#I just know he's going to have me screaming my lungs out~

[loves0phelia]

Hi! I don’t know if you’ve watched part 2 of outer banks yet, and if you didn’t this request is a spoiler!!

Can you do JJ Maybank’s sister seeing him die and Rafe is just watching her break down and he’s comforting her while she cries in his arms? I’m sobbing over JJ right now 😭

Thank you!

Gone

Summery: outer banks season 4 episode 10/the anon

Words: 1.6k

Warnings: SPOILERS, death, grammar mistakes.

A/N: i also sobbed, i cant believe it and thank you for requesting love youuu.

The sandstorm hit suddenly. The air was thick, nearly solid with dust. You stumbled forward as the wind blew strongly, You screamed, begging JJ to come down before something terrible would happen but even if you pulled the scarf tighter across your nose and mouth every breath felt like swallowing shards of glass making it hard to speak. 

Everything was clouded and your goggles were smeared with sand dust. It was impossible to see your brother who was up high on that statue trying to find the blue crown you, the pogues and Rafe have been risking your lives for.

“Come down JJ!” You screamed as loud as you could, hoping he could hear you over the screaming wind. 

A surge of panic rose in you, he wasn't listening, only going higher and higher to reach the top.

“Hurry please!” You screamed again as the sandstorm was getting worse and worse. Squinting your eyes you could see JJ finally descending the statue after a while, carefully holding on to the rock.

“JJ, holy shit are you okay?” You rushed forward to him as he stumbled around frantically.

“I'm good! I'm better actually, I'm great. Look!” he yelled over the storm and held up the blue crown, it felt like a dream having it in front of you.

“No way, you found it” You both looked down at the dusty historical crown in silence for a second, sinking in it the victory that was so rare when it came to you and your twin.

“We got it!” He cheered, pumping his fist, jumping into place from all the adrenaline. The victory cheers didn't last long though, the next thing you knew shots were fired at you from the group who wanted to steal what was rightfully yours.

“Run, run, run” JJ shouted behind you as you ran through the sand blindly and desperate to find shelter.

The sandstorm roared with life around you, Yours and JJ's footsteps vanished almost as quickly as you made them, erased by the wind.

You coughed, your lungs stinging as you struggled to run down the stairs you had found leading inside the monument. 

But suddenly, a shadow appeared out of the storm. A strong hand gripped your forearms and in a sudden movement, your back was pressed on your “father's” chest, an arm around your neck holding on tightly, cutting your airflow and a sharp blade pressed into the side of your face.

“JJ!” you called out, trying to get out of his grasp.

“Let her go!” JJ shouted, his voice trembling with anger. He lunged towards you trying to rip you away from him but he only pressed the blade harder making you cry out. But Groff only shook his head.

You cried, struggling, and your heart pounding as Groff’s grip tightened. You fought against him, but his hold was unbreakable.

“You’re just like your mother,” Groff hissed, his gaze cold and unmoved. “Always standing in my way. Well, this time, you’re not going to stop me. Give me what I want”

“Let her go” He begged.

“If you had listened, we wouldn't be here JJ, you could have had everything. WE could have had the life we deserved as a family. All three of us. But now you get nothing. Nothing at all” Chandler pants like a maniac.

“I already have everything,” JJ says, shaking his head in disbelief. “I have everything I ever wanted. You want the crown? Sure, take it. I don't want it. Just let my sister go.”

“Give it to me, hold it out” He reached toward JJ for the precious object, his grip on you not loosening.

In a swift moment, an exchange was made. Groff grasped the crown, and JJ pulled you out of his arms.

“I got you” JJ breathed out with relief, like a weight was removed from his shoulders. He hugged you protectively. Holding your head against his shoulder like a shield. But then again, the victory was cut short.

“JJ, y/n” you were interrupted by the voice of your father, his call made both of you separate and turn to face him, JJ’s body still shielding you from further harm.

“It's a shame…you and I” You furrowed your brows and a gasp came out of your mouth when the sound of flesh being pierced rang out. 

“You should have given me the rope” Time was moving at a slow pace as the scene unfolded. Groff twisted the knife in JJ's stomach before pulling it out rapidly and running out into the desert.

"JJ!" You screamed, your voice raw with terror. You saw JJ stumble back, his hands flying to his side. Dark red blood was spreading through his shirt and across his fingers, and the sight of it hit you like a punch to the gut.

The world narrowed to the scene in front of you as you watched JJ fall, his face contorted in pain. 

“No, no, no” you cried, desperation thick in your voice.

You rushed to JJ’s side, catching him just as he stumbled. He looked up at you, his face pale and stained with tears.

“It's okay JJ, it's okay” You pressed into his wound, shaking terribly, sobbing when he let out a pained groan.

“No, please” you murmured, pressing your hand over the wound in a desperate attempt to slow the bleeding. “You’re going to be okay. Just stay with me, okay? Stay with me.”

“Hey, hey,” He whispered, his voice breaking. “Take care of the others for me, okay?”

“No! No” Your breaths shakes, your chest tight with sadness.

“I love you, y/n. You're the best sister anyone could ever have.” His gaze was beginning to drift, his eyes unfocused, and the strength in his grip was fading. Panic clawed at you.

“I love you, please don't go” you begged, but it was pointless he was already gone.

“No! No, no. Please! JJ, please” you shaked his shoulder weakly.

“John B!” You screamed, your chest burning from the lack of oxygen your lungs were getting.

“Pope! Rafe!” Your hands gripped your brother refusing to let go.

“Please JJ!” Your heart shattered completely, a part of you gone forever. Your brother, your twin, your best friend, the other half of your soul, gone. 

“Please” You pressed your forehead against him, your tears falling over the blood-soaked shirt.

The pogues came running towards you, sinking to their knees, calling out to him, crying, sobbing, mourning.

Everything in you gave out as you held onto him, you couldn't even fight when hands grabbed onto your shoulder to bring you away from your brother's corpse.

Your body fell limp into Rafe's lap. His hands held your body up as if he was your lifeline. 

“It's gonna be okay” He whispered against your forehead but you barely registered any of it, only sobbing, and screaming in pain against him. 

The Pogues stood in a tight circle, all eyes fixed on JJ as if somehow their stares alone could bring him back. But no one spoke, and in the heavy silence, the truth crashed over them, settling deep in their bones. JJ was gone.

Kiara’s shoulders shook, a small, trembling motion that quickly overtook her entire body. She fell to her knees, hands pressed to her mouth as she fought to hold back the sobs. 

Pope was beside her, his eyes frantically looking over the scene, he didn't want to believe any of it, as if it was a cruel joke.

John B stood, rigid.  His fists were clenched so tight his knuckles were white, and his jaw was set, teeth gritted as he tried to hold it all in, to keep the pain from breaking him apart. 

Rafe's arms wrapped around you gently, his hand resting on the back of your head as he let you fall into his chest. You buried your face in his shoulder, the grief and sorrow pouring out in waves as he held you.

He didn’t speak of the rivalry, the old wounds and the bitterness between your families; none of that mattered now. At this moment, all he saw was your pain, and he was there, his own heart breaking a little as he watched you crumble.

When the sobs finally subsided, leaving you weak and exhausted, Rafe pulled back slightly, brushing a strand of hair from your face, his eyes filled with something you’d never seen in him before—softness, understanding. 

“It's okay,” he murmured, his voice a promise, his hand gentle as he brushed a stray tear from your cheek. “I’ve got you.”

You sat on the sand as a fire crackled in front of you, you had just buried him, the silence was thick nobody wanted to believe the truth. 

Your head pounded, even when you were softly laying on Rafe's legs using them as pillows. His calloused fingers gently rubbed your hair and you tried to concentrate on the movement in an attempt to forget about the previous moment but you failed.

“Groff said he was going to Lisbon” Rafe whispered above you, making your eyes open and looking up at him. His eyes met yours and he continued.

“If he was my friend or my brother… I would go after the guy that just killed him” The mention made your heart burn but he had a point.

“He's not wrong” Kie whispered, agreeing with your inner thoughts. You snuggled against Rafe's legs one last time before sitting up and leaning your head on his shoulder. 

“JJ would already be on his way to kill him if it was one of us,” you said and everyone's eyes snapped towards you, those were the first words you had spoken since it happened. 

“He'd get even,” John B added.

“Let's get revenge,” you said, your voice more confident than it was before, you felt a hand grasp onto yours and slowly you turned your head to face Rafe. He nodded and tightened his grip in a comforting way, never letting go.

Send request please xx

[seitmai]

“Just the night in general. I knew everyone would love you, but I really think Thor wants to be your big brother now,” Bucky replied. You wanted it so badly to be endearing, but Thor was dangerous. He mentioned a father-in-law. How exactly did he find his wife? And bringing up the flower donations to the hospital. Bucky seemed upset. Why? “Which he’ll have to fight Steve for.”

They are very eager, maybe a little too much to "get" a little sister 🫣

His laughter died off quickly when he reached out and gently took your hand again, prying your fingers away from your palm. You didn’t notice it stung from your nails until he brought your hand to his mouth and kissed it. “You think we’re bullies?” He asked against your skin. “Yes. Besides nearly beating that jerk to death, you do realize that you use force and threats to dominate and intimidate. That’s a form of bullying, Bucky,” you said. Was he deliberately being obtuse or was he lost in his delusion that this was all normal?

Someone had to tell them lol

“I wouldn’t say we’re bullies. I call it protecting and keeping what’s mine,” he said. There was no shame on his end. “Right. Because I’m a possession and not a person,” you said, your face scrunching up as you tried not to cry. You needed rest. If part of Bucky’s plan was to wear you down by overwhelming you, mission accomplished. “I’m so tired. I just want to go to bed.”

This is not going well🥴

You could scream until your lungs gave out that you didn’t belong with him and you knew in your heart he’d argue until his last breath that you did. He was steadfast in that belief that you were soulmates. That conviction was so strong that what you really feared was that he would somehow convince you that he was right: that you belonged together.

😬😬😬

He was a dog with a bone. He wouldn’t let that go. “Why don’t you just take a photo of me giving you the finger?” You suggested as he helped you out of the car. “Only if you do it with a smile. I’ll even set it as the background on my phone,” he winked. Your reluctance and defiance of him didn’t phase him in the slightest. “And if you give me the finger, I’ll take it as an invitation that you want to fuck me.”

Puhh he really just sees or hearswhat he wants to see or hear 🥴

“Your past boyfriends never did anything for you. Emotionally, physically,” he stated, sliding his hands under the nightgown to your hips. Grasping the hem of your pants, he pushed them down as far as he could. “I’ll bet they didn’t even buy you flowers and used the excuse that they didn’t because you’re a florist.” The words were tiny cuts on old wounds, but you wouldn't give him the satisfaction. “And you will?” “I will. I’ll give you the life and love you deserve, making you forget any other man out there existed before me.” His eyes raked over you as you stepped out of your pants, your panties still soaked. “But I’m not gonna fuck you.”

He knows exactly how to push her buttons

A couple of deep breaths and you made your way back to your bedroom. You paused when you saw Bucky holding a framed photo of you and your friends, longing in his eyes when he lifted his gaze. “You look so happy,” he murmured, carefully setting the frame down on the nightstand before he pulled the blankets back for you. “Can you do me one favor and I’ll go?” “I was happy. It was a fun day.” You slipped into bed when he gave you space to do so, but his body was still close to yours. Firm. Hard. He really could pin you down and do what he wanted if he wished. “What’s the favor?” He tucked the blanket around you, his hair falling into his face. You almost reached up to brush it back, but refrained. Who knew what your touch would do? “Look at me like you love me. Please.”

Geez, what a request to end the day 🫣

Hold You Tight: Part 9

Pairing: Club Owner!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Fic Summary: The owner of The 107th wants you to be his girl whether you like it or not.

Part 8 | Series Masterlist | Part 10

Chapter Summary: Bucky takes you home, but will he keep his hands to himself?

Chapter Word Count: Over 3.7k

Chapter Warnings: DARK AU, tension, dirty talk, unease, possessiveness, inner turmoil, slight feels, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?), more warnings to come.

A/N: More Hold You Tight and thank you for your patience! Hope you lovelies continue to enjoy. Bucky edit by the beautiful @nixakimbo . ❤️ Beta read by the lovely @whisperlullaby , but any and all mistakes are my own. Divider by the talented @firefly-graphics . Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

You thought you heard the men wish you well once more when Bucky led you out of the office. You weren’t completely sure since you tried to block everything out, but attempting to disassociate wouldn’t exactly do you any good. The night wasn’t over yet and you had to stay sharp. You didn’t know what Bucky had planned for when he got you home. Were you prepared at all?

Not in the least.

You half expected to walk back through the front of the club to leave, but Ray directed you to a door near the back once he gave Bucky a nod. The car was waiting in the alley and you took a moment to glance up at the sky. You could only make out one star and you wished in that moment you could grow wings and fly away. But when did wishing upon a star do you any good?

“Let’s get you back to your place,” Bucky said, helping you into the car.

You had to give him credit for trying to keep up his end of the bargain by getting you home on time. Your body refused to relax though once he sat beside you and took your hand. Was he trying to get you accustomed to his touch? Make you crave him? It bothered you that in spite of your determination he drew you in to a certain degree. But you wouldn’t let him take you to bed tonight. You weren’t ready to cross that inevitable line.

Maybe, just maybe, if your performance in bed disappointed him, he’d get bored and walk away. The thought almost made you laugh. That wasn’t happening. If anything, he’d probably love teaching you how to be his perfect lover.

“I think tonight went well,” Bucky smiled.

“Which part exactly?” You mumbled, pulling your hand away. The part where he forced you to go, how his men all but admitted they knew Bucky stalked you, or how they beat the hell out of a man?

“Just the night in general. I knew everyone would love you, but I really think Thor wants to be your big brother now,” Bucky replied. You wanted it so badly to be endearing, but Thor was dangerous. He mentioned a father-in-law. How exactly did he find his wife? And bringing up the flower donations to the hospital. Bucky seemed upset. Why? “Which he’ll have to fight Steve for.”

“Fighting. You guys seem to excel in that arena,” you said, remembering how they all took turns beating up John. “But I guess Steve does have a bit of that ‘big brother’ vibe, helping you take total control of my life and whatnot.”

“Not total control. I’m still letting you work, but maybe I can buy the shop.” He chuckled at your thunderous expression. The light threat had you seeing red. “I probably shouldn't joke about that, should I?”

“Letting me work? Like it’s your decision? And don’t you dare buy the shop.” You pushed at him to keep from slapping him when he chuckled again. Not with enough force to get him far away from you, but you needed some sort of space in the vehicle. He also needed a good hit over the head. “You’re a bully, do you know that? So are your friends.”

His laughter died off quickly when he reached out and gently took your hand again, prying your fingers away from your palm. You didn’t notice it stung from your nails until he brought your hand to his mouth and kissed it. “You think we’re bullies?” He asked against your skin.

“Yes. Besides nearly beating that jerk to death, you do realize that you use force and threats to dominate and intimidate. That’s a form of bullying, Bucky,” you said. Was he deliberately being obtuse or was he lost in his delusion that this was all normal?

“I wouldn’t say we’re bullies. I call it protecting and keeping what’s mine,” he said. There was no shame on his end.

“Right. Because I’m a possession and not a person,” you said, your face scrunching up as you tried not to cry. You needed rest. If part of Bucky’s plan was to wear you down by overwhelming you, mission accomplished. “I’m so tired. I just want to go to bed.”

“You’re a person, not a possession, Kotyonok. And not just a person, a good person who gives so much of herself to others. And probably one of the only people who rightfully calls me out on my shit.” His response drew you up short. “Outside of my friends, no one else does that.”

“Maybe because they’re afraid of you and what you can do,” you said after a moment. Fear could make anyone say what they thought people wanted to hear. “Either that or they want your approval,” you added, which you could also understand to a point. People wanted a sense of belonging, especially with those who had influence and power.

“Maybe they are afraid,” he agreed, brushing his lips against your palm again with a sigh. “What is it about me that scares you most?”

“I’m not really sure exactly,” you admitted. There was so much about the situation that terrified you. What he was capable of. How he inserted himself into various aspects of your life and so quickly. How far he was willing to go to keep you. “But I think it’s your conviction. That you’re so sure that I’m your other half and no one can convince you otherwise, not even me.”

You could scream until your lungs gave out that you didn’t belong with him and you knew in your heart he’d argue until his last breath that you did. He was steadfast in that belief that you were soulmates. That conviction was so strong that what you really feared was that he would somehow convince you that he was right: that you belonged together.

Those steel blue eyes of his met yours and mesmerized you for a heartbeat before you looked away. “Love is scary. It’s natural to be afraid of it.” His lips brushed your ear, making you shiver. “But giving someone the most fragile parts of yourself is one of the bravest things a person can do.”

There was truth in his words, but it felt like he moved another chess piece into place. He was trying to disarm you and you couldn’t let him. “Who painted that black dahlia in your office?” You asked suddenly, feeling him move back enough that you could turn your head toward him. “And why display that flower?” You didn’t believe for a second that he chose it for aesthetic purposes.

“Beautiful, isn't it? Steve painted it,” he replied with an odd mixture of affection and bitterness. “It’s for my parents.”

“Steve is a gifted artist.” You hoped your voice stayed even enough that Bucky wouldn’t get jealous of you complimenting another man’s talent. “I don't know if the symbolism of flowers mean anything to you, but the black dahlia-”

“Betrayal. Sadness. Darkness,” he ticked off, his voice cold enough that another shiver moved through your body. “It was the last flower my dad ever got my mom and it serves as a reminder.”

You swallowed as warning bells sounded in your mind to tread carefully. “And what's that?”

He moved close, your eyes shutting as his hand wrapped around the nape of your neck. “That I'll never do to you what he did to her.”

There was suppressed rage within him. Sorrow. It rolled off him in waves strong enough that they could drown you. He said earlier that his dad got what he deserved. What had he done to his mom?

“You’re in pain,” you whispered. He was hurting and you logically shouldn’t care. So why did you want to know the cause of that hurt? “You have to tell me why.”

It wasn’t for you to use to your advantage. You weren’t sure if you could manipulate someone else. If you knew what happened though, it would at least give you more answers to who Bucky was and why he was the way he was. It could help you gain some sort of understanding.

“I’m not in pain when I’m with you,” he whispered, bringing your hand on his chest. Was he relying on you to chase away whatever haunted him? “Later. I’ve overwhelmed you enough for one evening.”

You let out a breath. You swore he was doing this on purpose, giving you just enough information that you’d wait around until he gave you more. “I can’t argue with you there,” you said, his heart racing under your touch. “Just answer one thing for me, please.”

“What’s that?”

“Marc from the bookstore,” you began, the man’s kind face shimmering in your mind. “Did anything happen to him?”

“I’d question another man being on your mind, but I know you’re just concerned about his well-being.” An easy smile crossed Bucky’s face as you bit your tongue. You could think about anyone you wanted to. “I can’t speak for him right this second, but he was perfectly fine when you and I left. He was just having a chat with one of my associates.”

You exhaled, thankful Marc wasn't hurt. “What kind of chat?” You asked. He was a nice guy, though he did seem to know a bit about Bucky. What exactly was he involved in?

“He just got a warning to be careful about what he does or doesn’t say to his customers.” You tensed before he kissed your forehead. Did he know about the conversation you two had? “And I don’t think the two of you should be alone with each other in the bookstore going forward.”

Just when Bucky had you feeling some sort of sympathy for him moments ago he shocked you right out of it. “Another decision that isn’t yours to make,” you stated, the car coming to a stop. “And you really don’t have to walk me up. I think we’ve had enough of each other’s company tonight.”

“I said I’m tucking you into bed and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” The smile he gave you was nothing short of cocky when he added, “And you owe me a photo. I’m going to get it.”

He was a dog with a bone. He wouldn’t let that go. “Why don’t you just take a photo of me giving you the finger?” You suggested as he helped you out of the car.

“Only if you do it with a smile. I’ll even set it as the background on my phone,” he winked. Your reluctance and defiance of him didn’t phase him in the slightest. “And if you give me the finger, I’ll take it as an invitation that you want to fuck me.”

“Let’s go, please.”

You said nothing else as you went into the building, your anxiety mounting by the second. The slow rise of the elevator didn’t help, Bucky’s hip pressed against yours like he couldn’t stand to have space between you. You figure he’d shove you against the wall and claim your mouth, but he didn’t make a move. It impressed you that he behaved until you got to your floor. It didn’t stop your hand from shaking when you got your keys out.

“Still don’t want to say good night now?”

“I don’t want to say good night at all,” he answered, following you into the apartment and turning on the light. The welcoming feeling you expected when you got home wasn't there. There was a chill in the usual warmth.

“Well, you’ll have to sooner or later,” you said, swallowing when you faced Bucky. He shut the door and watched intently as you set your keys and bag down. You were quiet as you stared back, tension thick as you tried to predict what he was going to do. Once again, he managed to hold all the power in your home.

“Have I told you how beautiful you are?” He asked, heat and hunger in his stare as he slowly advanced.

Your throat went dry as you stepped back. “You have.”

“So beautiful and so good.” You made another move to retreat when he stepped forward, his manner confident and compelling as he reached out and prevented you from moving back further. “It’s driving me crazy not having you yet.”

“Please, you don’t…” you trailed off when he sank to his knees, unexpected heat flowing from your core. He guided one of your hands to his shoulder to brace yourself, his eyes soft as he helped remove one of your shoes. You found it difficult to breathe as he removed the other, his hand brushing your ankle with infinite tenderness. Like it was an honor to touch and be on his knees for you.

“I know the first time I taste you I’ll never want to stop. I’ll have to wake up every day between your thighs. Fall asleep that way, too.” His hand slid up your calf and his eyes darkened when your other hand found its way to his thick locks. Wetness gathered between your legs when his touch moved to your thigh. “Your pussy is hungry for me, isn’t it? My fingers, my tongue, my cock. I’ll feed her well.”

His voice was like velvet. Seductive. Aching. “Bucky…” Your breath rushed out swiftly when he kissed your mound through your clothes, tormenting you with arousal you didn’t ask for. It frightened you.

“I can smell you,” he murmured, nosing along where his lips had been before he sat back. “Smell so fucking good.”

Moving your shoes out of the way, he rose to his full height again as you willed your legs not to shake. You weren’t used to anyone looking at you, let alone speak to you, the way he did. Stark desire. Possessiveness. His form of love. Your heart pounded and you refused to answer him or glance down. If you looked at the front of his pants…

He took your hand and pulled you in the direction of the bedroom. Your heart pounded with mounting speed, your heels digging into the floor. “You still haven't kissed me,” you blurted out, hoping it would prevent him from taking you to bed. Or would he take that as an invitation to kiss your lips?

“No, I haven't.” You tried to keep some distance between you as he went to your bed, his hand moving along the blanket. You couldn't breathe. “It scares you how much your body wants mine, doesn’t it?”

“Is that what you think?” You asked, forcing air back into your lungs. It did scare you. It also scared you that you didn’t push him away or scream when he dropped to his knees to remove your shoes. Where was your fighting instinct?

“It is what I think.” The ease in which he moved away from the bed to your dresser to find your pajamas frightened you, too. Like he belonged in your room. You thought back to the night he broke in and left your gift on your bed. How much time did he take to look around? “Like love, giving your body to someone can be scary. You have to trust that you won't get hurt when you’re physically vulnerable.”

“You swore you wouldn't hurt me,” you reminded him.

“And I won't. But you know what else I think?” His magnetic gaze stayed on you as he brought a nightgown over. “That no guy has ever really taken care of you and you’re apprehensive to let me try.”

If you were apprehensive, it was because he was a walking red flag. “What makes you…” Your words stopped when he grasped the bottom of your shirt and pulled it up. Your arms instinctively went up before you realized what you were doing. Removing your shirt, you didn’t get a chance to cover your breasts before he slipped the nightgown on you.

“Your past boyfriends never did anything for you. Emotionally, physically,” he stated, sliding his hands under the nightgown to your hips. Grasping the hem of your pants, he pushed them down as far as he could. “I’ll bet they didn’t even buy you flowers and used the excuse that they didn’t because you’re a florist.”

The words were tiny cuts on old wounds, but you wouldn't give him the satisfaction. “And you will?”

“I will. I’ll give you the life and love you deserve, making you forget any other man out there existed before me.” His eyes raked over you as you stepped out of your pants, your panties still soaked. “But I’m not gonna fuck you.”

Exhaling slowly, relief flooded you. Though you couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t trying to take what he wanted. “You won’t?”

“Not tonight.” He shook his head even as his fingers moved along your waist. “Like I said, I’ve overwhelmed you enough. Sleeping with you might really put you over the edge.”

“Thanks.” He desired you, but continued to hold it at bay for your sake. How long would that last? “I appreciate that.”

“And we both know the moment I take you to bed, you’ll be begging for more.” His voice dropped as he toyed with the soft fabric. “And as much as I want to stay in bed with you all night and morning and give us what we both crave, I still need to get things in place at the penthouse and you need rest. You understand.”

You tried not to smile and failed. He acted as if he was doing you a favor. Cocky bastard. “I guess we’ll just have to suffer until then.” Sarcasm continued to be a good way to deflect.

He exhaled at your light teasing, his body still a bit tense. Being close to you and not having you was probably driving him mad. “Maybe we'll have to have another private call and finish what we started. Give us both some relief.” He turned you toward the door and gave you a light swat on your ass. “Go wash your face and brush your teeth before I change my mind.”

You made it to the bathroom in record time, not having to be told twice. You didn’t want to risk staying there in case he lost his resolve. Looking in the mirror as you went through the rest of your nighttime routine, you expected to look more exhausted from the whirlwind of the day. You somehow looked wide awake. Was the experience giving you thicker skin? Or did his desire for you somehow give you a bit of a twisted spark? You’d still be billing him for your future therapy bills either way.

A couple of deep breaths and you made your way back to your bedroom. You paused when you saw Bucky holding a framed photo of you and your friends, longing in his eyes when he lifted his gaze. “You look so happy,” he murmured, carefully setting the frame down on the nightstand before he pulled the blankets back for you. “Can you do me one favor and I’ll go?”

“I was happy. It was a fun day.” You slipped into bed when he gave you space to do so, but his body was still close to yours. Firm. Hard. He really could pin you down and do what he wanted if he wished. “What’s the favor?”

He tucked the blanket around you, his hair falling into his face. You almost reached up to brush it back, but refrained. Who knew what your touch would do? “Look at me like you love me. Please.”

You stiffened as you stared up at his face, your heart simultaneously racing and breaking for him. Love was something that provided a sense of connection, fulfillment. It was a way to show you that you weren’t alone in the world. You wanted to believe you were worthy of love, that you could build a life with someone. Bucky believed he was that someone.

Why?

You weren’t sure if it was his yearning gaze or if you were ready for the night to end, but your expression softened as you imagined meeting him in another life. Going on fun dates, talking about books, making each other laugh as you cooked together, snuggling under a blanket as you talked about your future. You found yourself smiling at the images that went through your mind. What could’ve been. What could be if he lessened his hold a bit on you.

He audibly exhaled when he snapped a photo on his phone, making you blink. “Thank you. Now I can look at this whenever I’m not near you and need to feel your love.”

Words escaped you, the invisible collar around your throat getting tighter. You could only nod and wonder how you kept throwing fuel on the fire of his want for you. Which one of you would burn first?

“Get some sleep. Dream sweet dreams.” You felt featherlight kisses on each eyelid when you shut them. “You know, I’ll sleep a lot easier once you’re in my bed.”

“If you get me into your bed,” you mumbled, refusing to look at him.

“Stubborn kitten.” He chuckled and gave each eyelid one more kiss. Why were his lips so soft? “Maybe I’ll stop by the shop tomorrow so I can take you to lunch. You can tell Addison all about it.”

“Maybe.” You yawned and snuggled more into your pillows. “Good night, Bucky.”

A finger moved along your cheek before it stopped abruptly. “Good night, Kotyonok.”

Bucky still hadn't kissed your mouth.

You didn’t open your eyes as he left, but you didn’t fall asleep right away either. Your body was too wound up. Too many questions went through your mind. Like what happened with his parents and how exactly he’d move you out of your place.

The man was a step ahead in everything. You’d be in his penthouse before the month was over. He’d get his way, but maybe it didn't have to be his way completely. He could give you an area in the place for you and you alone. It wouldn’t hurt to ask. After all, he did say he’d make it up to you by dragging you out tonight.

And if he cared the way he said he did, he could give you that one small thing.

Is our poor Kotyonok starting to accept the inevitable? Will Bucky stop by the shop? And how much longer until he really takes you to bed?Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

[marvelfanfics1]

Saving Him

Summary: You save Rafe from being attacked by Groff, getting hurt in the process.

Pairing: daddy!rafe x little!reader

Warnings: age regression (briefly at the end), hand injury, blood, knife, cursing

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The bike comes to a stop near a well and Rafe waits for you to get off first before he slides off as well, taking off his goggles and you do the same.

You cough, your throat burning from the sandy wind and lack of hydration, wiping the sweat from your forehead.

Rafe stands in front of you, placing his hand on your arms he lowers his head to meet your eyes. "You good?"

"Mhm...just thirsty." You rasp and he turns to Groff.

"Get some water." He demands and you all walk over to the well, only to realize there's no water in it and Rafe sighs. "Don't worry I'll get you something soon, yeah?"

You simply nod, going to sit on the edge of the well while Rafe talks to Groff.

"Tell us about this crown. What is it worth? Street value, rough estimate." He crouches down in front of you with a hand on your knee he points a finger at the man you don't trust at all, having had a bad feeling about him the whole time. "This shit better be worth our time. Do you understand?"

"Oh, it's worth a fortune." Groff states. "It's one of the most sought-after relics in the world. Owned by Caesar, hunted by Napoleon, said to grant wishes and make the bearer indomitable."

"Holy shit! Holy shit!" Rafe curses, standing back up straight again to face Groff. "That wasn't even close to answering my question. What is it worth?"

"Hundreds of millions."

Rafe purses his lips, almost scoffing. "You're full of shit."

"Am I?"

"Hundreds of millions." He repeats. "Wait I- what, you got a buyer or something?"

"Yeah, I got a buyer." Groff answers confidentially.

"Where?"

"Ever been to Lisbon?" He smirks and you scoff at the way he talks as if this whole situation isn't bothering him. That he screwed Rafe freaking Cameron over 400k.

Rafe smiles, approaching him. "Look at you, Groff. A'ight. Always got a plan. Well, you screwed me and my girl. And then you lost my money to those mercenaries, a'ight? So now you're gonna be my bitch."

You smirk at that, that's your man right there.

"And if you're lucky, I give you a little taste on the back end, okay?" He continues, leaning a little closer to whisper so you can't hear. "If I let you live."

On Rafe's demand Groff rolls out the map beside you, showing you both how to read it with the strange necklace thingy that shows things you can't see on the map.

Rafe hands it to you so you can take a look as well and you gasp that it actually works, now this is something you'll rub in his face whenever he says magic is not real, your little self beaming at the sight and begging to make a remark. "That's crazy..."

You give it back to Rafe, not listening how Groff talks about how the crown gives power, only lifting your head when you see him pulling something out of his pocket in your peripheral vision.

Suddenly Groff lungs at Rafe and you instantly react before Rafe even gets the chance and push him to the side just as Groff wields the knife.

You yelp when the knife cuts the inside of your hand, taking a few steps back to clutch your wrist, hissing in pain.

Rafe hurriedly gets back on his feet and takes control of the situation, seeing how Groff now balances himself to not fall into the well behind him, giving him a little nudge to make him fall backwards.

Groff's yell has you sighing in relief momentarily, knowing he isn't a bother anymore, seeing how Rafe leans over the edge.

"HA HA! CHECKMATE BITCH!" Rafe screams.

You whimper, screwing your eyes shut tightly and trying to blend out the stinging pain in your hand, starting to sniffle. "Daddy..."

Rafe turns at the sound of you crying for him, rushing over to you. "You idiot. C'mere let me see..."

You yelp when he takes your hand. He examines the injury and your bottom lip quivers at the amount of blood, the scent of copper penetrating your nostrils. "Hurts..."

"I know, I know. Come, we gotta wrap it up." He shushes you, leading you back over to the bike.

He rummages through the sidecar for anything that resembles alcohol, luckily finding a small bottle together with a rag and unscrewing the cap of the bottle he grabs your hand again. "A'ight, this is gonna sting...here bite into my arm yeah?"

He pushes back the sleeve of the jacket and the shirt he's wearing, lifting his arm to your mouth so you can bite into it which he knows you most definitely will.

"Okay, one, two-" he pours the alcohol over your hand without waiting to three, knowing it would hurt a little less when it's unexpected.

You bite into his forearm with all your might, a loud whine escaping your throat, your eyes shut tightly again.

Rafe doesn't even wince, continuing to disinfect the wound thoroughly all the while soothing you with assuring words.

"There we go. All over, you're so brave, I'm proud of you..." He murmurs, pulling his arm away from your mouth he wraps the rag around your hand, tying it securely to prevent any more blood loss.

You're still sniffling, burying your face in his chest. "M'sorry...had to save you, daddy."

Rafe sighs, wrapping his arms around you he kisses the top of your head. He's actually so fucking proud of you for your courage but he's also mad that you got hurt only because he let his guard down for a second.

"Don't be sorry. Everything's okay." He says, pulling back to look down at you. "Let's go get this crown."

