams or do your readings for you. What else are you taking this semester?”

He sighs, sinking further into the chair, very much playing the part of the heir who has no interest in any of this. Which… is unlike him, you think, if you’re even allowed to. The Seungcheol you knew years ago took everything so seriously. Never clipped corners or took shortcuts. Anyone else would think him a spoiled, petulant child. “Business Accounting and International Trade.”

“Could be worse,” you note. “At least those three courses are tangentially related.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Easy for you to say. I haven’t taken a fucking math class in years.”

You return it. “You remember how to add and subtract, don’t you?”

“I ruptured my ACL, not my…” He trails off, looking a little embarrassed that he can’t name a part of the—“Brain.”

Whatever you were going to quip back with dies on your tongue. It's the first time Seungcheol has broached the topic of his injury—the first you’re hearing of it at all, actually—and he says it like it’s a joke, like it’s not a thing at all, but the pain is all over his face. The bitterness of the situation he’s found himself in. The unfairness of it all.

And there are so many questions you want to ask that aren’t your place: if it’s fixable, if he’ll ever play again, how he’s coping. But you don’t really need to—you can’t imagine how you’d feel if someone suddenly pulled the rug out from under you. If everything contained within the four walls of your office suddenly disappeared.

Not that the man sitting across from you hadn’t already done that, but.

“Right,” you continue, as if he hadn’t said anything at all. You know Seungcheol—know he wouldn’t want you prodding, sticking your fingers in that particular wound. “I want you to take a look at this,” you say, handing over a printout you have saved from your undergrad tutoring days. “Tell me what looks familiar, what doesn’t; what does and doesn’t make sense.”

He looks down at the paper. Back up at you. Down at the paper again. “What the fuck is this?”

“I—what? Cheol, it’s my old notes on recitation. Surely you’ve already covered this—the syllabus says this is week one stuff.” He looks down at the paper again, and it’s so familiar, watching the life drain entirely from someone’s eyes.

You barely resist the urge to slam your face onto your desk a second time.

You meet Seungcheol at the sports center for your next tutoring session.

He likes the humidity and the smell of the chlorine by the pool. He also likes that it’s not the football pitch, so the two of you sit in the bleachers there and go over his lecture notes. Much to your surprise, Seungcheol talks a mile a minute. Has stars in his eyes when he says he finally understands elastic demand curves, supply shock; tells you he spent a whole hour making flashcards.

It’s the first time you’ve seen him so excited since your tutoring began—the first glimmer of hope you’ve felt since Dr. Lee cornered you in your library hideaway. None of this surprises you. Seungcheol has always been smart, even when football was his primary (and sometimes only) focus. He has more determination and grit than anyone you’ve ever met, so you’re not surprised he’s doing well, excelling, but you are surprised—

“Can I ask you something?” Seungcheol shrugs, shoves half a protein bar in his mouth and swallows without chewing. “Why are you… uh. Here?”

“At this university?”

“Not exactly. I mean, I am wondering about that, but I guess… why business?”

Seungcheol hums. Tucks his good knee to his chest and stares down at the pool. No one’s using it, and truthfully the two of you probably aren’t even allowed to be here, but you understand why he likes it. It’s nowhere near as secluded as the library and definitely not as air conditioned, but it is peaceful. Calm. The water laps against the coping in quiet, small waves.

“Ah, I don’t know. You know how it goes.”

You quirk an eyebrow. Never, in all the years you’ve known him, has Seungcheol done anything he didn’t want to do. All that grit and determination. “What about your father, then? Dr. Lee mentioned this was a favor to him. He’s a pretty important person to have in your Rolodex of favors.”

Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what this is: Seungcheol’s father has new money; worked from the bottom up, made some smart investment decisions that finally panned out after Seungcheol left for Seoul. Started doing his own thing, made a name for himself. Last you’d heard from your mother, Seungcheol’s brother was second-in-command. Hell, even your own brother did an internship there.

So you know what this is: a father helping his son after his dream was shattered, life turned upside-down. You can’t blame him, even if you’ve heard the whispers from all the way across campus. That Seungcheol is washed up now, trying to nepo his way into his father’s company because of it; that all he knows is sports and he should’ve stuck to that, what does he know about business, why is he the one Dr. Lee went out of his way to help.

Doesn’t stop any of them from smiling at him, though; doesn’t stop them from asking for autographs or selfies.

But you also know this isn’t something Seungcheol seems willing to discuss, so you crack a joke—“I mean, business. God, who’d wanna go into that?”—and go back to what he was willing to talk about.

You’ve never hated elastic demand curves so much in your life.

Deep in the throes of tutoring—when you can’t tell if it’s week two or week twelve—you make it back to your apartment just before ten, head pounding.

The door flies open just as you’re about to punch in the code, and there stands Ken, looking far more put-off than you’ve ever seen him. Looks defeated, if you’re being honest, like someone mopped up all his emotions and wrung them out like dirty dishwater.

“Oh, hi,” you say hesitantly. The man in front of you seems too much like a caged animal to let your guard down. “Everything okay?”

He aborts a nod halfway. Mutters an apology as he brushes by you and stalks down the hall, disappearing around the corner to the elevators. Usually he’s a talker—you haven’t been able to avoid a Seungcheol-related conversation in weeks—so you’re a little stunned. Stand there stupidly for a while, and that’s where Kaori finds you a moment later.

“You gonna stand out here all night, or…?”

“Oh—yeah, right.”

You follow her inside. Toe off your shoes and put them in the rack. Focus on the sound of the kettle whistling instead of the overbearing tension in the room. Drop your bag off in your room, throw on a sweatshirt three sizes too big and a comfy pair of socks. Rummage through the fridge for leftovers, contemplate what mindless show you’ll watch as you eat, and you do not, under any circumstances, ask Kaori what happened.

You don’t have to. You knew what this was going to be the first time Ken spent the night—the way he looked mortified to be meeting you in the shared kitchen at seven a.m., wearing a look that begged you not to tell your roommate he was sneaking out.

I, uh, have an early class, he’d said. You know how it is.

Maybe you should’ve called him on it then. Issued a warning-but-not-really. She’ll get attached if you don’t tell her. She should know it’s different for you, if it is.

But you’d convinced yourself it wasn’t your place. Kaori wouldn’t want you in her business like that, so you stayed quiet, just nodded before watching him slip his shoes on and close the door behind him so quietly you wouldn’t have known he left at all if you hadn’t been looking. Gone, just like a ghost.

So, yeah, you know exactly why your roommate looks haunted.

“I’m a few episodes behind on this if you want to watch with me,” you offer, pointing at the television with the remote. It’s a lie—you’ve never watched this show a day in your life, which Kaori seems to know—but she contemplates it nonetheless. “Also, my mom mailed us some cookies. I think they’re in the fridge.”

“Why are there cookies in the fridge?”

You huff a laugh. “They were outside the door this morning before I left for campus. I don’t know—just saw who the package was from and was like, oh, this must go in the fridge.”

She nods. Grabs the container and joins you on the couch. Sticks her feet beneath your butt and doesn’t mention a thing.

The closest she comes is a few days later. Catches you right before you head out to campus and asks how tutoring is going.

“Not bad, actually.”

Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes when she says, “That’s good. I’m glad things are going well for you two.”

Lee Chan, Sophomore makes his unexpected return at your office hours on an unsuspecting Tuesday.

“Can I help you?”

He doesn’t answer right away, just helps himself to the seat across from you. “Maybe,” comes his cryptic retort. “I was thinking about signing up for that crypto course next semester.”

You narrow your eyes. “No, you weren’t.”

He sighs. Looks a little panicked, like he can’t believe that didn’t work. “You’re right, you’re right. I, um—I wanted to come say thank you.” He pauses. “You know, for that… email you sent.”

You blink. “No, you didn’t.”

Lee Chan, Sophomore cracks immediately. Thunks his head on your desk and lets loose a pained sound. It nearly sounds like he’s wailing when he says, “I’m sorry! They put me up to it!”

What you’re able to piece together is this: Lee Chan, Sophomore has become a bit of a celebrity in the Student Services department ever since he met you, Choi Seungcheol’s tutor. And, like any smart, previously unpopular university student would do, he took advantage of it. Might’ve stretched the truth a little to make it sound like he knew more than he did, so now here he is, angling for information the girls with the photocards may or may not have paid him to get.

“They want to know about his girlfriend.”

“His what?”

What you’re able to piece together is also this: the Photocard Girls are certain Seungcheol is dating someone, based on little more than vibes. You suspect these vibes are their three degrees of separation, considering there was an abnormal amount of Change of Major files formed after his enrollment, but you tell Lee Chan that you don’t know anything and, even if you did, you wouldn’t put his business out there like that.

But some part of you still has this inexplicable urge to protect Seungcheol, so you match their offer with interest and tell him to say there’s nothing to report—not that you didn’t know, not that he couldn’t get anything out of you. Seungcheol isn’t dating anyone.

You don’t know if it’s true, but you figure that if it isn’t, he still deserves privacy.

Which is a notion you have trouble explaining a few hours later, when Seungcheol strolls into your office with a grease-stained paper bag full of cheese coin bread, offering one to you with a proud smile that drops slowly when you just stare in return.

“What’s wrong?”

Your mouth opens, closes, opens again. Nothing comes out, even though it should be simple. Some sophomore kid was just in here angling for information or the Student Services department is taking bets on whether or not you have a girlfriend would both suffice, but you cannot bring yourself to say the words.

What you settle on is, “Sorry, I just… had an interesting meeting before you got here.”

“Oh. Are you okay?”

You sigh. Tilt your head back to stare up at the ceiling. “It was about you, actually.”

Seungcheol chokes, starts stuttering over words you can’t make sense of. Says, “Me? Why? I passed my last exam—I mean, barely, but I still passed. And that wasn’t your fault! I didn’t study enough! I’ve been losing my mind over my International Trade class, that shit sucks—”

“It wasn’t about your grades, Cheol.”

“Oh.” Then, slowly, a lopsided, pleased smile overtakes his face. “Haven’t heard you call me Cheol in a while.”

“Seungcheol,” you correct.

He seems to forget all about the meeting. Tries again to offer you a coin bread before he threatens to eat them all himself, so you acquiesce mostly to shut him up, say you’ll bring the extras to Kaori. For some reason, you tell him about how much she’d loved the cookies your mom sent, and the nostalgia sets him off, gets him talking again, asking if they were the yakgwa she used to make when you two were kids.

They were, but you can’t seem to tell him that, either.

Seungcheol: sorry it’s last minute - running late. can you meet me at my place instead?

Seungcheol shared a location with you

You’re halfway to replying—I don’t think that’s appropriate—before you sigh and delete it. Midterms are only a few days away and you don’t have time to argue over where your tutoring sessions will be, so if Seungcheol wants to meet at his apartment that’s where you’ll meet him.

You read over the midterm notes on the train. Once, twice, and then a hundred more times until they’re nearly memorized, all so you can ignore the voice in the back of your head saying what a bad idea this is. That you have no business being on your way to your ex’s swanky part of town or integrating yourself into his life beyond tutoring at all. You shouldn’t know where he lives. Maybe you shouldn’t even have his phone number or answer his texts.

Not that there’s much you can do about it now, two stops away.

Seungcheol greets you warmly, if not a little rushed. Apologizes for the mess once you step inside, although it’s less “mess” and more “haven’t finished unpacking,” but there’s enough clear space to study at the dining table, so that’s where you set up, determined to keep things professional.

“Sorry again about this,” Seungcheol says, placing a can of cola in front of you as he takes the seat across. “I had to meet with my father and lost track of time, I guess.”

“Oh. How’s he doing?”

Seungcheol sighs, leans further back in the chair as runs a hand through his hair. A light brown, now. “Same as he always was, I guess. Talked about the business, about my brother. Can’t get him to shut up about that stuff most of the time.”

“The business is doing good, though.” You cough, clear your throat. “My, uh. My brother interned there during undergrad. I don’t know if your father told you that.”

You don’t know why you say it, because it’s clear from the brief flicker of pain on Seungcheol’s face that he hadn’t known, that no one had told him. And it hurts you too that they felt the need to keep it a secret, to protect Seungcheol from you even in tangential ways.

“He didn’t,” he admits, “but I’m sure he was happy to see him. He was, uh—he was glad to hear you’re my tutor. Said you were always smarter than all of us boys combined.”

You laugh. Hope it sounds casual instead of strained. “Well, no need to prove him right. Come on,” you say, tossing a study guide in his direction, “let’s get to work.”

Everything is alright for a while—nearly an hour at least. He has the formulas memorized and attributed to the correct equations. He can explain supply and demand, preference and utility, but things start to fall apart around budget constraints and constrained choice.

The formulas get mixed up. He grows frustrated when he doesn’t know the answers to your questions right away. Rolls his eyes and gets a little snappy when you correct him, try to explain things differently in a way he understands. At first he’s able to temper it, collect himself before things truly start spiraling out of control, but the longer the two of you sit there the more it all unravels.

He snaps, you snap back, and you can’t figure out why. You’ve survived this long in Seungcheol’s orbit even though you never thought you’d be around him again, and perhaps it was bound to explode eventually, but…

It’s the familiarity, you realize.

You and Seungcheol aren’t friends, though you’ve been playing at it for weeks now: meeting outside of the library or your office, the personal conversations bordering on reminiscing, being in his personal space. You don’t belong here. You don’t want to be his friend—you can’t be, not for real or pretend.

“That’s not what I’m say—”

“Then explain it better,” Seungcheol fires at you, eyebrows creasing. “You’re the tutor here.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m trying, okay? All I meant was—your answer isn’t wrong, but I know Dr. Lee and he’s going to want more than that in a response.”

“Right—not good enough, like I said.”

“I’m just asking you to expand on your answer—”

“And I’m telling you that’s all I’ve got. I’m not like you, all right? I don’t have all this shit just floating around in my head all the time. I’m not smart, I barely have any idea what’s going on half the time, and you sitting here being condescending about it is doing fuck-all to help.”

You inhale sharply, taken aback at the hostility in his voice. Suggest calling it for the night, say neither of you will be productive if you keep going like this, and neither of you bother to apologize.

So much of your relationship with Seungcheol was marred by clichés.

The two of you passing notes back and forth during class. You in the bleachers of all his games, screaming along to the team chants, waving a sign around with his name on it. Not realizing you had a crush on him at all until he liked someone else and it made your stomach hurt. Childhood friends turned lovers.

Another cliché: that it’s starting to feel like that all over again.

Seungcheol sits across from you in the library, econ textbook cracked in half in front of him as he pays no attention. Keeps grabbing his phone each time it vibrates across the table. Can’t fight the smile that forces its way onto his face when he reads whatever’s there.

Stupid, you think—both to do this and to think it’d play out any other way. Seungcheol left years ago. Probably lived ten lifetimes while he was away while you were here in this exact spot doing this exact thing. Barely lived half a life, just stuck your nose in textbooks and forced your way through.

“Cheol,” you say, trying to drag his attention back to the study guide. No use. He’s typing away, presses his tongue into the fat of his cheek as he responds. “Seungcheol,” you try again.

Also fruitless.

You have no claim here, you remind yourself—not to his time, not to him. He’s only here because someone else mandated it. You’re only here because someone else mandated it, but it stings all the same. Another reminder of what used to be, of what ended regardless of what you wanted. Another reminder that the role you used to play in his life is not the role you play now. That the space you used to take up created a vacancy, and eventually it was going to be filled.

And if this was anyone other than Seungcheol, if you were more emotionally evolved when it came to him, it wouldn’t gnaw at you as much. All of this would roll off your shoulders.

But it isn’t, and you’re not.

“If you’re not going to listen, then—”

“I am listening,” he interjects, but he’s not looking at you. Not looking at his textbook or his study guide. Keeps laughing and smiling at his phone, and it’s sick how bothered you are by it. That it feels like your stomach’s been turned inside-out with jealousy; with annoyance, because you don’t want to be here anyway, don’t want to do this anymore, and you’re wasting your time on someone who doesn’t appreciate it.

Perhaps he never did.

“What are we discussing, then?”

Still not looking up: “Consumer theory.”

You laugh—more a huff of air than anything, grin sardonically out of one corner of your mouth. Seungcheol sees none of it. “Wrong,” you answer, already expecting the way he shrugs it off. “I’m gonna skip ahead a few chapters, though. Consider it a freebie for your business class.”

It must be your tone that finally grabs his attention. Cutting, precise, purposeful. Seungcheol lowers his phone, quirks an eyebrow, wonders where this is going to go. It’s clear he’s pissed you off, that you’re itching for a fight. It’s clear the years of silence are finally coming to a head.

“Let’s talk about ROI. You know what that is?” You barely give him a second. “Return on investment. A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of several investments. So, let’s say I make one-hundred-thousand won on a ten-thousand won investment: my ROI is 90%. Are you following?”

He nods.

“Great, now let’s try something a bit more hypothetical.” You suck in a breath. “Let’s say I invest years of my adolescence into someone. A friend at first and then something more. Let’s say I played cheerleader, supported every hope and dream he had—went to every game, cheered him on, helped him practice his English. Held his hand and talked him down when the pressure felt overwhelming, when the only thing that felt inevitable was failure. Now, let’s say all I got in return was a stuttered, awkward apology as he dumped me and walked out the door. Let’s say that guy showed up again after years of silence just to once again waste my fucking time.”

The thing about pain is it’s not linear. What hurt five, ten years ago might not hurt today, but it might tomorrow; what hurt yesterday may never hurt again. The thing about pain is it lets you stick your head in the sand until it can’t anymore, and that’s where you are now: that window of time between Seungcheol walking out the door on the assumption you’d never see him again before he bulldozed his way back into your life has been slammed closed, locked up tight.

So you don’t even notice you’re crying until the room goes deathly silent and you can hear the drip drip drip of tears on paper. Until you watch Seungcheol’s hands flex and unflex in mid-air, stuck in that liminal space, wanting to reach out but knowing he has no right to. Until your chest aches so bad you’re sure you’re either about to break into stardust or cease to exist.

Until you say, “What, Choi Seungcheol, would you say my fucking return on investment was?” and he has nothing to say at all.

Kaori invites you to a party.

Just something small to celebrate the end of midterms and a classmate’s birthday. Nothing out of control or raucous, not even the kind of thing that’d earn a second glance from campus security. I won’t even make fun of you if you leave before eleven, is how she sold it to you, in addition to a small amount of begging and bargaining and a powerful set of puppy-dog eyes.

After everything the two of you have been through, you find it hard to say no.

So here you are, nearly eleven o’clock on a Friday, a cup of cheap beer in hand. A friend of a friend of a friend is wailing into a karaoke machine and although your ears are bleeding, it does feel nice for that to be your greatest worry. You aren’t thinking about your classes or how you’ve been prioritizing everyone else’s academic success. You aren’t thinking about whatever’s going on between Kaori and Ken. You aren’t thinking about Seungcheol.

At least you aren’t, until he walks through the door.

You’re going to continue not thinking about him at all—not about the fact he’s alone or how good he looks in a simple black T-shirt that’s a little taut in the shoulders. You’re not going to think about the way the air shifts, like the universe knows he’s important and is willing to accommodate. You’re not going to think about how Kaori catches your eye across the room, recognizes him from all her internet searches, and the way she mouths oh my god he’s so beefy at you.

You’re not going to think about how guilty you feel that she doesn’t know, because if you do you’re certain it’ll take over.

You watch Seungcheol work the room; watch as he floats between conversations, as strangers fall over themselves at the sight of him. How eager everyone is to give him something and how reluctant he is to take them. You watch as he winds up in the same circle as Kaori and how she must mention you, oh, your tutor is my roommate, because there’s a question in return before he turns and meets your gaze.

You wonder why the distance between you feels more insurmountable now than ever before.

Seungcheol finds you in your office.

It’s not a Tuesday or a Thursday, far later than four to six in the evening, but he doesn’t even bother knocking before he’s barreling in, stifling your space with his bad energy.

You haven’t seen him in nearly two weeks. Not since the party, if that even counts. Hasn’t bothered to reply to any of your texts or emails, and that was just fine by you, if that’s how he wanted to act, but it isn’t until he’s brooding on the other side of your desk that you realize you’re still aggrieved, too. Feels a little too familiar, him leaving you behind and in the dark.

So you don’t mean to—typically have much more professionalism than this—but when he tosses a stapled stack of papers with a barely-passing grade on your desk and says, “This is your fault,” the words come automatically and without forethought.

“Fuck off, Seungcheol.” It’s not your words that take him by surprise; more so the roll of your eyes, the accompanying huff. The impression that all of this is beneath you and nothing more than a mere annoyance. That however affected you were two weeks ago is not how affected you are anymore. “That’s what happens when you blow off your tutoring for two weeks because you’re a coward.”

He laughs, incredulous; unable to help the sound the tumbles out of his mouth. “I’m a—I’m a coward?”

“Yes,” you reply, tone giving away nothing. All he sees is feigned nonchalance despite the hurricane you feel brewing beneath the surface. “This,” you continue, pinching the corner of the paper between your fingertips and disposing of it in the trashcan beneath your desk, “is all on you, but do please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to blame me for. I’m all ears.”

You don’t miss it: the way Seungcheol’s eyes grow wide at your ‘I’m all.’ The way he thinks you’re going to punctuate that sentence with yours, and it nearly has bile rising in your throat. Makes you want to scream, rip at your hair. If the last few months have taught you anything, it’s that you are still hopelessly in love with the man across from you—the man that continues to leave before he’s left, always at your expense.

So, yeah—Seungcheol is a coward, but only when it comes to you.

But he doesn’t look much like one now, gripping so hard at the edge of your desk that his knuckles have gone white, baseball cap pulled down low enough his eyes are barely visible. He’s always been overwhelming, always carried himself with an exaggerated arrogance even when it wasn’t warranted, always took everything so seriously, and maybe that’s why you’d thought he’d treat you the same way. Take you seriously. Wouldn’t just throw it all away on a maybe thing, and that’s why it's been years and you still aren’t over it.

Maybe Seungcheol is a coward, and maybe so are you.

Because not once since he’s been back have you been able to say what you mean. Can’t seem to tell him about the anger, the hurt, the heartbreak. Played it all off as petty nonchalance because you foolishly thought that would hurt him, that you’ve been reduced to simmering ash, no hope left for a fire.