Taglist

For everything:

@my-river-lilly @pauntedblacknails @fanfictioniseverything @devilslilbabysblog @buckymydarlingangel @hallecarey1 @daybreakwinter @loveshineslikethesky @wandaslittlewhore @vase-of-lilies @white-wolf1940 @simpingbutch @mischiefsemimanaged @alina02 @teddybearsgrr @doozywoozy @angelbabydoll28 @glxwingrxse @lilymurphy03 @veryvaughnny @lokigirlszendaya @youngstarfishdinosaur @little--baby--bear @minideathgoddess @rach2602 @gh0stgurl @flourishandblotts-inc @lovelyy-moonlight @yoruse

@mythixmagic @iris-xoxo-juhu

For Rafe:

@chiaraanatra @chimindity @erikasurfer

[op-81-lvr]

💪🏻 PhysicalTherapist!Oscar Piastri x Male!reader

F1 X Reader; Role Reversal series Masterlist

Summary: When you get into a pretty horrific crash that costs you the rest of the season Oscar is there to pick up the pieces and help nurse your leg back to health.

CW: car accidents, talks of amputation, crying, screaming, probably inaccurate medical terminology (if anyone wants to correct me on anything I can change please let me know!), swearing (It’s just embedded into my vocab), use of drugs in a medical sense, one mention of foreplay, One mention of sex, content is a bit jumpy and the ending is rushed af but I just wanted to get this out.

A/N: Oscar has a PhD, The timelines don’t line up I am aware. For the sake of this we are pretending he is a child prodigy because I said so.

Sources of information: https://www.healthywa.wa.gov.au/Articles/F_I/Ilizarov-frame,

~

Your_Username

❤️ 💬 📟 🔖

Liked by oscarpiastri, mclaren and 269k others

Your_Username Boyfriend took a week off work y’all know what that means. Oscar is coming to a race 🥰😍❤️😘💕💖♥️😍🥰

oscarpiastri I think you need more PR training because wtf 😦

Your_Username What? I never said (Or did for that matter) anything sexual, I just love you

oscarpiastri I love you too but what is with the emojis?

mclaren We like Oscar, Oscar keeps you from downing a monster and then wondering why you can hear your own heartbeat

oscarpiastri I feel so loved 😍

User1 Oscar and Admin teaming up against (Y/N) will never not be funny 😭✋

User2 This means we get more videos of “goo-goo eyes” (Y/N) again because you already know Oscar is being dragged everywhere with him this weekend.

~

“I love you” You said, catching Oscars lips against yours. Whenever he was at a race you had to kiss him before you got in the car, you claimed it was for ‘luck’.

You then pulled your balaclava and your helmet over your head and Oscar kissed the top of your helmet, another thing you insisted he do “I love you too” he responded.

You climbed over the halo of your car and slid into the seat, waving to Oscar as your mechanics guided your car to the grid.

Then it was interviews, reviewing data, the national anthem and then another quick word with Martin Brundle with Sky Sports before sliding your balaclava and helmet over your head again and climbing back in your car for the formation lap.

You were starting P3, not bad all things considered. You had Carlos in P2 front of you and then Charles in P1, in the grand scheme of things not too shabby.

The cars kicked off as you did the formation lap, you went round no problems. getting into your place on the grid, Lando next to you.

The race kicked off, Lando managed to gain a place on you which you very quickly take back in the first corner.

You went back and fourth for the next few laps, swapping positions every few corners. Everything was going fine, you had been allowed to race each other.

Then you were side by side chasing each other down a straight and as you got to the corner he didn’t turn with you and he didn’t brake. Lando was having a brake failure and you were away to be a victim of it too.

Landos car completely T-barred yours. You kept gliding across the gravel trap until you hit the barrier.

And then came the pain.

The impact made you body ache, everything hurt. You couldn’t source where you were hurting from because everywhere hurt.

“(Y/N)? (Y/N) respond please” Your engineer demanded. You pressed the button on your wheel but found no energy to speak, your lungs hurt too much. You just groaned down the line, hoping that would satisfy. “Okay. Okay, the marshals are on their way. Please just hang in there” He sounded distressed.

Lando was already up and walking. Your car has cushioned the blow of the crash for him and now his front wing was pressing into the side of the front wing of.

Landos helmet appeared above you, shielding your eyes from the sunlight a little more.

“C’mon mate, you have to get up” Lando said reaching his hand into the car for you to take it. You took it and attempted to stand up but when your left leg got any weight on it you fell. The pain travelled al up your leg, striking every nerve in your system.

You collapsed back into your seat and let the warm embrace of darkness take you.

~

Oscars heart was away to fall out his throat. He watched you make contact with the wall. He watched Lando get out unscathed and now he was watching Lando attempt to help you because the marshals were taking too long.

He watched as you took Lando’s hand and try and pull yourself up and then he watched as you fell back into your seat. That was when Lando turned to the drone cameras nearby and made some sort of gesture to them. Then the broadcast was cut and suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

He chucked his headphones provided by McLaren onto the table before him, got up and went to your drivers room. He needed to get his stuff and leave. He needed to be with you when you were inevitably admitted to hospital.

He was rushing, recklessly throwing your things in your backpack you brought with you. It had both your things in it but you being the ever loving gentleman you were to carry it.

“Fuck, keys” Oscar muttered. He had no clue where you left the keys to your rented McLaren. Eventually after spiralling for a good 10 minutes he found the keys in one of the drawers you had in your bathroom. Keys, phone and wallet all kept safe in one place. Oscar felt like he could breathe again.

“Mate, are you really away to drive like this?” Your performance coach, Mitchell, said from the door to your drivers room.

“Yeah, I need to be with him” Oscar said, wiping the tears from his cheeks as he turned around.

“Do you even know what hospital they’re taking him to?” Mitchell asked, Oscar hesitated. Shit. He didn’t know where you were. He shook his head.

“I know where they’re taking him let me drive you Oscar, It’s not safe for you to be driving right now” Mitchell added.

“Yeah okay” Oscar said, placing the keys in the jacket pocket (Just in case). He swing the backpack over his shoulder and began following Mitchell out of the room. He just wanted out of here and be wherever you were.

You had been taking to a high level trauma centre in Milan. The drive wasn’t too bad considering the crowds were still at the circuit and in no rush to leave.

It was smooth sailing, right through the roads until they got to the hospital. Oscar still felt sick. He didn’t know what was wrong with you. His hand’s were shaking. He was scared, he needed to hold your hand and tell you were okay before he would even think about calming down.

He abandoned your trainer before he had even properly parked the car. As soon as he seen the doors he swung the car door open and bolted.

“I’m here to-“ He took a breathe, he ran too fast, “I’m here to see (Y/N) (L/N), he should have been admitted about 5 minutes ago” Oscar said, he eyes moving erratically as if you would instantly appear before him.

“He was admitted to the ER on red alert 3 minutes ago. May I ask your relation to the patient?” The nurse enquired.

“Uhh- I umm. I’m his boyfriend and power of attorney” Oscar said. Your team would have transferred over your paperwork, the nurses would know who he was, his power of attorney was listed on your papers.

That was one of the most difficult conversations you had ever had with Oscar. You brought it up one night when you were in bed, Oscar remembers being asked so clearly, ‘If I ever become incapacitated, will you speak for me?’ Oscar though it was just a safety precaution, your job was dangerous, he never thought he may actually have to decided what was best for you when you couldn’t.

“Name?” The nurse further enquired. Typing something into the computer before her

“Oscar” He said, pulling out his wallet and handing over his ID “Oscar Piastri”

“Okay, your boyfriend is in trauma room 3 right now. You can wait in the waiting room until someone comes to see you.” Oscar just nodded. He sometimes forget that just because he was technically a doctor he still could not see you, he didn’t work here.

Your trainer eventually caught up with him. They both sat side by side in the waiting room expecting news, waiting, watching people come and leave and still no news.

Oscar wept numerous time in the 2 hours they were sat in the waiting room. Mitchell being the one to rub his shoulder and remind him how stubborn you were.

Eventually a doctor in bloodied scrubs came and requested him, he doesn’t think he has ever stood up so fast.

“Mr. Piastri?” The doctor asked before beginning. Shit. The doctor does not sound like he has good news.

“Yeah” He said, letting in a deep breath.

“We have an update on your partner” Oscar glanced up at the doctor, something hopeful sparked within him. “He is in surgery, his lung collapsed and we had to re-inflate it. He currently is breathing on his own however. He has some swelling on the brain, that should go down with rest.”

“Thats it?” Oscar asked, why were you in surgery if you were going to be fine?

“Its his left leg we’re worries about, its broken in 3 different places and he is already showing signs of infection” The doctor began “Do you wish us to try and save it with pins and screws or guarantee his safety and get rid of his leg?” The doctor enquired.

Oscar was going to spew, what kind of sick twisted act of god was this. Why did he have to be the one to decided whether or not to keep it.

On one had, he knew first hand how long certain types of breaks took to heal, breaking a bone in more than one place would take months to heal and he knew you would spend most of that time in agony, feeling sorry for yourself.

On the other hand however, putting you though an amputation would most likely kill your spirit, end your career and make you hate him. It would however save you from the infection that, if it spreads, could very well kill you. Why could Mitchell not have just stayed your power of attorney? Life would have been so much easier and he would not have to make the choice.

Oscar bit his lip.

Why did it have to be him to make this call?

Fuck.

“Save the leg” He blurted out. It was probably the right call. At least try and fix what was broken. Amputation was a total worst case scenario.

“Okay, we’ll see what we can do” And with that the doctor pivoted on their heel and stormed back down the hall to what Oscar assumes was the surgical ward.

Oscar slumped back down in the chair next to Mitchell. Mitchel looked back at him, as if waiting for a response but not wanting to push.

“He’s in surgery, his lung collapsed and he has minor swelling in the brain.” Oscar began, Mitchell just watched intently as Oscar spoke “His leg is broken in three places and he’s showing signs of early infection, they just asked if I wanted them to try and fix it or amputate it” Oscars voice kept cracking as he tried not to cry.

“Oh” Mitchell said, leaning back in his chair. Oscar and Mitchell became pretty close friends since they met, they watched a lot of races together and both had degrees in sport science, even if Oscar went on to achieve a PhD and Mitchell went straight into work.

“Yeah” Oscar sighed out, rubbing the corners of his eyes to stop the tears flowing. “I told them to try save it, I think he would kill me if I didn’t” Oscar said, smiling slightly trying to lighten the mood

“I need to call him mum” Oscar said, pulling out his phone and wondered into a more isolated corner of the waiting room.

Your parents worked, they couldn’t just drop everything just to come see you. Oscar was there and there was no point making the journey if Oscar was there and you were stable.

Your mum picked up after 1 ring. She must’ve been waiting by her phone for news. “Hello, (Y/Mothers/N)”

“Oh Oscar, where is he? Can I speak to him?” Your mother exclaimed, she sounded like she had been crying. Understandable considering she had just watched one of her sons get into a horrific accident, watch him collapse and then hear nothing again for hours.

“I’m sorry, he’s in surgery right now. His leg is broken in 3 places and it needs to be screwed back together with metal plates” Oscar said down the phone. He did not want to be the one to relay this news but he was the only one that could.

“Oh…” Your bother began “Well keep me updated then. Thank you Oscar” Your mother said before promptly hanging up the phone. She clearly was in no fit state to talk to anyone right now.

Oscar sighed and returned to Mitchell. He sat in the seat and curled his knees up to his chest. Your mum would be fine, she had your siblings with her.

~

Hours passed before they heard anything again. It was just silence, crying, him and Mitchell catching up a bit, more silence until the doctor in the scrubs showed up again.

“Relations of Mr. (L/N)?” Oscar and Mitchell stood up and nodded. “He’s out of surgery, he is stable, still breathing on his own but we want to keep him sedated for the time being.” The doctor began “You can however go and see him, No plants for children in the ICU however and please mind the wires and metal.”

Oscar never reacted so fast. He had never wanted to get somewhere more than he did right now. He followed the signs to the ICU only then to remember he still didn’t know what room you were in. He pulled a nurse aside.

“Do you know where I could find (Y/N) (L/N)?” Oscar asked her. The nurse just started blankly at him. Crap. She didn’t speak english, he totally forgot he was in a country where the native language was not english.

“Uhhh- Leg, broken leg” he repeated, gesturing down at his leg, thankfully she got the message and nodded. Signalling him to follow her.

She led him to a room a little further down the hall. She opened the door and looked at Oscar. Oscar thanked her and she nodded and left.

Oscar took one look at you and started crying again. Oscar had never seen you so still. Your chest was still rising and falling but you were far too still.

Your leg was secured in metal. You were going to freak the fuck out when you woke up again.

“Oh baby” Oscar said gently, he takes a seat in the chair by your bed. Takes your hand and kisses it gently. “You’re gonna be okay”

He had no idea if you could hear him however, if on the off chance you could, he wanted to talk to you, remind you he was there.

“Lando’s gonna be okay at least, you cushioned his blow” Oscar said, he didn’t know if he was joking or not but if he didn’t laugh he would probably cry so he just went with it.

“Your mum is worried about you” Oscar began, he had to keep talking because he could get so easily freaked out by the silence of a room. “I think she needs to talk to you before she believes you’re okay, I know your siblings won’t leave her though.”

~

Oscar stayed with you for 3 days, he left to go shower and shave once but it was rushed and he missed bits. He was terrified of leaving you and coming back to you having some sort of issue. Expecting to come back and you were not breathing.

Mitchell had gone home, he had a family waiting for him at and as much as he cares about you he knows you have Oscar and he would be okay to go home and be with his kids.

“The doctors say you’re making good progress at least. Say your head is healing quite well.” Oscar began, picking up your hand and kissing it, trying not to irritate the cannula you had in your hand.

“I’m gonna go and update your mum, I will be right back baby I promise” He said, kissing your forehead gently and leaving the room, phone in hand.

Little did he know that in the 15 minutes he had spent talking to your mother you would wake up surrounded by nurses with no clue where you were or what was happening.

~

“I want Oscar” You cried out through sobs of pure agony that was running through your body right now. This was far from the most dignified moment of your life but you didn’t care, you were in pain and you wanted your boyfriend to hold you.

The nurses were scrambling about trying locate Oscar, he was in the waiting room on the phone updating your mother the last time any of the nurses had seen him.

Eventually he came back up the corridor, expecting you to still be asleep under the sedative they had given you when you had been taken into the hospital when you wouldn’t stop screaming.

Instead he was met with 2 nurses all looking slightly distressed as they stood at the outside of your door, a further nurse in the room trying to calm you down.

“He’s awake and wants you, Mr. Piastri however if you do not calm him down we may need to sedate him again before he does himself another injury.” The shorter nurse of the two said as she glanced back into the room behind her.

“O-okay” Oscar replied, paling a little at the thought of them having to sedate you again just because you could not come to terms with what was happening right now.

He entered the room not really knowing what to expect from you considering you had just woken up from being asleep for 3 days and had just found out you needed reconstructive surgery on you leg. He was met with your tear streaked face followed by hiccups and more of you shouting at nurses to find Oscar.

“I’m here baby, i’m sorry! I shouldn’t have left” Oscar announced his presence in the room, the nurses parting so that he can get through and see you.

Oscar approached you gently, still unsure if you were considering attacking or not. He gently kissed your forehead and you just started crying again.

“It hurts so much” You cried through more sobs. This was probably the most you had cried like… ever.

The last thing you remembered was kissing Oscar goodbye on the grid as you pulled your helmet over your head and prepared for lights out so why were you in a hospital? Why were you in so much pain?

“I don’t- what even happened?” You said, practically gasping for air between words.

“You were in a crash, shattered your Tibia and did yourself some internal damage” Oscar began, he sat in the chair that was beside the bed you were in. The nursed had cleared out now, they no longer thought you were going to hurt yourself or anyone else “Baby, your lung collapsed and I was so scared. They had to sedate you when they brought you in just to calm you down”

You sat there looking at Oscar as if he had just grown 6 heads. You blinked, hoping maybe you were dreaming, that you would wake up and this would all be a nasty dream and then you didn’t wake up, this was your new, horrific? reality.

You looked down at your leg and there it was again, that ugly metal rods that poked out of your leg, mocking you and your career. You needed your leg, it was not something that you could just live without and still be an f1 driver.

“Wh- Oscar this is some sick joke right? Do you know how long bones take to heal? Months, Oscar, months” You say, your breathing speeding up again as you spiralled into panic, realistically you knew he knew how long bones took to heal it was literally his job to deal with patients who suffered broken bones and trauma that impacted their mobility

“(Y/N), look at me” Oscar said, holding your hand up to his mouth and kissing it. “This is not what you needed right now, I know that, but you should be grateful you even still have your leg, it was touch and go for a while” Oscar knew it was harsh to tell you such cruel things when you were panicking but he also knew that sometimes a slap back to reality is needed.

“I- okay” You said taking a deep breath through your nose and out through the mouth trying to calm yourself down. “It still hurts, can they give me more drugs?” you asked, normally you would swear off using drugs for anything. Even taking ibuprofen made you weary but you were genuinely in so much pain.

“Afraid not baby, they already maxed out your dose before they woke you up. You’re gonna be real floaty soon” Oscar said, a slight smile grazing his face. You had never been high before so the amount of drugs they had you on were going to hit you like a train.

Your doctor came into the room a few moments later after being told by the horde of nurses that you were awake and distressed. (and that they gave you more drugs so he better be quick if he wants you coherent).

“Ahhh Mr. (L/N), you’re awake!” He said in an overly put on happy voice. “As you may have noticed you’ve been out for a while” You just nodded along.

“Your injuries were quite extensive. You punctured a lung, gave yourself quite the concussion and the most obvious injury you may have noticed is your shattered Tibia.” You bit your lip slightly and nodded, looking at the metal structure that surrounded the bottom of your left leg.

Oscar squeezed your hand a little tighter, letting you know he was here. He wasn’t interfering with the doctors conversation, letting you take in what you were being told.

“We’ll assign you with a physical therapist once your leg is healed which we hope to be sorted in the next 2-4 months.” The doctor began and Oscar took this as his moment to interrupt.

“Hold it- i’m right here, I can take care of his physio” Oscar began, he knew you didn’t cope well with new people and people touching you so he, ultimately, would be your best bet at getting anywhere with physical therapy anyway.

“Mr. Piastri, I understand that you want to help but you’re much too close to this” The doctor began before Oscar cut him off.

“No, he doesn’t cope well being touched by strangers. It’ll take numerous sessions just to get him to let another physio touch him, let me do this” He begged, arguing for you as if you weren’t right there (metaphorically you weren’t, the morphine was beginning to kick in and you were feeling loopy as fuck) “I know him, we live together and I travel with him when I manage to close my clinic for a few days please just assign me to take care of him”

Oscar didn’t care how pathetic he sounded right now, He knew you, he knew your routines and little rituals you had before races and things you did to put yourself to sleep at night.

You two had known each other since you were young, you had both been shipped off to boarding school and were educated together. You separated when Oscar when to university to study sport science and you went off to persue Formula 1 and met each other again after your trainer referred you to a proper physio after a particularly bad bout of neck and back pain.

Ever since then you had been inseparable, never seen apart. Point is he needed to care for you in anyway he could. He would make room for you in his schedule, he ran his own private clinic in london so it wouldn’t be that hard to shift his schedule around for you.

The doctor bit his lip, considering it for a moment. “Now are you absolutely sure about this, because frankly I don’t think this is a good idea” He began

“Yes, yes I am. I can take care of him. I know him, I know what he liked and what he doesn’t plus he already is comfortable with me touching him” Oscar began spewing out reasons he should take care of you, why he needs to take care of you.

“And I live with him, I would be with him most days. Just please. It would save the hassle of you trying to find a physiotherapist in London from here anyway” Oscar would literally start a war if this doctor did not get his shit together and let Oscar take over your care.

“Okay fine, we can discuss paperwork later but as for just now I would go and sit with him. He’s gonna get real giddy in a few minutes” The doctor said, gathering up his stuff and promptly leaving the room. It was just you and Oscar again, just this time you’re awake.

“Has anyone ever told you, you have pretty hair” You said, staring at Oscar as if he was the Sistine Chapel. You eyes were already getting a bit bloodshot and glassy, Oscar just blushed slightly.

“Maybe once or twice” Oscar said, playing into what ever mind games the Morphine was playing in you. It was in fact you that always told Oscar he had pretty hair and got all stroppy when he got a haircut.

He took your hand and kissed it again. “I think you should go to sleep before you say anything else you’ll regret”

“Fine” You said like a stroppy toddler. You lay back and let yourself fall asleep. Your soft breaths once again filled the room as you let yourself rest.

Oscar just sat back and sighed, it was going to be a long few months with you but he was willing. He wanted this, it was always you that took care of him. He wanted it to be his turn to take care of you.

~

After another few weeks, a fuck tonne of drugs, loads of tears and lots of sleeping you were eventually discharged and sent home with crutches and a prescription for more pain killers.

The flight back home was a bit of a nightmare considering you couldn’t go through a metal detector without setting it off, you were in so much pain it was ridiculous. You would have taken pills for the pain but you had put them in your suitcase and not your carry on.

Oscar had tried his best to soothe you but ultimately there was nothing he could do but hold your hand and give you kisses until you got off the plane.

“You know you never had to shut your clinic to stay with me, you could have gone home to run the place” You said. You had felt guilty as anything after Oscar told you he was staying and taking time off to be with you.

“I didn’t shut my clinic, I left in Tina charge while I was gone.” He shrugged, casual as anything “Plus I was technically seeing a patient” He said smugly.

You were Oscars patient now, he had your medical file on his work computer, he had your patient history and he was not gonna let it go. He was so serious about this that he blanked you when you said it would make for great foreplay.

“You are such a sap” You said, pushing him gently. You were, thankfully, flying private. You weren’t sure you could deal with the public and the paparazzi taking non -consentual photos of you in an airport with crutches, a metal brace around your leg and your boyfriend correcting your posture every 5 minutes.

The flight was uneventful for the remainder. You eventually dozed off, Oscar had opted to lay you in his lap and rub your scalp until you fell asleep and he didn’t wake you up until you were away to land.

The car ride to your London home was also largely uneventful. You called a cab because neither of you had a car readily available (not like you could drive anyway).

The first issue you faced was when you got to your house and remembered you had stairs to climb to get into your house. Oscar had to take your bags inside and then have to guide you up the stairs slowly.

“This is fucking humiliating” You mutter as Oscar guides you up the stairs. “World’s greatest athletes and I can’t even climb the stairs to my own house” You mutter, Oscar hears though. He always does somehow.

“You are still a good athlete baby, you’re just hurt and need taken care of right now thats all” Oscar responds gently. He was always patient with you when you started spiralling and getting into your own head.

You had an athletes mentality and that was something Oscar had gotten very used to considering he worked with athletes of varying professions and levels and though you. With you he saw the mental ups and downs he assumes most athletes go though.

“What am I supposed to do for the next 3 months” You exclaim as Oscar helps you onto your sofa. “I can’t exercise properly, Can’t go on walks or runs, I can’t even sleep in my side” You whine. For some a break like this would be ideal but not for you, you could not for the life of you sit still for long periods of time.

“Exercise is actually good for your leg, even if your shin is fucked right now you still need to keep the leg moving.” Oscar explained “You’ll just be in more pain if you don’t move it”

“Now, you’re gonna take your painkillers and then go for a nap because I think you need rest” Oscar said, slipping a pill in between your lips and forcing you to drink the water he gave to you

He lifted his head from its place on the sofa, threw the cushion out from under it and slotted himself in it’s place. Placing you back down so your head was lay in his lap.

“Now, i’m comfy, you’re comfy and everyone is safe so go to sleep” He said, stroking your face gently with his hands “I’ll be right here when you wake up, I promise”

You let your eyes droop and your aches to go numb as the warmth of sleep overtook your system. You had no problems letting Oscar massage your face to send you to sleep.

In reality Oscar felt he needed to watch you sleep, to watch you breathe, the even rise and fall of your chest was a comfort to him. The last time he could not see you sleeping your lung collapsed and you could not breathe. Oscar felt it was his duty and as a doctor (technically) to be the one to take note of your health, make sure your body was working properly.

He turned the TV on and eventually he himself dozed off. He would never tell anyone, especially not you, how tired he let himself become those last few weeks in Italy. He was going to make himself sick if he stayed in hospital with you a little longer just so he could stay with you.

~

The next few weeks were hellish.

Oscar had been helping you move your legs and clean the entry site of the pins in your leg. Or he was trying, you kept doing so well and then having days where you were in nothing but pain and cried all day.

In between all of this Oscar had also gone back into work, just with reduced hours, he did still have clients after all. Your injury didn’t just magically heal his other patients that he saw regularly

Today, Oscar wasn’t really doing much with you. He was just having you practice walking on your crutches again.

“You know this would be easier if you came into my practise instead of using our living room” Oscar said, looking up at you from the sofa

“No!” You exclaim “I cannot leave the house like this, Do you know how humiliating this would be if a fan found me, I can’t fucking walk Oscar!” You wanted to shout so very badly but you couldn’t because you knew better than to piss of your physio (and boyfriend)

“Baby, I understand I really do bu-“ Oscar began

“No you don’t! You do not understand, I am under constant scrutiny from the press and the fans and the news. I cannot have them see me like this. I cannot handle the rumours about my career by random people on the internet” You snap.

“You’re right” Oscar said, looking at the floor. “I do not understand baby but you need proper equipment, which I have, it’s just at my practise. Please just let them speculate for the sake of your health. Hell even make a statement yourself just to shut them up.”

“You’re right, i’m being stupid.” You began, adjusting yourself as you lean onto his shoulder. “I’m sorry for snapping, I love you”

“I love you too” Oscar said kissing your hairline gently.

~

Your_Username

❤️ 💬 📟 🔖

Liked by oscarpiastri, mclaren and 704k others

Your_Username Life since my accident 🩶

Seriously though I would like to send a massive thanks to the Paramedics and Doctors in Italy that literally saved my life. I’m not gonna go into detail about my injuries until I feel ready but it was scary. Even bigger thanks to Dr. Boyfriend who took me home and has dealt with my moody ass for the past few weeks

As for my career, I am still unsure as to what will happen with my future. You aren’t rid of me just yet though, I can promise you that.

Lots of Love, (Y/N) (L/N)

oscarpiastri So very proud of you baby, We’re gonna get through this together 💪🏻

mclaren We’re gonna miss you at MTC for the next few months ☹️

Comments on this post have been limited

~

The following weeks were a nightmare, Oscar began working close to his full schedule. You wondered if this is what Oscar felt like when you were away for weeks at a time for racing. Only so much TV could fill the time you spend sitting on the couch, doing basic exercises to keep your leg moving and more sitting on the couch.

When Oscar was home you spent a lot of time listening about his day, you not having much to add to that conversation these days. Sometimes your recovering and his work overlapped.

That was the times you enjoyed the most lately.

You got to see Oscar in his ‘natural habitat’ as you would call it. It’s where he was content, in his zone. It was so nice to see him so comfortable in an environment most people feel tense in.

Earlier in the week you had been papped waking from Oscar’s car to the clinic on crutches. You had never been phased by the paparazzi but now, in your state you were mortified.

“I really don’t know why it’s such a big deal” Oscar said, you were sat in his office in his exam bed as he cleaned the entry points or your pins. “I mean the media know you’re injured, they know you won’t be driving for a while and they know i’m doing your physio” He shrugged.

“I know, it’s just a bit irritating that they can’t just let me be injured in peace y’know?” You reply, wincing slightly as Oscar pressed at a particularly tender piece of skin

“I get that but surely it could be worse, people know you’re okay, The media can stop trying to contact you for your where about and People know you’re with me and you’re all mine” Oscar said, leaving a slightly unprompted kiss to your knee

“I supposed” You grumble, laying back on the exam bed as Oscar began making you bend your leg. “I love you”

“I love you too”

~

“(Y/N) you fabulous, fabulous man! You my friend have just won your first championship” You engineer yelled over you comms.

You couldn’t respond, you were crying while trying to navigate your cooldown lap.

A 18-months ago you almost lost your leg, told that you would probably never walk again. A year ago you could barely bed you knee. Eight months ago you were falling behind in the championship, the media beating you up. Five months ago you began your record breaking comeback and right now you had just won the championship off all championships in Vegas

You climbed out of your car after taking a moment to yourself. A deep breath. A moment of silence.

You did the usual jumping into the crowd of engineers as they pulled you over the fence and held you up. It took 5 minutes for your feet to return to the ground. And then there was Oscar, who was also crying.

You went to hug him, pulling him close and then pulling him over the fence so you could properly give him kissed “This is all because of you baby, all of it. You’re the one who nursed me back to health, back to this point” You whispered in his ear, over the crowds of people screaming your name.

“I’m so proud of you” He said kissing your cheek. Photographers taking this as their moment to strike. “And you are getting railed so hard tonight”

And now you’re less glad you’re surrounded by photographers.

[katiascraft]

"Tender is the night for a broken heart" | CL16

Parings: Charles Leclerc x Reader.

Summary: you been feeling very sad lately. Your emotional stress is taking you places you didn’t want to back in ever again. And Charles knows it - just wanna make sure you know you are loved despite it all.

Now playing: "Space song" by Super Pipo.

Word count: +2k

Warnings: INSINUATION OF SUICIDE - if you are sensitive to these kind of topics please don’t read it. ANGST WITH HAPPY ENDING. VERY SAD. Not a native English speaker so there could be (so many) errors. I do what I can. Not proofread.

Author's note: I may or may not written this one about a real situation. PLEASE READ WITH CAUTION. Hope you like it and sorry in advanced if I make you cry. Charles the man that you are in my head 😭. Don’t forget to comment, like or reblog! And follow me so we can be friends :3 (and drink mate together!)

MASTERLIST

The wind was brushing the tears that were dropping from your eyes gently. You were shaking, scared. Nature was the only thing that surrounded you. Tall pines with your favorite gradient of green were all around you. You could hear the bird singing. You thought it was morning because the sun on your face was warm - that made you close your eyes to take it all in. that made you sob even harder. You could hear the water of the river crashing against the stonewall of the cliff you were standing on. when you opened your eyes you could see that you were on the edge of it. You took a gasp of fair freezing in the moment. A feeling so overwhelming took over you starting to sweat. Your hands wrapped your own body around. You hugged yourself there. The pain eating you alive was almost unbearable. The wind intensified, sending shivers down your spine. You closed your eyes again, ready to let go of everything. Of this pain you carried along so many years of your life. This burden you carried everywhere. This ghost living inside you is trapped, washing away your personality. Your soul felt in prison by the canvas it got. Your body felt the most uncomfortable place to exist. Your mind was so twisted sometimes you didn't know what was reality and what was your anxiety inventing fake scenarios which will hunt you all night long. Living with you was so difficult. It felt impossible for you that someone could actually love just by who you were. If you are this dark entity then who could love you? Anyone. Your mind convinced you, you needed to end it all to be finally free. You knew you were meant to fly. You just needed to let go. Relax your body and let it float. Let it fall into the immensity of the universe. Let you find a better place to live in. have your happy ending. You finally opened your eyes again out of breath trembling. You were ready. This was it for you. It was time. It was finally time. You even smiled.

But when you were about to let go you started hearing that voice. The same voice you heard every morning and you didn't know why it would choose to stick around your misery.

“y/n! y/n stop!” his voice almost broke your ears of how loud he screamed. You stopped freezing at your feet. Your heart started pounding like crazy. Adrenaline takes over your body turning your face red. Tears started to come out again even more violently. “y/n please don't do it!” his voice was torn in desperation. He was crying as violently as you, you could feel it. You could feel him grabbing your arms. You saw the watered disappear. Now you could only see the stone of the mountain you were standing on. You screamed at the top of your lungs and then everything was black.

“No!” you woke up sweating cold. You were a sea of tears shaking. Charles was already awake. He was trying to wake you up for a couple of minutes and now is really worried about you. You couldn't stop crying stunned by the nightmare you've just had.

“y/n. It's okay, love. I am here. You are ok” he said gently so wouldn't scare you. He grabbed you in his arms carefully. You looked so fragile he was scared he could break you. His heart ached seeing you like this.

These past few weeks were really hard on your end. You started feeling like your old self, self doubting about everything and anything. Insecure you weren't enough anymore for him or your job or your friend or even your family. You started feeling like a burden again lost in your own pain and struggle. Life was always a little harder for you. You've been out of really toxic relationships during your teenagehood that broke you down so bad you had to rebuild yourself all over again as if you weren't ever born. All this trauma you carried made everyday harder to live for you. You developed social issues not knowing how to interact or make friends as the aftermath. You also couldn't trust people or ask for help. Yeah, you were depressed for a couple of years. Thankfully you met Charles at your best self you liked to think. You were starting to feel happier. You liked who you were becoming. It wasn't that hard anymore to talk to people or open up with them.

When you met, you never thought Charles would even like you to be fair. He was the most gorgeous guy you have ever met. Real life prince charming you used to tell your friends. You were only an average girl, a troubled and messed up one, you thought you had no chance with him. But at the end of the road trip with friends he kissed you and you felt so overwhelmed with joy you couldn't believe it was actually your life, the one you were living. It felt strange and at the same time amazing. It was so easy with Charles to open up to him and tell him your story. He never judged you nor ran away from you scared. He didn't see you as a monster. As a broken record never able to be fixed. He fell in love with you because to him you were the sweetest person with the biggest heart he has ever talked to. You were so honest and real to everyone about everything he fell for it. He fell for your loud and weird laugh. So Precious and contagious. With your beautiful sparkly eyes always so honest and crystal clear. You were so you, so real. He felt you were so brave to be so you. In his world it was uncommon for your kind of people. He knew since the first night he met you at Lando´s birthday 5 years ago that you were the one. He didn't know you but he already knew. Destiny told him.