“I could never blame you for a goddamn thing,” he says, voice so deep you could drown in it.

You so desperately want to know. You don’t want to know anything at all. You want Seungcheol to explain everything to you in detail and spoil the ending, but only if it’s guaranteed to be happy. Enduring another loss like the first time—you’re not sure you can take it. Not after you two have crossed paths like this, because you’ve never quite believed in fate but you think that has to mean something. That so much time and life had transpired and you two came back together.

Today, though, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get any answers.

Seungcheol straightens, looms at full height. Digs into the pocket of his sweatpants and pulls out a thumb drive. Wordlessly, he hands it over, and then he’s gone just as abruptly as he’d arrived.

Again.

Kaori wants to spend the weekend moping, and you can’t come up with a good reason not to join her.

She doesn’t mention Ken once. Not when she’s sobbing over A Silent Voice and Toradora! after that. Not when she keeps glancing at her phone every couple minutes to see if she has any texts. Not when you—only halfway paying attention between grading and your own assignments—suggest ordering something for delivery, maybe that new burger place down the street you heard was good, and Kaori shuts it down so vehemently you can only assume it was Ken’s favorite place.

Kaori just cries over the man with the big dick she never expected to take so seriously, and not even your stonewalling makes her feel ashamed of it.

And there’s respectability in that kind of openness and vulnerability. At least whatever she’s feeling is honest; at least she can admit she’s sad. You think watching Kaori process her breakup might help you process yours too, years too late, so you suck in a breath and ask, “Can I tell you something or is now not a good time?”

Kaori looks over at you. Dabs a soggy tissue at her eyes. “Well, I guess it depends,” is her answer, and she doesn’t shy away from how waterlogged her voice sounds. “If you’re going to tell me you’re a Takasu and Kawashima shipper, maybe, but if it’s anything worse I’m not sure I could take it.”

“I—what? Who even are they?” She gives you a half-hearted thumbs up. You sigh in response, sink further into the couch. “It’s, uh.” Clear your throat. “Do you remember when we met sophomore year? At that party? And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything and you said, and I quote, why not, I have a sixth sense for this kind of thing and I know that guy will have a huge—”

She hides her face behind her hands. “Ew, god, yes I remember that. My dick whisperer era. How embarrassing.”

“Right. And I told you I wasn’t looking for anything because I’d just gotten out of something.”

“Not really by choice, if I remember correctly. I told you if it was quiet it should’ve been loud, and then you never talked about it again.”

You nod. “I—yeah, that sounds like something I would’ve said.” You suck in a deep breath. “Listen, this is probably gonna sound bad considering I did never talk about it again, but—”

“Hey,” Kaori says, nudging you with her foot. Meant to be comforting, somehow. “It’s okay. There’s a lot you don’t know about me, too… most of which I’m not sure you should, actually.”

A laugh forces its way out, gives you a nice reprieve from the anxiety of the conversation you’re about to have. The need to explain it all, the need for advice. Maybe it’s not her—or anyone else’s—business, but you think you’ve kept this to yourself long enough. You and Seungcheol loved each other, once, and it seems foolish that no one knows.

Maybe Kaori had been right. Maybe love should be shouted from the rooftops; exist out in the open. Maybe something hidden in the shadows can never thrive in the light, and you knew it back then, deep down, but now it seems so obvious.

You think back to a few days before the library. Think about how things didn’t feel good but they felt okay. Think about the frustrated crease between Seungcheol’s eyebrows as he stared down at his textbook and how all you’d wanted to do was smooth it. Think about how you’d rolled your lips and tried not to laugh; how you thought it’d take a miracle to help Seungcheol pass this class.

Think about: What is the difference between the short-run and the long-run from the perspective of production theory?

Think about the short-run of your and Seungcheol’s relationship—that you’d burned bright and fast, even though it’d felt like a million years. Hadn’t dared to consider the long-run because anything beyond that bubble felt impossible.

Think about: Which of the following is not a property of isoquants?

Think about the way Seungcheol’s eyes lit up when he knew the answer. That they’re always linear, he said, and you smiled at his enthusiasm, raised your hand to high-five him and dropped it when he hadn’t noticed.

You think about the explanation—isoquants can be linear when inputs are perfectly substitutable—and what those graphs look like. Downward sloping, left to right. Think about how the graphs change when the isoquants are perfect complements.

L-shaped. Less straight as the inputs become poorer substitutes.

You know what your and Seungcheol’s graph would’ve looked like back then.

So it’s easy, almost, to tell Kaori everything. You tell her about growing up in Daegu, about the smell of the azaleas at Biseulsan in the spring. You tell her about how your parents had befriended the neighbors, how they had a kid your age, that that kid was Seungcheol—yes, that Seungcheol.

She’s able to anticipate the rest from there, but you fill in the blanks of what she can’t: being sixteen and falling in love, holding hands, the clandestine notes. All those football matches and how your throat would be hoarse from cheering. How nauseous you’d felt applying to university in Seoul, how excited you were when Seungcheol said he was coming with you. That, after you arrived, it felt like you were living in fast-forward. Barely any time to breathe or adjust; no time to just be you and Seungcheol. You had to be a student, someone responsible; Seungcheol had to be a phenom.

“Could you feel it was going to happen?” Kaori asks, now sat ramrod straight, all her attention on you. “Like, did you know?”

“I don’t know,” you admit. “Maybe I did? It’s hard to say now, all this time later. I know things definitely felt different, like life was pulling us in opposite directions.” You laugh, bitterness coloring the edges. “You couldn’t go two blocks without seeing him on some billboard, and I was just… normal, you know? I wasn’t some rising star athlete like he was, I just went to my classes. How was I supposed to compete with something like that?”

Your roommate hums, leans back into the pillows as she stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t think you were. Maybe that’s why Seungcheol was worried—maybe he felt like you were losing your own identity feeling like you had to keep up.”

You want to push back, argue that you weren’t, that you didn’t, but the truth is that it’s possible. That the shadows created by Seungcheol’s dreams were so massive you wouldn’t be surprised if they unintentionally swallowed you up. “It still wasn’t his choice to make,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.

And Kaori already knows all about your hurt, listened as you explained it all and laid everything bare. So when she says, “Sometimes that’s just how it goes, though, babe,” it doesn’t feel condescending. “We do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time. You can say now it wasn’t Seungcheol’s choice to make, because it’s been almost five years and you’ve made a life for yourself separate from him. But the—god, this is gonna sound so patronizing, I am so sorry—but you guys were so young. No one has it all figured out at that age.”

She snorts, runs a hand through her messy hair. “Shit, I’m nearly halfway to thirty and I still don’t know anything.” Adopts a frown. “What do you want now? Do you want closure? Want to try to fix things and become friends?”

“I don’t know,” you admit, biting at a hangnail. “He actually, um. The other day when he stopped by my office, he left me a USB drive? And before you ask, no I did not already look at it.”

“A USB drive? Who does this guy think he is, James Bond?” A pause. “Are you gonna look at it, though?”

You do.

Not until the silver, midnight light creeps in through your bedroom curtains and you’ve stared at the ceiling long enough; waited long enough for texts that never came, for divine intervention to, well, intervene. It never did—fair enough—so you decide to take fate by the reins. Grab your laptop, instant headache from the screen, stick the drive into the port.

It takes a second for it to load, but when it does: dozens of videos, organized by date. Vlogs, by the look of them—some from before your breakup but the majority of them from after.

You’re not sure what you expected, but it wasn’t this.

You click on the first one: a month and a half before both of you moved to Seoul. A fresh-faced Seungcheol appears on your screen, cheeks still round with adolescence. He’s in his room back in Daegu, can’t get the camera angle right. Nostalgia hits you like a ton of bricks as it pans to the side, to the wall behind his bed, and you see all his old posters. Mostly football players you couldn’t name, some girl group he used to love, a few movies. Just below them are some of the notes you’d written him in school, and they’re all you can focus on as he talks about how excited he is for the move.

The next: a few weeks after you’d started classes. By then, Seungcheol was well into the swing of things with Seoul FC. Already a big fish in a small pond, tryout offers from European teams starting to roll in. You can hear yourself in the background stressing over your first exam, wishing a generational curse upon your calculus professor. In the video, Seungcheol laughs, whispers like he’s telling the camera a secret as he talks about how nervous he is for his future. I don’t know why, he says, but it just feels like everything is about to change.

There’s a long pause between that one and the next. You understand why when you look at the date: three months after your breakup. Your hands hover uselessly above your keyboard. Whatever answers you’ve been looking for the last few years are probably in this video, but you can’t bring yourself to open it. Not right away, at least.

You click on a different one at random. Seungcheol’s somewhere in Europe, judging from the language on the signs behind him. Snow falls quietly—whenever he filmed this, it must’ve been early. No one else is around, and he cracks a joke that it’s a good thing, people would probably think he was crazy if they saw him. He doesn’t tell you where he’s going but he narrates the entire walk: points out a cafe he’s grown to love. The way to get to his practice stadium from where he’s standing. Pauses near a restaurant and laughs ruefully, shakes his head, says, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but one of my teammates set me up on a blind date here and I got stood up. You’d probably think that was funny.

(You do. It also makes your chest ache.)

One from two years ago: Seungcheol in a hotel room, clearly nervous. He raises his hand to wave at the camera and you can see the corners of his nails bitten raw. Dark circles beneath his eyes; cheekbones more pronounced than you’ve ever seen them. On the screen, Seungcheol sighs, rakes a hand through freshly-bleached hair. Sucks in a deep breath as he says, I’m so nervous. I’m so—so fucking nervous and I don’t. Fuck, I don’t know what to do. I want to call you because you always knew what to say but that’s so fucking selfish. God, we haven’t spoken in years, and it’s my—that’s my fault, I know, so I brought this all on myself. I just want to hear your voice.

Another from a week after that: the color’s returned to his face, and he’s recording from what looks like a penthouse apartment. Sleek, modern; a small white dog napping on the bed beside him. He smiles, looks like he got his teeth fixed, looks like he’s no longer carrying around the weight of the world. Talks endlessly and excitedly about some tournament. Talks so fast you can barely keep up. Talks around words tinged with languages you don’t understand.

Seungcheol wins a championship. Records a drunk vlog from the same night, hair soaked through with god-knows-what—water, champagne, you don’t know. But he looks radiant. Looks like the culmination of two decades of dreaming. He looks happy, free, at peace. He looks like the reason he let you go, why he had to go away.

You scroll to the bottom of the files. Pause at the last video, dated seven months before the term started.

“Hi,” he says, and you can immediately tell everything is all wrong. Seungcheol’s in the dark, face only visible enough to see the tears tracking on his cheeks. “This is going to be the last one of these I make. I don’t know if you, uh—I’m sure you aren’t paying attention to me—my career—anymore, but. I, um. I got hurt. Ruptured my ACL. They’re not sure I’ll…” A sob escapes him. Has you wanting to climb through the screen to hold him, thumb away his tears, tell him everything is going to be okay. “They don’t know if I’ll ever play again.”

Seungcheol no longer looks happy, free, at peace. “Maybe you’ll be happy to hear that,” he continues. “Maybe it’ll help you to know I threw away our relationship for nothing.”

Cut to black.

The sudden silence is deafening. Has you desperately clicking back to the video you’d skipped, the one from just after your breakup. Seungcheol looks the same in that one, too, like the life has been drained out of him.

I don’t know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I’ll ever show these to you now, since I…

I’m sure I owe you an explanation. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing, I just—things have been so hard, and I’m still trying to make sense of it all. I feel like my life went from zero to a hundred before I could even blink and now I’m scrambling. I didn’t think it was fair to—to drag you through that. Me being away, moving to an entirely different continent. I have faith we could do it, I just. I don’t know, baby, I don’t…

You deserve to have your own life. Be your own person. I’m so scared that the world will never see you for who you are—so beautiful and intelligent and kind. You don’t deserve to be reduced to my partner. And if you ever see this, I know you’re gonna roll your eyes. Probably call me a mean name because I took the choice away from you, because you think I’m trying to be selfless and heroic, and you’d be right. It’s not fair, and I wish I could tell you I’m sorry.

I wish I could just… pluck out my brain and give it to you, because even if it killed me to do it, at least it makes sense to me. And I don’t—I don’t want you to think I’m not hurting. I’ve been sick to my stomach since I left. I know I’m making a mistake, I know I am, I just—how do I do what I think is right in the long-run when it’s not what I want right now, or ever?

I don’t want to get over you. I don’t want you to get over me, and that’s how you know I’m not acting selflessly, because you should. I want you to always be happy, I just… wish it was with me.

So, I’m going to keep making these. I’m going to take you along for the ride, wherever it takes us, because you should be here but I can only hope you can one day understand why you’re not. I’m so—I’m so sorry, I don’t…

I’m sorry.

I love you.

You fall asleep and dream that you were the one meant to meet him at that restaurant.

The first thing you do is make a call to your mother.

“Could you send another container of yakgwa?”

On the other end of the line, your mother tuts, motherly intuition audibly kicking into overdrive. Is probably wearing that all-knowing, sly grin she always does when you try to be coy and evasive. “What happened to the last container I sent?”

“Ah, you know Kaori loves those. They barely lasted an hour after I told her what was in there.”

She hums an acknowledgement. Sounds like she takes a sip of tea. “I remember someone else being quite fond of those cookies, too.”

“Well, they are the most popular cookies in the country, so.”

After haranguing you into admitting they’re for Seungcheol and not your roommate, your mother promises to send them quickly. A few days at most, which buys you enough time to figure out how you’re going to approach the man in question.

The vlogs have turned your entire world upside-down. Answered questions you hadn’t even known you had. Took all that anger and resentment you’d been holding onto and set it free, and now you’re just left with… a void. Want to mend things, and it makes you wonder if such a thing is even possible, if it’s too late, but you don’t let those thoughts get very far.

Instead, you let them spur you into action. Have you sitting in front of your laptop at your desk, office hours long since over, silence creeping in the more the department empties. The thrum of the airconditioning and the tick-tick-tick of the clock are all the only company you have.

You worry if it’ll show on camera, how out of sorts you feel: sweating from the nerves, dabbing at your hairline; cheeks warm to the touch. But you suck in a breath anyway, steel yourself. Look at your webcam and the daunting red circle…

And start recording.

He hadn’t gotten it at first. Not really.

There’d been a container of yakgwa outside his door with his USB drive taped to the top of it. No note—not that he needed one to know who it was from, but he wasn’t sure what it was. A goodbye? A please fuck off forever and never contact me again?

He’d just taken them inside. Ate too many of the cookies while feeling sorry for himself. Maybe had a glass or two of wine to compound the issue, and never, ever considered contacting you. Didn’t think he could bear it if you never wanted to see him again, but he just…

Well, he was drunk and alone and he missed you, and he’d rewatched all those videos he recorded a million times before when he was like this, so what was a million and one?

It’d been the same as every time before: he smiled at the happy parts, cried at all his old wounds. Wanted to reach through the screen and strangle his past self for including that part about the blind date, because he never wanted to date anyone who wasn’t you, why would he say that, felt mortified at the thought of you watching that—

And then there it was.

All the way at the bottom. A new video. One that hadn’t been recorded by him—

Hi, Cheol, you say, and that’s all it takes to reduce him to a sobbing, yearning mess. I’m not sure what to say here. I don’t really record much—sometimes for lectures when the professors are too busy, but never anything personal like this, but I watched every single one you made for me and I thought I should return the favor.

I wanted to tell you everything I’ve been up to since you left, but it hasn’t been much. I got my degree. Tutored a lot in undergrad—the same thing I’m tutoring you in now, actually. I was good at it and it felt good to have something that was mine, you know? I almost moved for grad school. Thought for a while I was going to wind up in New York, but then my parents divorced and it felt like too much, too scary, so I stayed. Kaori also stayed, so we got an apartment together. It’s not much, definitely not as nice as your place, but it’s good enough.

I don’t think I ever told you, but she was seeing a guy for a bit and he was… obsessed with you, to say the least. Thought you were the coolest person in the world. They aren’t seeing each other anymore. Ended pretty badly, but—speaking of which, maybe steer clear of Student Services for a while, too.

Sometimes it felt like failure that I wound up staying here. That I had scholarships from all these far-away, prestigious places and didn’t take advantage of them. That I gave into my fear. And now… I don’t know. Maybe there’s a reason I stayed behind. Maybe there’s a reason you ended up back here, too.

Whatever happens—I don’t want you to think I still blame you. Kaori says we do the best we can with what we’ve got at the time, and I understand now that’s what you did. Even though it hurt me, you were trying to protect me. I get it now. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone. I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to go to all these places you didn’t know. To have to deal with your injury, the loss of a dream.

You said in one of your videos that you just want me to be happy, and that’s all I want for you, too, whatever that looks like.

Here’s my address if you ever want to come by to talk.

I love you, too.

—and then he’d been up and out the door, feeling stone cold sober, running to the front of his building to wait for his ride.

Felt like the drive took hours. Must’ve hit every red light between his apartment and yours. Took the steps two at a time just to get to your door faster.

There’s a man already standing outside your door when he gets there. One that looks shocked to see him, stars in his eyes, and when Seungcheol says, “Oh, you must be Kaori’s ex,” he looks more like he wants the earth to swallow him whole. Embarrassed in front of his idol.

He knocks on your door and gets no response. Knocks again, harder this time, and he has to try really hard to stifle his laughter when your voice yells from the inside, “Fuck off, Kenji, I already told you she’s not here!”

“It’s me,” Seungcheol yells back.

There’s quiet again. Just enough time for it to feel like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest and follow Kaori’s ex down the hall.

Then you’re yanking the door open—slowly, so slowly, like you’re scared it’s not actually him. Your eyes are brimming with tears when they meet his own, and he doesn’t let himself think, just goes on instinct, when he grabs for you, hands on your cheeks, and presses his lips to yours.

Somehow you taste the same.

Somehow you taste like redemption.

You taste like home.

Seungcheol kisses you until the tears slow. Kisses you until the universe realigns, until he could map your mouth in the dark. Kisses you until all you’re all he knows again.

When he pulls away, you’re gripping at his sweatshirt, don’t want to let him go. He presses his forehead to yours, offers up a million more apologies, starts talking nonsense. Says he’s going to drop microeconomics, what the hell does he know, he barely has a passing grade anyway, what does it matter, he’s such an idiot—

And then you say, “You came back,” and nothing else matters.

“I always will.”

(Later on, as you’re trying to steady your breathing, slick with sweat, your thigh thrown over Seungcheol’s hip as he stares down at you, dopey smile on his face, you say, “Choi Seungcheol, don’t you dare drop that class. I have worked my ass off to get you to barely-passing.”)

if you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading! i am still very new at writing for seventeen, so i hope this was acceptable. i'm now going to throw myself into the warped tour vernon fic and will hopefully not go another 7+ months without posting anything. 😭

i would love to hear your thoughts! <3

#seungcheol x reader #scoups x reader #seungcheol angst #seungcheol au #scoups angst #seungcheol imagines #scoups imagines #seventeen fanfic #seventeen imagines #seventeen x reader #jewel writes

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lovedaruma · 9 months ago

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their spot ♥︎

sukuna x princess! reader

ー in which you and sukuna meet when he unintentionally saves you and you continue to meet him everyday in the same spot.

fem! reader, heian era, grumpy x sunshine, reader is innocent and playful, fluff + short smut

"Your Highness! Please don't go too far!" you hear your personal maid shout from the distance as you continue to run, laughing and waving her goodbye.

Any other princess wouldn't be allowed to go into the wilderness on her own, but as for Y/N, her family could not care less if she went missing the next morning.

You have already wandered through so many paths, yet there was still more to explore. You take a new route and stumble on an open area, seeing a hill in the distance and couldn't help but gawk at the beautiful area.

You cheerfully run towards the hill, taking a few breaths once you reached the top. From this height, you could see the beautiful view of the ocean, together with the breathtaking sunset. "Oh my..."

The sun continued to set as you watched from underneath the tree, sitting in a comfortable position. The comforting sounds of nature soon make you drift of to sleep.

A growl from the distance awakes you from your slumber. You jolt awake to see that the moon was already up in the sky. "Gosh, how many hours have passed?"

The sound of your voice summons another growl and you start to get nervous. You turn around and look down at the hill and see a big wolf that was twice your size, bright red eyes trying to scare you. However, you were too distracted at the sight of the furry animal.

"Oh my, It's a wolfy! Come boy, come!" you wave your hand, beckoning the wolf to come closer. It hesitates but slowly starts to approach you. "Here boy... I'm nice, I swear!"

The wolf is now in front of you sniffing your leg, you bring your hand to his neck and started scratching. "Aren't you a cutie~ I'm gonna name you-"

Your words were cut off as you watch the wolf get sliced in half, the blood splattering on your kimono.

"Tch."

A voice was heard from behind the wolf, you see a handsome man with four arms and eyes, marks which seemed like tattoos all over his body.

"Hey~ Why did you kill the wolfy?" you whined.

"Shut up, Human. What are you doing here?"

". . ."

He furrows his brows and growls, "Answer."

"But you said shut up." you smile playfully, clearly teasing him.

"You... Do you know who you're talking to?" He slowly approaches you.

He was trying to intimidate you with this slow steps but was shocked to see you stand up and walk over to him instead.

"Well, No! You haven't introduced yourself yet. I'm Y/N. What's your name?" you reach out your hand as you introduce yourself.

". . ."

You watch as his four eyes stare at you, trying to figure you out. You smile up at him and put your hand down.

"Well you don't have to tell me if you don't want to! I still would like to know why you killed the cute wolf though..." you pout as you look over at the furry body in pieces.

"You foolish woman. That wolf was going to make you its dinner." he glares at you, "And this area here is mine. I slaughter everything and everyone that trespasses."

He raises one of his hands to kill you in one swoop, but stops as you perk up and grab one of his hands in joy.

"Oh, so you saved me?! Thank you, kind stranger." you give his hand a small squeeze to show your appreciation.

He stares at both of your hands together for a few seconds before he smacks your hand away, "Tch, How dare you touch me."

You pout as you rub your wrist, "Oh, my apologies . It was bad manners of me to grab you without asking. I'll do that next time!"

"Hah, next time?" He chuckled pure evil, "There will be no next time. Don't think you're coming out of here alive, human."