He knew your struggles, of course he did. He always listened to you. Felt so heartbroken every time. If he could, he would literally murder every single monster - because the one who hurt you didn't deserve to be called even humans - that did all of that to you. To him you were so pure, maybe too good for this cruel world. He tried to protect you from it all the best he could. But there was one thing he couldn't protect you against and that was your mind. He knew that your mind was the one who could move earth and seas just to hurt you in the worst way possible.

Heknew something was off with you when you started retreating. You stopped going to friends´ dinners. You didn't assist in the races you were supposed to. You stopped getting out of home more and more. You barely went out to the garden. Most of the time you were in your studio working non stop to preoccupy your mind and not think. He knew you were struggling when I stopped doing your hair the way you loved to do it. Stopped wearing your fancy outfits just to drive him crazy and urging you to take them all off when you two got home. You stopped eating the meals you were supposed to. He knew you avoid seeking help when you feel this down. He knew it was really hard for you so he let you be and wait for you to take your time until you're ready to address your feelings.

Tonight you were asleep when he got home from Max´s. You didn't want to go either and Max was your best friend. Charles was really concerned about you. He hated seeing you like this when you don't deserve to feel this. He would burn the world alive just for you to be happy if needed. You were sleeping peacefully so he decided to take a shower and join you. He laid next to you on his side to look at your face so peacefully relaxed. So angelical. He always felt so lucky to have you around in his life. Even without noticing you were the light of his life. You made him so incredibly happy, heard, understood, supported, embraced. You were his angel. Always reaching for him to give him a hand with anything he needed. So patient and understanding. You were his favorite place and he wished he could make you feel the same. Because he loved you with every fiber on his body and the only wish he had was for you to be happy.

After about 20 minutes of sleeping or so he woke up to you sobbing uncontrollably next to him. You were asleep. He guessed you were either having a nightmare or sleep paralysis. He settled on the bed so he could try to wake you up. His heart was racing in anxiety full of worry. He tried to wake you up for a couple of long minutes until you finally did and he clothed you in his arms. He rocked you gently trying to comfort you in some way.

“I'm sorry baby you feel this way” he whispered with a knot on his throat. You were shaking still but your crying ceased little by little. He kissed your temple lovingly and carefully. You just stayed like that until you could calm down.

When you did you felt drained. Your heart aches as your face from your salty tears and tries to wipe them everytime. Charles cupped your cheeks making you look at him. You felt so guilty and embarrassed to make him go through this. He didn't deserve to be with a broken soul. He deserved better. Someone that could make him happy as he deserved. You looked at him, his eyes glassy with tears.

“Listen to me y/n, i know you may or may not believe me. But listen to me okay?” you swallowed hard, ready to hate yourself for being a burden to him. “I love you. I know you feel like you don't deserve me like you are not enough for me. But let me tell you all of that is not true. I swear I would kill all these people who made you believe all these awful things about you if I could. You don't deserve to feel this pain baby. You are beautiful. You are important to so many people. You make so happy you don't have an idea” his voice cracked making you start crying again and so did he. “You really do y/n, please, believe me. You are an amazing person despite everything that happened to you. You fought so hard to be who you are and I promise it's beautiful to see. And I'm so proud of you baby. Everyone is, I promise. You are really important to me and to everyone that knows you. You are light and I know you don't feel like it. That you feel like a burden but you aren't. And you'll never be for the right people, the ones that see you, the real you. and the real you is so interesting and pretty baby. Yes you are my love” he was crying and smiling. You were sobbing but didn't take your eyes away from him. He was burning your soul with his words. Telling you everything you needed to hear and he didn't even know that. Charlie was so perfect to you even in this shitty as fuck situations with your mental health. You felt so lucky right there in his arms under the sight of his beautiful eyes that looked at you with deep love.

“I love you charlie” you said below whisper and hugged him tightly hiding yourself under his frame. You wanted to hide there forever if possible. He intensified his grip and kissed your head trying to comfort you as much as he could.

“You deserve to be happy y/n, i really mean it. You're the best person i've ever come to know.” he said softly making butterflies fly like crazy on your stomach. The pain you felt was fading away now little by little. You felt so dumb for not talking sooner about your feelings but you forgave yourself. That's what your therapist told you. You need to be more gentle with yourself and give the same understanding perspective as you give to others. Treat yourself as you treat others. Always.

“You make me happy” you said with your face buried in his neck not wanting to get out of there anytime soon. He smiled relieved and pressed gentle kisses on your cheek.

He was the first person who listened to your soul. And you knew right there that with him by your side you could heal and finally be the person you deserve to be and be loved just because.

Charles was the love of your life. And he was yours. There´s nothing to be afraid of.

You will be more than okay.

[superblysubpar]

series masterlist | <- Prologue | Chapter 2 ->

chapter summary: As terror reigns in the food court when the Mind Flayer comes to collect, an old friend returns to Hawkins.

🎧 : tracks 02-12

7,615 words // my blog is 18+ // please see the masterlist for warnings - this chapter contains canon-typical gore, mentions of alcohol, blood, vomit, nausea, and parental death // spiderman divider made by @saradika-graphics

“Hey,” his voice cracks, the back of his hand wipes at his nose.

“Hey,” you echo, looking down at the duffel bag at your feet.

A trunk slams closed, knocked twice by your dad’s palm in case you didn’t hear it the first time.

When you look up, he’s smiling at Steve and that same palm is clapping him on the shoulder. “Hey, son, you coming with to the train station?”

Steve still hasn’t looked at you, and a mumbled, “No Sir,” and your mom’s unsubtle glare at your father and frantically waved hand from the porch makes him finally catch on.

“Oh, right…um…” he looks at his watch then you and Steve apologetically, “We gotta get going soon, kid, okay?”

“I know,” you nod along with the words and blink about a billion times to keep them at bay, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

Your dad squeezes Steve’s shoulder before he jogs up to the front steps and raises his hands in surrender to your mother, the pair ducking their heads and hissing whispered scolds and apologizes at each other that you try to ignore.

“Did you, um,” you clear your throat and kick the toe of your converse against the crack in your driveway, desperate to say anything impressive, lasting, monumental in terms of your feelings and the moment, but nothing seems right. “You…um…”

Steve doesn’t give you the chance anyways, stealing the air from your lungs when his arms wrap around you quickly, tightly, and like they have no intention of ever dropping. Yours move just as fast, wrapping around his waist and pressing you as close together as possible, your nose squished against his shoulder that dampens beneath your cheek.

He squeezes you harder, a shaky breath slips out of him as your fingers curl into his shirt, knowing what he’s about to do and you can’t stop it.

“Don’t,” he gasps, like speaking is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, he sniffles, and he lets you go, “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“Steve-“ your tears slip further down your cheeks, turning the cement at his sneakers a darker gray.

His fingers press to his eyes as he quickly jogs down your driveway, a small shake of his shoulders, and then he’s around the corner and gone from your sight.

Your hand presses to your mouth, but the sob still escapes.

It’s all a blur after that.

The getting in the car, arriving at the station, the getting on the train and resting your temple against the cold glass of a window as your mother’s thumb soothes over your knuckles.

The town of Hawkins, Indiana turning more blurry each second, like it’s a distant and underwater memory, until it disappeared altogether.

Your eyes snap open as your forehead smacks the glass window, hard, as the brakes beneath the bus scream in protest at the sudden stop.

Simple Minds blares then fades from your ears and as you push down your headphones to just catch the driver’s apology.

“…‘Bout that. Looks like we got some kind of road closure, let me go see what’s going on folks.”

By folks, he means you and two other passengers who are rolling their own necks and rubbing at bleary eyes.

Around your neck, Simple Mind fades, whispers of We Belong tickle your ears as you look out the window.

At first, you just blink at what you see. A weary and anxious version of you stares back, one with frizzled hair and sunken skin under her eyes and stained and wrinkled clothing. The night beyond her too dark to make out more than the top of a tree line and the edge of a road sign. But then you catch the faint trail of dark clouds against the darker sky.

Not clouds, but a plume of smoke.

“Hawkins!” The driver’s voice whips you and your reflection’s attention to the front of the vehicle, not realizing you’ve stood while staring, hand now gripping the seat back in front of you so tightly, your knuckles hurt.

A uniformed soldier stands next to the driver, solemn faced and waiting.

The bus driver waves his hand at him and says, “Maybe you should have missed the bus, kid.”

“I’m sorry…” your finger slams the stop button on your walkman as you step into the aisle of the bus, “What’s going on?”

The bus driver rolls his fingers at you and your things, motioning you to pick up the pace so it seems as he sighs. “You’re getting off here, since your destination is Hawkins.”

The military man starts towards you, his boots heavy and thunking the whole way down to your seat ominously as the other two passengers just stare and don’t offer any of their help or even a reassuring smile.

“What do you mean I’m getting off here? What am I - hey don’t, what do you think you’re…” your tone sharpens as the uniformed soldier picks up your bags. Feeling as if you have no choice but to start following behind him as he walks back the way he came with each of your bags slung over his shoulders. “Excuse me? Where are you going with my things? Hello? What’s going on?”

“Some sort of fire or something blocking the road,” the driver’s tone attempting to assure you but doing the opposite as he adds on, “The military will escort you the rest of the way into Hawkins.”

“The military will…” you start, confused, as you’re basically shoved down the steps of the bus and you turn back to face your driver with wide eyes as your feet hit the road, “Why is the military in Hawkins?”

The driver snorts and just yells, “Good luck!” then the door slams closed in your face.

Your hands run through your hair as you watch the bus continue without you, watch as it turns down the road it’s directed towards instead of going straight - a blockade made out of olive and tan vehicles and accompanied by flashing blue and red lights in it’s original path.

“Miss,” a deep voice to your left makes you jump, a hand flies over your heart to settle it.

“Sorry,” the uniformed man apologizes, but his hand gestures to an open military Jeep, your bags in the back already as his brisk voice urges you, “I’ll be driving you to where you need to go.”

Your feet carry you a step towards him, seeing now that he can’t be much older than you.

“What’s going on? Why is the military here? Why…”

“The National Guard is usually called in for these sorts of things miss,” he encourages you forward with a gentle tug of your elbow, voice less severe and more soothing.

“These sorts…what? What happened?” You blink at him as he helps you take a step up into the jeep while holding your door open.

“Relief aid after a disaster, miss.”

“Relief aid after a disaster?” You clarify, certain you’d misheard him.

“Yes.”

Your hand stops him from closing the door as you frown, narrowing your eyes.

“What sort of disaster?”

“A fire,” he sighs, eyeing your hand, and you think he might honest to god be considering slamming the door anyways.

“The National Guard was called in to help after a fire?”

“A big one. Can you please-“

“Where?” You accuse, pointing to the smoke, “That’s not Hawkins. Why can’t we drive into Hawkins on the bus?”

“The mall just outside of town. The new bus route to Hawkins goes by the mall. There’s a stop there. Can we go now?”

He glares at your hand until you move it to your lap, then slams your door closed, like that’s all he’ll be saying on the matter.

Turns out, it was all he’d be saying period.

The entire twenty minute drive into town is silent after your several follow up questions go unanswered. And when he lets you out at your unlit and locked house, he quickly climbs back into the driver’s seat and goes back the way he came.

Your fingers brush your temple before they drop in a half-hearted salute as you scowl and mutter under your breath, “Protect and serve, alright.”

You’ve been awake for nearly twenty-four hours now, save for your nap on the bus that left you more unrested than rested. And now, standing on your front porch, no keys and no lights on and no car in the driveway, you’re beyond stressed, tired, and in need of a gallon of coffee and a hug from your mom.

As you stare up at the stars and think of some sort of plan - it dawns on you what day it is and why your parents might not be home. Your legs and back ache and beg you to sit as you make your way down the driveway once more, leaving your bags right there on the porch - nobody is going to steal your shit.

This is Hawkins.

The worse thing that’s ever happened here is when Sarah Gillespie’s mom had that owl fly into her hair in 5th grade.

As your feet bring you around the corner of Cornwallis, you see the big house at the end of the street is just as dark as your own.

There isn’t a line of cars down the block or kids playing with sparklers or running around with flashlights for night games. There’s no adults all boozed up and laughing around a bonfire, waiting for fireworks. No grill smoke in the air or splashes from the pool in the backyard.

Just one woman, mumbling to herself in a matching skirt and blouse as she yanks a large trunk down from the brick step to the curved walkway.

“See how you like it when I’m not here to buy the groceries, or take your car in for its wash, or pour your whiskey and tell you dinner’s ready you lying, cheating, son of-oh!”

Vivian Harrington’s hand jumps to her chest as she turns to see you next to her car. A mess of your old best friend’s hair and eyes and a few of the same freckles as she blinks at you for a few seconds and then gasps your name and envelopes you in a surprising hug.

Not so surprising though, when you smell brandy on her red lips as she takes the smallest of steps back and asks, “What on earth are you doing here sweetie?”

“I…” It’s a shock to hear her voice after so long, shocked that she’s still Mrs. Harrington, though a slightly more tipsy one, but maybe that was just naivety shielding you from that before, “I was looking for my parents. You didn’t have your party for the fourth?”

“Gosh,” she says, grunting again as she bends to pick up her luggage, offering you a charming smile when you pick it up easily for her. She wipes her brow before resting her hands on her hips to watch you with the next two matching bags. “Honey, I think they might still be at the carnival? Larry threw a whole big thing this year. And we haven’t had one of those parties in…four years? Five? Whenever…John,” she grits out his name before continuing, with a smile you can hear her teeth grinding in, “Started going to the office in Chicago more.”

She slams the trunk down as if it’s an axe and the closure a head.

A shiver drips down your back as she glares at the house.

“Chicago?”

“So he tells me,” she waves a hand and sniffles, dramatically, scrunching her nose as her forehead furrows in a way that you’re sure she’ll be pulling and tugging at in a mirror and fretting over later. “Anyways, that’s where John is and I,” she huffs as her heels sink in to the gravel over their driveway before she tugs open the driver’s door, “I will be in Michigan. At my sister’s house on the lake for the rest of the Summer.”

She makes a little oof noise as she misjudges the seat distance from her butt, righting herself and patting at her hair.

“Mrs. Harrington, are you…” you trail off, unsure if it’s really your place to ask her if she should be driving. Especially when she eyes you cooly and her tone is icy.

“Am I, what, dear?”

Your mouth clamps closed as your clammy fingers flex at your sides before they close the door for her.

“Um, before you go,” you force your best smile and polite tone, “Would you happen to know where Steve is?”

Her fingers turn the key and the car rumbles to life loudly as she squints her emerald eyes at the windshield.

“Work? Could be still at work I suppose probably not at this hour…maybe a date? The carnival perhaps? I never know anymore with him, he’s very…moody, lately.”

“Moody?” You ask, your smile turning into a frown.

“God, yes,” she moans and leans out the open car window, forehead in her palm as she stage whispers to you, like she’s told this secret to everyone, “Just sits out by that pool but never swims in it anymore. Ever since that Wheeler girl broke up with him. It’s honestly been a terrible time trying to fix it all. I mean, I’m well respected, as you know, but there’s only so much I can say and do, you understand?”

“Su…sure,” you nod along like you know what she’s talking about and she reaches out and grabs your hand and gives it a squeeze.

“You’re welcome to wait here for him if you like, I’m sure he’ll not be too long and he can give you a ride to look for your parents? I would, but…”

When she trails off and smiles at you, you take a step away from her car, message clear.

“Thank you, Mrs. Harrington, drive-“ She’s already halfway down the driveway, fingers waggling out the open window as you finish, “Safely,” with a wince of your shoulders as she nearly takes out the mailbox.

Your shoulders fall as the taillights burn red, then disappear and the quiet night returns. A pricey perfume lingers in the air and floats on the warm Summer breeze. An owl hoots as you sit on the brick doorstep and lean your head against the post, wondering what in the world you’re going to say to him.

Originally, you thought you’d have so much more time to prepare. Thought on the bus ride from New York to Chicago you’d think of something. When you didn’t, you were sure from Chicago to home you would. And even then, you were supposed to be home - supposed to see your parents, sleep in your childhood room and wake up to pancakes with a smiley face made out of bacon and whipped cream before attempting to go find Steve.

And why hadn’t your parents told you about the carnival? They were expecting you, shouldn’t they have been home? Though your dad can’t pass up a corndog, so maybe they just lost track of time. It’ll be fine. Once Steve is home, you’ll…

“You’ll what?” Question muttered under your breath as your head falls into your palms, elbows resting on your bent knees. “Hey Steve, remember me? No? Cool, can I have a ride home?”

A frustrated laugh and groan slip past your lips as you knock your head against your knees and fight off the urge to scream. You know it’s not reasonable to think he wouldn’t remember you at all, his mother did and who knows how much she’d had to drink.

But you know it’ll be weird. Know you’re both very different people than the ones who saw each other last. Know you’ve had lives outside of one another for a very long time.

You’ve gone to school and graduated. Had jobs. Dated, and thensome, multiple people in the years it’s been. He probably made new friends. Has a social life you don’t fit in to anymore - that was already becoming clear the last time you were here.

The words ‘that Wheeler girl’ and ‘moody’ make your teeth scrape against your bottom lip, cheek to your knee as your back rests against the post and you keep your eyes on the end of the driveway, waiting.

The sound of loud, dragging footsteps makes your eyes pinch closed harder before they start to flutter open. Your mouth is dry and your back and neck may be permanently curved from the crouched position you had been sitting in for -

Every bone in your body protests in the snap of you standing upright, blinking at the dark blue sky just starting to turn lighter, pale pink brushed across the top of the trees. The sound of birds chirping barely breaking through the cotton in your ears until you hear a low, deep laugh that pulls your attention to the end of the driveway.

A boy who looks familiar and yet not at all is walking up his driveway. Longer than you’ve ever seen it brown locks all pushed back in a futile attempt as strands fall over his forehead when he smiles at -

“Oh fuck,” you whisper to yourself and blink your eyes closed then open as your tongue wets your lip and you wonder how the hell you’re going to explain just hanging out at his doorstep as he’s showing up with a girl after being gone all night long and -

Your stomach clenches at the sound of his voice, clearer as he gets halfway up the drive.

“That asshole better have my car in the driveway by tomorrow, is all I’m saying, okay?”

Steve’s got his arm slung around the girl’s shoulders, her’s around his waist as they walk slowly, like they need help themselves, but they’re supporting the others weight too. She stifles a yawn with a free hand before speaking.

“I just think you need to sort out your priorities and also…”

The girl’s voice is a little raspy, tinged with sarcasm and sleep as she trails off when she looks up and spots you.

Steve looks at her, the same furrowed lines his mom had hours ago forming on his forehead and the corners of his mouth curved down in a frown when his gaze leaves her eyes to follow their line to you.

He stands up straighter, his arm lingers against her but then falls limply at his side as he takes a step towards you. He scuffs his heels over the loose gravel of the walk and blinks at you.

Steve’s entire body is one big bruise from what you can see, the worst of it all being one of his eyes swollen and dark purple, his lip split fairly fresh from the way the red on his chin and cheek are so stark against his tan skin. His hands go to the top of his head, all of his knuckles broken, blue and purple or dried maroon and the gesture makes his shirt that’s covered in something that looks like a foul mixture of puke, blood, and something slimy lift, exposing the faintest line of skin and dark hair that disappears into his very short shorts.

It all makes your stomach burn and your chest feel so tight when he swallows and he just keeps staring at you. Part of you wants to find whoever did this and strangle them with your bare hands and the other part of you is…well you don’t know what it is except confusing, and all you can think to say is:

“What are you wearing?”

The girl’s laugh barks out of her in one short burst before her hands slap over her mouth. Until she’s letting them drop and saying, “Steve? Steve!” As he takes off in a run.

His shoulder slams into the gate of his backyard as you and the girl run after him, only skidding to a stop on his back patio as he falls directly into his pool, fully clothed.

Turquoise water illuminated by the underwater lights splashes up and out over the lips of the pool as his body sinks to the bottom. A dark blue Adidas hits the bottom and pushes him back up forcefully, his body shaking as he gasps loudly when his head breaks the surface of the water.

“Fuck! Shit! Oh my god this hurts!”

“Yeah no shit, Harrington! You’re covered in cuts and you just dived into chlorine!” The girl throws her hands up into the air.

Steve’s hands push him up and out of the pool so he can roll out of it ungracefully. He lays with his back against the cement, chest heaving while he keeps his eyes closed.

When he opens them again, he looks at you, then stands with difficulty it seems. Water drips off of his outfit, it curls his hair behind his ears, and pools in his cupid’s bow.

He swipes at his eyes, wincing, and blinks at you but talks to the other girl, “Rob-Robin,” he shivers through the words, teeth clicking together, “You see her too, right? I’m not…this isn’t like a weird dream, right?”

The girl, Robin, looks at you, then Steve, “Yeah, I see her. Who’s…her?”

“I’m-“ Your voice breaks when he gasps out your name in a barely choked back sob.

He falls forward, head landing heavily on your shoulder as his body curls into yours, while shaking fingers grip your shirt at your hips and he just sobs. Cool pool water and his warm breath compete to make you shiver as you run a hand over his spine.

Your eyes widen as they stare over his shoulder at the girl who’s watching him with as much worry as you feel. It’s a whisper against his temple, and it’s all you can think to say, “Hey, stranger.”

His sob rattles your chest as he holds you tighter, like he has no intention of letting you go.

Steve’s staring at you.

And, to be fair, you guess he doesn’t really have anywhere else to look and you’re staring at him too.

“Take a picture,” you soak another piece of cotton with alcohol as you whisper, “It’ll last longer.”

“Sorry,” he clears his throat as he looks down at the floor then immediately back up into your eyes. His one good eye bounces between yours before his tongue pokes at the cut that just won’t quit on his lip as his adam’s apple bobs and he says, “You shouldn’t have come back.”

The words make you flinch, just barely, but enough for the cotton next to his eyebrow to nudge against his skin just a little too hard.

“Shit,” he hisses, grabbing the hem of your shirt and tugging while his lips pout, and he whines, “That’s not what I meant. Don’t attack me.”

Your eyes roll as your fingers go back to tenderly swiping over him, being more gentle with him than you would an egg you don’t want to crack just yet. Each second you slowly patch him up a new discovery about the boy you don’t really know anymore reveals itself in forms of facial hair, freckles you’ve never seen, something that smells an awful lot like your mom’s hairspray, and eyes that haven’t changed one bit aside from almost swallowing his pupils whole because they’re so dilated.

“Glad to see you’re still a dramatic baby,” your voice is as soft as the touch of your fingers against his jaw. Your pulse quickens when he leans his weight into the hold more, his eyelashes fluttering while you turn his eyebrow into the light. “Maybe if you sat still and kept your mouth shut for more than two seconds I could finish this.”

“I like her,” Robin’s voice rises with the steam from behind the closed white shower curtain directly across from the counter Steve is leaning against. Her words breaking up the quiet ‘Never-Ending Story’ theme she had previously been humming.

Not for the first time tonight you wonder, a) if Steve didn’t have something to lean against, would he collapse, and b) how long Robin and Steve have been dating.

You still aren’t sure what is going on. Why they are so beat up. Why Robin didn’t want to shower alone or why the silence seemed to make Steve crazy until his shoulders relaxed when you suggested turning the stereo in his room on. The voices and music of Journey faintly coming from the other room as Robin threw clothes over the shower curtain and Steve spread his legs for you to stand between while he dripped pool water all over the white tiles. All mumbled apologies as knees and thighs bumped, as his hand squeezed at you whenever you started on a new injury.

Like now, as some sort of healing ointment rolls over his brow and his fingers dig into your hip. Your murmured sorry lost as he frowns at the air and sarcastically asks, “Oh do you? Nobody asked for a comment from the peanut gala Buckley.”

“Gallery,” Robin and you say together.

Steve’s frown turns more pout and you sigh when his lip starts bleeding again. He holds an arm over his stomach, fingers twitching at his ribs when you carefully place a bandage over his brow.

“I’m pretty sure it’s gala.”

Your thumb gently swipes over his lip with a towel, his gasp warm against your nose as you lean in to inspect it.

“Dingus,” Robin’s sigh more dramatic than his, “Please, I have to hear, why you’re so certain it’s gala. Peanut gala? Why would peanuts be going to a gala?”

“Oh,” he speaks around you trying to get his lip to stop bleeding, a useless attempt since he won’t stop moving, “And gallery makes so much more sense? At least mine gives Mr. Peanut a reason to wear his top hat and coat and eyeglass thingy.”

“Monocle,” you offer quietly, taking his hand from your elbow and assessing the damage to his knuckles. “And I don’t think peanut gallery is about Mr. Peanut at all.”

Steve’s hand pulls out of your hold, his fingers curl under your jaw and nudge it up, so you’ll look at him. He shakes his head no. “You shouldn’t have come back. Why’d you come back? Why are you here?”

Your pulse races, far too close to his fingers, and you wonder if he can feel it. Wonder if he can see it in your eyes how scared you are and how brave you’re trying to be.

“Why shouldn’t I be here?”

He seems to think you thought he meant here, at his home, and not Hawkins, because his jaw clenches as his thumb taps at your chin and you wonder if he even realizes he’s still holding your face.

“I didn’t say you shouldn’t be here. I asked why you’re here. Because,” he laughs, he shakes his head like he can’t really believe it, “I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it. And sure, I’m not the smartest guy around and I took some pretty hard hits tonight, but even I know that it’s weird for a girl, one who I haven’t spoken to in over three years, to have been here, sitting at my doorstep, waiting for me, and is now patching me up like…like…”

“Yeah?” Your voice cracks as tears threaten to spill over your lash line. Body too hot as steam from the shower clings to your skin and anger starts to boil over inside of you. “Well I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around why that boy who doesn’t understand why the girl, one who he used to call his best friend until he stopped calling her and never once came to visit her, started sobbing when he saw her and is covered in injuries he won’t explain!”

“I’m sorry,” Steve laughs, and stands up, toe to toe with you as he looks down his nose and huffs a breath out of it, hand letting go of your face to grab your shoulders and shake, “But when he stopped calling her? And yeah, I didn’t visit! Because you stopped visiting, because-“

“I only stopped calling because it was embarrassing!” You shout at him, shoving his chest and watching his face twist in pain when you do.

Steve gasps and you swipe the tears falling down your cheeks away as you both glare at each other. He rubs his hand over his chest and side with a grimace.

“Take off your shirt.”

He shakes his head no.

“Take off your shirt right now Harrington or I swear to god I’ll-“

“You’ll what!?” He pouts at you.

Your fingers tug at the hemline of his shirt, yanking at it as you grumble, “Still so fucking stubborn, I can’t stand you-“

He swats at your hands and grumbles right back, “I can’t stand you…”

His name is gasped out of you as you get his shirt up and over his ribs. He gives up, arms falling limply at his sides as you continue to pull at the shirt until it’s around his neck. He stares at you, both of you not saying a word but understanding as he slowly raises his arms with a wince and you pull the fabric carefully over his head.

It falls at your feet as tears fill your eyes, your fingers brush over purple and red splotched and angry skin. Steve flinches as your fingers glide over his collarbone, hands instinctively going to your hips again and squeezing. Goosebumps rise to the surface of his skin as your tears fall down your cheeks once more.

“Hey,” he whispers, he pulls you into his chest, one that you can’t believe is covered in dark hair. Arms that ripple with muscles you’ve never seen circle around your waist as he mumbles into your hairline, “I’m okay. I’m fine.”

Your nose presses to his neck, dragging against his skin as you shake your head no and pull away from him.

“You tell me who did this right now.”

Steve stares at you and then he runs his hands through his hair and closes his eyes.

A throat is cleared and you jump, hand over your eyes as Robin’s voice cracks behind the curtain, “Sorry, didn’t really know when to break that up, but I’m getting pretty cold in here…”

Neither of you had heard the water turn off, or noticed the mirror was growing far less foggy during your screaming match. Steve’s cheek blossom pink as he throws a towel over the curtain.

Your arms cross over your chest as Steve’s do the same while she pulls the shower curtain back.

Robin smiles shyly at you and then looks at Steve.

“You got cocoa?”

His brows furrow together and he looks at her like she’s crazy when he asks, “What?”

“Hot cocoa,” she clarifies, holding the towel to her chest and then walking into his bedroom.

She starts pulling open drawers until she finds what she’s looking for. When you both just stare at her, she whistles and turns her fingers for you to spin.

Steve rolls his eyes but does as she asks and you do the same. A towel drops and clothes slip over skin while the radio plays quietly.

“Conversations like this are always easier with cocoa, I think,” she says, much closer now and you turn to find her digging around in his drawers for a comb, a sweatshirt and shorts on.

Steve hands her one as he asks, “Conversations like this?”

Robin shrugs her shoulders, looking at you in the mirror as she detangles wet hair easily and mumbles, “Understand why you got your nickname now. Top tier products, dingus. I approve.”

He rolls his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, “Robin. Focus.”

“Right, well she,” Robin nods her head back towards you, “Wants to know about all of this,” she gestures to all of Steve’s face and bruised body with a hand. “Christ, you’re hairy. And after tonight, I think I deserve to be filled in on quite a bit, don’t you? So. Cocoa? Marshmallows?”

The way Robin raises her eyebrows at Steve and doesn’t leave much room for arguing has you rolling your shoulders back and asking him, “Your mom still keep that fancy cinnamon kind on the top shelf in the back of the pantry?”

Steve’s a terrible story-teller.

He paces while he talks, he gestures with his hands and leaves sentences hanging in the air as he waits for you to fill in gaps he doesn’t quite remember or know all the details of himself. He asks you to give him a second when he sips his own cocoa and closes his eyes trying to remember things, rubbing at his Hawkins Phy Ed sweatshirt while he thinks. Steve bounces around in a non-linear, confusing timeline order that has you and Robin asking question after question and him clenching his jaw and telling you that, “He’s getting there, alright?”

And none of it makes any sense. None of it.

Not Will Byers going missing but not missing. Not the spray paint on the theater and Nancy Wheeler sleeping but not sleeping with Jonathan Byers. Not the dinner with Barb’s parents and oh yeah his party with the pool and Nancy and Barb going missing afterwards. Not the supernatural dogs that are actually lizards. Not the gray fleshy human not human that he hit with a baseball bat full of nails while Jonathan and Nancy set it on fire in a bear trap and the Christmas lights talked to Joyce Byers. Not the world that’s somehow underneath you but not anymore because the gate, whatever the fuck that is, is closed. Not the girl with superpowers who doesn’t have superpowers anymore though, you guess.

Because that’s what Steve thinks, now, caught up to tonight and the few days leading up to it. He’s just finished telling you about the creature, the giant thing made out of people that destroyed the mall and caused the so called “fire” the National Guard was called in for.

Your name is barely heard through the ringing in your ears as you frantically search his entryway for keys.

His hand shakes your shoulder, hard, and you stop, blinking tears away as he asks you, “What are you doing?”

“Keys,” you gasp, fingers rubbing at your eyes, “I need your car keys. I need to go home, I-“

Steve shakes his head, “I don’t have my car. They had to keep it to sweep it for bugs and explosives and-“

Your head shakes as you rip your shoulder from his hold and yank his front door open. Heartbeat thudding in your ears in time with the soles of your sneakers against the pavement as you run down his driveway.

Sprinklers tick on lawns and mowers wave to you as you run down the street. The town of Hawkins oblivious to what’s been happening underneath them, around them, oblivious that their loved ones could be gone, could be in danger.

Your stomach heaves at the thought, anger with yourself fueling your sprinting legs to go even faster. How could you stay at Steve’s so long? Why’d you go there in the first place? What if-

Your feet only slow when you reach your house.

The driveway still sits empty.

Your bags still rest on the porch.

A sob rips out of you as you run around to the back of the house and search the ground. A large rock hits your fingers, and you don’t think twice about grabbing it and throwing it at your back door.

Your hand pushes through the shards of glass as you unlock the door and push it open.

Steve finds you on the ground, clutching your stomach and screaming, chemical bottles open and drained on the tiles around you, bags of your mother’s gardening soil ripped open on the table and his stomach heaves.

He pulls you into his chest and tries to get you stop, pressing his nose to your cheek and rocking you as he pleads, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, you have to stop. You have to stop screaming. Please be quiet, don’t-“

Your hands shove at his chest as you scramble over your bags and boxes that had been shipped a week prior, left in the entryway unopened.

“Get away from me,” you sob, rushing to the stairs as you yell, frantic, “Mom! Dad!”

Photos of you and them stare back at you each skipped step up the staircase as you turn on the lights with shaking fingers and beg the universe for this to be some sick and twisted nightmare. When you push open their bedroom door and find the bed unslept in Steve says your name softly, behind your shoulder.

Your hands shove at him when you turn to face him, smacking at his chest and hoping it hurts as you sob, “Why didn’t you check on them! Why didn’t you call me!”

Steve’s eyes fill with tears, “I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone! I shouldn’t have even told you! I could get in a lot of trouble, I could-“

“We have to call the police, we have to call-“

Steve shakes your shoulders, begging you to listen to him. “We can’t. Hopper knew. He’s dead. There’s nobody else to tell. The government already knows. It is the government.”

“Why’d you stop writing to me! Why didn’t you come with them to visit! Why didn’t you…you…” Your hands shove at him harder, tears and snot all over your face as your fight drains out of you. Anger turns to grief turns to hatred turns to hopelessness in seconds within you, not even knowing what to be the most upset about anymore.

“You stopped coming back,” Steve chokes out, grabbing your hands and pulling you towards him slowly. “Because every time I ran into your dad at the store and he asked me if I wanted to come over for dinner I knew I had to say no because I’d feel like a loser. Coming over here and pretending I was a part of your family still, knowing you didn’t want that anymore. Would have to pretend like the pictures of you and hearing about how much better your life was in New York wasn’t killing me because you didn’t need me or Hawkins anymore, okay?”

He falls to the ground with you in his arms as you sob, clutching his shirt in your fingers and pressing your screams to his chest so they’re muffled.

“I’m sorry,” he sniffles into your hairline as his arms squeeze around you tighter and he presses his cheek to the top of your head. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

The key to your dad’s Bronco swings loosely from your fingers as you hop up the step to the door and tap your knuckles against it.

When he doesn’t answer, you let yourself in and close the door softly behind you as you glance up the stairs.

Music plays loudly from the cracked door of his bedroom and when you hear his voice singing along, you lift the camera from around your neck and start fiddling with the settings, pulling the shutter back as you climb the staircase quietly.

As you peek through the ajar door, you find Steve in front of his mirror, twirling a can of Farrah Fawcett spray in the air while his other hand runs through damp, not wet, hair, before he catches the can in the air and sprays twice.

Then, he sings directly into the can and you snap a picture of it.

He spins at the sound of your laugh and frowns at the held aloft camera in his face.

“Please,” you smile timidly at him as your shoulder rests against the doorframe and the toe of your sneaker nudges the door open wider. “Don’t stop the performance on my account.”

Steve quickly presses the power button on his stereo and picks up a vest from his desk chair. His cream colored shoulders slip into the maroon vest and your lips twitch at the coincidence of the song and outfit he’s chosen today.

“They don’t knock in New York?” He asks, pulling on a pair of Nikes. Lacing them up and avoiding your gaze as he looks around the room, eyes landing on a sheet of paper and nodding his head, like he’s reminding himself of its location.

“Oh they do,” you shrug your shoulders, “ S’why I left.”

“Ha-ha,” he bites his cheek when he stands, hands finding a home on his hips, “So what’s up? Why are you here?”

Something in your chest tightens at the question, especially when he grabs the sheet of paper and looks at you with a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes and adds, “Don’t you have work?”

Your head shakes no, as you beg yourself to say something, anything, to let him know how sorry you are. To let him know even an ounce of how you’ve been feeling lately. But nothing seems right and it’s selfish to want to have this conversation right now, so you just say, “I start on Monday. Wanted to come say good luck on the interview today.”

He sighs, cheeks and tips of his ears pink as he walks past you out of his room and down the stairs. “Thanks.”

“Family Video, right?” Your tone forced into something light and pleasant as you follow him. “Sounds like a good gig.”

Steve snorts as he grabs his car keys from the table. “Yeah, okay.”

He holds his front door open for you as he walks out it and you follow with a confused, “You don’t think so?”

“No, I do,” he locks the door behind him, shoulders staying up at his ears even after the shrug of them is over, “I just don’t think you, the newest photo journalist and first female one at The Hawkins Post, actually thinks being a clerk at Family fucking Video is a good gig.”

“Well, I do, and that’s all I wanted to say so…” your sweating fingers fiddle with the key as you try to catch his gaze and smile at him, deciding that everything you actually wanted to say isn’t worth it, not when you’re not even sure he’ll want to listen to you. “Good luck, Harrington.”

Your back turns to him as your hand waves pathetically when you start down to his mailbox and Robin Buckley bikes up his driveway.

She smiles at you and hops off her bike, “Hey! How are you?”

“I’m good, good…” your tongue licks over your bottom lip as you squint from the sun at her friendly smile, shielding your eyes with your hand, “Good luck on the interview, today.”

“Thanks!” She turns to Steve behind you, “Ready, Dingus?”

He must nod or something because she waves at you and starts guiding her bike up the rest of the driveway.

When you hop into your dad’s car and turn the key in the ignition, the cassette you’d been playing starts blaring loudly. Your fingers curl around the steering wheel as you inhale then exhale, trying to find the courage to face another day without them and without the Steve you desperately needed, but weren’t even sure existed anymore.

Things weren’t the way they had been with you two, maybe they wouldn’t ever be that way again.

Your head smacks the roof of the car when Steve says your name at your open window, breathlessly.

He winces as your hand rubs at your temple and the other turns the stereo down.

“Sorry, but do you…” he swallows and crosses his arms, uncrosses them and shoves his hands in his front pockets and rocks back on his heels.

“Do I…?” You offer, heart thudding in your chest when Steve looks up from where his sneaker kicks at the gravel and smiles at you.

“Would you um, if I get this job, I’ll get free rentals, and I was just thinking that maybe we could, if you wanted to, have a movie night this Friday? Grab a pizza or something and…talk?”

“Yeah,” you clear your throat and sniffle, blinking your eyes about a billion times and telling yourself to just wait until he’s gone to start crying. “Yeah, I’d really like that.”

“Cool,” he smiles around the word. A real one. One that meets his eyes.

“Cool,” you echo with your own smile.

Steve taps the roof of the Bronco twice and it makes something in your chest tighten and melt at the same time. He hooks a thumb over his shoulder and starts walking backwards, “Well I should…”

“Right, yeah, good luck,” you tell him again, yelling it out the open window.

Steve smiles at you once more and then jogs up to his car, whistling along to the song playing out of your car. Robin stands at the door on the passenger side of his BMW, pretending not to watch but blatantly watching while Steve says something you can’t hear. His arms held out in a gesture that seems to say, ‘what?’ ,before he’s clapping and motioning for her to get in the car. Even from this distance you can see her eyes roll.

Your smile is barely hidden, bottom lip squished between your teeth.

Maybe things not being like they were between you two will be a good thing.

Change is inevitable, and time will keep ticking by whether you’re ready for it to or not.

[nightlyrequiem]

Hey there, I love your writing! (you may know because I'm always around hehe). You're smooth, set a good flow even with the one shots, I look forward every Saturday to read a new chapter🥺 It's definitely the best girls for the girls writing!!!

And, I have a request hehe, I just read 'Weeping Angel' and I had the thought about Valeria finding a girl that works in her cartel who is the opposite, instead of crying she gets on with Valeria atitude.

Something about Valeria been rude, that harsh and mocking tone she has that's chef kiss, she screaming with her crew? Barking orders with her brows narrowed? Reader LOVES IT, just staying around looking with doe eyes at the cartel mami being a sexy leader all day.

Hiii Infeeeerno!!! I see you in my notifs all the time. Always makes me smile 🫂

I'm glad you're enjoying my writing, as a self-proclaimed girl lover, I naturally like to write for them

I can't even lie watching scenes where Valeria is angry just does something unspeakable to me. Something about aggressive outspoken women is just so... I say I want her to yell at me like that but I'm probably more like Reader in Weeping Angel

That being said I wouldn't mind her making me cry anyway

Tags/Warnings: Valeria Murders a Man, Valeria is Mean to Reader, Reader is Into it

Yell For Me

Valeria is yelling again. Someone messed up a shipment and it was costly. She's all but throwing a fit over it. The two men responsible are forced to face the brunt of her fury. She's throwing things and cursing. It's the most beautiful thing you've seen. Raw passion and emotion clings to every insult and curse she hurls at them. Valeria waves her arms around as she rants, the muscles in her biceps flexing with each movement.

"-Fucking idiots! How do you mess up such a simple thing?"

You almost feel ashamed over how attractive you find her when she's angry.

The men try not to react when she prowls closer. The smell of violence is in the air. She doesn't even hesitate when she pulls out her gun and shoots one of them in between the eyes. So sure of herself and her decision making. Valeria is a woman that knows what she wants and isn't afraid to be vocal when she doesn't get it. Before the other man can process what happened she's grabbing him by the hair and dragging him back roughly. Throwing him to the floor. You hear the breath knocked from his lungs.

You watch, entranced, as she beats him. Balling up her fists and repeatedly pounding into his face and chest. It's quick and efficient. Though he's still left twitching. It seems Valeria is feeling merciful today. She leans down close to his ear and hisses out a warning.

"Fuck up again and you'll be drifting home in pieces."

You want her to hit you and threaten you like that. Please, lord, just once let it happen? She stands and steps over his body like it's trash on the sidewalk. Valeria stalks past you and you turn and follow her dutifully.

You two walk into the elevator and wait while you ascend. Valeria's gray tank top has a few specks of blood staining the front. Speckled just under her rosary. She's still tense which has her flexing her arms unknowingly. You want to run your fingers over them. At a closer look you see small, silvery ropes of scar tissue littered among her arms.

"What the hell are you looking at?" She snaps, breaking your focus. Your eyes snap up to hers. Meeting her glare head on.

"Nothing." You murmur. 

"Well cut it out, pendeja." She growls. "It's rude to stare. Ya deberías saberlo, imbécil."

"Sorry." Though you're not really sorry.

The elevator doors slide open and she's out. You follow close behind like an over eager puppy.

"You!" Valeria says harshly, pointing at a man going over inventory. He jumps and looks at her.

"What?"

"Go to the warehouse by fifth and make sure everything is accounted for." She demands. Brows lowered. Valeria has one of those voices that commands attention even when it's not barking orders at you. When she's not yelling, she's usually being sarcastic and sneering at whoever she's speaking to. Like they're stupid and inconveniencing her by talking to her. The man nods and scurries off. She rubs a hand over her face. Something she does when she's getting a headache - and you're delighted to be privy to that information. "We have paperwork to do." she says.

Valeria can feel your eyes boring into the side of her head. She tries to ignore you while she works. You're weird. Valeria thinks of you as strange. She's seen that look on your face whenever she's bitching someone out. Eyes wide and glazed over, lips parted like she's giving the most compelling speech to ever grace your ears. Even when she's yelling at you for doing something wrong you have that look. She suspects you're into that kind of thing. It's not like she purposefully puts on a show for you sometimes. Playing up her anger to worse than it is. Even if she was, so what? Valeria isn't the type of person to be looked at with awe, and while she does revel in the fear and hate, it feels nice to be looked at differently.

It's hard to find someone who is able to withstand her temper and sharp tongue. Not only are you able to withstand it, but you seem to like it.

"You're staring. Again." she drawls. Looking up at you with an unamused expression. Anyone else would look away under her withering glare, not you though.

"Sorry."

But you're not. She leans back in her chair and rests her forearm on her desk. Not subtly flexing it for you. "Did you do anything productive, or have you been staring this whole time?" She snaps at you. "You told me you could handle this work, but it feels like something as simple as paperwork is too hard for you."

"I can do paperwork." You reply. Your voice is quiet but not because you're hurt or scared.

"Then do it." she says dryly. You look down and return your attention back to your task. You're weird, but Valeria likes that you aren't scared of her. Valeria likes the way you look at her, like you're five seconds away from pouncing on her.

It's hard to focus on your work when Valeria is only a few feet away. The desire to look at her face, mature in a way that only age and stress can do, is strong. She's strong, and aggressive, and homicidal, and so, so hot. You need her to scream at you, then you'll die happy.

"When we're done, we're going to go bet something to eat." She says. It's a command, not a request.

"Like, you and me?" You ask hopefully.

Valeria sighs irately. "Do you see anyone else in the room I could be referring to?" She asks dryly. 

"Right." You smile.

Valeria shakes her head and mutters under her breath.

"So..." You pipe up after a few minutes, watching her scowl when you do anything besides work. "Are we going to dinner in a date way?"

"Did you inhale paint fumes as an infant?" Valeria retorts. "Yes, it's a date. If you keep asking me dumb questions it won't be anymore."

"Sorry." You reply, still smiling dumbly. Forever unperturbed by her words.

[whimsyvixen]

I think Your dream hunk looks like he's about to fuck you within an inch of your life after seeing you try to get away from him

Oh, he will.

He tried being patient but even he has a limit. Time to punish you for being an ungrateful brat and make sure you never try that stunt again.

[pierswife]

I crave to create, but alas I am yet another victim to this mortal coil <- literally did statistical analysis for 4 hours with only one break to eat dinner

[304files]

i don’t usually write anything outside of the tags, but i HAVE to say this… like it’s too important to me not to lmao

this is genuinely one of the best written fics i’ve ever read. like LITERALLYYYYY a masterpiece, it’s so good. down from the way the sentences are set up to combine into the story and the way the plot unravels itself… spectacular give me 14 of them. it’s so so so good and i’m holding everyone at g*npoint to read this right now!!!! yes the 40k word count was a bit intimidating, but it’s SO WORTH IT!!!

the way you slowly crafted this story between the two of them and their ups and downs is so good it makes me want to kiss the ground you walk on and then steal your brain because i NEED to get on the same level you are. your writing is masterful.

cold hands - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact

pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader

synopsis. plot plot plot what is a plot when you can just have vibes and a vague narrative direction... if you MUST know you go to your brother's hockey team back-to-uni party accidentally matching one of the members with your cowgirl barbie costume. hopelessly romantic sunghoon sees this as a sign that the two of you are meant to be together, but you're impossible to read and soon the two of you settle on an ambiguous secret friends with benefits relationship. unfortunately, conflict ensues.

genre. strangers to friends to fwb to lovers..?? its not an asahicore fic if it doesnt have fluff angst AND smut, brothers best friend, jock x nerd type vibe, slight miscommunication put your pitchforks away and hear me out pls it works out i promise, reader has ISSUES 💜 loser loverboy sunghoon, its mostly in his pov, i know nothing about ice hockey

word count. 39.5k 😂

a/n. inspired by @moonlighthoon's request for the 1k trope event! sorry it took ages to write but i hope you like it and that i met ur expectations!!!! hope everyone else enjoys it too, this is the longest fic ive ever written and im quite proud of it, pls pls pls let me know what u thought <333 shoutout to @zreamy .. good luck with your studies, thank u for beta reading and making this fic exponentially better as u always do ⭐️ credit to @/plutism for the dividers :)

Some men never think of it. You did. You’d come along And say you’d nearly brought me flowers But something had gone wrong.

The shop was closed. Or you had doubts - The sort that minds like ours Dream up incessantly. You thought I might not want your flowers.

It made me smile and hug you then. Now I can only smile. But, look, the flowers you nearly brought Have lasted all this while. - Wendy Cope, Flowers

When Sunghoon falls in love, it usually goes as quickly as it came.

Just to name a few:

There had been Ahn Yujin, whose family had moved next to his when he was twelve, and whose dog got on perfectly with his. His crush on the cute girl next door grew with every walk the four of them took but disappeared the second she ditched him to walk home from school with Na Jaemin. 

A few years later, there had been Bae Sumin, who sat in front of him and always had her hair up in a ponytail he found exceedingly pretty. An appointment at the hairdresser was enough for him to stop liking her, as if his interest in her had been laying in the ten centimeters of hair she had cut off. 

In his junior year of high school, there had been Kim Yerim, a college student that tutored him in Math and English. She was three years older, but that didn’t deter him—what did was the fact that she was dating a college graduate. She showed him a picture once, and the guy had biceps probably twice the size of Sunghoon’s. He thought it was safer to give up on her than to fight such a bulky guy five years his senior. 

The first time it stuck was during his first year of college. She was his coach’s daughter and he liked the way she would smile at him when she came to watch their practice. Sunghoon didn’t like to think about her, mainly because even after she broke his heart, for a while there, he continued to love her. 

So, when he first spots you from across the room at the Welcome Back costume party thrown by his hockey team, unintentionally the Cowboy Barbie to his Cowboy Ken, he tries not to read too much into it. Barbie was a hit this summer, it’s an easy and topical costume, of course there’s a pretty girl wearing the same bright pink cowboy hat he is. It doesn’t mean she’s the love of his life.

Right?

He knows you from the pictures that littered the walls of Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon’s apartment last year, from Instagram posts, both yours and your friends’, from your video calls with Jake, who dragged him into the camera’s view. Say hi to my sister, he’d insist, like Sunghoon was a child who didn’t want to greet his great-great-aunt. He’d dip in to say hi as requested, ask how you were, and mumble me too like a fool when you said you heard so much about him and were excited to meet him in real life. 

These are the things Sunghoon knows about you: Jake’s older sister by a year, currently on a year abroad in Rome, studies something fancy like Classics, which he hadn’t known people still did in the twenty-first century, deep attachment to Stardew Valley in first year, rarely seen with the same man twice, very pretty. Absurdly so. He’s also weirdly obsessed over the texts you’ve sent to the group chat he was added to at the beginning of last year—scarce, short, elusive. Never more than two sentences, and always long after the conversation was over. But sometimes you’d send photos and videos out of nowhere, of your adventures or of funny things you saw online, and he always hearted them. He even replied to it sometimes (brave hahas or that’s so cool!s), in hopes that it would make you like him, would make you think, he gets me. 

The two of you have never formally yet because you left for Italy the year he started university. He’s been nervous about meeting you since the first time the group told him about you. 

Now that he is about to, he can hear his heart thumping so loudly in his ears, it drowns out the bass of the music. He’s glad he gets to see you before having to talk to you—he’s not sure he could take in your presence and form coherent words at the same time. He watches you laugh with your friends, the smile lines that form like dimples around your mouth, the strands of hair you keep tucking behind your ear. Then someone joins your group—except it’s not just someone, it’s Minjeong, her denim jacket so often worn he recognises her from the back, and he realizes the people you’re with have been Chaewon and Yunjin this whole time. The three of them have been banging on about you all year, even more so due to the fact that their replacement flatmate was dreadful, a Spanish girl who only hung out with other Spanish exchange students and looked the girls up and down when they tried to invite her out somewhere.

You turn towards Minjeong, and before he knows it, he’s in your line of sight, and your eyes meet. Confusion, then a flash of recognition goes through your eyes. He had been resting his elbow on a countertop, cider bottle in hand and watching you, he realizes, not unlike a creep, but now he stands up straight and looks around him as if you hadn’t just caught him staring. Before he can find a way out, Jake appears by his side and throws an arm around his shoulders, guiding him into the throng of party-goers and, coincidentally, closer to you.

“Dude, you’ll never guess what.”

“What?” Sunghoon says, tone coming out more irritated than he means it to. He’s just had to give up on making a good first impression on you, and he doesn’t even have the time to think of a way to redeem himself. When he dares to look back at you, your eyes are already on him, a small smile on your lips. You probably hate him already.

“My sister is dressed just like you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you guys came together or something. Hey, guys!” Jake calls out, and all of a sudden, it’s not just your eyes on him, it’s everyone’s. Well, to be fair, they’re also looking at Jake. But you’re only looking at Sunghoon, and he can’t look away from you either, can’t even manage the politeness to hug everyone in greeting like Jake is doing now. He watches as your eyes rake over his figure, taking him in, assessing him, and he suddenly feels awkward in his costume that matches yours, like he’s somehow overstepped a boundary, like you might think he’s asked around about your costume, found out you were going as Barbie and decided to match you so you’d think the two of you were meant together, like he had two minutes ago, and come to the fairly reasonable decision that he was the weirdest man on Earth. But then you meet his eyes, smile a kind, genuine smile, and his whole body relaxes. 

“Hey, Hoon!” Chaewon calls, arms open wide. He remembers himself and hugs everyone, even you, and he has to pretend like this is completely fine and normal, like his hands aren’t practically shaking as his arms circle your shoulders in a two-second embrace. 

You squeeze one of his shoulders, and keeping his countenance is a Herculean task. He feels like those people centuries ago who passed out at the sight of a lady’s ankle. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” you say, peering at him over the rim of your red cup. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Sunghoon feels the blush growing on his face; he wasn’t expecting so much of your attention so quickly. He takes a swig of his lukewarm cider, hoping if he seems drunk, it might explain his redness. “Good things, I hope,” he says, aware of the unoriginality but unable to come up with anything better.

“Oh, don’t worry, they’ve made you out to be a saint.” You’ve not once broken eye contact or stopped smiling—it should intimidate him, but instead, it makes Sunghoon feel like you’ve known each other for ages and that this isn’t your first conversation at all. He finds himself able to relax into a smile, and manages to meet your eyes for more than three seconds at a time.

“You don’t believe them?”

You pause, gaze zeroing in on him even more intensely than previously, smile turning smirk-like. Sunghoon’s heart skips a beat. Okay, maybe he’s not that relaxed. “I don’t know you well enough to make up my mind yet. But we’ll be seeing plenty of each other from now on, won’t we?”

This is exactly what Sunghoon has been warned about. You at parties, the way you look at guys, the way you talk to them. Sunghoon has been the audience of more than one recreation of such a scene, Yunjin pretending to be you, Chaewon pretending to be your “victim,” as the others liked to call them. Because once you had set your eyes on a man, he had little chance of making it out. Jay prides himself as being the only survivor, although he has to admit it’s only because Jake interrupted your conversation, telling him, “I see you’ve met my sister.” And Jay was not the kind of person that got off with their friends’ siblings, especially since his and Jake’s friendship was only a week long at that point, and he didn’t want to ruin the atmosphere in their dorm for the rest of the year just because his dick had gotten the best of him. His words. Whenever they were all hanging out together and they called you, one of the girls would inevitably ask if you had “turned any Italian boys into men” or if you had been “terrorizing the good men of Rome recently.” You would either roll your eyes or say this was not a conversation to be had in front of your brother.

Sunghoon had been sure they were exaggerating—it takes two to tango, as they say, and it wasn’t like you ensnared innocent men into your trap. They had to be willing, to want something from you just as much as you wanted something from them. He’d also gotten them to admit it wasn’t that frequent, that you weren’t looking for a new prey every party, just once in a while when you found someone you liked. (He’d been very quiet when Jay asked why he was trying so hard to defend you.)

But now that he is on the receiving end of your alluring smiles, he starts to understand how one could fall for you without meaning to. He knows he can’t — Jake probably wouldn’t take to it kindly, and he didn’t want to spoil the dynamic of his best group of friends at uni — but he has a feeling that ten minutes of talking to you would be enough to shake his resolve.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure we will. Jake said you studied a lot, but I’m sure we’ll get to hang out. All of us, I mean,” he quickly adds, lest you think he’s already asking you to hang out one-on-one. Sunghoon would not be that forward.

“Of course. I have to see if you did a good enough job replacing me for a year.” Sunghoon’s eyes widen, and before he can blurt out something weirdly laudatory like “I could never replace you, I would never even try, I don’t know you but you’re clearly far superior to me in every aspect and I could never even claim to fill your spot,” you giggle and tell him it’s just a joke. “If anything, I’m happy Jake has managed to make a new friend that he didn’t meet through me, that loser,” you say, and together, you laugh at Jake’s loserness, a topic that will never fail to amuse Sunghoon, although he’s not faring much better in that department. 

“Like, look at him right now,” you say, jerking your head in Jake’s general direction, somewhere behind Sunghoon’s shoulder—and that’s when he realizes that it’s just the two of you standing there, the others gone without him even noticing. Sunghoon turns around, finding the girls, Jay, and a bunch of other people he vaguely recognizes huddled around Jake. They all start chanting his name as he gulps down a giant red cup of beer, then raises the empty cup over his head in victory and crumples it, beaming at the people around him. 

“What is he doing?” Sunghoon asks, laughing at his friend.

“Jay called him over for a beer-off,” you explain. After a beat, you ask, “You didn’t notice?”

The implications are clear in your tone and in your eyes. In the smile playing on your lips, just shy of being a smirk. You didn’t notice because of me, is what you’re really telling Sunghoon—at least, that’s the impression he’s getting. And you’d be right. He was too busy talking to you and trying his best not to make a fool of himself to notice his friends leaving, too engrossed with you to register the sudden disappearance of four people. Across the room, where people have shifted their attention to yet another hockey player downing a sizable amount of beer, he catches Chaewon’s eyes, and she winks at him. Of course—leave it to Chaewon, to whom Sunghoon once made the mistake of drunkenly rambling about how pretty you looked in your Instagram posts last year, to give you and Sunghoon some time alone, “to get to know each other properly,” she would probably say. Although he isn’t sure that small talk over 2000s music counts as getting to know someone. According to the others, she and Yunjin started dating a month into their second year, so Chaewon has proclaimed herself as the goddess of dating and is now always trying to set people up. Sunghoon thinks she’s just living vicariously through her friends now that she has a Mrs. at home.

Because the filter usually at work between the part of Sunghoon’s brain where sentences are formed and his mouth is apparently on leave today, he says, “I do have a pretty distracting sight in front of me.” He’s immediately both mortified and impressed by this sudden bout of confidence, but then you look down and giggle, actually giggle, the sweetest sound he’s ever heard, and only pride remains. 

“So, Ken?” you ask, a cute attempt to change the subject, taking the fabric of the pink bandana around his neck between your fingers. Sunghoon wonders if you’re going to yank him down to your level, and he thinks he wouldn’t have much of a problem with that. 

He realizes that even though you should technically know each other’s names, you haven’t actually exchanged them, so in a confused but correcting tone, he says, “Um, Sunghoon.” He only belatedly realizes that you hadn’t gotten his name wrong, you were just making a comment on his costume, which he had completely forgotten he was wearing in the first place. Just as he’s about to backtrack and salvage what he can of the situation, you burst into laughter, hand leaving his bandana to cover your mouth as he hides his face behind his own hands, laughing along with you despite himself. 

“I know your name is Sunghoon!” you exclaim. The gratification of hearing you say his name takes away some of his embarrassment. “I’m Y/N, by the way. Not Barbie.”

Sunghoon nods. “Good to know.”

The laughter gradually dies down, but your smile stays the same; wide, bright, a smile that exposes your teeth and turns your eyes into crescents. Sunghoon can’t look away. He’s awash with nerves, your gaze simultaneously planting his feet to the ground like they’re full of lead and making him light-headed. His heart is beating so fast, he can barely feel it anymore. 

The two of you stand there, looking and smiling at each other, like in a cliché movie scene where everyone else at the party seems to fade into the background. He has no idea how much time has passed when you break the silence. “It really is nice to finally meet you,” you say, repeating your statement from earlier, as though you mean it more now. 

“It is,” Sunghoon simply replies, because he doesn’t know how else to express the relief of seeing you in the flesh after hearing about you and looking at a digital version of you for a year. The relief, but also the anticipation of what is to come now that he knows he likes you even more now that he’s actually seen you. And improbable as it sounds, you might even feel the same.

Sunghoon can already feel it. The beginning of something.

You nod towards his now empty cup. “Want a refill?”

Together, you make your way through the crowd of increasingly drunk students until you reach the kitchen, where the countertops overflow with open bottles of liquor of all sorts and paper plates with half-eaten pizza slices on them. He watches your every move as you find a cold bottle of beer in the fridge, a bottle of strawberry syrup in a random cupboard that you had to know was there, and a half-empty discarded bottle of lemonade on the counter. You ask him to tell you about last year, everything you missed out on, and so he does. He knows you’ve probably heard it all from the others before, but you still laugh and gasp like it’s the first time you’re hearing about any of it, all the hockey games they won, Jay getting food poisoning from the sketchy pizzeria he kept eating at, Yunjin almost getting into a fistfight with a man twice her size who was flirting with Chaewon. 

You assemble two drinks and hand him one of them. When he takes a sip, his eyes widen at the refreshing and sweet taste. “Good, right?” you say. “I discovered it on a trip to France last summer.”

“Thank God for France. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever enjoyed drinking beer,” he says.

“That’s probably because you can’t taste the beer at all.”

Sunghoon smiles. “Probably, yeah.”

You turn around, lower back against the counter, and take in the current kitchen population. “We really weren’t very original with our costumes tonight.” Sunghoon, who had not taken his eyes off of you this entire time, follows your gaze. He counts five partygoers dressed in some version of Barbie or Ken, and that’s just the kitchen. He doesn’t blame them—the fact that so many people came dressed in costumes at all impresses him, especially for a party on the 10th of September and not the 31st of October. The social committee of the hockey team just seems to really love themed and dress-up parties.

He chuckles, then takes a sip of his drink. It’s really nice. “Yeah, but we look the best.”

Your head whips towards him, eyes glinting with something that makes Sunghoon smile, even though he doesn’t know what you’re thinking. “Should we enter the couple’s costume contest?” you ask.

At the mention of couple, his eyes widen, his brain tricking him into thinking you’ve asked him out for a second. But when what you actually meant dawns on him, the first thing to come out of his mouth is, “There’s a couple’s costume contest?!”

“Mh-hm. The sign-up sheet should be around here.” 

For what feels like the millionth time since he’s started talking to you, his face heats up. “Are non-couples allowed to enter?”

“We’re Barbie and Ken. I’d say that’s enough of a couple, don’t you think?” 

Right. Because he had been thinking of Sunghoon and Y/N, while you obviously meant Barbie and Ken. In the contest, it doesn’t actually matter whether the contestants are dating in real life—it matters that their costumes match. Sunghoon knows that. He just needed a second.

He grins, deep dimples punctuating his cheeks. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Armed with your drinks, you walk around the kitchen in search of the sign-up sheet. You find it on a wall next to the dining table, which has been turned into a beer pong table for tonight’s festivities, and the sheet is almost filled with names already. Sunghoon can only hope that by midnight, when the contest is set to take place, most participants will have had too much to drink to remember it. You write your names on the list, and Sunghoon likes seeing his name in your handwriting so much he almost wants to take a picture.

“There you guys are!”

You both turn around to find Jake stumbling towards you, clearly more intoxicated than when he had left you half-an-hour ago. He rests his arms on your shoulders, forcing Sunghoon down to his height and making you stumble forwards from the sudden added weight. “I’ve been looking all over for you- You’re entering the contest?!”

For a split second, Sunghoon is scared he’s going to get scolded by Jake for trying to hit on his sister, but surprisingly, it’s you he narrows his eyes at. “Y/N, what are you roping my little Hoonie into?”

Sunghoon groans, face perpetually red at this point. Leave it to Jake to make him seem like a total loser. 

You frown at your brother. “I’m not roping your little Hoonie into anything.” Sunghoon wants to bury himself alive. “We agreed on doing it together. Right?” you ask, turning towards Sunghoon and batting your eyelashes at him. It makes him feel a bit better.

He turns back to Jake. “Right. We’re just joining forces to crush the competition.”

Jake scoffs. “As if.” He snatches the pen from your hands and underlines his name as well as Kazuha’s, the girl he came with tonight, three thick black lines that almost erases the names underneath them. “You can’t beat the hockey player and cheerleader combo.”

“Those aren’t even costumes, you guys are a hockey player and a cheerleader,” you protest.

“So?” Jake simply retorts, more attitude in his tone than he would have were he sober.

“So, that defeats the whole purpose of a costume contest.”

Jake knocks on your cowboy hat, and you immediately put it back in place, glaring at him. “As if Barbie was the greatest costume ever. Whatever, let’s just play beer pong so I can defeat you guys twice in one night.”

“You’re on, Sim.”

“You’re going down, Sim.”

Sunghoon had just been watching your back-and-forth amusedly when you grab his hand, leading him to the side of the table opposite Jake. His fingers tingle under your touch, but just like that, it’s gone. He’d rather keep on holding your hand than play this stupid game, but he isn’t opposed to taking Jake’s ego down a notch, either. The boy can barely stand straight, anyway, so it probably won’t be a very tough match.

Some guy he doesn’t recognize in a striped black-and-white referee t-shirt fills most cups with beer and a couple on each side with shots of vodka—he’s so earnest, Sunghoon isn’t sure whether he’s just taking his costume-slash-role very seriously or if he has genuinely been hired to look over the beer pong matches of the night. Some order in the brutish world of college parties, Sunghoon guesses.

Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jay appear then, exchanging a quick look at the sight of you and Sunghoon together. The two former join your team, while the two latter join Jake’s, as well as other people that Sunghoon vaguely recognizes from other parties. But by the simple action of getting behind him, they become his most trusted allies for at least this part of the night.

You’re a terrible shot, but Sunghoon makes up for it by scoring almost every round. In his defense, he only misses when you come up close to him and whisper in his ear which cup he should go for. Your breath tickles his (oddly sensitive) ears and the combined scents of the strawberry and lemonade on your tongue and your delicate perfume make his head spin. He can barely think straight, so his aim is naturally thrown off—other than that, he makes Jay drink a healthy amount of beer. He almost feels bad for his friend, but he’d arrived late at the party and needed to quickly catch up with everyone’s level of ebriety anyway.

When the opposite team is down to their last cup, a lightning bolt of luck strikes you, and your ball disappears straight into the vodka-filled cup that Jake now has the honor of downing. 

Sunghoon gives you no time to celebrate, to gloatingly pump your fists in the air and point a mocking finger at your brother, because as soon as you make the shot, he wraps his arms around your waist and lifts you off the ground. When you’re on your feet again, you spin around to find a proud-looking Sunghoon beaming down at you. You burst into giggles and high-five him, your palms perfectly clapping against each other, and he threads your fingers together. A current of electricity rushes through him, and for a second, he swears it’s just the two of you in this packed room.

The moment is cut short by the loud cheers of the others on your team as they shake your shoulders and raise their hands for you to high-five them too. Minjeong flips the other team off and Yunjin has to go hug Chaewon and reassure her it’s nothing personal. It’s really quite easy to make college students happy—or devastated. 