"That can't be, I have to repay you! You saved me, after all... Even though I don't have much influence, I'm still a princess!"

"Princess? Stop lying woman. The only child I know of royalty here is a prince."

"Yeah~ That's my brother!" you smile, unbothered that people weren't aware that there was a princess in the first place. "And I have a name, you know."

A few seconds of silence pass, him just staring at you. He scoffs and turns to walk away. "Leave."

You were about to retort back but realized how far in the night it is so you stand up and call out to him, "Hey~ I'll be back here tomorrow okay?"

You laugh as you see him turn his head to scowl at you.

The next day soon arrives and you're back at the same spot on the beautiful hill. You sit down under a tree and bask in the view.

The silence was interrupted by a familiar voice. "You have a death wish, huh?"

"Hey there! Come, sit!" you giggle and pat the spot next to him.

"Tch, this is where I usually sit, woman." He scoffs as he sits down, not showing he was curious at the human interacting with him.

"So... I heard a few guards talking about a certain king of the curses...." you side-eye him, smiling playfully. "Hehe, what even is your name?"

"Ryomen Sukuna. Remember the name of the one who's gonna kill you." He smirks.

"Then why haven't you killed me yet?" you tilt your head.

"I'll have my fun with you for now. You're quite the peculiar human."

"Oh, tell me in advance when you're gonna kill me then, Sukuna!"

"You..." he glares, "Do you not value your life?"

"Meh, not really... No one would miss me anyway." I frown, but a smile quickly replaces it, "So I've decided to just live to the fullest. If I die today, at least I had fun yesterday~"

Sukuna stays silent as he watches you cheerfully talk about death with his brows furrowed. You hum a tune while enjoying the comfortable silence for a few minutes and then turn to look at him.

Your lips part when you continue to stare at him, his features complimenting his handsome face. Sukuna, for some reason, found it hard not to look back at your stare. After a while, he turned his head to look back into your eyes.

You flinch as his eyes look into yours. Your cheeks tint at his intimidating state and you give him a shy smile.

"So... um... what's... your favorite color...?"

Silence fills the air at the random question, and your cheeks tint even more. You let out a small laugh at your own embarrassment.

Sukuna takes a peek at the warm flush of your cheeks and lets out a huff, "Red."

You whip your head to him and flash a bright smile, "That really suits you! Mine is white hehe~"

". . ."

"So... what do you like to ea-"

"Shut up."

You zip your lips shut and sit more comfortably next to him. The silence was so oddly comforting that you drifted off to sleep. Your head slowly leaning to to direction Sukuna was sitting.

His shoulder was too high for your small figure, so your head rested on the side of his arm. Sukuna looked down, careful not to move his arm. "Tch, unbelievable."

Although he looked annoyed, he didn't move his arm for the rest of his time there.

You wake up and your eyes slowly open. The sun in the horizon has just set and the moon is starting to peak into the sky. Your head lifts up from an... arm?

"Wha..." you let out a yawn.

You hear a scoff, "Why did you sleep for so long?"

"S-Sukuna?!"

You put the pieces together and realize that Sukuna let you sleep on his arm until you woke up. The thought of that making your cheeks warm.

"Sukuna... that's so sweet of you!" you show a downturned smile to express how grateful you were.

He scowls at you and in a blink, he disappears.

"He didn't even let me say bye..."

You arrive at the same spot under the tree on the hill. Surprisingly, you see Sukuna already there.

"You're here!~"

He opens two eyes to see your figure running towards him. He sighs and shuts his eyes again, slowly getting used to his human's presence.

You stop right in front of him, admiring his face once more, being less embarrassed now that his eyes were shut. Soon, you give into your temptation.

"Sukuna..."

He opens an eye.

"Can I touch you now? I asked first this time!" you clasp your hands and interwine your fingers to say please.

He scoffs and shuts the eye. You frown letting out a small 'Hmp' of sulk.

"I didn't say no."

You gasp in excitement and reach out your hands to his face. Your fingertips gently touch his face. You didn't notice the subtle flinch Sukuna did.

Your fingers trace the marks on his face. He exhales from his nose, the air hitting your skin making you feel warm inside. You slowly lift your thumbs to caress the area next to his bottom eyes, the rest of your fingers at the back of his ear. You couldn't help but hum a small 'woah~' in admiration.

"Your eyes are beautiful." Flustered at your own words, your cheeks tint in embarrassment.

His eyes open, both of you staring into each other. He glares at you and whips his head to the side, your hands still on his face. "How absurd."

"It's true..." You let out a chuckle and kneel down next to him. This time, you trace the marks on his arms.

What you didn't notice earlier was how Sukuna's cheeks warmed up at your compliment, with the same grumpy face. He shook his head and sighed, focusing on the feeling of your skin on his.

The rest of the day you just held onto his hand tracing lines and giving light massages while bringing up small conversation topics. He gave small answers, but you were overjoyed at your interactions.

Two weeks have gone by since then. As the days continued, Sukuna began to warm up more to you, talking to you in longer sentences and not telling you to shut up anymore. You were currently on your way to meet him again. Meanwhile, Sukuna was starting to realize his feelings for you.

"Princess Y/N, Please! Finish your food before you go!" The maid sighs as she watches you run away. She looks over at the unfinished plate, wondering what in the wilderness is so interesting to her highness.

As she takes a closer look in the plate, she gasps. "Oh my heavens! T-This is... The Princess is allergic to this!"

Without a care in the world, you skip towards Sukuna's spot, excited to meet your king of the curses.

"I'm here!"

Insted of sitting in his usual spot, he was standing near the cliff, looking at the horizon.

"Sukuna! you admiring the view?"

He doesn't reply and you look at his back, confused. The dark clouds in the sky let out a thunder.

"How dare you."

"W-What?"

He turns around and scowls, "How dare you make me feel- Ugh."

"Huh?" you say confused, raindrops start dropping on both of you.

In a flash, he disappears from where he was standing and was now in front of you. His hand swiftly attacks for your neck but he quickly stops and is an inch away from your skin.

You flinch, but don't move. you give him a chuckle.

"Sukuna... I told you in advance to tell me first before you kill me." you laugh.

He growls in frustration and puts his hands down. "Ugh..."

"But... As strange as it may seem, the time I spent with you was the happiest I've ever been. Thank you for showing me kindness, even in your own way. Farewell, Sukuna. I will never forget you!"

You stand on your tip toes and met your lips with his. It was just a gentle peck, but it sent shivers down her spine.

"Idiot."

As you pull away, content, you couldn't bring yourself to look him in the eyes. 'I wonder what face he's making right now', the thought making you smile. You grab the same hands that tried to attack you earlier and wrapped them around your neck.

"Huh?" you look up at him confused, only to be more confused as you analyzed his face.

'He looks... troubled? I'm not so sure'

He pulls his hands away from your neck and sighs. He grabs you arms and rests his head on the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent. "What kind of sick curse is this..."

". . . Sukuna?"

Although he wasn't exactly hugging you, you wrap your arms around him and hug back. The rain hitting the both of you as you warm up in each other's arms.

". . . I'm confused, are you still killing me or not?"

". . . Pft."

You gawk as you hear Sukuna let out a chuckle. Seeing his lips turn up was a better view than the horizon behind them.

You look up at him and smile, "Hehe, you still haven't answered m-"

The moment was interrupted when you cough out blood. A sudden burning sensation you feel in your chest. You let go of him to hold your chest in pain, your body slouching as you groan.

"D-Damn...I-I shouldn't have-ugh... ate those."

"Y/N?!"

The sound of his name flow out of his voice made your heart flutter but the pain overpowers that.

"Agh-" You drop to the floor, "Don't w-worry, these are just allergies."

He gets on his knees and uses his reverse cursed technique to heal you from your suffering. The pain was too much for you to handle though, and you pass out in his arms.

You jolt awake in your room, looking around confused.

"Sukuna?"

You call out for him but nothing happens. His scent still lingering in the room so you're sure he tucked you back into bed.

You smile as your heart flutters, going back to sleep.

"Y-Your Highness! Are you sure you're okay?" your maid stutters as she hands you your breakfast the next morning.

"Yes yes~ Don't worry about lil' old me!"

You quickly finish your breakfast, wanting to see him as soon as possible. You quickly run and you arrive at the spot in no time and you see him there.

You don't even call out to him, you just run towards his sitting figure, bend over, and wrap your arms around his neck.

He jolts in surprise but immediately calms down as he takes a whiff of your hair.

"Sukuna, you saved me twice already. Thank you for yesterday." you smile, embarrassed to make eye contact with him.

He places a hand on your back to push your body into his. Now, you're straddling his lap and you stay in position.

You fidget your hands, "Ugh~ It's kinda awkward now after I did a whole farewell speech yesterday..." you whine as you recall the events yesterday.

"Yeah, you're farewell kiss too."

You blush and groan into his shoulder, clenching your fists in his robe in embarrassment.

"Hah, is the princess embarrassed? Look at me."

As if it was a spell, you comply immediately and shyly pull away to look at him.

He grabs your chin and pulls your face closer.

"You have to take responsibility for what you did yesterday." He smirks.

"R-Responsibility?!" you squeak.

"Don't think I'll be satisfied with a mere kiss, Princess."

He smashes his lips onto yours. Unlike the sweet and short peck, this was hot and passionate. His upper arms land on your waist and slides the up and down the side of your body.

You feel his tongue enter your mouth and you shift your hips to adjust your position, making you grind on his crotch. The friction making you both groan in pleasure, all of his blood rushing to the length under his robe.

"S-Sukuna." you couldn't help but whine his name in the middle of your tongues dancing. Hearing his name turns him on even more, and his hands go from your hips to sliding inside your kimono to grab hold of your breasts.

You let out a moan at his touch on your bare chest. His bottom arms sliding up your kimono underneath you, his hands traveling up to grope both cheeks of your ass. Wanting to touch him, your hands go down to his chest, sliding inside his robe to touch explore your hands around his bare chest and abs. Your touch making Sukuna groan and start grinding his hips underneath yours, you moan in his lips and grind on him as well.

His hands slide off your kimono, leaving you in your undergarments. The cool air hitting your skin, but you couldn't feel it from the heat of the intimate moment. His bottom hands start to tug on your panties and he whispers into your lips.

"You think you can handle me, Princess?"

You moan in confirmation, sliding off the top part of his robe and continuing to grind on him. He hisses in pleasure and rips off your panties and throw them to the side.

"Ah!" you squeak in embarrassment, pulling away and looking down at yourself, but what caught your eye is the visible bulge twitching underneath the fabric of his robe. You curiously grope it, causing a moan to slip off his mouth, and snatches your hand away.

"Later."

He grabs both of your wrists and pushes you to the clean grass. He looks up and down your naked body and smirks, feeling another twitch from his cock. His eyes landed on your pussy, already soaking wet.

His eyes darkens and he grins, ready to devour you. He brings a hand to your folds and run his fingers along the wetness dripping down your thighs. "How can you be this wet already?" he chuckles and inserts a finger inside, his other hands playing with your breasts.

The sensation making you moan in pleasure, the back of your hand covering your mouth in embarrassment. The moans continue when he starts thrusting the finger in a moderate motion. After a few seconds of adjusting, he shoves another finger in.