You raise your eyebrows at Jake, who’s busy glaring at you instead of accepting his defeat and taking his shot. With a begrudging sigh, he tips his head back and drinks the vodka in one gulp, the cheers doubling in volume when his face scrunches at the bitter taste of the liquor.

“Don’t act so proud,” he scolds you. “Sunghoon carried your team.”

“Maybe, but she made us win in the end,” Sunghoon retorts, putting an arm around your shoulder. 

Jake scoffs, frowning at Sunghoon’s hand placement before eye-rolling his gaze away. “Whatever.” He slides his phone out of his back pocket and smiles as he shows the two of you his screen. “Would you look at the time? The contest is starting soon.” Then, with an accusatory finger pointed at you, adds, “You may have won this battle, but I’m winning the war.”

He stomps away, presumably to find Kazuha before the contest starts, and it’s your turn to eye-roll at his dramatics. You grab Sunghoon’s hand that hangs off of your shoulders, and together, make your way through the crowd again to the garage, where the contest is taking place. All the alcohol he’s been drinking has definitely started kicking in by now, and he finds himself giggling at nothing with you.

When you reach the threshold, still hand in hand, Sunghoon stops so abruptly behind you that you almost stumble. You look back at him, then follow his gaze towards the garage and the sheer amount of people in there. Worriedly, his eyes take in every single one of the contenders. You let go of his hand and stand in front of him, placing your hands on his shoulders and putting on a determined expression. You’d almost look like a parent reassuring their kid before their first day of kindergarten if you weren’t so much shorter than him. “Don’t even worry about them, Sunghoon. We look better than anyone here.”

His eyebrows crease. “There’s like, three other Barbie-Ken couples here. Some of these costumes are so original. And do you see their makeup? Is that even possible?” he asks, staring at a couple in scarily realistic cosplay of Simon and Jeanette from Alvin and the Chipmunks, fur and all. He can’t look at them for too long without getting chills.

You shake your head. “Almost everyone here is either a hockey player or a… hockey-affiliated person. You’re the beloved and talented defenseman of the team and I’m the star player’s sister. They’ll love us,” you say with a smile, watching the worry dissipate from his features.

“We’re like nepo babies,” he whispers. His lips break into a grin when your eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I don’t know how nepotism works,” he admits, smiling wider when you burst into laughter. “How do you know if I’m talented, anyway? You haven’t seen me play yet.”

Your eyes rake him up and down appreciatively. “I took a wild guess.”

Not unlike a cartoon character, Sunghoon audibly gulps. As a hockey player since his most tender age, and dare he say, a pretty good-looking guy, he is used to girls flirting with him, and he is even hit sometimes by the occasional lightning strike of confidence that allows him to flirt back (he still can’t believe he managed to call you “a distracting sight” without spontaneously combusting). But there’s something in your eyes, in your smile, in the way you talk—something about you that has his breath hitching and his heart racing. He doesn’t know if he wants to run away and hide in a corner or kiss you right then and there.

Heeseung, the captain of the hockey team, announces into a microphone (which Sunghoon wonders where they got the money for) that the contest will start now, so he can neither kiss you nor run away. Instead, he follows you to the side of the room where all the contestants, including Jake and Kazuha, wait for their names to be called out. There are so many participants, it takes way longer than Sunghoon would like for the two of you to step onto the makeshift stage. Judging by the looks on the audience’s faces, everyone is surprised to see you and Sunghoon together—the hockey community at your university may be big, but everyone knows everyone, and gossip travels fast. No one had seen you and Sunghoon together before, for the obvious reason that you hadn’t even met before tonight. But you could be sure that by tomorrow, as silly as it sounds, word will have gone around that you and Sunghoon had participated in a couple costume contest together. 

At least, you give them something of substance to talk about—as you and Sunghoon pose on stage, wearing your brightest smiles to please the crowd, you stand on your toes and press a kiss to Sunghoon’s cheek. Sunghoon’s eyes burn a hole in the side of your face but you just watch as the audience of drunken 20-somethings goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. Jake is the only one booing. 

Sunghoon is still in shock when the next couple is called forward and you have to step off. His cheeks are redder than before and he can’t quite meet your eyes. Apparently, he also goes wild over something as simple as a peck on the cheek. You nudge his shoulder. “See, I told you they’d like us.” 

He feels like a fourteen-year-old for it, but Sunghoon can’t stop thinking about your soft lips against his cheek, so much so that he barely says a word as the three judges deliberate. If you notice the sudden change in his behavior, you don’t comment on it, perhaps chalking it up to nerves. He’s glad for it—he doesn’t know if he could handle being teased about it, especially from you. Although he’s not sure he wants you to think he’s the kind to stress over a last-minute Halloween costume contest. 

In the end, you don’t win. He suspects it was a rigged contest all along: the couple in the unimpressive Edward and Bella costume are friends with one of the judges, probably leading to their anticlimactic victory. At least it isn’t Simon and Jeannette who win, or Kazuha and Jake, even less original than the winners. Anyway, Sunghoon couldn’t care any less. With your hand in his as you walk back to the main room in search of your other friends, he feels like the biggest victor of the night. He doesn’t even mind it when his teammates tease him about his costume and how good the two of you look together—the smile you shoot him makes putting up with it worth it. He tries to think straight, but between the alcohol and your proximity, he feels like you’ve cast a spell on him.

Jake stumbles into your group, three drinks drunker than when Sunghoon last saw him, enthusiastically reporting that a game of spin the bottle is about to start in one of the rooms upstairs, because what every college party needs is a middle-school game to shake things up. None of the guys seem particularly interested until Jake reveals that the cheerleaders are playing. 

Sunghoon looks down at you, laughing when he sees your mildly disgusted moue. “Don’t feel like playing?”

“Not really, no.” Your eyes linger on his face. “There’s only one person here I want to kiss, anyway.”

All capacity for thought leaves Sunghoon’s brain. He just stares back at you blankly, lips slightly agape, willing himself to say something but also terrified that whatever leaves his mouth might make him seem like the biggest loser ever. 

You couldn’t possibly mean him—but did you? Was he the person you wanted to kiss?

As these questions resound through his head, your gaze drops to his lips. There’s his answer. 

His heart beating wildly in its cage, Sunghoon decides to do one smart thing tonight and leans in, slowly but surely closing the gap between the two of you. Then a sudden vibration in the back pocket of his jeans zaps through him like lightning and he jumps back, as if startled out of the trance you had put him in. Shame flooding his cheeks, he checks his phone; it’s the stupid alarm he set himself earlier to make sure he doesn’t get home too late. Midnight, Cinderella-style. 

You scratch the back of your neck as your eyes dart around the room. For the first time tonight, you look embarrassed—Sunghoon is in disbelief at how pretty you look even then. “I, um,” he starts, clears his throat. “I have this thing tomorrow morning, so I can’t stay too long…” he says guiltily.

He doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but he swears that what he sees on your face is disappointment. It makes him want to take it all back, to stay here with you for as long as you want and forget about tomorrow morning. 

“Oh, right,” you say, nodding. “That’s fine. What thing?”

“Oh.” Sunghoon turns an impossibly deeper shade of red, further resembling the strawberry syrup the more he gets himself in these embarrassing situations with you. “Just… choir. I go to choir on Saturday mornings.” He looks down at his feet like he’s just revealed a secret, shameful part of himself.

You burst into laughter, and Sunghoon is scared for a second that you’re making fun of him, and his feelings are a lot more hurt than they should be by someone he just met. Although, to be fair, you don’t feel like someone he just met.

“That’s so cool! It must be such a nice change from all the dudes on the hockey team,” you say, a sweet, curious smile on your lips. Like you mean what you say. Like you might want to know more.

Sunghoon thinks he just fell in love.

He chuckles. “Yeah. Definitely a nice change. As much as I love hockey, it’s nice to do something calmer, you know. And I like singing. And the cakes the local grandmas bring.”

“So that’s what it’s all about, really.”

“Yep, you caught me.” Sunghoon still feels the almost-kiss lingering, a tension between the two of you that has him on edge. He feels like he’s just missed his bus because it left a minute earlier than planned. The opportunity is gone, and he would definitely mess everything up, trying to kiss you now. So instead, he decides to leave. Whatever must happen, will happen, even if it’s not tonight. You have the same friends—this is definitely not the last time you will see each other. “Well, I should probably head. I have to be up at eight tomorrow.”

“Oh, wow. The choir grandmas don’t play around.”

“They really don’t.”

“Well, see you around then,” you say, a clumsy laugh falling from your lips as you wrap your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, bringing him into a tight but short hug. You also smell good, he notes to himself. Of course you do.

“See you, Y/N.” Just as he’s about to turn away, you wrap your hand around his wrist.

“Wait. Sunghoon?” He’s only half-surprised at the immense relief he feels to hear his name on your lips. Like you, too, didn’t want to part with him just yet.

“Yeah?” he says, wishing the hope and anticipation aren’t too obvious on his face.

“Where’s that choir of yours?”

--

When Sunghoon arrives at his neighborhood’s community center, ten minutes before nine a.m., you’re already there. Despite the seven hours of sleep under his belt, he feels like he could’ve done with three more, and the singular cup of instant black coffee he had for breakfast was both atrocious and useless. But your smile has the restorative effect of two Red Bulls and a power nap. You look surprisingly bright, like you either managed to get a very good night’s sleep or are just the biggest morning person to ever exist.

He hugs you when he reaches you on the sidewalk, tighter than he probably should, but you return it. You smell like fresh soap and sugar. The two of you exchange quick greetings before he leads you inside the center. 

“I made some cookies as well.” You point to your tote bag and Sunghoon’s jaw slackens.

“You had time to bake?” 

“Kazuha made me take Jägerbombs, so I felt crazy when I got home. I thought it wouldn’t be fair on the old ladies if they did all the work.”

Sunghoon laughs. “They’re going to love you.”

You follow Sunghoon up two flights of stairs and into a spacious room with a wooden stage. There’s a snacks table on one side of the room that is almost fully decked with plates and tupperwares of all sorts, and although their contents remain covered by tin foil or lids, the coffee and hot water pots are free to use. Most of the chairs are stacked on each side of the room but a few have been put in the middle, the grandmas sitting and chatting there waving at Sunghoon as the two of you walk in. There are about fifteen people in the room so far, most of them older ladies, but not only. There’s a dad that came with his daughter, a couple of teenagers, and a few other adults. It’s quite an eclectic mix, and Sunghoon loves it.

Minjeong is here, too, which Sunghoon realizes he forgot to say until he sees the sheer confusion of finding someone you know in an unexpected place on both of your faces. She walks towards you, suspicious eyes darting between you two.

“Hey,” she says only to Sunghoon before turning to you, arms crossed over her chest. “And what are you doing here?”

“Hi, Minjeong, so nice to see you too!”

“I invited Y/N,” Sunghoon says quickly, although you did technically invite yourself. For some reason, he feels the need to defend you, even though he knows you and Minjeong have been friends for years now, and Minjeong is just always this blunt.

“I didn’t know this was the choir you went to,” you say to Minjeong.

“Oh, this?” She looks around the room. “It’s only the choir I’ve been going to since I was a kid. You’d know that if today wasn’t the first day you showed interest in it, ever.”

“I came to your concerts!”

One of the old ladies calls Sunghoon’s name from the snack table, and he is glad for the diversion. “Right. I’ll let you guys talk this out.” A hand on your shoulder, he smiles down at you. “I’m gonna say hi to the ladies over there. Be back in a minute.” He shoots Minjeong a look as if to say, Be normal. 

As he approaches the small group, one of them asks very loudly if you’re his girlfriend. They all burst into giggles, blushing and eager-eyed like they’re sixteen rather than sixty. Sunghoon would be endeared if you didn’t look so alarmed and Minjeong so horrified, both of you looking at him before turning back to each other and getting into a very heated and secretive discussion. He is bombarded with a hundred questions: what your name is, where you’re from, how did the two of you meet, are you together? No? But you’re so pretty! And he’s such a nice boy! He answers all of their queries to the best of his ability while checking that your conversation with Minjeong hasn’t turned physical—your arms are now also crossed over your chest, and you look annoyed while she looks like she’s accusing you of something, but at least, punches aren’t being thrown. 

Thankfully, it’s only a couple more minutes until the conductor calls for everyone to gather on stage, and a weight is lifted off of Sunghoon’s shoulders once the ladies’ collective attention is no longer on him. He isn’t sure where they came from, or why they’ve decided to make the choir rehearsal their hang-out spot, but there is always a group of women who sit there and knit while chatting quietly or listening to the songs, and they are sometimes joined by children whose parents are part of the choir but don’t want to sing themselves and apparently have nowhere else to go. Sunghoon had been so excited at the prospect of having you come see him that he hadn’t thought of how boring this might be for you, sitting with sixty-year-olds for two hours, listening to an amateur choir go through scales and sing corny romance ballads—they’re rehearsing for a wedding they’ve been hired to sing at. But as the minutes go by, his worry dissipates when the delighted smile on your face hardly falters. He can’t imagine that his choir is that good, but you genuinely look like you’re having a nice time, and it makes Sunghoon stand a little taller, sing a little louder. Your eyes are on him for most of the time, and he blushes every time your gazes meet, but he still can’t keep himself from looking away from the conductor to check on you every few seconds.   

Once rehearsal is over, everyone gathers around the refreshments table. When you tell Sunghoon that he looked good out there, he stuffs his mouth with banana bread to stop himself from blurting out something stupid. Your cookies are a hit, and so is everything else—Sunghoon would be more than happy to watch you eat as many baked goods as you possibly can and chat with the grandmas, but he has something to ask you. Without thinking much, he wraps his fingers around your wrist, gently pulling you away from the table and towards him. The question that was at the tip of his tongue fades as soon as you meet his eyes, looking up at him like a deer caught in headlights, cheeks stuffed with brownie. You’re so cute that words fail him for a second, and when he notices the proximity between the two of you, takes a small, bashful step backwards. You glance at his hand still around your wrist, and he withdraws it like he’s suddenly been burned. 

A playful smile grows on your lips. “Everything alright?”

He scratches the back of his head. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. I just, um, well. There’s a bus that takes us from right across the street directly to the beach, if you’re, um, if you’re interested. In going. With me. If you want.”

Your eyebrows cock in surprise, and Sunghoon thinks he’s messed it all up. You shoot Minjeong a quick, worried glance, then seem to think for a second. But when you look back to him, your smile is soft. “That sounds nice.”

An hour later, you’re running around together on the beach—or rather, Sunghoon is running around, and after five minutes of watching him with a smile on your face, he’s convinced you to run around with him. You’ve both long discarded your shoes and socks, jeans scrunched up to your mid-calves, grins so wide, your cheeks start to hurt. The wet sand is hard under your feet and the water cold against your skin. Sunghoon’s t-shirt sticks everywhere you sprayed water on him, and he knows putting his shoes on later will be a whole ordeal, but it doesn’t bother him. Even the gray September sky feels brighter because you’re standing with him underneath it. 

The water-splashing battle quickly has you both out of breath, and Sunghoon is ready to call a truce when you spot something behind him, gasping and running towards it. He turns around to find you picking up a bunch of sandcastle-building toys that must’ve been left behind by some kids. “I haven’t built a sandcastle in such a long time, this is so exciting,” you say, excitement written all over your face. 

As much as he loves seeing the glint of childish amusement in your eyes, Sunghoon keeps looking around in case the owners of these toys might appear out of thin air. “I feel like there’s something immoral about this,” he says, and you stop stacking sand into one of the toys to look at him with a confused frown. “Aren’t we technically stealing from some kids?”

“Sunghoon. If those kids really cared about these plastic toys, they wouldn’t have left them here.”

“What if they come back for them?”

“Then we’ll give them back. We’re not monsters.” That’s all it takes for Sunghoon to give in. He helps dig trenches around the towers you build, carving out small windows on them and apologizing profusely when he accidentally pokes too hard into one of them, destroying half of it. 

The second he notices you shivering, Sunghoon is on his feet, unwrapping the scarf around his neck and laying it like a blanket over your shoulders. “I’m going to get us something warm to drink. I’ll be back in a minute!” he announces before you can even protest, and practically runs to the nearest café. 

He only leaves you and the slightly pathetic-looking sandcastle alone for a minute, quickly coming back with two take-away cups of milky Earl Grey tea and a brownie that he couldn’t help himself from buying. The moan you let out when you bite into it, gooey, sweet chocolate sticking to your teeth, goes straight down Sunghoon’s spine, but he tries not to let his thoughts get too carried away.

“Good, right?” he asks, laughing when you nod fervently. When you laugh too, it’s a sound so sweet, it rivals the decadence of the brownie. “I sometimes make the trip all the way here just for this.”

“I thought I’d be done with sweets after this morning, but this is so good.”

“Better than Berta’s banana bread?”

“Oh, a hundred percent,” you say, covering your mouth with your hand as you speak. “Sorry, Berta. I’ll be thinking about this for the rest of my life.”

Sunghoon hopes you’ll remember him as the boy who’d introduced you to those brownies, if nothing else.

The two of you are silent for a little bit, but it’s a comfortable silence—something Sunghoon didn’t know was possible with someone he’d just met. This was something he loved about the sea: it allowed for some quiet. The crashing of the waves against the shore, the calls of the seagulls, the dogs barking after them—it all meant he didn’t need to fill the space with needless chatter. He could look out at the peaceful water, you by his side, and just enjoy the moment.

“I’m still so amazed whenever I come to the beach, no matter how many times it’s been.” Sunghoon’s voice is quiet when he speaks, lower than usual. It sounds a lot more intimate than he means it to be. You turn your head to look at him, silently asking him to go on. There’s a small smile playing on his lips, a twinkle in his eyes as he watches the water. “The town I grew up in is right in the middle of the country, so the sea is like, a five-hour drive. There was a lake nearby, but it was nothing compared to this. It might sound silly, but being from somewhere where everyone knows each other, I never realized just how big the world was until I came here and saw the sea for the first time.”

“You’d never been to the sea before coming here?” you ask, surprise clear in your voice. 

He shakes his head. “My hometown isn’t far from the mountains, so it’s a huge tourist spot both in the winter and in the summer, which meant my mom had to work even when my sister and I were out of school and could actually go on holiday. We’d go visit my grandparents and aunts when we found the time, but that was it.” He meets your gaze, a smile playing on his lips at the thought of his hometown and his family. “This is the furthest I’ve ever been from home.” 

The corners of your lips raise into a smile too, matching Sunghoon’s. “And how has that been going?”

He sighs. “It’s okay. I miss my mom and sister like crazy, of course, but they FaceTime me so much that I barely notice it. And anyways, it’s also nice to be on my own. Discover another part of myself, and all that.”

“For sure.” 

There’s a slight shift in your expression that Sunghoon catches onto, a falter in your smile and a hint of sadness in your eyes. He doesn’t want to force a topic that you don’t want to talk about, so he just gently eggs you on, in case all you need is a small push.

“What about you? I think Jake mentioned you guys growing up around here, only an hour or so away.”

At the mention of your brother, the smile returns to your eyes. You take a deep breath and think for a bit, but eventually, you start talking. Although Sunghoon’s eyes are on you, you keep yours trained on the sea. “Yeah, we did. We live just up the coast, so we were always hanging out at the beach. In a way, it’s nice having the sea here as well. It’s like-I don’t know.”

“Like having a piece of home even when you’re away?”

Your gazes meet for just a second, the surprise clear in your eyes, but as quickly as it came, it’s gone, and you turn away from Sunghoon once more. “Basically, yeah.” A sardonic smile appears on your lips. “Although the constant reminder isn’t always appreciated.” 

He tilts his head. When you don’t say anything further, he flicks some sand onto your hand and asks you what you mean by that. He looks at you with curiosity and kindness only, eager to know more about you, to let you know that you can open up to him, that he won’t judge you, but careful not to overstep any boundaries either. It seems to work.

“It might sound stupid, but back home, the beach was a place I could go to when it all was a bit too much, you know? Like an escape from everyday life. Where I could forget about all of the pressure on my shoulders.” Sunghoon hums, and you take another deep breath. “I don’t know if you and Jake talk about this sort of thing, but… our parents are barely nice when we do well, and pretty awful when we don’t reach their expectations. So we were like, constantly having to outdo ourselves just for them to say, ‘Keep it up’, or something like that. And if we did something wrong, well…”

You trail off, but Sunghoon knows what you mean. “Yeah, Jake said they barely spoke to him anymore because he decided to play hockey instead of becoming, like, a doctor or something.”

You smile, but it’s humorless. “Yep. They send him money, and he comes home for a bit over Christmas and summer break, but that’s it. I’ve gone home by myself sometimes and they won’t even mention him, it’s insane.”

“He also doesn’t talk about it a lot.”

“I know. I’m always the one to bring it up. I know it’s a sensitive topic for him, obviously, but I still find it amazing how well he deals with it. But me… despite everything, I still need their approval, you know?” you ask, and Sunghoon nods.

“That makes sense.”

You sigh. “I guess. And I’m obviously not becoming a doctor like them. Not a medical one, at least. It took a year of convincing them that doing the degree I’m doing was okay. ‘Cause at the end of the day, it’s still me filling in my university applications, and they can’t actually force me to go to medical school, but I still wanted them to be proud of me. Even if I study languages.” It’s quiet for a few seconds as you both look out at the waves crashing against the shore. When you start talking again, you look down at the sand, picking it up and letting it filter through your fingers. “So, yeah. Jake got a scholarship here, and I didn’t wanna be too far from home, so here we are. We’re so close to home, the sea I went to when I needed a break in high school and the sea I go to now are one and the same. And now it reminds me of my parents rather than making me forget about them.”

“I’m sorry for bringing you here,” Sunghoon says. “I didn’t think…”

You cut him off with a smile. “It’s okay. Now I’ve created new memories. Nice ones. And you know… wherever I am, it’ll be at the back of my mind. It’s up to me whether I let it affect my life or not.”

“Letting go of these things is never easy,” Sunghoon offers. “You also can’t blame yourself if it does affect you sometimes.”

When you look at Sunghoon, your eyes darting back-and-forth between his like they’re searching for something there, he feels himself tense up slightly. He can’t read you at all, has no idea what you’re thinking even as you smile and say, “You’re right.” Even as you silently link your pinky with his, gazing down at your hands with a small smile. He hadn’t realized how cold his hands were until this small touch, so small yet able to spread warmth throughout his entire body. When he speaks, he can’t bring himself to meet your eyes—he’s still so focused on where your hands touch, too aware of the skin of your finger right against his. Such a small, innocent touch. He can’t even begin to understand why it means so much to him.

“For what it’s worth, I think what you’re doing is super cool,” he says. “I’ve always been so shit at foreign languages, let alone dead languages. And packing your bags and going abroad for a year, not everybody can do that. Becoming a doctor might be hard, but it also takes a specific kind of person to do what you do. And what Jake does. It’s all valuable.”

“Now, if you could say that again while I record you to show my parents, please,” you say, making him laugh.

“It’d be my pleasure.”

“What about you?” you ask him after a small pause. “I can’t be the only one who trauma-dumps on the first date.”

Sunghoon’s breath hitches in his throat. He hadn’t even dared entertain the thought that this might be more than a platonic hang-out in case he was crossing a line—but you’ve just called it a date. With just a few casual words, you’ve changed the entire meaning of the hours you’ve spent together. He hopes you can’t tell how flustered it’s made him.

“Well, there’s not much trauma to dump, really. Sorry.” 

You giggle. “Don’t apologize. That’s a good thing.”

Now that you’ve just opened up about your parents, Sunghoon is scared that telling you about how good of a childhood he had might come off as insensitive—but you smile softly at him, holding his hand face-up in yours, tracing the lines of his palm with the tip of a finger, and he starts talking. “So, it was just me, my older sister and my mom growing up. My dad died when I was 2.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It is a bit sad that I don’t have any memories of him, but everyone who knew him said he was a great guy. And my mom’s had this boyfriend since I was like, 10? He’s the one who got me to start hockey. So it hasn’t been that bad.”

“Your mom must be really strong.”

Sunghoon smiles. “She is. She’s amazing. To raise two kids on your own while grieving and not royally fuck up is… well, amazing. She’s always been so supportive of us, no matter what we wanted to do. My sister did well at school, but I wasn’t so good. I never really enjoyed it, but she’s never made me feel bad about it. She didn’t mind that all I wanted to do was hit a puck around.” 

“And you’re pretty good at hitting that puck around, aren’t you?”

“I’m not so bad,” Sunghoon says, chuckling along with you. He’s about to go on, but he is cut off by a raindrop hitting his hand, then another one; before either of you know it, your clothes are soaked through. Sunghoon takes his denim jacket off, using it as a makeshift umbrella for the both of you as you run towards the nearest awning, shaking with giddy laughter until you forget about the chilly rain and the clothes sticking to your skin. When it doesn’t let up for another few minutes, Sunghoon suggests catching the bus back, and you agree. 

The heating on the bus is set on low, but it’s enough to warm Sunghoon up as soon as he steps onto it. You sit at the back in a corner of your own, multiple rows away from the other people onboard. The two of you are relatively quiet, lost in your own thoughts until Sunghoon, after much internal deliberating, takes one of your hands in his and interlaces your fingers together. You look up at him, but he doesn’t return your gaze, eyes fixed on the window to hide his shy smile and the blush slowly staining his cheeks. To his surprise, you squeeze his hand and rest your head on his shoulder. He freezes for a second, unsure how to react to your reciprocated affection, but he makes himself relax into your touch, and starts brushing his thumb back-and-forth on the back of your hand. The sudden storm has made day turn to night a little earlier today, and with the quiet hum of the bus, he finds himself on the edge of sleep for the whole ride—the only thing keeping him awake is his booming heart.

The bus is nearing his stop when the buzz of his phone in his back pocket jolts him awake. You lift your head from his shoulder, massaging your neck as you fish your phone out of your own pocket. Sunghoon, more intrigued by you than by whoever has texted him, watches as the brightness of your screen makes you wince. Once you’ve read the text, you turn towards him, sleepy eyes and sleepy voice as you ask him whether he’s seen “this,” referring to a text from Chaewon. dinner at our flat tonight!!! come whenever. bring drinks. 

“Oh, I forgot she was doing that tonight,” you say through a yawn.

Sunghoon chuckles. “Do you have enough energy for it?”

“I always have enough energy for Chaewon’s cooking.”

You and Sunghoon make a pit-stop at a grocery store to buy two bottles of white wine and the hummus Chaewon likes, then head to your flat. Naturally, questions are asked when you and Sunghoon arrive at the exact same time, but before Sunghoon can explain that you spent the day together, Minjeong’s head pops out of the kitchen door, and she asks whether you ran into each other downstairs. Chaewon is only looking at the both of you, waiting for an answer, so she doesn’t see the very pointed look Minjeong gives you, as if to say Agree with me or else. You quickly glance at Sunghoon then say, “Yeah, we just arrived at the same time.” When they’ve both turned away, you tell him in a hushed tone that you’ll ask her about it later. 

The girls are busy in the small kitchen and Chaewon insists that they don’t need any more help, so you and Sunghoon bring two chairs by the kitchen door and sit as Yunjin catches the four of you up on the most recent drama in her Law cohort. Jay arrives twenty minutes later, but it isn’t another hour before Jake shows up with the excuse that he was taking a nap.

“Someone would think you don’t sleep at night, with the amount of naps you take,” you say.

“Oh my God, I miss when you weren’t here,” Jake replies, flicking your forehead before promptly plopping himself down on the couch. “I was so hungover when I woke up. I had to sleep it off,” he explains as he grabs four cans of beer from his backpack. 

Chaewon always makes a point to ask how everyone’s spent their day, but today, she unfortunately starts with Sunghoon, so he doesn’t have any time to come up with anything believable other than the truth, which is exactly what he does—and when Jay asks, What, to the beach by yourself? under Minjeong’s heavy gaze, he has no choice but to say yes. He isn’t sure why it’s such a big deal that you spent the day with him, or why it needs to be kept a secret, but there must be a reason. He’ll find out later. When it’s your turn, you look straight into Sunghoon’s eyes as you say you spent the day at the library but didn’t get much work done. Everyone ignores Jake when he exclaims Boring! and Chaewon swiftly moves onto Jay.

But you don’t. 

Your eyes stay on Sunghoon, unflinchingly watching him, expression unreadable, and he finds himself unable to look away, even as he feels his face heat up and his stomach flip. Then you smile, a satisfied smirk like you got what you wanted, and shift your gaze to Jay, who’s going on and on about the first six episodes of Lost he binge-watched earlier and wondering why nobody had told him about this “masterpiece of a show” before. Sunghoon is too busy thinking about the way you’d looked at him and pondering all the reasons for it to listen carefully. He watched Lost when he was fourteen anyway.

All throughout the evening, as the seven of you eat Chaewon’s pasta dish (which she made entirely from scratch, and is probably one of the best things to have ever graced Sunghoon’s taste buds), drink, talk, and afterwards, play card games, every glance between you and Sunghoon feels like a secret conversation that only the two of you are privy to. No one except for Minjeong is aware that you spent the day just the two of you until now—and even she doesn’t know what it is you did. Within a day of knowing each other, you already share memories that are yours and no one else’s. Sunghoon is giddy with the knowledge, heart skipping every time your eyes meet, no matter how fleetingly. When you’re all saying goodbye, it takes everything in him not to hug you for an awkwardly long time and to tear himself away from you. 

He can hardly fall asleep that night.

--

For the entirety of the year you were gone, Sunghoon could only nod and smile while the others bemoaned your absence or commented on how much more fun it’d be if you were here (even Jake, after enough wine spritzers, would admit to missing you). He understood that the group dynamics might feel different to them without you around, but this particular set of people was all he knew, so he never minded it. It reminded him of people telling him how sad it must’ve been growing up without a father, trying to be empathetic, when he didn’t know how he could miss something he never had. 

But now that you’re here, he gets it. You add something to the group that he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s in your affectionate gestures towards Chaewon and Yunjin, in your shared sense of humor with Jay (which no one else seems to find funny, save for Sunghoon, sometimes), in your bickering with Minjeong and downright arguing with Jake. It’s a hackneyed expression, but you do light up a room—at least in Sunghoon’s opinion, you do. In your presence, everything feels not only more lively, but also more cohesive, like you were the missing piece of a puzzle. Like a historic work of art that has been returned to its rightful owner. 

Sunghoon just finds himself drawn to you, at times unable to keep his eyes off of you, and the only things keeping him from making a move are his inherent shyness and the eyes of your friends. He doesn’t want to mess up the friendship he has with anyone from the group, least of all Jake, just because he can’t keep it in his pants. He thought of Yunjin and Chaewon, how their relationship had gone smoothly from the beginning and posed no problem to the dynamic of the group, but he had no idea if this was replicable between you and him at all.

If he had to be honest, a big part of him was also just afraid you’d reject him.

Getting a read on you is hard, which doesn’t help. It’s been three weeks since the gang reunited, since that party where you met. The first semester of his second and your fourth year started a little bit over a week ago; Sunghoon sometimes worries that you think there is some big age gap between you and that you see him as a kid, even though, admittedly, two years is not such a huge difference. In those three weeks, there have been many encounters which could be seen as cases of flirting between the two of you—Sunghoon has noticed every single one of them and replayed each an embarrassing amount of times in his head. A hand carefully posited on his shoulder; prolonged eye contact; jokes whispered in his ear at a crowded house party; knees lightly touching at first, then pressed together during movie night. None of it ever fails to make Sunghoon’s heart flutter. You could breathe in his general direction and it’d make his heart beat fast enough to worry a cardiologist, so when you smile at him, it’s a small death every time.

And so he dares hope that his interest isn’t one-sided—although most of the time, he is so stuck between thinking none of it means anything and thinking every single thing you do is a sign that you like him, that he rarely knows what to think. And whenever you’ve paid him enough attention to make him believe it’s not all in his head, you do something that proves him wrong. Watching you interact with other people, he realizes that you keep good eye contact with everyone and that you’re just as touchy and playful with all of your friends. At parties, you hit it off with new people and catch up with old friends without so much as a hint of awkwardness. He watches as you talk to other guys, the same smile that has been making him weak for the past three weeks, directed towards them and not him. Sunghoon assumes you’re either really nice to everyone and oblivious to the fact that it could be seen as flirting, or you just flirt with everyone. 

In that sense, the two of you are complete opposites. Sunghoon, whose entire friend group hangs on the fact that he befriended Jay, who knew Jake, who knew you, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon. Sunghoon who has spoken to maybe half of his hockey team outside of the locker rooms and the occasional party. Sunghoon who, outside of his usual friend group, has managed to make three other friends on his own in the year he’s been at university, because they had been put in a group project and magically hit it off enough to upgrade from classmates to friends. 

Then there’s you, who has to stop every thirty seconds at a party to say hi to someone you know. You, who still keeps in touch with the friends you made in a foreign country, even those who spoke broken English. You, who didn’t make Sunghoon feel like his crippling shyness was a problem when you first met. 

He doesn’t understand how everyone who meets you doesn’t instantly fall in love. 

Or maybe they do, and he’s just one of many vying for your heart. 

Tonight is one of the nights where all he can do is watch from afar as you interact with another man that he desperately wishes was him. With your lower back against the kitchen counter, drink in hand as you laugh with that other guy, eyes never leaving his face, it almost looks like someone has copied your time with Sunghoon at the costume party and pasted it onto this post-hockey game party. All you’re missing is a bright pink cowgirl hat and boots to match.

And yet, it’s his team jacket over your shoulders, his name and number on your back. Sunghoon shouldn’t feel nearly as jealous as he does.

So he does what any good friend would do, and blames Jay for reasons completely unwarranted—even now, days after receiving his advice, and hours after taking it, Sunghoon still can’t help but regret involving him at all. 

Initially, Sunghoon hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about his growing feelings for you—he’d thought that if he pushed them away and kept them to himself, they’d go away on their own. But clearly, they didn’t, seeing as how his stomach always twisted in nervous excitement at the prospect of seeing you and how he could never get through a conversation with you without blushing. So, quicker than he’d like to admit, he’d given in and told Jay about the day you’d spent at the beach and how felt about you now, thinking it was some big shameful secret that would render his friend flabbergasted. 

That was his first mistake. 

Jay wasn’t impressed. “Yeah, it’s been pretty obvious, dude,” he’d said through a mouthful of cheeseburger. It was after hockey practice, and they were sitting in the burger joint near the ice rink that had some of the best student deals in town. Jake was going on a Hinge date, and Sunghoon had lured Jay in with the promise of free food (Jay wanted to go home and game, but all Sunghoon needed to do to convince him was to say “I’ll pay for it”). 

“Obvious? How obvious? Does everyone know? Does Jake know?” Sunghoon asked, growing more agitated by the second.

“Jake is possibly the worst room-reader that has ever lived, so no, I don’t think he’s caught on. But the rest of us know. I mean, you look at her like a twelve-year-old with a crush on his English teacher,” Jay said, unceremoniously cramming fries into his mouth.

Sunghoon ignored the slightly humiliating remark, still preoccupied by the fact that he hadn’t been as discreet as he thought he had. He leant in towards Jay and dropped his voice to a whisper, even though the restaurant was practically empty, save for them and a group of rowdy middle school boys who were definitely not paying attention to them. “Do you think… does she know?”

Jay dropped his fist on the table in sudden annoyance, causing Sunghoon to jump back in his seat. “Now you’re acting like a twelve-year-old.” Before Sunghoon could defend himself and argue that he’s being completely rational, Jay launches into a surprisingly moving monologue. “It’s fine if you like her, there’s nothing to be embarrassed of. Everybody feels attraction towards other people, everybody gets crushes, it’s no big deal. Just talk to her. Worst case scenario, she doesn’t feel the same way, and you both move on, because you’re adults.”

There’s nothing worse than a friend being right about something you absolutely don’t want to hear. Sunghoon did feel like he had been carrying a horrible secret around, but Jay was spot-on: crushes are a very common, very human experience. And yet Sunghoon managed to feel like he was the only one who had ever had to go through this torture. “You say that like it’s easy,” he said, sulking.

“It is easy. You’re making it hard.”

“So what, your advice is just to confess to her?”

Jay rolled his eyes. “See? You’re saying confess like it’s some sin you have to repent for. Yeah, just tell her.”

“Just tell her,” Sunghoon repeated, looking at his friend like he was crazy. Jay just took another bite of his burger.

“Yeah, dude. It’s not even like you’ve known each other for a long time, so there’s no risk of ruining a friendship, or anything.”

“But do you even know if she feels the same way at all?”

Jay shrugged. “She hasn’t mentioned anything,” he said, and Sunghoon’s heart dropped in disappointment. “But it’s Y/N, she’ll be cool about it. And who knows, she might actually see something in you, for some godforsaken reason.”

Jay laughed at his own joke, and Sunghoon afforded him a chuckle. They moved on to other topics, but later, as they waited for Jay’s bus to come, he couldn’t help himself. “Do you think Jake will mind? If something happens with Y/N and me?”

Jay thought for a second. “I think he’d be more upset with her than with you, what with everything that happened with Heeseung... But knowing him, he probably won’t care as long as you aren’t weird in front of him.” He puts a hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder and shakes it gently. “Don’t let that stop you from making a move, okay? You’ll cross that bridge when you get to it.” His bus came then, so Sunghoon couldn't ask for more details about this Heeseung situation—he knew that there had been something between you and him which hadn’t ended particularly well, but no one ever really talked about it so he didn’t dare bring it up. All he knew was that it had been significant enough for Jay to mention it now, and for Jake to seem bothered every time it was mentioned.

He put all of that out of his head for the time being. In a way, he had just received Jay’s blessing; even if it scared him shitless, he could make a move. Perhaps not something as straightforward as Jay was suggesting, but something, at the very least. 

The first major hockey game of the season was that coming Friday. Sunghoon had an idea.

The morning of, he shot you a text. He tried to make it sound as nonchalant as he can, so that you wouldn’t know he spent close to an hour deleting, writing and pouring over a singular sentence. Can you meet me in front of the locker rooms 30 mins before the game? 

That was his second mistake.

You replied twenty minutes later, twenty minutes that Sunghoon spent questioning everything that had led up to this moment.

yn.sim i’ll be there!!

You even got there five minutes early. He was waiting for you, all decked out in his hockey uniform, save for the gloves and protective headgear. He was anxiously chewing on gum, heart doing somersaults inside his ribcage—a grin found his lips as soon as you appeared around the corner, the sight of you alleviating his nerves for a second, then doubling them when you came close. “Hey,” he said, voice soft and slightly trembling.

“Hey,” you simply replied, a smile on your face to match his as he took you in his arms. It was a hug that lasted a second longer than it should, but that also ended too early for his liking.

“Um, I only have a second, Coach will be wanting to give one of his pep talks,” he said when you separated. One quick glance back at the locker room doors behind him, then back at you. The tips of his ears burnt, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from furtively darting between your face and the floor. But he’d come this far, so he couldn’t back out now. He just had to get it over with. “Here,” he blurted out, holding out the letterman jacket he had been hiding behind his back. You grabbed it, eyeing him with amused suspicion at first, but surprise spreaded over your features as you unfurled the jacket.

“Your team jacket?” 

He couldn’t tell whether you were amazed or horrified. You stared wide-eyed at the jacket, at its dark green sleeves, at the four letters of his last name and the huge number 8 embroidered onto the back. Your surprise faded back into what he thought — what he hoped — was excitement as you looked at him. He scratched the back of his neck, feeling his face flush red. “Yeah, I just, you know… It’s the first big game of the year, and I thought it’d bring me good luck if a pretty girl was wearing my name…” he explained, repeating the words he’d practiced over and over, voice turning into more and more of a mumble as he spoke. He had planned on speaking with more confidence, but now, the fact that he could speak at all felt like a miracle.

A light giggle spilled out of your mouth. Sunghoon immediately took it for mockery and regretted every decision that had led him here. “Sorry, it was a silly idea, you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it,” he said, reaching for the jacket. But you were quicker than him, hugging the thick bundle of fabric to your chest as you now beamed at him.

“Are you kidding? I love it,” you said, shrugging off your jacket and replacing it with his.

First, relief flooded his body, then pride and excitement — as you spun around and showed the jacket off — at seeing his name on your back, and his attempt at making a move being successful. At least, he thought it was clear what he meant by giving you his jacket to wear at his game—he could only hope you understood. “Well… I’m glad.” Your eyes met, and you both chuckled softly, gazes holding each other’s for a second too long. 

Two weeks ago, Sunghoon still would’ve been able to convince himself this was a fluke; that this was just another one of his crushes that a gentle breeze could blow away. Because after all, when Sunghoon fell in love, it usually went as quickly as it came. But at that moment, in front of the locker rooms, his mind solely on you and not the opening game of the season, he realized this was something else entirely. And whatever it was, he hadn’t felt it in a good long while.

He was terrified—but infinitely excited, too.

“Okay, I should probably head back in now,” he forced himself to say, but made no move to go.

“Okay.”

He paused. “Will you be cheering me on?”

Your smile widened. “Of course.”

He nodded slowly, upper body starting to turn away but feet still firmly planted on the ground. “Okay.” 

Another second passed, and just as he was about to actually walk away, you grabbed his hand. Before he could compute what was happening, you lifted your head and pressed a small kiss to his cheek. His hand was still in yours when you took a step back, and for once, it was you who looked sheepishly at the floor. “For good luck,” you explained. He had no time to reply—you were already walking away, only looking back once to wave and shoo him in the direction of the locker room. He chuckled and nodded, but waited until you were out of sight to head back into the locker room.

Inside the locker room, everyone was too focused on getting their head in the game to notice his giddy smile. Your lips had been warm and soft against his cheeks, a welcome repeat of that time at the costume party, but the quickness of it all had only made him want more. From that very first night he’d met you, the question of how your lips would feel on his had scarcely left his mind. This brought him a step closer to getting an answer, but also made his curiosity grow tenfold.

Thankfully, by the time his coach gathered them around for a last minute pep talk, he’d managed to put the distracting thoughts of you out of his head, at least temporarily—he’d need to play well, for himself and his team mostly, but impressing you was also a priority. 

As the captain, Heeseung said a few words. He reminded the team of how important this match was and went over the main strategy points. For the time being, Sunghoon was able to forget about his arguably unfounded resentment against the older boy and whatever it was he had to do with you. This was not the time for jealousy over someone he had no right to feel jealous over. 

A few minutes later, his members and those of the opposing team poured out onto the rink for warm-up. Sunghoon searched the crowd for your face—when he found it, you were already smiling wide and waving at him. His heart did something funny, but Jay punched his shoulder pad and he remembered what he was there for. He could get lost in the eyes of a pretty girl later, specifically when he’d destroyed the other team and shown her how good of a hockey player he was.

Every now and then as he skirted around the rink and did his stretches, he stole glances at you. They didn't last long, because every single time, you’d already be looking, as if your eyes never strayed from him. Knowing you were watching made him nervous at first, but by the end of warm-up, mainly because he didn’t have much of a choice, he’d turned those nerves into an ever stronger will to do well.

The moment the referee blew the whistle, and for the hour that followed, Sunghoon was locked in on one thing and one thing only: winning. He was only competitive when it came to hockey—he didn’t care about dying in an online battle game or losing to Jake at beer pong, but once he was on the rink, he had to win. Pride surged through him and filled every crevice of his aching limbs whenever he or one of his team members scored, and the feeling that came with a victory, with hugging his teammates in celebration or hearing the crowd cheer for them, was like nothing else he’d ever known. The other side of that coin meant that any loss was a tremendous disappointment. Getting beat at an important game could put him in a week-long funk. His sister had once carefully hinted at his self-esteem relying too much on his hockey performance, and although his first reaction had been to dismiss her, he knew she had poked at some truth there. But what could he do—on particularly lonely nights, he truly thought hockey was all he had going for him. 

To his overthinking nature, becoming so single-minded the second the whistle blows was a relief, a break from the stress of daily life. He didn’t have to worry about his next deadline or about what the guys on the team thought of him or about the inevitable phone call to his mom asking for more money for groceries. It was respite from the thoughts surrounding you that plagued him: how you felt about him, how you might react knowing what he felt for you, how Jake might react. Why Minjeong hadn’t wanted you to say anything that evening, but why Jay had told him to just go for it. Heeseung, whom he had to respect as the captain and an undeniably talented player, but also as someone who had had something to do with you, whether good or bad. All of it had been wildly bustling around Sunghoon’s mind, but once on the rink, all he had to concern himself with was the puck and getting it in the opposing team’s goal. 

And Sunghoon did just that—he scored the first goal of the game, another one in the second period, then a third during the eleventh hour, breaking the tie between the two teams. He smiled right at you after each one, just to make sure you had seen everything. He couldn’t quite describe how it felt to see you clap and cheer for him, jumping up-and-down, forming a megaphone with your hands around your mouth and yelling, “Go Sunghoon!” all while you wore his jacket. It was a separate kind of pride and satisfaction from the sort he’d get seeing anyone else cheer him on, for sure. 

The other team put up a good fight, getting in a few goals of their own and protecting their side well, but in the end, thanks to Sunghoon’s goal, it was his team that won. He took his helmet off and got his hair ruffled by half of his team, then shook hands with the other team, trying to contain his boastful smile—some ice hockey players flew off the handle very quickly, and starting a fight was the last thing he wanted.

Kids and local fans huddled by the barriers on each side of the player’s tunnel to get an autograph or a picture. People around here were weirdly attached to their university sport teams, and the athletes on teams that did particularly well — namely football and rugby — were sort of local celebrities. Their ice hockey team wasn’t quite at that stage yet, but they were placing better nationally with every year, and so the local interest had grown. More kids had started signing up for lessons, and their parents often brought them to home games. As Sunghoon chatted with men twice his age and took selfies with ten-year-olds, he tried to find you in the crowd, to no avail. He’d been hoping for a thumbs-up from you for a game well played, or even a hug, but you were nowhere in sight.

It wasn’t until half-an-hour later, after saying bye to all the fans that had waited after the game for them, listening to Heeseung and their coach congratulate them (but also remind them to not take anything for granted), showering and changing, that he got to check his phone.

chaewon we going k-bbq! u guys played well see u later at da party!!!!

Disappointment only had a second to sink to the bottom of his stomach. He’d barely finished reading the text when he was hoisted up by the shoulders. Two of his senior teammates, Soobin and Beomgyu, marched him towards the exit. “We are getting you wasted tonight, Park,” Beomgyu announced, a wide grin on his lips.

“I have a good feeling about this season,” Soobin added. Sunghoon looked back to find Jay and Jake simply shrugging and laughing at him.

Indeed, the second they got to the dorm where tonight’s party would be taking place, a beer was thrusted in his hand. It was only 7 p.m., still light outside, but that didn’t stop the team nor their friends that had come to the game. They sipped beer like it was water, so much so that two hours later, when the party started to grow, Sunghoon was already quite inebriated. It didn’t help that his cup was never empty for too long, and that he had the reassurance of being in his own dorm—it was the closest student building to the ice rink, and so was one of the prime spots for hockey parties. He could get as drunk as he wanted — or as Beomgyu wanted — and still get home in less than a minute. 

He somehow ended up in the corridor, part of a nonsensical conversation about candle-making with two guys he had recognized from one of his Phys Ed classes but could not for the life of him remember the names of. One had shared that candle-making was a big hobby of his, and it had made Sunghoon and the other unknown man lose their minds—Sunghoon had never realized how curious about candle-making he was, but he couldn’t stop asking questions. It sounded great. Maybe he’d have to pick up candle-making, too. 

Eventually, he headed back to the kitchen for a new drink. For the nth time this evening, he thought of texting you, then immediately thought against it. He wanted to know when you’d get here, but he didn’t want you to know that he wanted to know—although as the night deepened and his intoxication rose, he could remember less and less why that would be such a bad thing. He stepped into the kitchen, and going from the brightly-lit corridor to the dark kitchen with flashing neon lights made him so dizzy that he made a beeline for the couch, needing to sit down for a second.

And that was when he saw you.

Lower back against the counter, talking with a guy he’s never seen in his life. You look like you’re having fun—smiling, laughing, keeping eye contact with that guy. You’re still wearing his jacket. It should probably reassure him—his name is literally on you, what does it matter that you’re speaking to someone else? But instead, all he can think is that wearing his jacket must mean nothing to you. What was basically a confession from him seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

His friends’ words over the past year come back to him—how much you flirt with people, how it wasn’t a rare occurrence for you to go home with a guy after a party and never speak of him ever again. Was this what was happening here?

He knows it’s unreasonable, but in his drunken state, he takes it as a betrayal. Like he can’t believe you haven’t read his mind, figured out how he felt about you, and decided to give special attention to him and him only. He’s only able to take it for so long—two minutes later, he trudges out of the room, walking right past you but not looking your way.

His new mission is to find his friends, but before he’s done much searching, he hears his name being called out. Of course, he recognizes your voice immediately, but he doesn’t quite believe it until he looks over his shoulder, and there you are, face glowing and smiling wide. You’ve clearly had a few drinks, but he likes to think you’d be just as happy to see him if you were sober. He turns around to face you, watching as you narrow the distance between the two of you. He’s not in a much better state—the simple thought that you had come after him makes him forget any sort of resentment he held against you a second ago. When you reach him, he holds on to one of your arms, as much an effort to stabilize his swaying body as an excuse to touch you.

“Hey,” he simply says. He’s always at a loss for words around you, so scared he’ll say the wrong thing that he ends up barely speaking at all. He’s only sober enough to know that with all the cheap beer and vodka running through his blood, his odds of making a fool of himself are even bigger. 

“Hey. I was wondering where you were.” 

“You’re the one who came late.”

“I know!” you exclaim. “I wanted to come right away, but Chaewon was hell-bent on getting her Korean barbecue.”

“She does get cranky when she hasn’t had pork belly in a while.” Sunghoon feels like he’s just won the Nobel Prize when you let out a laugh. “Was the food good at least?”

“It was amazing. So worth getting here late,” you joke.

He rolls his eyes playfully. “I see how it is.” Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, “Then we should go there together next time.” 

Your smile changes, turning from cheerful to surprised, but amused—almost mischievous. You take a step forward. Sunghoon gulps; the gap between the two of you was narrow to begin with. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Usually, this type of straight-forwardness would have him stuttering, but drunk Sunghoon is a man sober Sunghoon barely recognizes in the morning. “Yeah. I am. Is that okay?”

You nod. “Mh-hm.”

“Nice. Okay.” For a second, you just look at each other. Another thing about drunk Sunghoon: he doesn’t feel like prolonged eye contact will make him spontaneously combust. He actually quite enjoys it. He also stumbles, even when all he’s doing is trying to stand straight. “You’re still wearing my jacket,” he eventually says, reaching out to take the end of your sleeve between his fingers.

You stretch out your arms and appraise the team jacket as if you only remembered you had it on. “Yeah. It’s comfy.”

“It looks good. You look good.”

“You’re not quite sober, are you?” you ask suddenly. 

“Is it that obvious?” When you nod, he giggles, lowering his head in defeat. “The guys made me drink so much.”

“You did score three goals after all. And you looked good doing it.”

At the praise, he stands up to his full height and places his palms behind his head in a victorious pose. “I did, didn’t I?” he says, looking off in the distance with a self-assured look that makes you burst into laughter. He drops the confident facade and laughs along with you, until somebody bumps into him and sends him stumbling forwards. If you weren’t standing there to catch him, he’d probably have fallen flat on his face. But even though he doesn’t fall, he feels all the alcohol catching up to him and threatening to come right back out where it came from. You hold him for a second, and just as you ask him if he’s okay, he says, “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

You sigh. “Okay. Where’s your room?” 

Arm under his shoulders, you let Sunghoon lean most of his weight on you as you guide him towards the elevator. It’s just one floor, but you said you didn’t want to risk the stairs with him. “Hey, who was that guy with you in the kitchen? That guy in the striped shirt? You guys seemed real chummy back there…” he mumbles as you help him out of the elevator. Even on the verge of sickness, Sunghoon is preoccupied by more important things.

“Oh, that was Jaemin.”

“Jaemin,” he echoes, more venom in his voice than needed.

You look at him, taking in his disgruntled expression, and chuckle. “Yeah, he’s having some problems with his boyfriend. He asked me for advice.”

Sunghoon almost freezes in his tracks, but you’re there to keep him walking towards his room. “Oh. He has a boyfriend.”

“Yeah…” He can tell you want to tease him about it, but thankfully, you say nothing. He’s made it clear he had gotten jealous of your gay friend—no need to spell it out in so many words. Once you reach his studio (which he’d stupidly left unlocked), he heads straight for the bathroom, locking himself in, half out of embarrassment, half because he really doesn’t want you to see him throw up. Talk about a turn-off. He leans over the toilet bowl, waiting for the vomit to rise, but nothing comes. He waits, and waits, mind completely empty, head spinning even though he’s sitting very still, when suddenly a knock on the door pulls him out of his stupor.

“Sunghoon? It’s been ten minutes. Everything okay?”

He doesn’t say anything, just unlocks the door for you. Without realizing, he fell asleep like a bored teenager in math class. “All right,” he hears you say.

He’s surprised you’re able to carry him out of the bathroom—if he was a deadweight before, by now, rigor mortis has practically set in. Despite his small student room, crossing it takes you an entire minute, and when you reach his bed, you all but let him flop on the mattress. He doesn’t mind. As soon as his body hits the bed, he feels quite snug, curling against his blanket. You start to unbutton his shirt, probably just thinking he’s already fallen asleep and wanting to make him more comfortable, but your fingers freeze when he starts giggling. Shoulders shaking with unbridled laughter, he feels as delighted as a five-year-old who just said a naughty word and made all his drunk relatives laugh at the family dinner. 

“I know I looked really hot tonight, but can we wait until I’m sober?” he asks, slurring his words slightly and keeping his eyes shut, despite the shit-eating smirk on his lips. You hit him on the chest but it just makes him laugh more.

“Bold of you to assume I’d still hit when I’ve just had to peel you off your toilet seat.” He lets you finish helping him out of his button-down. 

“Wouldn’t you?” he asks. He tries to look at you, but his eyes don’t quite open all the way, and they don’t focus properly, due to a strong mix of alcohol and inappropriate thoughts. Of you, specifically. His body feels suddenly very heavy, his want for you weighing him down into the mattress. The room is dark, your face illuminated only by the light in the bathroom and the glow of the street lights outside. You always look pretty, but your beauty is especially breath-taking right now, Sunghoon thinks. He wants to reach out and touch your face, wants to trace your jawline and know what your skin would feel like against his fingers. He doesn’t realize he’s actually doing it until he hears you inhale shakily.

The expression in your eyes is unreadable, and quickly gone, replaced by an annoyed squint. You grab his wrist gently, setting it back down next to him. “I’m gonna make you some ramen. You need to sober up, and you haven’t had dinner, have you?”

Sunghoon shakes his head. He feels rejected, and it makes him inordinately sad.

For five minutes, he watches as you rummage around his cupboards for a pack of ramen, fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. His thoughts float back to your day at the beach, memories that he’s preciously held onto for the past few weeks. You running around on the sand, opening yourself up to him and letting him open himself up to you, holding his hand on the bus. That day, he’d really thought it would be the beginning of something new; but as time passed, he became less and less sure of himself. He’s scared it might’ve just been a fluke, and that he’d have to destroy the castle he’d built in his head. He’s seen you almost every day since, but it’s never been the same. And even if your eyes met unexpectedly sometimes, or if you went out of your way to sit next to him during movie nights, he can’t let himself go on with so few signs. Jay was right—he had to be clear about his feelings, otherwise this would go on forever. Even if it didn’t feel like it, the Earth would continue spinning on its axis if you didn’t reciprocate.

“I’ve missed you.”

You pause in your movements. “Missed me? But we’ve seen each other every day,” you say after a few seconds, still facing away from him. Your voice is softer than he’s heard it before, almost unsure of itself.

“No,” Sunghoon whines, frowning. He can barely keep his eyes open—he wishes you could read his mind so he wouldn’t have to explain, but alas. “I miss you—the you from the beach. When it was just me and you. It’s not the same with the others around.”

Silence falls over the room again. Sunghoon wonders if you’re just going to ignore what he said, until you take a deep breath, and walk back to his bed. You crouch in front of him and take both of his hands in yours. Electricity flows from where your hands touch to the rest of his body. He suddenly feels a lot more awake.

“It’s just the two of us now,” you whisper. 

Sunghoon nods. “I know. It’s nice.”

You smile. It might be the alcohol playing tricks on him, but Sunghoon swears there’s a hint of sadness in your eyes. One of your hands comes up to his hair. You thread your fingers gently through it, pushing it away from his forehead, then bring your hand down to the side of his face, your palm cupping it tenderly. Sunghoon lets himself lean into your warm touch. With his eyes closed, the darkness surrounding him makes this feel like a dream—he basks in the moment so as not to let a second of it go to waste.

“Do you wanna do something just us two this week?” you ask softly. His eyes shoot open—he needs to be sure this is really happening. He nods again, fervently this time, and it makes you chuckle. “Okay.”

“Just us two?” 

“Just us two.”

He relaxes once more. He guides your hand towards his mouth and presses his lips against your palm. Something shifts in your eyes—Sunghoon thinks the opportunity to finally kiss you has arisen, but as soon as his gaze drops to your lips, you’re back on your feet. “Let’s eat some ramen, shall we?” you ask as you head back towards the kitchen. Sunghoon tries his best (and probably fails) to not let his disappointment show.

There’s no dining table to speak of, only a low table near Sunghoon’s bed, on which you set down a wooden board and the steaming pot of spicy noodles. You hand him a pair of chopsticks and a spoon, and tell him to eat. Neither of you say much for a while, and Sunghoon grows redder and redder under your watchful gaze. He asks if you want any a few times, but you always turn him down. The silence quickly gets a little too unbearable for him, and he’s got a question burning the tip of his tongue anyway. Now’s as good a time as ever to ask it.

“Something’s been bugging me recently, actually…” You wait for him to go on. “So, at the costume party, right?” You nod. “You said there was only one person you wanted to kiss… Did you mean me?”

You tilt your head, looking at him like you’re trying to figure out whether he’s joking or not. “Yeah, Sunghoon… I meant you. Who else?”

He’s only half-relieved. “So why won’t you kiss me now?”

To his surprise, you smile. “Because you’re drunk.”

Confusion fogs Sunghoon’s brain. Is that all you’re worried about? Is his blood alcohol level the only thing stopping you from kissing him? “But I-I’m fine. I give you consent to kiss me, Y/N.” He’s dead serious, so when you laugh, it only frustrates him further.

“Finish your food, Sunghoon. We’ll see about kissing later.”

He sighs. Later he could deal with. “Fine. But I’ll hold you to it, okay?” he says, pointing a menacing chopstick at you.

“Okay.”

But Sunghoon can’t keep quiet for long—ten seconds later, he’s remembered another question he’s been dying to ask. He continues drinking his soup in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “So what happened between you and Heeseung?”

The question takes you so off-guard, you look like you would’ve done a spit-take had you been drinking water. “That’s-you know about that?”

“Well, not much, that’s why I’m asking.”

You scoff. “Why do you want to know? It’s boring.”

At those words, Sunghoon whips his head up to look at you. “It’s not boring!” he exclaims, perhaps a tad too vigorously. “Anything that has to do with you is interesting to me.”

Finally, the corners of your lips rise. Sunghoon hated the ten seconds in which you weren’t smiling. “Well, there isn’t much to say, anyway. We had a thing when we were in second year, I caught feelings and wanted more, and he didn’t. The end.”

Sunghoon freezes, staring at you with his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth agape. He then sets his cutlery down neatly next to the pot of ramen and clasps his hands together like he’s in a business meeting. “So you’re telling me that he had the opportunity to make you his girlfriend and he just… didn’t?”

You shrug. “Basically, yeah.”

He hits the bedsheets next to him, huffing out in annoyance. “What an idiot.”

“He sure is,” you say. You smile to yourself as you grab Sunghoon’s spoon and try some of the broth. He wonders whether anything lies behind that smile. “But it happened a while ago. Don’t be weird with him on my account. He’s still your captain.”

Sunghoon thinks for a second. “Can I side-eye him once in a while? Or not pass him the puck during practice?”

“Sure,” you reply, laughing. You swiftly move on to other topics as Sunghoon slurps the last of his noodles, asking him about the beginning of the party and just how much his teammates made him drink. He’s recounting the shot contest they held, which Mark won with an impressive seven shots of tequila in a row — Sunghoon hopes the boy is okay now — when your phones buzz at the same time. Minjeong’s name appears on your screen, Jay’s on his, both asking where you are.

“Should we head back now?” you offer, although Sunghoon, wishfully perhaps, detects a trace of reluctance in your voice. “You look like you’ve sobered up a bit, seeing as you’re able to string more than two sentences together.”

“I wasn’t that bad!”

“I should’ve filmed you.”

It’s one a.m. when you head back down, and the party is in full swing. Pop music blasts through someone’s JBL speaker in the shared kitchen, the hallways are more crowded than the subway at rush hour, just as full of hockey fans celebrating their team’s win as students who just wanted an excuse to party, and every window is open to alleviate some of the stuffiness. They probably have another hour left before the dorm residents who decided not to join in the festivities call campus police on them.

Sunghoon is relieved to find that Jake is off with other team members, reaching levels of drunkenness that will most definitely be regretted in the morning. Technically, he hasn’t done anything wrong—he simply let you nurse him back to sobriety after he almost regurgitated his pre-game protein bar and three beers all over your nice shirt. Chaewon and Yunjin are busy making out in a corner, their lack of decorum only increasing when they’ve been drinking, but Jay and Minjeong eye you suspiciously upon seeing the two of you arrive together. You explain what happened so casually that they don’t question it any further.

Chaewon and Yunjin only tear themselves off of each other when a Beyoncé song starts playing, and they drag all four of you to the makeshift dancefloor, which is really just three meters away in the middle of the kitchen. Sunghoon is practically all sobered up by now, but he’s loosened up enough not to feel self-conscious with every step he takes; the fact that you look so happy, dancing with him and laughing at his silly moves, is a considerable bonus. He won’t drink any more, not wanting to risk embarrassing himself further in front of you, and Jay, as the group’s self-proclaimed health guru, probably had his last beer around nine p.m., but the girls, each of them with a cup of suspicious transparent liquid in hand, are getting drunker by the minute—and so is Jake, who has now joined you all on the dancefloor, if his inability to stand straight is anything to go by. Sunghoon assumes you’re also done with alcohol for the night, until you turn to him in the middle of a song no one has heard since 2015 and tell him you’re going to get a drink.

“Okay!” he simply answers, and for a good thirty seconds, basks in the blissful satisfaction of knowing he was the one you informed of your whereabouts. That is, until he realizes a minute later that it was probably a covert invitation for him to come along, which he totally missed. But when he looks over at the counter where all the drinks are, his heart drops—Heeseung is standing in front of you, pouring gin and lemonade into your cup. A flurry of emotions course through Sunghoon, emotions he has no idea what to do with, because he’s not sure they’re entirely warranted. He’s angry that Heeseung is talking to you, after what he did, confused that you’d let him; but mostly, he’s jealous. But he knows it’s only because he has no guarantee that you like him, and that you won’t go off with Heeseung, despite having just talked about how you were over him.

Wait—is that really what you said? You told Sunghoon that what happened with Heeseung didn’t bother you anymore, which doesn’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t go back to him, given the chance. 

Before he can think it over a second time, Sunghoon heads over to where you and Heeseung stand. He places himself right behind you, reaching for a bottle of Coke on your side and pouring himself a drink.

“Oh, hey, Hoon,” his team captain says, clearly surprised to see him there and looking so discontented. Sunghoon can’t remember whether they’ve ever been close enough for Heeseung to call him by his nickname. “Having fun?”

“Yep,” he curtly replies, avoiding eye contact with either of you and looking out at the crowd of party-goers instead. He can feel your gaze, heavy on his face, can see the knowing smirk slowly rising on your lips. How was it that you could see right through him so easily?

“Too much dancing made you thirsty?” you ask, taking a drink from your cup and hiding your smile behind it.

He glares at you, more annoyed that his attempt at subtly sussing out what you and Heeseung were doing together was shut down so quickly than anything else. “Yep,” he repeats.

“You guys know each other?” the older boy asks, eyes darting between the two of you.

“Jake introduced us,” Sunghoon quickly answers. To his surprise, this makes Heeseung chuckle.

“Jay, Sunghoon, me… Wow, do you meet all your friends through your brother, Y/N?” he asks jokingly. Immediately, so many alarm bells ring in Sunghoon’s head—the implication that you and Heeseung are friends, the fact that he put himself and Sunghoon in the same bag, and above all, that teasing, almost flirtatious tone of his. 

He’s horrified to find you rolling your eyes playfully and saying, “I have other friends, thanks,” in a tone far too similar. At that moment, Minjeong starts yelling about how much she loves everyone in this room but particularly “you guys,” pointing to Jake, Jay, Minjeong and Chaewon, and “you guys, too!” screaming over the music as she points to you and Sunghoon.

“There’s one of them,” you say, half-amused, half-exasperated. “We should probably go check on her. See you around, Heeseung.”

“Right. See you, Y/N. Sunghoon.” 

Back to no-nickname basis, apparently.

Your group’s indicator of when it’s time to go home is when Minjeong starts one of her “I-love-my-friends-so-much” rants—if she’s that drunk, everyone else must be wasted. Indeed, Chaewon and Yunjin are holding onto each other to keep themselves from falling down, and Jake is unable to keep his head up. You, Sunghoon and Jay herd your friends outside and wait for Jake’s Uber, making sure to get him safely inside and to tip the driver generously for his pains. Jay lives nearby yours and the girls’ flat, and Sunghoon, ever the gentleman, walks you all home.

“Just ‘cause you and Jay might need a hand getting these three home,” he tells you. Yunjin, Chaewon and Minjeong are currently running around on the road, pointing and laughing at random shop names, and Jay is yelling at them to get back on the sidewalk.

“Mh-hm.”

“And it’ll be good to completely sober up before going to bed.”

“Right.”

There’s no use putting up a front with you—he’s an open book and you’re an avid reader. You don’t need to say anything to make it clear that you know it’s just an excuse to spend more time with you.

“You know, I told you not to be weird with Heeseung,” you say, gently punching him in the arm.

“Was I weird?” he asks, knowing fully well he hadn’t acted at all like he usually did around his captain. 

“You basically only spoke to let Heeseung know we’re friends. You were making yourself all tall and looking mysteriously out into the distance instead of at us.”

“But I am tall and mysterious,” he says, pride coursing through him as it always does when you laugh at one of his jokes.

“You’re probably the least mysterious person I know, Hoon.”

Hoon. How much sweeter that name sounds coming from you over anyone else.