The sounds of his fingers fucking your wet pussy fill the air. He feels your walls clench and sees your body start to arch. He sees the way you were making a mess already just with his fingers. Your moans get whinier and he loses it.

He grunts and shoves the robe of his body and your eyes widen. You stare at his two cocks twitching in the air, gulping at its huge size. "S-Sukuna..."

"You want to stop?" you whine and shook your head immediately, "That's what I thought. Now come here, princess."

Not giving you enough time to process, he picks you up and puts him in the stradling position you were earlier in, the tip of his cock goes in and he thrusts inside.

"Ngh- Ah~ S-Sukuna." He grunts in reply, feeling your pussy clench in his hard cock.

"Fuck, princess."

The pleasure was nothing you ever felt before. You look down and see his other cock twitching against your stomach. You reach your hand to grab his length which causes his head to roll back in pleasure and let out a deep moan.

You pump his cock, while adjusting to the other cock that was already inside you. "Prince- Agh, Shit." Your hand going faster and faster, the sounds of his groans making your walls clench, making him groan even louder.

He grabs your hand to stop you. "I can't hold it anymore. I'm gonna destroy this tight little pussy, yeah?"

He grabs your hips and starts bouncing you up and down, his cock thrusting inside of you without mercy.

"Ah... Suku- Agh~" You were drowning in pleasure, eyes rolling back as you listen to the sounds of your wetness and both of your skins slapping against each other.

He was thrusting into you mercilessly, your mewls just making his climax come closer. He feels your walls clench uncontrollably and he moans your name.

"Y/N. Fuck- I'm going crazy" he huffs, acting like an animal in heat.

He pushes you back into the soft grass into a new position, bringing your knees to your chest, his cock thrusting into you sloppily. A visible bump in your belly when he thrusts inside. Two hands behind your knees. One hand rubbing your clit. One hand pumping his other cock.

"Agh~ T-There... Sukuna-"

He hits a certain spot causing your body to twitch and making your eyes water up from the pleasure.

Sukuna pounds faster into your pussy, his precum smeared along your soaked walls. You were letting him use your body and it felt so good.

You feel something building up inside of you, and you whine. "Ah- wait! Sukuna~ I- I-" you whine in pleasure as your body arches, your juices spilling into his cock.

"That's right, princess. Let it out." he coos into your ear. "My turn."

You gasp for air as he thrusts again into your sensitive pussy, making your mewl echo into the air. Your juices increase the sound of the wetness as he slaps his skin into yours, the mix of your arousals filling the air.

"Fuck- I should fill you up, huh? Breed my precious princess?"

"Agh- P-Please!~ I-"

He moans as he shoots his load into you and fill up your pussy, having both of your juices mixed up. His other cock also shooting cum onto your stomach. Your body twitches at the feeling of his seed inside you, grabbing both of his arms for support. He sighs in pleasure and pulls out, watching as the juices ooze out of your aching pussy.

"You did so good, Princess." is the last thing you hear before you pass out.

You flutter your eyes open to see a room that wasn't yours. Sukuna lying down next to you in bed. You look down on your clothed body to see you were cleaned up and well taken care of after.

"Sukuna..." you mutter, eyes still droopy "I can't move my legs~"

"Heh, you're gonna get used to it."

"Hm?" You tilt your head.

"You're mine now. This is the consequence of your actions, right? You can't escape now." He smirks as he picks you up and puts you on top of him.

You stare at him in shock then laugh, "Now why would I dare leave my king, he'll get lonely without me~"

You plant a sweet kiss on his lips and pull away to see a smile on his face. His smile making you feel warm inside as your cheeks tint. You giggle and snuggle into his arms and you enjoy each other's warm, and will continue to enjoy each other's presence in the future.

#sukuna #sukuna x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #sukuna fluff #sukuna smut #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #heian era

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inkskinned · 1 year ago

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in the time loop the only way out is to leave her there but you don't ever leave her there, never in the roughly one thousand years you have been in the same day. it is probably like "50 first dates" but you haven't stooped so low as to watch "50 first dates" yet. (but who is to say what another thousand years of the same media will bring to you, maybe you will develop a new taste).

you spent about 200 of these years sulking in a bathtub or on the couch or staring at the seaside. 300 of them have been spent slowly mapping the geographical distance you can actually get before the time loop restarts. you have a list of favorite places: one library in Western Massachusetts called "The Bookmill", which has weird hours and has never raised an eyebrow to you arriving out-of-breath and panting, asking to see a specific book on a specific shelf. There is one beach without a name in North Carolina; it is an accident of geography and ownership title disputes - and it is pristine, untouched, warm and cozy. you've taken her on a lot of picnics there. Acadia National Park. One specific birdhouse in the mountains.

you were stuck in the time loop with the money you entered it with: not enough to rent a private jet. you've robbed a bank a few times, you don't like the way it ends. maybe next century you'll get the hang of it. you don't like the look on her face when you say hang on i have to stop at the bank.

you just have to leave her, and you can go back to being a person again. you took 5 years just catching a flight and sitting in the Grand Canyon. if there's one thing you regret more than anything, it's that you hadn't gotten your passport renewed before this fucking time loop. maybe you should spend some time learning forgery - but also, like, you look like an english teacher. nobody is going to be cool about you asking to see their paper printing machines.

the world is very big. that is one of the things groundhog day gets wrong. there are no consequences, so you have literally all the time (or none of the time?) in the world. in groundhog day, he does a lot of very cool things, but in reality - your muscle memory never gets better. you can't necessarily learn how to play piano or sculpt ice, because your hands never remember the practice. but hey - maybe you'll try violin next. drums. synth.

you can open any door and walk into any conversation. money isn't really an object. you can try every meal off every menu, forever. take her on helicopter tours and into every museum and on every event that is happening right-now at-this-moment. parades and funerals and calligraphy classes.

but you are somewhat trapped by the limitations of your body. if you were reading a book, you still need to get up and go back to the library and find that book again when the day resets. (thank god for the internet). it still takes like 2 hours to board a plane, and then takeoff and landing and traffic. you've gotten off to run around on the freeway. one of the little thankful things: since your brain isn't actually developing (it's a muscle too), the days thankfully don't feel shorter to you. that would be agony.

all you have to do to leave the timeloop is let that man get away with it. that's all. in every version of yourself - forever - you have stopped him.

the problem is that this experience has convinced you of the existence of the human soul. after all, how else are you forming memories? your very cells reset. information has to be transferred somehow. and if timeloops are real, you can convince yourself other magic exists. so you have two choices here: this hell, or the next. there might be a millennia where you have been worn down to the point you can accept fate's decision. this is just not one of them. ironically - she is the one thing you have left.

and besides! if you can't always find something new in your partner, aren't you failing them? there is something new about her, every day with the same morning. every brutal day with the same orange sunset.

after all, you wanted to live with her in heaven, in eternity, and, well - isn't this second-best.

#writeblr #warm up

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rambling-at-midnight · 3 months ago

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Don't Go Disappearing On Me Again

Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader

Summary: Jason's lost too much to lose you, too. (We stan healthy communication in this house)

Word count: 2.3k

Ow.

You've never worked Friday nights before at the restaurant, and you never want to again. And you'd thought Saturday mornings were bad.

But one of your favorite coworkers had called you in a panic early this morning, begging you to take her shift, because her lab group's department at GCU was going out to bowling and it would be a great networking opportunity. You were the last person she called, but everyone else before you had declined because they were either scheduled or determined to avoid the shitshow.

And because you were weak, you gave in and said you would cover her Friday night shift as long as she covered your Friday morning shift.

So you two swapped shifts, and you went into your library internship in the morning instead of the evening. It wasn't a particularly hard job, but end-of-week returns had you dashing all over the three floors, so your feet already hurt before you walked into the restaurant.

Right before coming in, you'd texted Jason that you'd gotten held up, and it was a good thing you did, because you haven't had a single break to look at your phone the whole shift. He likely wasn't even awake yet—last night's patrol had been tough on the both of you, him because he came home half beaten to death, and you because you'd had a heart attack waking up in the middle of the night to your bloody boyfriend passing out on top of you in bed. But you usually got home around six from the library, and it was looking like you wouldn't be back until ten at the earliest, so you wanted to let him know. It was going on hour seven after starting at two p.m., when the restaurant switched from its brunch to dinner menu. Personally, you think two p.m. is obscenely early to eat dinner, but apparently rich people loved eating at weird hours, because you had had nonstop tables the entire night.

But the good thing is that the restaurant closes at nine, so you’re almost there. After your last three tables eat and leave, all you have to do is clean your section, close your checks, and clock out.

In the kitchen, you lean against the fridge, rubbing your hips and knees. You’re a little too young to feel so creaky after seven hours on your feet. After all, Jason works all night, doing athletic feats you could never dream of.

You can't really complain, though. You'd gotten lucky with your tables; they'd all tipped well. Maybe you could even add a little bit to your savings account instead of shoving every paycheck right at your student loans, which just keep growing, no matter how much you pay.

“Oh, no,” says Charlotte, one of the other veteran servers at the restaurant. She’s staring at the camera feed display, which is tuned to a livestream of the restaurant’s entranceway. “Don’t you dare seat me now, Ashley, I swear to God.”

“What time is it?” your head jerks up. “We’re about to close, right? Is someone looking for a table?”

“Yeah,” she says, pointing to the screen. “The hottest man in the world just walked in our front door.”

You just hum, not bothering to look in favor of pulling out your phone. You know for a fact that the hottest man in the world is actually at home in your bed right now. “The kitchen’s stopped receiving tickets. No way Ashley seats someone right now.” The screen doesn't light up when you click the power button. Well, shit. It's dead.

“I can’t tell what he’s saying.” Charlotte squints at the screen. “He’s, like, huge. Does Ashley look a little scared to you?”

You’re out of the kitchen without even looking at the screen. You speedmarch right past your tables, ignoring one man’s halfhearted attempts to flag you down for more ketchup. A righteous fire is boiling in your gut. You’ve been here long enough that the managers won’t fire you for telling off any customers that harass the younger workers that are more scared to stand up for yourself.

Your mouth is already open, ready to spew forth the beginning of your tirade, when you recognize the man in front of Ashley at the host stand.

Dressed in gray sweats and a dark T-shirt, slouching slightly, he looks even worse than when you kissed his forehead goodbye that morning. The bruise on Jason's face has properly colored now, purple and blue along his jawline. His hair looks a little flat, like he's been wearing his helmet, which is strange.

Jason's eyes snap onto you the second you appear, and you falter at the intensity there. Something has happened, but you're not sure what.

"Hey," you say, a little hesitant. "What's up?"

Ashley exhales with relief. "So you do know him."

"Yeah," you say without breaking eye contact with Jason, who's staring at you with the same expression you think a wolf would wear when stalking a hare. "He's my boyfriend."

You expect Jason to tell you that someone was in an accident. Someone's in the hospital. Something terrible happened to your apartment while you were gone.

He says none of those things. Instead, Jason says, "I didn't know you picked up a Friday shift."

Ashley's face goes blank.

"I told you I would be home late."

“No,” he corrects. “You texted me that you were being held up.”

“Yeah, at work.”

“And then you disappeared.” Jason’s jaw clenched. “Did you know that a bank was held up this afternoon? Your bank?”