“So you agree that I’m tall?”

You roll your eyes, but there’s a grin on your face. A win is a win. “That’s just a fact.”

Sunghoon smiles victoriously. “I’ll take a fact. But I’m sorry if I was acting weird… I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t bothering you.”

“Heeseung is always bothering me,” you say with a sigh. “He comes up to me like this at every party. He’s just asking how I’ve been, but it’s like he’s sussing out whether or not he’s still got a chance.”

“Do you need me to beat him up? Threaten him? Dox him?”

Even though Sunghoon was only half-joking, you burst out laughing, hard enough for Minjeong to whip around and shout, “What are you laughing about?” as if you had offended her personally. At least Jay is there to make her turn around and focus on walking straight.

“I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be needed. I just don’t like talking about it, ‘cause it’s really not that big a deal anymore. It feels like digging up old bones, you know?”

Sunghoon shrugs. “I’d commit grave robbery with you.”

“You-what?”

“Nevermind. We obviously don’t have to talk about it, but I’m curious.”

You sigh. “I guess it’d make sense for you to know about this.” Sunghoon thinks he sees something like panic flash across your features, but it’s so quick and such a rare expression on you that he’s not sure whether he just imagined it. “You know-just ‘cause everyone else is aware of it, and everything,” you quickly explain.

“Sure.”

“I just… I’m sure Heeseung is a nice guy when it comes to other things, but what the girls and I have concluded is that he’s a bit of an attention whore, you know. When it comes to girls. We fooled around for a while, and he never made it official, even when I made it pretty clear that that was what I wanted. But every time we saw each other after that, he’d flirt with me like nothing had happened. I fell for it at first and flirted back, thinking he had changed his mind… but he really just wanted to make sure I was still into him.”

“Looking for validation,” Sunghoon says.

“Exactly. And when I realized that, I stopped giving it to him. I was getting tired of him anyway, saying the same thing every time. But now, I entertain him for a couple of minutes before I walk away. I shut him down before he gets a chance to do it to me.”

“That’s smart.”

“I know,” you say, smiling. “I understand the need for validation, but he won’t be getting any from me.”

Jay bravely handles the three drunkards the whole way home, letting you and Sunghoon hang behind and carry on talking. You reach the boy’s apartment first, and yours five minutes later. But when you reach your front door, Minjeong announces she needs to talk to Sunghoon. “Privately,” she emphasizes.

You give Sunghoon an amused look and shrug as if to say “She’s your problem now.” He doesn’t have time to protest before you’ve bid him goodnight and disappeared behind the door, Yunjin and Chaewon in tow, yelling good night at Sunghoon like they’re not going to see him for months. 

Minjeong places her palms flat onto Sunghoon’s torso and looks right at him—to the best of her ability, at least, considering she’s having a hard time focusing her eyes. “Sunghoon,” she says gravely.

“Minjeong?”

“Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” she says, slurring her words. “You know I love Y/N, she’s amazing…”

“Yeah, she is,” Sunghoon says firmly—already, he can tell where this is going, and he doesn’t like it.

“But she’s not the best with relationships.”

“What do you mean?”

Minjeong’s hands drop by her sides and she exhales deeply. “I’ve just never seen her in a committed relationship in the-in the almost four years I’ve known her. She never lets things get serious. She’s just so afraid of being hurt, Hoon, and I-” 

A hiccup escapes Minjeong’s lips as tears start pooling in her eyes. Sunghoon has only ever seen Minjeong cry when drunk—even movies that had him sobbing barely made her eyes water. Even if she isn’t in her right state of mind, he knows it means this must be important to her. He holds her arms and tries to put on the most reassuring tone he can. “But I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“No, I know that. I’m scared you’d get hurt. I don’t want things to become weird between all of us.”

Sunghoon shakes his head. “Minjeong, what-that wouldn’t happen.”

“But it will!” she exclaimed. “If something happens with you and her, and it doesn’t work out the way you want it to, it’ll make things awkward-”

“If that happens,” he interrupts, “I’ll deal with it. I won’t make it your guys’ problem. Y/N and I are adults, okay?”

“You’re like, nineteen…”

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll be fine.” He takes a step back and opens the door for her to get in. 

She’s only on the first stair when she turns back around. “But, Hoon-” she tries, though he cuts her off.

“Minjeong, I promise-”

“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Go inside.” 

She complies, giving him one last look before climbing the stairs to her apartment. Sunghoon closes the door behind her, a heavy sigh leaving his lips.

--

Sunghoon is on his way home from hockey practice when his phone buzzes with a text from you.

yn are you still up for doing something this week?

He almost throws his phone in the air in celebration, as if it was a graduation cap. His Sunday was spent going back-and-forth between lapidating himself for his drunken stupidity, memories, rough as stones, hitting him in the face every time he thought of what he said and how he acted, and congratulating himself for having finally made his feelings for you somewhat clearer. Hopefully, you now know he isn’t just awkward and silent around new people—well, he is, but it’s worse with you.

She never lets things get serious.

Minjeong’s warnings echo in his head as he types a positive — although not over-enthusiastic, ‘cause that’d be uncool — answer, but he dismisses them easily. Perhaps he shouldn’t; Sunghoon is, after all, incredibly serious about any and all romantic encounters. The girl at the grocery store who reached for the same red bell pepper as him was the most serious thing to him in the world for a good ten minutes; all of his school crushes were of utmost importance to him, however long they had lasted.

So this? This is capital-s Serious. But therein lies the problem; he’s so serious about you that he’d let you not make it serious. If Minjeong is right, and you’re not planning on taking this nearly as far as he wishes for it to go, he can already tell he’ll just let you. He’ll probably be happy you wanted anything to do with him at all. 

He has ways of reassuring himself, of convincing himself he isn’t a totally lost cause. Because when Sunghoon falls in love — and he had an inkling this was what this was — it usually goes as quickly as it came. Who’s to say this time next week he won’t have completely moved on? Maybe this date that he’s agreed to will go horribly wrong, you’ll be rude to the waiter, you’ll spill tomato sauce all over your shirt, and the flame in his heart will be put out. Easy as that.

You decide to meet on Wednesday evening, two days from now. Sunghoon suggests a Japanese restaurant he likes, a place he had gone to with his mom and sister when they had dropped him off at university before his first year, and that he knows is nice enough for a date but won’t burn a hole through his wallet.

Seeing you at the library the day before is a real thrill. Nobody but you knows of your plans—at least not until he caves in and tells Jay about it, who congratulates him with a roll of his eyes and a pat on the head. All of your eye contact feels loaded with the kind of complicity that comes with sharing a secret. As much as he would love boasting about it to every soul who’d listen, this secrecy electrifies him—it binds the two of you with something much more real than before. At least, more real than Sunghoon’s imagination and one-sided feelings. He knows that your text wasn’t in any way a confession of your own feelings for him, but it’s a step in the right direction.

In the few hours before your reservation at seven p.m., Sunghoon spends so much time thinking about the date that he’s almost late for it. He thinks about his expectations, then tries to get rid of them; he comes up with ideas of what your expectations might be, remembers Minjeong’s words, dismisses them, remembers them again; he goes through scenarios upon scenarios of everything that might go wrong and everything that might go spectacularly well. He ends up with less than twenty minutes to get ready, but manages to arrive at the restaurant a minute before you.

When he sees you approaching, Sunghoon feels like one of those boys in Disney movies as they watch their girlfriend coming down the stairs in her prom dress. You’re not wearing an over-the-top poofy purple dress, but the effect is the same—his eyes are glued on you with every step you take towards him.

You grab him by the arm and lead him into the restaurant as soon as you reach him. He’s too busy taking in your appearance to be bothered by it. “Don’t look at me like that,” you chide as you wait for waiting staff to seat you. He’d actually think you were mad at him if it wasn’t for the small smile playing on your lips.

“Like what?”

“Like what you’re doing right now! You’re staring.”

Realization slowly dawns on him; your gazes have made him lose his composure too many times for him not to know what being flustered looks like. He’d be lying if the fact that it was you in this tight spot and not him didn’t heavily stroke his ego. 

“Why wouldn’t I? You look beautiful,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper so that the approaching waitress can’t hear. Her presence saves you from responding verbally, but as she brings you to your table, you pinch his arm lightly as if to say Be on your best behavior—although Sunghoon would argue this was his best behavior.

You have trouble making up your mind about the food—you want to try everything on the menu. Sunghoon tentatively offers to order a bunch of dishes and share them. “It’s what my family always does at the restaurant, just try as much as you want and take the leftovers to go. We never ate out very often because my mom would spend so much money every time,” he recollects, smiling fondly.

“That actually sounds like a dream. My parents would never do that. It was always just eat what you got, but I’m unable to look at someone else’s food and not want to try it. It honestly should just be common practice to share dishes at the restaurant.”

Sunghoon thinks he could get down on one knee right then and there. Whenever they went out to eat, the boys would roll his eyes at him when he stole bites of their food. But you—you’re like him. He knows he’s prone to over-exaggeration, but he can’t help but feel like if you understand each other on this, you must understand each other at a molecular level.

He had expected a level of awkwardness to your date, at least at the beginning — God knows the moments in which he doesn’t feel like a mumbling fool in front of you are few and far between — but to his surprise, everything goes smoothly. There is no uncomfortable silence, all his jokes miraculously land, even the lousy ones, and you both laugh and talk and share sushi and pork cutlets like it’s the most natural thing in the world, which perhaps it is. His attempts at flirting are well-received and he only turns violently red twice when you compliment him and smile at him in a particularly pretty way.

It’s that day at the beach all over again. Always on the same page, you dip in and out of topics with a synergy he has rarely felt before. Sunghoon realizes it must be the presence of others, rather than you yourself, that makes him feel like he can’t act the way he wants to around you, makes him so nervous. Save for the moments where you make his heart flutter like a thousand butterflies’ wings, he actually feels quite at ease with you, all things considered. Of course, he still tries — and fails — to look cool for you, but he knows it comes from a place within himself rather than because you make him feel as though he has to meet a certain standard. Surprisingly, he can be totally himself, and it seems to be enough for you.

He loves his friends. He wouldn’t trade them for the world. But he’s not sure he won’t have moments where he’ll wish nothing more than for them all to go away and leave the two of you be.

You eat until you can’t anymore and are still left with enough food for another full meal. You only let him get the bill once he’s promised that next time will be on you. If it means there’ll be a next time, he’s more than happy with making that promise. The sun has set when you exit the restaurant. Sunghoon shivers as he steps outside, the temperature having gone down by at least four degrees in the last two hours.

You grab his hand; it warms him right up.

Your apartment is a thirty-minute bus ride away, but Sunghoon offers to walk you home. Anything to spend more time with you.

He spends the first few minutes of the walk worrying about his hand, whether it’s too clammy, whether it’s holding yours right, but he eventually relaxes into the touch. When a particularly chilly gust of wind blows, you drop his hand and hold onto his arm instead, inching closer to him for more warmth.  He only drank lemonade with his meal, but he feels blissfully light-headed.

Silence only arrives when you reach your doorstep. You stand in front of each other, Sunghoon looking down at his feet, you gazing out at the empty street. He knows this is the moment where he is supposed to kiss you. If there was a step-by-step guide on how to date — there probably is, but Sunghoon hasn’t resorted to such loser-like measures yet — this would probably be the moment where it would be written to just kiss her, you idiot. But nerves get the best of him.

At least, you’re there to save the day. You direct your gaze towards him, a bashful smile playing on your lips. “So… are you gonna kiss me now?” you ask, essentially reading his mind. 

He reacts immediately. “Y-yep. Yes. I am.” Heart racing, he takes a step towards you as he rests his hands on your waist. Then he changes his mind, and brings one hand up to your cheek. There’s an eyelash that has fallen below your eye; he brushes it out of the way with his thumb before leaning in and pressing his lips against yours.

In all of his late-night scenarios and daydreams of kissing you, he had never imagined something as good as this. You find your rhythm within seconds. It’s slow, almost hesitant, yet so tender, it makes Sunghoon’s heart ache. As your lips move against each other in perfect sync, as your hands find their way around Sunghoon’s neck, he realizes he should have known — this will not go away as quickly as it came.

Only when you grab a fistful of his hair, making him react viscerally and wrap his arm around your waist to bring you closer to him, does he remember where the two of you are. He leans back, then almost passes out when you chase his lips and press a shorter but just as sweet kiss there. He commits this view to memory—the smile on your lips, the glow on your face, the haziness in your eyes.

“Do you wanna come up?”

“Yes,” he replies immediately, and it makes you laugh. You grab his hand and lead him up the stairs and into your apartment.

“Are the girls in?” he asks as you lock the front door.

“Minjeong is at karaoke with her school friends, and Yunjin and Chaewon are at a dinner party somewhere.”

“Minjeong karaokes?”

“Get enough G&Ts in her and she’ll do anything.”

You turn on a small lamp in your room and take off your jacket. Sunghoon has been in your apartment before, but never in your room—at some point, he’ll spend an hour observing every photograph and trinket in detail, asking you about every backstory, but right now, he’s got more important things to tend to. His heart beats uncontrollably as you shut the door to your room and walk towards him, eyes gazing deeply into his. The corners of your lips rise when you tug at the bottom of his sweatshirt, a clear indicator that you want it off. He wastes no time in obliging.

The air is buzzing with electricity when your lips find each other again. You’re both more confident this time around, and so the kiss is deeper, your touches bolder. Everything happens quickly—one second, you’re standing in the middle of your room; the next, you’re laying on your bed, Sunghoon underneath you. 

“You know,” he says between kisses, “I’d really planned on being a gentleman and not going up to your room after the first date…”

Your lips move from his lips to his jawline, warm and soft against his skin. Sunghoon closes his eyes and lets out a low hum of approval. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” you whisper, lips brushing against his neck as you speak. “And since we’re onto confessions, I can finally say I’ve been wanting to do this since we met.”

This information sends his mind reeling. Not once had he been sure of how you felt about him — he even remembers you saying no to a kiss — and here you are, saying you’ve been wanting to kiss him since the beginning, just like he had. 

“You’re me,” he replies breathlessly.

“Hm?”

“I mean, me too.”

You pause your kisses to giggle, a sound so soft and intimate it has Sunghoon melting impossibly more. “You’re me?”

Unfortunately, he is too preoccupied by you to put a filter between the weird, half-formed thoughts in his brain and the words that leave his mouth. “Don’t question it,” he says, a smile audible in his voice, before moving his head and catching your lips. If he couldn’t stop himself from saying odd things, he could at least distract you from them.

Sunghoon thinks he’s doing a good job keeping himself together, until you roll your hips against his. It’s barely anything, but it sends waves of pleasure and anticipation through his body. His grip on your waist tightens, and when you repeat the motion, his hands sneakily find their way down your back and under your dress. Palms splayed against your ass, he brings you down closer to him. The second you moan into the kiss, he’s a goner. 

After that, it doesn’t take long for clothes to be discarded or for curious fingers to find the other’s waistbands. Your movements are hasty, messy—the tension that had built up over weeks of pining for you, after getting close to kissing you twice and thinking about it a hundred times more, it all comes crashing down in this moment, as his teeth sink into the flesh of your neck, as your hands pull at strands of his hair, as your bodies gently bump into each other. If someone asked Sunghoon right now how long he’d known you, he’d say years, not mere weeks. It couldn’t possibly be real that this much desire had accumulated inside of him — and inside of you, if your broken moans and rapid breathing are anything to go by — in just over a month. 

He only slows down when he has you naked and heaving underneath him, reminding himself to savor the moment instead of rushing it. His fingertips graze down your sides until they reach between your thighs, and he marvels at the way his touch makes you shiver. His eyes are so wide with amazement at the sight of you that he probably looks like he’s never seen a woman before, but he can’t help himself—he always thought you were beautiful, but this is something else entirely. 

His first touch is hesitant, a slow upward motion of his thumb between your folds as if quite literally testing the waters. But it has you arching your back and gripping his bicep, meeting his eyes to silently plead for more. Sunghoon takes that as his green light, thumb circling your clit as his lips continue their work on your neck, on your face, everywhere they can reach. He slips a finger inside of you, then a second one, and when he is satisfied with the state he’s gotten you in, all disheveled and gasping for air, he replaces his fingers with his dick, rock-hard just from seeing and hearing you.

He slowly inches forward until he’s bottomed out, letting you adjust around him. “All good?” he whispers, lips moving against the shell of your ear.

“Never better,” you whisper back, smiling. You kiss him, and the tenderness of your lips on his, mixed with the feeling of being inside you, has Sunghoon’s heart constricting inside his chest. He starts rocking his hips back-and-forth into you, the side of his face is pressed up against yours, head light from the little oxygen the two of you share. It all feels oddly intimate for a first time, feels more like the kind of sex two people would have after years of knowing each other’s bodies. He moves like it’s second nature, thrusts deep and slow, trying to reach those spots that have your hands clawing at his back. He wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him, using his free hand to push the hair that sticks to your face with sweat.

You wrap your legs higher around his hips, the shift in angle letting him go deeper. “Fuck, right there,” you say, voice strangled. Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice—he picks up his pace, and already within a minute, starts to feel himself reaching his limit. He tries to muffle his groans against your skin, but with the way your hold on him tightens and your moans go higher in pitch, you seem to be just as close as he is. When you do come undone around him, breath hitching in your throat before you release a heavy sigh, he has mere seconds left in him. A few thrusts later, his orgasm finally releases him from the tension that had been twisting his stomach into a knot for the past half-hour. You’re both spent, but he continues lazily rocking his hips against yours chasing the last remnants of pleasure, wanting to bask in it just a bit longer. He rolls onto his back after sliding out, wrapping his arms around you. You bury your face in the crook of his neck.

His chest rises and falls as his breathing takes its time returning to normal. In a way, he’s almost relieved it’s over, like any longer would’ve actually taken too much of a toll on him. He likes the comfort he gets from having you in his arms as much as the sex itself. “I didn’t know it could feel this good,” he says, the words spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. He needs more than a few minutes to get his head back on straight and start thinking before he speaks again. You chuckle airily, he chuckles too, and within seconds, you’re both laughing for seemingly no reason. The bliss of such an intense orgasm and the lack of oxygen must have gone to your brain, too.

“Me either,” you say once the laughter dies down. When your lips find his once more, Sunghoon forgets entirely about his exhaustion and feels like he could go for a second round. “Shower?” you ask right when he realizes how sticky and smelly he is.

“Yes, please.”

He can’t keep his hands off of you in the shower, rubbing soap on every square inch of your skin when you could do it perfectly fine yourself, kissing you even when you’ve both got foaming cleanser on your faces. The taste of soap in his mouth is worth the giggles he gets out of you.

Sunghoon reaches heaven when you drop to your knees in front of him, water rushing down his back as you take him in your mouth. He’s eager to return the favor, of course, thumb flicking your clit with a speed and dexterity even he didn’t know he was capable of. If you weren’t already in the shower, you’d have needed another one.

As soon as your bodies hit the mattress, you both drift off to sleep, limbs wrapping around each other as though they had been separated for too long and finally found each other again—not to let go again.

--

When Sunghoon wakes up, it takes him a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t dreamt up last night’s events. He reaches a hand out hesitantly, still half-asleep and scared that you’ll disappear into thin air at the touch of his fingertips. But no—he feels your skin, warm and soft, and he knows this is real.

You’re laying on your side, facing away from him, so he has to strain his neck to peek at your face. You look so peaceful as you sleep—he doesn’t want to wake you up, but he can’t stop himself from wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his torso against your back, humming contentedly to himself. He presses a soft, quiet kiss to the top of your head, just because he can.

Outside, clouds part, and a bright ray of sun shines through the window, landing right on your face. Sunghoon watches as you grumble and turn around, burying your face in his chest to avoid the blinding light, but the damage is done—you’re awake. He can tell from the drawled-out whine you let out and the way you grab tightly onto his waist, as if it was his fault the sun had decided to shine right on you. 

He lets you settle in a comfortable position. Stays still as you hike your leg over his legs, then slip it between them instead; as you press your cheek against his chest, then bury your nose in his neck; as you wrap your arm around his waist, then move it to thread your fingers through his hair, until you give up on falling back asleep altogether. “It’s so bright in here,” you mumble in lieu of a good-morning greeting.

You can’t see him, so Sunghoon smiles and tightens his grip around you—one arm circling your shoulders, the other, your waist. Skin to skin. “We forgot to close the blinds yesterday.”

“It’s okay,” you say, sighing. You press a kiss to the base of his neck, right between his collarbones, then lift your face to look at him. “How are you feeling?”

This is what it feels like to wake up next to her, Sunghoon thinks. He’d thought about it so many times: what you would look like first thing in the morning, what you’d say to him, what it’d feel like when your eyes met. If you’d be a slow sort of morning person, cuddling in bed with him until the very last possible second, or if you’d be up and about as soon as you woke up. If you’d be grumpy. If you’d want coffee. If you liked morning sex. 

It seems to be a recurring theme that Sunghoon’s imagination never quite lives up to reality. Your sleepy eyes boring into his, struggling to stay open, your fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck; your skin, so warm and so soft, your scent, so intoxicating he can barely think straight.

You’re better than a dream.

“I feel great. Do you feel great?”

“I feel amazing, thank you so much for asking,” you say, burrowing yourself impossibly closer to him.

The two of you stay like this for a while, talking about your plans for the day and begrudging how little you want to go about them. Sunghoon wishes this could go on forever, but then his stomach growls so loudly, his face turns red from embarrassment. He hadn’t even noticed how hungry he was. 

“You’re me,” you say, laughing, and Sunghoon can’t help but join in. “Is it crazy to have last night’s leftovers for breakfast?”

What Sunghoon hears is that you want him to stay; that you don’t want to part ways just yet.

“If by crazy you mean the best idea ever, then yes.”

“Amazing, because I’ve been thinking about that curry all night.”

“Really? I was thinking about something else,” he says, burrowing his face in your neck and leaving warm kisses there. 

You hum and lean into his touches, leaning into his touches. Chills run down his spine as your nails graze his sides. “There might’ve been other things occupying my mind, too.”

And just like that, breakfast is postponed to thirty minutes later.

--

After that night, Sunghoon forgets how to act right.

His mind has never been so singularly taken up by sex in all of his life. It was already preoccupied with you most of the time, but now that it has more material to gnaw on, it’s practically started to eat away at him. It doesn’t help that you’ve seen each other every day since, or that at every chance you get, you smile knowingly at him or try to get him to play footsies with you. Of course, he loves every bit of attention that he gets from you, but whenever he feels his heart get carried away, Minjeong’s words come back to him in a panic, and he remembers that he has no idea what it is that’s happening between you and him. You could be stringing him along, for all he knows, or you could be as into him as he is into you and just letting things happen. Unfortunately, just letting things happen was not something Sunghoon was good at—if things weren’t written black and white, he’d find a way to overthink even the littlest of details. Like how you’d kissed him for a good five minutes before letting him leave your apartment, otherwise known as the least platonic parting to exist, or conversely, like how you’d sometimes take hours to reply to texts.

If he was already a mumbling fool in front of you before, his condition has only worsened now. He tries his best to be normal and not make you or anyone in the group feel weird, but the fact is that you rocked his world and now he can’t look you in the eyes and not remember how it felt when you touched him or the sounds you made or the way you looked. It’s all playing in a loop in his mind and the only way he knows how to control it is by limiting his interactions with you, which doesn’t even work that well. 

The first couple days, you seem amused by his shyer-than-usual demeanor, but you quickly grow confused more than anything. Sunghoon won’t sit next to you, only speaks to you when necessary, doesn’t seek you out outside of a group setting. He tells himself he just needs some more time to be able to be around you casually again, but before that happens, one day at the library, you make a point to ask him if he’ll come help you get drinks for everyone from the dispenser machine. He knows it’d be too odd to say no, so he follows you.

He presses the buttons for everyone’s order (a Sprite for him, Diet Cokes for the girls, a Red Bull for Jake who has a midterm tomorrow and nothing for Jay who only swears by his disgusting herbal infusion) as you lean against the machine, arms crossed over your chest as you stare at him.

He has never felt so awkward in his life.

“So…” he starts although he has no idea what to say—he hopes something will just appear in his mind and that it’ll alleviate the tension. However, you seem to have other plans.

“What the hell, Sunghoon?” you say, taking him aback. When he glances at you, you don’t seem angry—just genuinely confused. “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague.”

“I haven’t!”

“Sunghoon,” you say sternly. He gives in right away.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I just-I didn’t know what to do. After we, you know…”

“After we had sex?” you say, then burst into laughter when he looks around the room to make sure no one’s heard. His cheeks heat up.

“Yes, after we had sex,” he whispers.

He pays for the drinks and picks them up. When he looks at you again, your smile has completely died down, and worry has settled into your features. “Do you regret it?” you ask, voice now as low as his. As if it hurts to say the words too loud.

Panic overcomes him, and he almost drops half of the drinks as he shakes his head. “No, of course not! I’m really sorry, Y/N, I never meant to be weird about it, I was just trying to wrap my head around everything, and I just… Well, I just didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.”

You nod, taking his words in. “That’s fine. I get it. I just wanted to say, you know, it doesn’t have to change anything. We can still be friends and all. Like you said, it shouldn’t make things weird.”

Sunghoon’s stomach drops. He knows you’re trying to make him feel better, but you’ve inadvertently said the exact opposite of what he wanted to hear. He doesn’t want things to stay the same, or for you to stay friends. For him, things can’t go back to normal after that night — whatever normal means for the two of you — and he was foolishly hoping that you felt the same.

But clearly, you want to let the whole thing die and pretend like it never happened. And whether it’s a good thing or not, his feelings for you have grown so much, he’ll just let you lead him anywhere. Even if that turns out to be nowhere. 

So he conjures up the most convincing smile he can, hands you half of the drinks to carry, and says, “Yeah, sounds good.”

--

After that conversation, Sunghoon doesn’t think anything else will happen between the two of you. You had sex, you talked it out, and that’s the end of it. But then, it turns out that both of your last midterms are at the same time, in the same building, so you invite him to celebrate with pork belly and some drinks. Sunghoon is finishing his second beer when he starts to feel like he’s on that date again, laughing for no reason, butterflies in his stomach every time his gaze catches yours. You lean on your hand as you listen to him talk about a stupid memory from his childhood and he thinks he’s never seen anyone as pretty as you. 

The sun has long set when you say, “You know, it’s Wednesday today.”

He’s not sure what you’re trying to get at. “Yeah?”

“Minjeong’s out at karaoke tonight.”

With these simple words, all the images of you that Sunghoon had finally managed to banish from his mind come flooding back, and he is not even surprised to find himself half-naked in your bed thirty minutes later. So much for staying friends—one time is one thing, but Sunghoon knows he’ll never be normal again after a second time with you.

It’s not a long time before he finds himself in your room again. Every item of clothing between the two of you is gradually discarded while you kiss, lips growing more impatient with every inch of bare skin uncovered. He reluctantly lets you go when you suddenly giggle and say that you really need to pee, watching as you grab his t-shirt off the floor and put it on, just in case Minjeong comes home. You wear it like it’s yours, like it’s the most natural thing in the world that you’d be wearing his clothes. An indescribable feeling washes over Sunghoon at the sight, so intense he feels tears welling behind his eyes. Like something he’s been yearning for is finally at the grasp of his fingers; like it might slip away at any moment. 

His feelings must’ve transpired in the way he was looking at you—when you meet his eyes, your expression shifts slightly, and you quickly slip out of your room. He tells himself to reel it in. Get it together, he thinks. Or you’ll drive her away. 

A wave of tiredness hits him in the minute that you’re gone, probably due to all that soju and beer. “I’m back,” you whisper, but he doesn’t move, only opens his arms wide for you to get back into bed with him. It’s like a weight is lifted off his heart when he feels you against him again. You’re back. Your face is fresh, as if you’d splashed it with cold water, but when he slips one of his hands underneath your (his) t-shirt, your skin is still just as warm as before. Far from the fuzzy, tingly feeling he had gotten when you’d woken up together the other morning, now, he feels his desire for you deep in the pit of his stomach. The kind of hunger food couldn’t satisfy. “I missed you,” he whispers, voice low and gravelly. He reacts immediately when you squirm against him, tightening his grip around your waist and pulling you to him.

“I was gone two minutes.”

“I mean these past few days. I was starting to think I’d dreamt you up.” His hand on your lower back sneaks its way up between your bodies until it finds your breasts, cupping one of them with his palm before taking your nipple between his thumb and index, gently twisting. It pulls a half-gasp, half-moan from your throat, and the sound goes straight to his dick. “But you’re real, aren’t you?” 

“Very real,” you reply, a tremor in your voice. He’s barely touching you, and you’re already having trouble breathing. Sunghoon smiles at the idea of him having as much of a hold on you as you do on him.

“Good,” he says, voice so low it’s almost a growl. In one quick sweep, he pushes you down so your back is against the mattress, resting his palms on each side of your head.

He’s inside you within mere minutes. He’d wanted to hold back a bit, but you whispering Just put it in after thirty seconds of his fingers loosening you up was enough to convince him. His mind is already fuzzy with remnants of alcohol, and his overwhelming desire for you only makes matters worse. He barely has any control over his movements, rushed and sloppy, but as he drives himself deeper into you, your moans increase in volume. He only later realizes how tight his grip on your hips is when he sees two small bruises forming on the skin there. 

He comes quickly, probably embarrassingly so, but he can’t bring himself to care—he’s got other things on his mind. He’s not even bothered to discard the condom as he makes his way down your body, lips around your clit before you’ve even had the time to register what was happening. You cry out, a sound that Sunghoon works to pry out of you over and over again. Even when your thighs start shaking and you squirm away from him, he doesn’t relent. He’s just as desperate to make you feel good as he was desperate chasing his own pleasure earlier. He hooks his arms around your thighs, bringing you down to him and ensuring that you can’t get away. One hand still in his hair, the other clutching the bed sheets, you’ve turned your face sideways into the pillow so that your moans come out muffled. He is only satisfied when you’ve reached your second orgasm. 

As your breath slowly returns to normal, Sunghoon makes his way back up your body, leaving a trail of kisses in his wake. You clear your throat of its dryness and burst into soft, quiet laughter. “What’s funny?” Sunghoon murmurs, lips against your neck. 

“Nothing,” you say, still laughing. “That was just really, really nice.”

Sunghoon smiles. “I’m glad,” he says before kissing you, lips moving slowly against yours.

As he lays against you, the top of his head under your chin and your fingernails grazing along his back, a weird feeling overcomes him. Sunghoon is usually a pine-from-afar sort of guy, with at least five instances of hanging out that could or could not be a date before making things any sort of official. The pining has been a constant with all of his crushes. He’s gotten to the hanging out stage a couple of times, but the officialising has only happened once. Despite its low success rate, it’s a cycle Sunghoon feels comfortable with, and he’d imagined the rest of his romantic encounters would follow that pattern. 

But this is completely different. Of the three times you guys have met separately from your friend group, already two times have included sex. This isn’t a stage Sunghoon usually reaches before at least a few months and it disorientates him. What does it mean? That you like him so much, you decided to skip all of the steps and jump straight into the thick of it? He is reasonable enough not to delude himself into such a thought. He likes you a lot—that much he can be sure of. He’s liked you since the moment he laid eyes on you, even if the reason eludes him. Something in the way you smiled at him, the way you took him in stride as if you’d known him forever. When he thinks back to that party, he can’t believe it started out as the two of you being strangers. Even now, feeling your warm skin against his, it feels like a lie that just two months ago he hadn’t even met you. 

What he can’t say with total certainty is that you like him the same amount. Or that you like him any amount, really, although in his naivety he doesn’t understand how anyone could be this intimate with another person without liking them at least a little bit. And he doesn’t just mean the sex. He means this. The silently laying in each other’s arms, the soft kisses, the caresses wherever hands can reach. Eating post-sex snacks together, laughing as you watch the first episode of each other’s favorite sitcoms (Brooklyn Nine-Nine for him, Pen15, oddly enough, for you). Falling asleep together, cuddling the entire night then waking up and diving right back into each other’s embrace. 

After an entire day spent in rumination, Sunghoon’s still not sure what to make of it all.

All he knows is that when he DMs you that night, asking you how your day went, he goes through every emotion between anxiety, self-hatred and indifference in the five minutes that separate his text from your reply. He’s never been so happy to hear that someone couldn’t concentrate in class because of him.

--

Sunghoon has always been obsessed with the way couples stand together in public. 

Every time, it takes everything in him not to stare, because he wants to take in every little thing they do. He has that practically everywhere he goes, wanting to stare at people just to see what their deal is, but he is never quite as simultaneously fascinated and envious as when he spots a couple. But he knows staring isn’t the socially appropriate thing to do, so he either steals glances or watches for a little bit then pretends they aren’t there. He can’t help himself—even if they aren’t holding hands or obnoxiously making out in public, it’s still visible to anyone with eyes that there is something tying these people together. It’s in the way they stand near each other, their bodies turned inwardly, as though enveloped by a bubble containing just the two of them and no one else; in the way they look at each other, their eyes never straying from the other’s face as they talk, intimacy showing itself even in a loud, crowded room. Sunghoon craves to find that proximity, to be able to touch and be touched so softly, every graze of a hand purposeful and unconscious at the same time.