“Oh, shit,” your hand flies up to cover your mouth. “My phone died, I don’t know when. You couldn’t check my location and see I was here?”

He just shakes his head, stiff and wordless.

“Hey, Y/N.” It’s your manager approaching the host stand now, customer service smile on and eyes taking in Jason’s appearance. “What’s going on up here?”

“Hey, Steve,” you say. “Sorry, this is my boyfriend Jason—Jay, this is my manager, Steve—”

Jason gets the hint and smiles close-lipped, reaching to shake Steve’s hand.

“My phone died so he came to see if I needed a ride home.”

“As soon as your tables leave and your section’s clean, you’re good to go. Oh, and you have to roll silverware.”

“It’ll be at least another hour,” you say apologetically to Jason.

“Okay.” His eyes keep boring into you like he’s trying to send you a telepathic message. He’s mad, you get it, but it makes you a little mad, too. You’re a grown adult. Yeah, the miscommunication was your fault, and it’s fine for him to be worried, but he looks close to Red Hood levels of anger, which is totally unwarranted for this situation. “Is it cool if I wait at the bar for you, then?”

“Of course!” Steve answers for you. "Our bartender, Lacy, will be happy to serve you while you wait." He checks his watch. "Until last call, that is."

"He didn't scare you, did he?" you ask Ashley as soon as Steve leaves. You smile at Jason, trying to tease him, but his expression doesn't twitch. "He looks mean, but I promise he's a big ol' softie."

Jason just grunts, but on his way to the bar, he doesn't forget to drop a kiss to your forehead. It warms you from the inside out.

As soon as he's gone, Ashley blurts out, "What happened to his face?"

"Motorcycle accident," you fib. "Oh, my table's calling me."

You rush over to take care of the poor man's ketchup—he's been waiting almost five whole minutes—and check out another party. The back of your neck prickles as you do. Every time you glance at the bar, Jason's green eyes are locked on your every move. It flusters you so much that when your table leaves, they say thanks, and you respond with, "Good morning!"

"What?"

"Thanks, you too!"

You run back to the kitchen, and everyone immediately starts interrogating you about your 'huge hunky boyfriend' (Charlotte's words, not yours).

By some miracle, all your tables clear out by closing time, and you’re out by 9:20. There are still a couple people at the bar, but Jason’s up immediately to walk out with you, leaving his water glass on the counter.

He doesn’t say anything, though you can feel his eyes on you whenever you aren’t looking. You won’t fight in public, so you follow his lead and stay quiet.

He drove your car to pick you up, and even though he’s obviously mad, he holds the passenger door open for you before getting into the driver’s seat.

The drive home is silent. He parks in the spot for your shared apartment, then immediately, quietly, asks, “Why’d you pick up a shift without telling me?”

"It was super last-minute," you say. He's still facing forward, so you do the same, eyeing his profile out of the corner of your eyes. "Like, it happened this morning. I thought you were sleeping, so I didn't want to blow up your phone with texts. I thought you'd just check my location and see where I was when you woke up."

Jason's hand clenches on the center console. "I woke up and I was terrified."

"I'm sorry—"

"And the bank, and your wording, and your phone was off—"

"I know," you say, putting your hand over his fist. He unclenches immediately to lace his fingers with yours. "I'll make sure I tell you next time."

Jason takes a deep breath in, then lets it out. In a rush, he finally turns to face you and says, "I don't mean to be controlling."

You blink. "I don't think you're being controlling."

"You don't?" Jason frowns. "Then why were you so mad when I walked into your work?"

"Mad? I'm not mad—you're mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you, what are you talking about?"

"You've been glaring this whole time! And you didn't say a word this entire car ride."

"Because I thought you were angry. I wanted to give you space."

"Okay, wait, wait, wait." You hold up a hand. "Let me get this straight. You're not mad at me?"

"No," he says earnestly. "I was worried and scared, but you're an adult. You don't have to ask for permission if you want to pick up a shift at work." He makes a face like the thought disgusts him.

"Okay," you say. "Okay, well if you're not mad at me, I'm not mad at you, either."

"Then why did you look so pissed when I walked in?"

You press your lips together to keep from smiling. "Well, we have cameras that show us up front while we're in the kitchen, right? One of my coworkers was watching and said 'the hottest man in the world' walked in and I didn't look because I thought the hottest guy in the world was still asleep in my bed—"

Jason covers his face with his hands. You can't stop your smile now, and you pull them away so you can look at said handsome face. "And I didn't even look because I'm such a loyal, awesome partner—"

"You are pretty awesome," he agrees, trying to sound serious, but he's grinning like an idiot, too. His cheeks are flushed pink.

"I know I am. But then Charlotte said that the hostess, Ashley, looked a little intimidated by him, so I walked out to see if she needed help."

"Aw," Jason says. He lowers his chin to look at you from underneath his lashes, pretty as a picture. "Were you going to give me a stern talking-to?"

"I can still give you one," you offer.

"Maybe later."

He's still grinning, and you're still grinning, so the both of you are grinning at each other like idiots in the car.

You want to kiss him, and he's your boyfriend. You're allowed to do that whenever the two of you want, so you take Jason by the chin and pull his mouth to yours.

Jason sighs against you, and it's like all the tension in his body melts away. One hand comes up to cradle your jaw, the other on the back of your head.

You break away to murmur, "Are you patrolling tonight?" He's still so beaten up.

"No," he whispers, voice low and gravelly in a way that has butterflies whipping around like a tornado in your stomach.

"Good. Wanna go up and be the hottest patient in the world while I look at your wounds?"

"Only if you're the hottest nurse in the world."

"Oh, but then who will be the hottest chef in the world who makes dinner?"

"The hot chef is on vacation right now," Jason joked. "But I can be a really hot food-orderer. What takeout are you in the mood for?"

"You're the injured one. What do you want?"

"I want whatever you want."

You narrow your eyes in a glare. "Well, I want whatever you want."

"You gotta make a decision," he says, already on his phone. "You're the hottest decision-maker in the world, I'm the hottest food-orderer."

"Chinese?"

"You got it."

Right before he dials the number, you grab him and kiss him again. When you pull back, he chases after your lips. It's so tempting that you give him another firm peck before you pat his chest once.

Jason blinks twice, looking dazed. "What was that for?"

You shrug. "I just wanted to kiss the hottest man in the world."

"Oh, my God." He groans and covers his face again, but you can see his red ears. "You're never gonna let that go?"

"Mmm." You pretend to consider it. "No."

DC taglist:

@evalynanne @mismatchsposts

Forever taglist:

@lemirabitur @annymcervantes @queenmissfit @iksey @thehyperactiveteen @luxmoonlight @andreasworlsboring101

#reader insert #jason todd #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x you #jason todd x reader #jason todd fic

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frmisnow · 3 months ago

Text

1:37AM : BAROLO ! - (nsfw)

summary. you had been avoiding your ceo as best as you could after the intimate drunk meeting you had shared, so what do you do now when you both are forced on a business trip?

notes. second chapter! hope y'all enjoy🍷✶𝄞

warnings/includes. (3.3k words / smut!) non idol! ceo! jungkook x f! employee! reader, smoking (reader's first time), masturbation heavely implied, fingering, giving m. head, pussy eating, drunk!!!, tad bit of angst at end

"we didn't sleep together, you fell asleep on my coach, i wasn't going to take advantage of you"

his words from a few days ago remain firmly in your head. you had done so good at avoiding him: taking the long way to not walk by his office, instantly running off to god knows where when you saw him - only for the very man you've been dodging so well, to ask you to go on a business trip to milan.

the flight was quiet.

the only thing that was hearable was the sound of a lighter getting light up every hour or so. he smoked.

it was his private jet after all, you didn't blame him. your mind trails off to your ex once more, you had thought you had managed to get rid of him in your mind completely, but he always managed to sneak back in.

he resented smoking, called smokers 'self-indulged assholes' if they did it in public. he was the kind of man who thought the world revolved around sheerly him, to think that another person would calmly invade said-world with a bit of smoke, was beyond unforgivable for him.

you glance towards jungkook, taking in the calm assurance in his eyes as he takes another slow puff. he seemingly notices your stare, his tone soothing, "do you want one?"

you physically feel your ex trying to pull the hand you're reaching out to take what jungkook offered, back. but he doesn't succeed, you win. you had never smoked before, you go based of what you've seen in pop culture. lightning, drag, wasn't it?

you can visably see jungkook fighting a smile while he reaches out for the cig, hanging it between his very own lips as he leans forward in his seat, one of his hands gently guiding your fingers so the cigarette was now in between your own plush lips

you slowly breathe, the smoke stinging your lungs and making you cough. he lets out a tsk, clicking his tongue disapprovingly as he looks at you from under his eyelashes, "inhale deeper," the voice not mad, more like gentle scolding.

the hotel room was mostly quiet, besides the soft hum of the AC and the faint noises of the dazzling city through the open window. you both had shared a few more words earlier, incrediably vague, until you parted ways to your respective rooms.

you couldn't quite fall asleep, you blamed it on loud milan when you in reality couldn't stop thinking about his fingers which had been on your lips, your fingers trace over them, imagining his tattoed ones doing just that. you had to ask him what the history behind those was, next time. next time?

your hands wander to your tits, where his eyes had lingered more then once if your memory didn't fail you. and you imagine his hand wrapping around yours, guiding you.

"i want you," the words you had whispered against his mouth replay in your head multiple times.

just as your fingers trailed further, there was an abrupt knock on the door. you glance at your phone: it's 1:37 a.m.

as you open the door you see a image of your boss, you haven't quite seen yet. jungkooks hair is visabily messed up, his shirt loose around the neckline. "couldn't sleep," he mumbles, his tone sounding almost like an confession, he shouldn't say, "do you want to take a walk with me?"

you give in, you don't want to give much thought into how weird it was for a boss to ask his employee out on a walk at almost 2am.

the uber drops you off at a 24hr shop which seemed out of part for the milan you've seen so far (through car windows)

"if you want a snack or a smoke or something," he looks at you, "and then we walk"

you don't know what prompts you to say, "wine" with so much confidence but you do regardless. please make me feel like that night, i want you the words linger in your head shortly, words you'd never say out loud.

if he's surprised he didn't show it, moreover he looked satisfied, pleased with your answer. and that's exactly what you liked about jungkook: he knew how to read the room. did he hear you touch yourself? maybe. did he mention it? no.

he leads you deeper into the store, towards the back where there were rows of alcoholic beverages, the lights dim. he moves to stand behind you, his chest almost touching your back, as he reaches to grab a bottle of barolo from a high shelf.

the music in the background is some indie tune, you had heard before, you nod your head along to the sound absentmindedly.

you can see him smile at the corner of your eye, not a smile that was mocking or finding something funny, more filled with general admiration.

"you like this song?" he asks, his voice quiet, nearly a whisper almost as if it was a secret while he placed the bottle down to the cashiers table, pulling out his card, black.

you nod with a genuine smile.

you end up settling down on a bench in a nearby park, opening the bottle. you sit crosslegged, looking over the park at night, genuinely intrested, "so what music do you like?"

"i like...indie stuff, mostly," jungkook responds, turning his head to look at you, the light night breeze running over his hair, "but i have a soft spot for a few italian punk rock songs from when i was younger."

"ever seen any of them live?" you ask, taking a sip from the bottle, "y'know you are in milan after all"

he can firmly smell your perfume. the same one that had stuck to his coach for days which made it simply unbearable to sit on it, without thinking about you.

jungkook laughs, the sound soft, almost as if it wasn't entirely voluntary. he runs a hand through his hair, the ends just falling back into his face. "no," he says, tilting his head back a little, "i haven't."

"maybe you should," you respond casually. you don't know why you were giving such tips to a business man with a multi-million empire to his knees. did he even have time to go to silly little concerts? what kind of life did he live?

he laughs again, you loved the sweet sound of it, "maybe i should," raising the bottle to drink once more, "would you go with me?"

you reach out to take another large sip, you need some more alcohol in your system to answer him, "maybe"

he watches you intently as you reach for the bottle again, his eyes flickering to your throat as you tilt your head back to drink.

"maybe," he says again, smiling to himself, "that's so vague of you, maybe."

handing the bottle back to you, repeating, "maybe," his voice teasing.

you repeat the same word once more as you both laugh. you can feel the alcohol begin to warm you from the inside, the feeling of slight dizziness setting in.

meanwhile he's looking at you, his eyes wandering over your face, resting on your mouth, the way your lips are tinted red from drinking the wine.

"why are you looking at me like that?" you mutter though your tone grazed on something reminding a joke. stupid fucking question.

jungkook's smile remains if not widening while he moves closer, "how am i looking at you?"

"like you want to fuck me," you mumble, chuckling at your words like it was a ridiciulous thought on it's own.

"does that bother you," he whispers, his voice low, his words just a little bit slurred from the alcohol, "knowing i want you like that."

you raise your eyebrows, taking another sip, "so you're admitting it?"

jungkook raises his eyebrows, copying your movement, a lazy, almost cocky smile on his face. he grabs the bottle from your hand, raising it to his lips, drinking a mouthful of wine, holding eye contact with you as he does. and you're convinced he wants to see you dead.

he hands the bottle back to you, his smile still present on is face, "yes," he says, his voice low, the sounds almost like a soft moan, "I'm admitting it."

"you're actually so sexy when you're like this," you respond, clearly just as intoxicated as he was. 'like this' when you are not scolding me for not bringing the right documents, is the part you leave out.

he laughs, louder if that wasn't the alcohol talking. "sexy when I'm drunk," he teases, his words slurred, "is that it?"

"maybe," you babble which just makes the both of you giggle again.

he takes the bottle out of your hand, setting it down on the ground, the empty glass making a small clinking sound as it hits the concrete.

"you're drunk," he says, his words still a little slurred, the sound teasing, "i think you need to shut up."

you grin at this man's sheer audacity, replying, "i think you need to learn how to take a compliment properly"

jungkook just moves closer, not responding for a few seconds until you were so close that your noses touched, "you like compliments?"

he practically makes you lie down on that damn uncomfortable bench, "you want me to tell you how sexy you are? cause i will"

"i won't fuck you on a bench, kook"

"i never get to be just kook," he mumbles, something reminding a pout on his face, an adorable sight. "i'm always boss, or sir."

you don't know how to respond, you want him to be kook to you but that is something that is practically out of your control. so you moan.

you can hear jungkook say something — something about the city, something aboout the driver's taste of music? the words slip through your head as soon as they are said and all you manage to do is laugh.

the car feels to fast, milan is way to blurry and for a second you seriously ask yourself if you had taken any drugs. jungkooks hand slides over your thigh as you tilt your head, letting out a breathy chuckle.

the chuckle turns into a suppressed moan as his fingers brush over your underwear. you can barerly think straight, dare tell him to stop though you wouldn't even want to, even if you could.

you nod or at least try to; you didn't know why in the first place, it’s hard to tell if your head is moving or if you’re just imagining it. your eyes are half-closed, barely able to focus on his face, but you can feel his fingers slipping under the edge of your panties, brushing against your slick, aching core. "you're so wet f' me"

you make a mental note to rate the uber driver five stars later, because of the sheer noises that man had to hear. you were incrediably grateful for the music covered it up at least a bit.

just as you were about to cum, the car came to a sharp stop. the poor driver's voice pulls you back to reality, announcing you've arrived to the hotel.

jungkook brings his juiced fingers to his lips, licking them with a small 'pop' noise. for a second you actually consider pushing him onto the dirty ground in front of the hotel and fucking him right then but you regain compusure through a groan.

you both stumble through the lobby if you saw it properly one of the large clocks showed it was 2:51am but there was a big chance that your eyes were fooling you.

he practically pushes you towards the elevator as the door closes, jungkook looks adorably confused at all the various floor buttons, his finger unsurerly moving from one to the other.

"don't think," you pull him closer by his shirt while jungkook's hands instantly craddle your face, no thoughts in his head. you press as many random buttons as you could while he presses his lips onto yours.

his hands get tangled in your hair, he pulls you even closer as if he wants to breathe your soul in, moaning into your mouth.

the elevator opens with a little 'ding' and you have to look around to see if it's the right floor, you had surprisingly gotten lucky. the hallway lights automatically turn on at your movement, they feel way to bright.

you both reach the door of his room as he fumbles with they keycard, trying to slide it into the lock, cursing under his breath whilst you laugh. the door refuses to open which just makes him release a giggle, cute very untypical, "how do these even work"

logicaly he should be a man who has opened multiple hotel doors like this before but it was most certaintly the alcohol in his system that made everything a bit to fuzzy to handle. jungkook finally manages to slide the card into the door, the light turning green with a small click.

he pulls you with him, tugging you towards the bed, his movements messy as he almost falls once on his way. flopping down onto the covers, pulling you on top so you're straddling him.

it's a pretty view, him under you. he really did look hypnotized in a way whilst you ran your fingers over his facial features, they are not as rough as you thought, on closer inspection.

"you got to many clothes on," you mumble, removing your own shirt and shorts in a clumsy haste.

"then take them off"

you grin, your fingers moving to his shirt to pull it over his head, the action surprisingly slow and tender though it was probably the wine making your mind all foggy.

jungkook looks up to you like you are the moon and the sun, his eyes droopy, his words a stark contrast to his loving gaze, "you're taking to long, c'me here"

"you are in no position to give me orders," you reply, working on his pants.

his head falls back against the sheets, the smile on his face evident, "i think i am, i'm the big, mean boss man"

big, mean boss man - that's how you need to save him in your contacts, you chuckle at the thought, pulling away his boxers. his cock springs free, already hard and throbbing with need.

"shut up or no head," you don't wait for his response, leaning forward to press a tentative kiss onto the tip before taking him into your mouth, savoring the taste and texture.

jungkooks hands tighten in your hair, guiding you with a mix of need and tenderness while he bucks his hips. you move your head up and down with precision, taking him deeper with each passing minute.

he curses, curses in a manner you've never seen a man like him do. and you feel a sense of pride in knowing that you have this man practically wrapped around your finger or better said — mouth.

his release is sweet, warm. you swallow each drop especially when he asks you to clean him up, you lick it all off. here and there you look up to him with your lashes and he moans each time.

you can firmly feel something shift in the air when you release him with that little 'pop' noise, reminding of how he left you without an orgasm in that damn uber. at least you had made him cum.

following, he gently pushes you onto the bed. you look over to your right, evidently amused noticing a closed wine bottle on his night desk. perhaps it automatically came with the hotel, it seemed expensive.

a hazy thought lingers in your mind, a blend of the lack of sleep and the alcohol still coursing through your veins. you reach out for the bottle, fingers grasping the cool, smooth glass.

with a tipsy giggle you uncork the wine, bringing it to your lips to get a quick taste before ultimately pouring about a good one third of it over your tits.

you can barerly make out jungkook's face, why did you mind seem so hazy? but you can hear his words, "you're a mess" his tone isn't insulting rather he says it like it was a just a mere fact.

but he calmly licks the liquid of you with the same ease as you had done with his cum.

“such a fucking mess,” he repeats, his words softer now, almost affectionate, as he sucks his way down the curve of your tit, "my mess"

his hands wrap around your thighs, putting them on his shoulders. he raises his eyebrows at your state, "all for me?" it sounded like a question though it was clear he didn't expect an answer — he certaintly didn't wait for one either.

the feeling of his hot, wet tongue against your core is a stark contrast to the coldness of the wine-soaked skin in combination with the ac, creating a delicious tension that had you whining for more.

jungkook’s hands grip your thighs firmly, holding you in place as he works his mouth over you, each flick of his tongue and suck of his lips calculated to drive you to the edge of sanity. he alternates between gentle, teasing licks and more aggressive, demanding sucks, making sure you’re fully engulfed in pleasure, one way or another.

jungkook eats you out like it's a part of his job, with much care and ease. an grunt or a groan vibrating against you more often then not.

his name slips over your tongue multiple times, and you would've been embarrassed for your porn-like moans if it wasn't for the release washing over you.

it falls over you in one motion and it would've felt like to much if it weren't for jungkook: jungkook, who's fingers wander over your thighs and tummy gently as if trying to bring you back on earth. jungkook, who gives you all the time in the world and whispers reassuring little sweet nothings against the sensitive skin.

when he sees you're somewhat ready to function again, his arms softly lie you onto him, one of his hands working through your hair attentively while his other reached out and lit up a cigarette.

the room has a special scent — wine, sex cigs.

jungkook takes slow, deliberate drags as you trace patterns over his chest, circles, hearts. his fingers absentmindely moving to lightly drum over your back while he takes another hit.

“want a puff?” he asks, a smirk playing on his lips, and without thinking, you nod, your brain swimming in a delightful stupor. he brings the cigarette to your lips, and you take a tentative drag, the smoke filling your lungs.

“breathe it in, babe” he murmurs, the nickname slipping from his lips like a forbidden secret. “like you did before.”

you do as he says, managing it properly this time as he gives you an approving hum instantly going in for a kiss.

you wake up with sunlight on your face, your first instinct is to smile, the curtains were open, did you forget to close them yesterday?

but as your senses sharpen, you realize something. something: or rather, someone is pressed against you. panic bubbles inside you as you register that jungkook lies beneath you, deep asleep, a peaceful smile grazing his face.

what had you done?

thankfully you remembered everything, though it was much more a curse then a blessing. you hadn’t wanted to cross this line.

there was no future here — he only desired you when you were both drunk.

and what was even worse was that you actually felt your heart clench when you looked at his clueless, oblivious face.

you wanted, no- you needed to disappear before the reality of this situation hits the both of you. it was a dick-move but that was what he had done that night, wasn't it?

but just as you begin to shift, a low, sleepy murmur escapes his lips, and he stirs beneath you. his eyes flutter open, a lazy smile making it's way onto his lips as he registers you on top of him, blissfully unaware of your inner conflict.

"good morning, babe," he reaches forward to brush one strand of yours behind your ear, you were convinced there was nothing currently working behind those eyes, "did you sleep well?"

🍓 tag list — @chansloverr , @marimarvelfan , @bxcndd , @1-in-abillion , @ahgasegotarmy116 , @copycat-namjesus , @malkaimoon , @geminiml95 , @taiwan0618 , @jungkookfics , @rrosiitas , @stuti2904

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