It’s the first of November already. The Weather app, as it tends to do, has deceived you; so instead of a walk on what was supposed to be a sunny day, you find yourselves in a busy café near the University, the air outside too chilly even with your scarves and gloves. You’re waiting for your order at the end of the counter — a mocha for him, an oat flat white for you — when he notices it. Your body is fully facing him, you’re distractedly playing with the hem of his sweatshirt, and you’re not looking at anything but him as you rant about that annoying classmate of yours that goes by a self-made nickname and always talks over the tutor. In this light, the two of you are like the couples he’s always longed to be—the simple thought makes him want to cry. As more and more often is the case these days, you have no idea what you’re doing to him.

It’s been around two months since you first met and in that time, although Sunghoon is lucky not to have enough fingers to count the number of times you have seen each other one-on-one, not much has happened. Minjeong, who had understood what was going on the first time she saw the two of you eating leftovers from the Japanese restaurant on the couch at 10 a.m., has grown accustomed to his presence in the apartment and even sometimes sits down to watch a movie with the two of you—a movie that Chaewon would usually have forced you to watch in the living room instead of the privacy of your bedroom, so that everyone could join. Sunghoon is just glad Minjeong has stopped silently scolding him with her eyes every time he comes out of your room. She never mentions that night when she essentially warned him against you after the party. 

Jake seems to be the only oblivious one in your group. Yunjin and Chaewon have eyes like hawks and horrifyingly vivid imaginations when they put their heads together, so they were probably already making plans for your wedding and fighting for the title of godmother when you and Sunghoon met at the beginning-of-semester party. They cornered him once at a party and forced him to spill the beans and spare no detail, because you apparently were “denying everything, but we know there’s something going on.” Jay is still Sunghoon’s go-to person when he needs advice concerning you, although the older boy doesn’t understand why it has to be so complicated and always tells him to “just tell her how you feel,” which Sunghoon will not do unless there is a gun to his head. But Jake just seems happy to see his friend and his sister get along this well—no matter how many times you wear his jacket at their games or disappear at the same time at the end of parties, he doesn’t grow suspicious. If he does, he doesn’t mention it to Sunghoon, at least.

Between the two of you, not a word is spoken about the nature of your relationship, which remains unbearingly undefined. For a while, he weakly convinces himself that he doesn’t need to have that conversation with you. He’s young, he’s free, he should be able to enjoy casual sex without putting a label on it. The main problem, though, was that the sex could not be further from casual, at the very least not to Sunghoon.

He has never known anything quite like it. In mere weeks, you’ve both mastered the art of pleasuring each other. He understands your body like it’s his, knows what each of the sounds and expressions you make means. He knows where to touch you to have a kiss go from light-hearted to dizzyingly intense, how to move his mouth to have you arching your back and holding onto him for dear life. And you—he thinks your skin must be laced with cocaine, the way he can never get enough of it. 

But it’s always the moments afterwards that get him in his head. To him, casual sex means getting dressed the minute it’s over and going off to do other things, which is the absolute opposite of what you do. Whether it’s falling asleep together or spending Sundays in bed, you always stay together afterwards, curled up in each other’s arms as you talk away the hours, conversations interspersed with slow, lazy kisses. He’ll say things like, “You’re so pretty,” or “Why do you smell so good?” because he’s so smitten with you that he can never stop himself from uttering every compliment that flashes through his brain, but the things he really wants to say are harder to speak out loud. Even just a What are we?—three simple words that he can’t bring himself to ask, too scared it’ll ruin everything. 

Arguably worse is that sex isn’t even a requirement for when you and Sunghoon see each other. He goes on walks with you whenever you’ve spent too much time in the library and need some fresh air. You go shopping with him when his department throws a fundraiser and he needs a formal outfit. He cooks you your favorite meal when your period is particularly nasty. You sneak into the ice rink after his practice and let him ‘teach’ you how to skate, even though you already learned how with Jake when you were kids. Even mundane moments become fun when spent with you, and you share so many hobbies and interests that you never run out of things to do or talk about.

And yet, it feels like one step forward, two steps back with you—if you let him close one night, you’ll run away the next. A week will pass without you seeing each other outside of the library or group hang-outs, and if Sunghoon asks you out, you’ll say no, usually blaming the amount of work you have. He gets it—due to the nature of your degree and your being a fourth-year student, your workload is much heavier than his, with essays, translations and oral presentations due every other week. And that’s not even including midterms and finals. But still, he doesn’t see why you would need to stay at the library for ten hours straight for days on end. He’d start worrying about your health if you didn’t at least relax on weekends. 

So while Sunghoon wants nothing more than to go all in with you, he senses you holding back. He notices you avoiding eye contact during particularly intimate moments, and when you look at him perhaps too fondly for your liking, you quickly catch yourself and resume your neutral, sometimes almost cold expression. When he tries to broach more personal, sensitive topics, you always find a way to change the subject or turn the conversation towards him before you get too deep. 

As time passes, and especially as exam season nears, he can tell there’s something that you’re not telling him about. His suspicions are confirmed when you come back from a weekend at your parents’ house. He’s also been away for an out-of-town hockey game, and because he hasn’t had much time to text you (and because their team won, so he wants to show off a little), he’s particularly looking forward to seeing you again that Monday. It’s only been three days since you’ve last seen each other, but he misses you like crazy. 

But the minute you’re back, you bury yourself in work like never before, often waking up at ungodly hours and staying at the library until midnight. More than once, he stays behind with you, long after the others have gone, reminding you gently every hour that it might be time to go home and get some rest. The moments you actually agree are few and far between, and although he sticks it out at first, sleeping with his head on the table until you tell him you’re ready to go, your stubbornness soon starts frustrating him, and he ends up leaving when he gets too tired. He knows this is important to you, but he doesn’t understand why you have to go to these lengths—you’d still easily be one of the best students in your class without all this exertion. And despite his many attempts, you won’t tell him what’s wrong, won’t even admit that something is wrong—you keep repeating that “it’s just what exam season is like.”

When he asks your friends about it, they seem just as confused as he is. One evening when you have plans to order some food and watch a movie at your apartment, he shows up at the agreed time, but you’re nowhere to be found. Thankfully, the girls are there to let him up and not leave him standing outside in the rain. You don’t pick up when he calls you and call him back a minute later, apologizing profusely but still saying that there’s something you really need to finish first. If it was only a one-time thing, it wouldn’t make him as angry as it does—but this has been going on for almost two weeks now, and Sunghoon is close to boiling point. 

The fact that it’s been months since your date at the Japanese restaurant, and the only thing that you’ve said about what was happening between you and Sunghoon “didn’t have to change anything.” The fact that you’re essentially each other’s boyfriend and girlfriend without the label or the reassurance that comes with it. The fact that there’s something clearly bothering you but that you won’t tell him about it. The fact that this something is effectively coming between the two of you. Sunghoon was originally more worried about you than anything—now that studying has taken obvious precedence over him in your list of priorities, he’d be lying if he said his ego wasn’t wounded. He isn’t asking to be the number one most important thing in your life, and he knew before even meeting you that high academic performance meant a lot to you, but he likes to think he deserves at least a little bit of your time and attention. 

Except, does he really? It’s not like you’re actually dating.

There’s a pang in his heart as he remembers this fact that he should never have forgotten in the first place. It hurts—and so perhaps, he’s less patient than he ought to be.

“Whatever, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, just let me know when you have time for something other than getting As.”

He hangs up and meets your flatmates’ worried eyes. 

“She still at the library?” Chaewon asks, tone delicate as if trying not to scare off a wounded animal. Sunghoon nods, a deep sigh escaping his mouth. 

“She always studies a lot,” Minjeong starts, “but this is something else.”

“Have you guys tried saying something?”

The girls nod. “Even Jake has talked to her, but she won’t listen. And he usually always gets to her,” Minjeong says. 

He goes home soon afterwards and spends the rest of his evening in rumination, torn between his worry and his anger towards you—emotions which only increase as more days pass, and he sees less and less of you. Your behavior was already concerning while preparing for your exams and final assignments, it gets even worse when exams actually do start. He doesn’t hear from you for an entire week, and the one time you miraculously agree to a short group hang-out in the form of getting coffee, you’re only half there, physically present but mind far, far away. You barely react when the guys tell you about their victory at the latest hockey game—which you didn’t attend, as well as any other game recently. 

No matter how much he tries to put it out of his mind, to focus on his own exams and hockey games, you stay at the forefront of his thoughts. The hockey team is away for another out-of-town game when he decides to broach the subject with Jake, with whom he’s sharing a room. The entire semester, he’s been careful not to raise Jake’s suspicions about the two of you, both out of consideration for you, who’d mentioned you didn’t want your brother to know what was going on, and for himself, who would also rather Jake not know, at least not until your relationship became official. Which it never did. But now that all he gets from you is radio silence at a time when you’d usually be an hour into a FaceTime call, he can’t help himself.

Jake is just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel, when Sunghoon takes his shot in the dark. “Have you heard from Y/N recently?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can, pretending to not be avidly waiting for his friend’s reaction by keeping his eyes on his phone.

“Y/N?” Jake echoes. “No, not really. Why?”

“Just ‘cause I haven’t seen her around much. I’m wondering if everything’s okay.”

“You mean her staying at the library all day?” Sunghoon nods; Jake sighs. “Yeah, she’ll snap out of it soon enough. She gets somewhat like this every time exams come around, but even I have to admit it’s pretty tough this time around. The last time I saw her like this was way back in high school, and that’s because our parents were watching right over her shoulder. It’s been better in university thanks to the distance.”

“So this has to do with your parents?”

“Oh, one hundred percent. She’s always wanted to do well at school, but she only gets this obsessive when our parents are involved.”

“I guess this did start after that weekend when she went home…” Sunghoon muses absent-mindedly. It could’ve passed off as an off-hand remark, but Jake pauses in his movements and looks at him warily.

“Yeah, she did… You noticed that, huh?”

Sunghoon pauses. This whole time, he was sure Jake was oblivious to anything happening between you and him—but he might have underestimated his friend. Like brother, like sister; he can hardly read either of you when he really needs to. Jake might genuinely be surprised that Sunghoon remembered your whereabouts that weekend, or he’s onto him. “I guess I did,” he finally says, going for as noncommittal an answer as he can.

Jake says nothing for a bit, and Sunghoon thinks he’s managed to get through the conversation without raising too much suspicion—until a minute later, when Jake speaks again. “Do you… like Y/N?”

Sunghoon freezes, snapping his head towards Jake, who’s lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. His first instinct is to deny, but there’s no point pretending anymore. It’s one thing keeping it from Jake—lying to him about it is something else entirely. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, but it must be had. “Yeah, I do,” Sunghoon replies, guilt clear in his voice, more because he’s only now admitting it to Jake than because of his feelings themselves.

A shaky breath comes out of Jake’s mouth, as if this was the exact answer he had dreaded. “Right, okay. Since when?”

“Since I met her, basically.”

Jake’s head whips towards Sunghoon, and their gazes meet awkwardly. “Since that party in September?” he asks, shock written all over his face. Sunghoon nods, and to his surprise, Jake bursts out laughing. “Don’t tell me it’s because you accidentally matched costumes?”

Sunghoon looks away, frowning. “That might’ve helped things along,” he mumbles, embarrassment washing over him as Jake’s laughter intensifies. At least he was taking it well—a bit too well, perhaps.

“You’re so predictable, man,” Jake says when he’s calmed down, wiping a tear from his eye. 

“How did you know, anyway?”

“You’ve been pretty obvious with it recently,” Jake replies after a few seconds. “I could tell you were a bit shy around her at first, and when it got better I just thought you’d become friends or something. But when she showed up with your jacket at every game and you never left her side at parties, I assumed something else was going on. You’ve always been staying behind at the library these days, and I know you don’t have that much work.”

Sunghoon chuckles. “I guess I haven’t been trying hard to hide it lately.”

“Yeah, why would you hide it in the first place? You could’ve just told me.”

“I didn’t want to make things weird.”

Jake frowns. “It wouldn’t have been weird. If anything, hiding it makes it weirder.”

“I just thought, if one of my friends had a crush on my sister, I’d probably rather they hid it. Like, I don’t need to know about that,” Sunghoon says, and it makes Jake laugh.

“Dude, Y/N and I are only a year apart. Do you know how many guys have come up to me asking me for her number or advice on how to ask her out? It’s been, like, one every few months since middle school. Guys here especially have no shame telling me how hot they find her.”

Sunghoon makes a face. He doesn’t disagree, but he’d never go out of his way to tell your brother how exquisite you looked in certain outfits. “That’s gross.”

“Yeah, it is. But you’re my friend, not some greasy rando, so I trust you. If anything, I’d probably have to tell her to be nice to you, and not the other way around.”

“Yeah, you could say that again,” Sunghoon grumbles, then realizes his mistake immediately, eyes widening.

“What do you mean?” Jake asks, sounding genuine at first, but when Sunghoon stays quiet for a couple seconds, debating whether he should just lay the truth bare, Jake sits up on the bed and repeats his question, his tone much warier this time around. Sunghoon glances at him then looks away guiltily.

“Well, to be completely honest… We’ve sort of been seeing each other, kind of. But it’s complicated.”

Jake flops back down on his mattress with a grunt. “Who else knows?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes with his hands as if suddenly very exhausted.

“Everyone…”

“Everyone?!”

“Well, Jay, Minjeong, Yunjin and Chaewon.”

“So everyone.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Great.” Jake sighs. “Since when?”

“Since October,” Sunghoon mumbles, feeling guiltier than ever. He’s belatedly realizing that it would’ve been much easier to have everything out in the open from the get-go, both with you and with Jake; now he’s both stuck in situationship limbo and has to face the consequences of keeping something this important from one of his closest friends. “Are you upset?” Sunghoon asks, feeling a bit like a ten-year-old.

“Kinda, yeah, but more at her than at you. I’ve told her not to go after anyone from the hockey team.”

“‘Cause of Heeseung?”

“Yeah. God, that was messy. He gave her mixed signals for so long, I could barely talk to him without thinking of her crying for so long. And now he’s the one who can’t quite look me in the eye,” Jake says, shaking his head at the mere thought of his captain.

“Was it that bad? She made it seem like it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “Really? It upset her for a while though,” he says, then turns his head to look at the ceiling again. “I guess that’s not so surprising of her. She sometimes likes pretending she doesn’t have any emotions, even though I’m pretty sure she has more than most people.”

“Huh.” That would explain some things, Sunghoon muses. Emotions are not a topic that comes up very often with you, and every time he’s gotten an inkling of them, you seem to shut it all down immediately.

“But you know, I’m more surprised than anything. About… about it all, really. Not just that you’re only telling me now, but that it’s lasted this long. She must really like you.”

“You think?” Sunghoon says, his face brightening with hope, the words slipping from him before he can stop them once again. He shrinks when Jake laughs at him.

“Look at you. Down bad, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“But yeah, dude. I’ve told you about this. I’ve never seen her in a relationship, ever. Says she doesn’t have the time,” Jake says, air-quoting you. “I’ve only had the displeasure of seeing her go home with one-night-stands. You know that since she started college, she’s had a rule that she’d only see someone three times and that was it?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, so she wouldn’t catch feelings. I’m telling you, she’s crazy. So you must be special.”

Sunghoon can’t stop the smile from spreading on his lips—special. But it doesn’t make him feel that much better, either. “It’s not like we’re actually dating, so I’m not sure how special I can be…”

Jake’s head turns to look at Sunghoon again, but the younger boy keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling fan above him. “What’s happening between you guys?”

A blush creeps on Sunghoon’s cheeks. “Is this something you really want to talk about?”

“Well, spare me the gruesome details, please,” Jake says, chuckling, “but yeah, I would like to know what’s going on with my best friend and my sister.”

“I’m your best friend?” Sunghoon says, grinning as he meets Jake’s gaze, who rolls his eyes.

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Fine.” He sighs. “Well, I didn’t think it would happen more than once-”

“What would happen more than once?”

Sunghoon pauses. “Well, you know…” Jake gives him a look as if to say, Well, no, I don’t know, so Sunghoon is forced to go on: “Sleeping together.”

“You guys slept together?!” Jake exclaims, sitting up on his bed once again.

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“I don’t know, just that you were going on dates, hanging out one-on-one, or whatever…”

“Well, we were.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Jake says, waving his hand in front of his face like swatting a fly away. “So, not just once, then?”

“No. And I thought it’d be a one-time thing, ‘cause a few days afterwards she said something about it not having to change our friendship…”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. But then it did. Happen again, I mean. And it’s been happening frequently since. But we’re not… dating dating. We haven’t had that conversation.”

Jake frowns. “Why not?”

Sunghoon releases a shaky breath. Why not, indeed. “‘Cause she hasn’t mentioned it. And I’m too scared to do it.”

“What are you scared of?”

“The typical stuff. What we have now… it’s not what I want, but it’s managed to not disrupt the group, you know. I’m scared that if I tell her how I feel, it’ll make things awkward between the two of us, and between all of us by extension.”

“Well, it might,” Jake says after thinking for a few seconds. “I wish I could tell you with certainty that she’ll like you back, but I honestly can’t. As obvious as you were towards her, she was not giving anything away.” Sunghoon chuckles, more out of self-deprecation than anything. This was not the pep talk he had hoped for. “But, I can tell you that she won’t be the type to make things awkward. You have nothing to risk by telling her, because in the long run, you’ll be better off that way. I know you, Sunghoon. You’ll be miserable if you can’t be fully yourself with someone.”

Decidedly, Sunghoon’s friends had a way of telling him the exact opposite of the things he wanted to hear while being completely right. He wishes things with you could stay the same — minus the overworking yourself and ignoring him in the process — and that he wouldn’t have to do anything that might make them change. But just as Jake said, he’d also reach a point where he couldn’t take it anymore—a point he was already inching closer and closer to with every passing day. He likes you enough to let you not define the relationship, but he likes you too much to let it go on. He likes you too much to not be able to tell you, and show you, and remind you of it every day. He hated having to hold back, and he hated feeling you holding back. He wanted to give you his all and he wanted all of you, too, not just bite-sized portions of you.

“You’re right,” he finally says. “I haven’t been able to talk to her lately, but I’ll have to tell her soon enough. When her exams are over, I guess.”

Jake sighs. “Yeah. I don’t know if there’s any getting through to her right now.”

“She’s blown me off so many times! I don’t know what she’s doing, spending so many hours in that library. I’d go insane.”

“She’s a perfectionist,” Jake says, shaking his head. “I’ve talked to her about it. When it comes to school, she needs everything to be as flawless as can be. She spends hours re-reading and editing her work. It’s not good.”

“Not really, no.”

“But she’s only got a week left. I’ll try to convince her not to go home for too long, and it’ll be better after the holidays. Then we’ll make sure there’s not a repeat of this next exam season.”

He thinks of Christmas break and of not seeing you for two weeks; of next semester and going through all of this with you a second time. The uncertainty, the fooling around behind your friends’ backs — although that might not be needed now that Jake is in on it too — Sunghoon’s not sure if he can go through it all again. “Yeah, we will.”

--

They lose their game the following day. They had an amazing run, either winning or tying every game so far; this loss is not enough to make them drop significantly in the rankings, but it’s enough to demoralize Sunghoon. It couldn’t have come at a worse time—between you and this failed game, his self-esteem is taking a real hit.

He dared hope for some comfort from you once he was back, but in vain. He doesn’t know why he imagined your attitude might’ve changed overnight, and when he texts you asking to hang out, the same old sorry I can’t atm fills his phone screen. And just like that, as strong as his feelings for you have been all this time, so is his resentment—unwarranted, perhaps, but he thinks he deserves better than this, and he’s both angry at you for not giving him anything and at himself for letting it happen.

Now, he’s the one who spends hours working himself to the bone in the ice rink, who’s clearly preoccupied with other things when everyone gets together, and who doesn’t even show up to the party the whole group goes to when you’re all done with exams. The last game before winter break is in two days, and he doesn’t want to waste a day nursing a hangover when he could be practicing.

That night, he thinks everyone is out at some random club downtown, so he does a double-take when it’s past eleven p.m. and you show up at the rink. He’s skating laps, practicing his speed and his goal-shooting, only noticing you when you’re standing in the middle of the rink. He almost skates right into you.

“Y/N?” he asks, not completely sure you’re not just a figment of his imagination. He’s so exhausted, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were dreaming you up.

“Jay texted me.”

“Oh. Why?” He’s out of breath, and the words come out blunter than he intends them to.

“Because it’s almost midnight and you’re still here,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. There’s a hint of a smile on your lips, but your eyebrows are furrowed in what looks like worry. It’s the first time Sunghoon’s seeing you concerned over something other than an assignment. 

He shrugs and resumes his laps, slower this time, forcing you to keep turning on your feet. “I’m practicing. There’s a big game coming up.”

“Which is exactly why you should be resting, like everyone else on your team right now.”

He resists rolling his eyes. “Why would I rest when I could be getting better?”

“Because you need rest as much as you need practice. You won’t be any use on the rink if you’re too tired to play properly.”

“And I won’t be any use if I can’t shoot properly, either.”

“Sunghoon, you need a break. You’re clearly exhausted-Will you stop it?” you suddenly snap. “I’m trying to talk to you, and I’m getting dizzy.” 

Your small outburst only has him growing more agitated, and even though he does stop, it’s more so you can see the annoyance on his face than anything. “You know, this is a bit rich coming from you, Y/N.” He knows this is not the right time to bring this up—if he has grievances against you, he shouldn’t be bringing them up when he’s already frustrated. He’s well aware of this, but he can’t help himself.

You scoff. “Excuse me?”

“You’re the one who spends twelve hours a day in the library during exams and does not budge even if I tell you you should go home.”

“That’s different-”

“How is it any different?” he interrupts, voice rising. “You don’t listen to me when you overwork yourself. I don’t see why I should.”

“So you realize that you’re overworking yourself?”

“Of course I do! But I have to.”

“No, you don’t-”

“Y/N, please. I have to win as much as you have to get the top grades. Is it actually necessary? No, but you know how shit it feels not to.”

“And it’s exactly because I know that feeling that I’m telling you to stop. You’re just feeding into it.”

“So are you, staying until 2 a.m. in the library. You’ve never once gone home when I asked you to.”

“Again, that’s different-”

“How?! How is it different? Please enlighten me, ‘cause they’re the exact same thing to me.”

You sigh. A sudden sadness appears on your face. Sunghoon is torn between wanting to see this to its end and taking everything he’s said back. But he keeps quiet, and your eyes, when they meet his again, harden. “Are you really gonna make me say it?”

“Yes.”

As if you couldn’t say your next words while looking at him, you tear your gaze away from his face. “Because I’m actually concerned about you, here. The only reason you want me to stop and go home is so we can fuck.”

Sunghoon is so astounded that all words fail him—he stares at you, mouth wide open like you just shot him. After a few seconds, all he’s able to come up with is an incredulous, “What?” His voice is a mere whisper. 

“You heard me,” you say coldly.

He closes his mouth and swallows. “So… you’re the one who’s worried, and I’m only after sex?”

You glance at him. “Yeah.”

A chuckle escapes Sunghoon’s throat, then another, until laughter spills out of him uncontrollably. He feels like the world is upside down. How could you have lived the same thing and come out of it with such different perspectives? Your account of his intentions with you is so ridiculous and unfathomable to him that he can’t do anything but laugh.

You seem taken aback at first, but your surprise quickly turns into annoyance. “Something funny?”

“Hilarious, actually,” he says, holding his stomach. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. All he finds at the end of his amusement is anger, bright red and hot. It’s not an emotion he feels often, its rarity only serving as an intensifier—he starts making his way out of the rink before it can explode and hit you in its wake. “Well, that’s convinced me to call it a day. So you got what you came for, I guess.”

His fingers tremble as he undoes the laces on his skates and puts his sneakers on again. You stand by the door of the rink, holding onto the frame as you look at him, that same sad look still on your face. “Hoon,” you say, voice weak. What would usually have him melting only has his anger flare harder.

“Don’t. For the first time ever, I actually really don’t want to talk to you right now.” He stands up, gives you one last harsh look, and turns away. He only halts right before exiting the bleacher area, and after a couple seconds of thinking, turns back around. “Oh, but don’t worry, I’ll let you know when I want to fuck again. Since that’s all this is, clearly.”

--

It seemed to you no one thought you were good enough for Sunghoon.

Only Yunjin and Chaewon seemed excited at the prospect of the two of you getting together, or at least getting to know each other, but they were also the type to coo at dogs in the street and tear up at the sight of old people holding hands; Minjeong was apprehensive from the start, and made it clear; Jay was indifferent; Jake was oblivious for a while. Sunghoon was…

What was Sunghoon?

Someone who had come out of nowhere, shaken up your routine and messed with your head. That’s what Sunghoon was. He didn’t seem apologetic in the slightest.

Maybe it was your fault for not opening up to the people closest to you and letting them think you were some kind of no-strings-attached one-night-stands-only emotionless maneater who had been single for as long as they had known her, who would be seen with someone new every few months, and never for long, who, as far as the eye could tell, only used men for sex. Maybe it was their fault for never trying to dig deeper.

No, okay, it was definitely your fault.

Based on your conversations with your friends, they thought Heeseung had broken your heart, and you had never bounced back properly. He’d hurt you so much, you couldn’t fathom a real relationship anymore—you could only be with someone casually. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, but what Heeseung had done was much worse than just breaking your heart. He’d confirmed what you already knew of yourself: you want too much. You want what you can’t have, what you don’t deserve.

From the moment you met Park Sunghoon, you knew you didn’t deserve someone like him. Minjeong seemed to agree, and when she saw you and him together at choir that Saturday in September, three months ago already, she made sure you knew her thoughts on the matter.

“This is so… unlike you,” was the first thing she’d said after she pulled you aside. 

“What is?”

“This,” she repeated, waving her arms around. “Being here. Coming with him.” She pointed at Sunghoon, whose hair was being ruffled by one grandma and his cheek pulled by another. He kept glancing back worriedly at you—you liked him so much already. “See? You’re smiling at him,” she said, making you realize a sappy smile had started growing on your lips at the sight of him. Your face dropped and you scoffed at the disgust in her voice.

“Yeah, some of us like to smile. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Y/N, you know what I’m trying to say.”

“I don’t think I do, actually.”

She sighed. “You don’t do this. You don’t meet a guy and show up to his choir practice the next morning. What’s happening?”

You crossed your arms over your chest. Had you known your presence would be questioned like that, you might’ve thought twice about coming. “Can’t a girl enjoy a choir without getting interrogated these days?”

“You’re avoiding my question! Listen, Y/N. Sunghoon is not the kind of guy you usually go for. He’s-Stop. Don’t smile at me like that.”

“If you like Sunghoon, you can just tell me. You know I wouldn’t stoop so low as to go after a guy my best friend likes.”

“So you are going after him?”

“So you do like him?”

Minjeong shook her head violently and put her hands on your shoulders, staring into your brain as if trying to make you see some sense. Calmly, she said, “No, I don’t. Sunghoon’s nice, but he is so far from my type. He’s too… nice.”

“You mean he doesn’t wear leather jackets or ride a motorcycle?”

“That was once. But no, he doesn’t do that. And what I’m trying to tell you is that he’s not your type either.”

“And how have you gathered that?”

“Because so far, you’ve only wisely chosen guys who are as detached and emotionally stunted as you.”

“I’m not-”

“But he’s not like that, Y/N. He’s the bring-home-to-your-parents-for-Christmas type. Not the hump-and-dump type.”

“I’m starting to get offended by this conversation.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t go breaking his heart. Or yours, for that matter. It pains me to say but I care about both of you very much and I don’t see this going anywhere good.”

You shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Was her opinion of your romantic tendencies — or lack thereof — that bad that she couldn’t even recommend you to her friend? You felt like a chastised child whose mom told you you couldn’t get the toy you wanted. Despite being well aware that you weren’t the most committed when it came to relationships, you still felt like she was going overboard. Just because nothing had stuck so far didn’t mean it wouldn’t now—she was acting like you went around playing with people’s feelings for fun.

“Jesus, this is my second time seeing him. I just wanna see what his deal is. I’m not breaking anyone’s heart, okay?” 

The choir conductor had called out for everyone to gather on stage then, and that was the end of that conversation. You still remember how funny of a thing it was, seeing Sunghoon in his nice shirt and trousers, his hair falling into his eyes, singing diligently with the choir, when just the night before he had been playing beer pong dressed as Cowboy Ken. In this new light, you understood why Minjeong was so adamant about him not being your usual type, and why the grandmas were fussing over him. You hadn’t known what had pushed you to invite yourself to this rehearsal, and even then as you sat there, you weren’t sure what you were doing or why you couldn’t stop smiling as you watched Sunghoon sing. 

Time made things clearer, starting with that afternoon at the beach. The salt in the air that day had clouded your thoughts, covered them with a thin layer so that your usual reluctance to share anything remotely personal had dimmed. Or maybe it had had nothing to do with the air and everything to do with the boy sitting next to you on the sand, the way words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could think about them and were only met with understanding and empathy on his part. For once, you didn’t feel the need to guard yourself, to adapt your words and actions to the person in front of you. It was something you didn’t know was possible with a near stranger—perhaps because Sunghoon felt nothing like one.

He made you feel things you hadn’t felt in a long time; things you had been craving to feel, needed almost as much as oxygen. Being with him felt like breathing again. But you had been underwater so long, being on land again felt foreign, scary, and you couldn’t help but dive back into safe waters, coming up for air once in a while.

Whether he had intended to or not, Sunghoon had started to scratch at your surface, until he’d burrowed a small hole—shallow, but enough for cracks to appear, cracks you were quick to put back together as best as you could.

So when his gaze was too tender, his touches too gentle, you bristled. You went away, because you were afraid of what might happen if you stayed. The more you wanted to give him, the less you gave him anything at all. Your own desire overwhelmed you. His letterman jacket was warm around your shoulders, you proudly walked around with the four letters of his last name on your back, but you couldn’t get out of your mind how cold it would be if it was one day ripped away from you. 

You thought of Heeseung, how disillusioned you had been when you thought you had finally met someone who would love you the way you had always yearned to be, only for him to toss you away when you started asking for too much. You thought of your friends in middle school, how it seemed that no friendship could be more wonderful until you overheard them talking about you at a sleepover, about how clingy you were. You thought of your parents, how they had only bestowed kind words upon you when you performed well in your role of perfect daughter, of academically gifted child. How they hadn’t even glanced at any of the drawings you’d done of the four of you, mother, father, son and daughter holding hands with a bright yellow sun in the corner of the sky. How they had pushed you away from their bed when you seeked some comfort after a terrible nightmare. How they had never bothered to hide their disappointment when you came home from school with anything less than an A. How they had shunned your brother for not going down the path they had envisioned for him, how hard you had to fight to make them accept yours was not a worthless one.

Even your best friend seemed to think you were unable to receive affection of the likes of Sunghoon’s—but what you were afraid of was that he wouldn’t handle the amount of affection you knew you were able to give. In a way, that was what had drawn you to Sunghoon in the first place—from the moment you’d met him, you had been able to tell there was something of you in him. It seemed to you he had a heart that was overflowing with love, love to give, love to spare on whoever would have it. In his words, you were him. Nevertheless, your fear of getting hurt overrode your desire to feel Sunghoon’s love, and you didn’t know whether you would be able to revert to your nature after having spent so much time perfecting your new facade.

You knew what it was like to be cold. And so you prematurely braced yourself for it by pushing away Sunghoon’s warmth. If it was going to happen at some point, like Minjeong had hinted it would, might as well get used to it, right?

Except the cold never came. Sunghoon kept on burning relentlessly, no matter how much wood you fed his fire with—you could cling to him for nights on end or ignore his texts for days, without fail, he’d welcome you with his usual, unwavering warmth. He allowed you to bask in it, to momentarily let down your defenses. But something always happened to make you raise them back up—Minjeong would eye the two of you suspiciously, Heeseung would post on Instagram (Is one of the girls on slide five his new fling? Are they serious and it wasn’t that he wasn’t ready for a relationship, it’s that he didn’t want one with me?), or your mom would text you to ask you whether everything was okay.

Yet increasingly, you suspected there was something behind Sunghoon’s warmth, something you had missed, something that was tricking you. He looked at you like you had hung the stars in the night sky, yes; in public, a knowing look from you was enough to have his face turn bright red, and in private, one simple touch had his chest heaving, yes; he expressed disappointment every time you turned him down for a hang-out. Your attachment to him grew, and it became harder to put what the two of you had into words.

It wasn’t just sex—it couldn’t be. It ran deeper than that. You knew what relationships that consisted of just sex were like, and this wasn’t that, it was too good, too intimate to be just that. But you weren’t a couple, that much was clear. Only four other people were aware something was even going on, your brother not included, and you acted as regular friends in front of everyone. Jake had insisted you didn’t fool around with another member of his hockey team because his relationship with Heeseung had already deteriorated enough, he didn’t need to be on weird terms with anyone else on your behalf, so you were not keen on letting him know about what you got up to with Sunghoon. Anyway, even if everyone on earth was in on your shenanigans, you and Sunghoon hadn’t convened on what it all meant. Who knew what was going on in his head? You were no stranger to how deceitful men could be when they were after certain bodily pleasures. Unless Sunghoon said it in so many words, multiple times, you would not be a hundred percent sure he wasn’t only looking to get laid, or wanted someone to act like his girlfriend without the label and the obligations that came with it.

Because you basically were acting like his girlfriend, and he like your boyfriend. You always went to each other. Always, only each other. Whether he needed a second opinion on an outfit, you needed a rant session about your dissertation, either of you a really good orgasm, it was each other you went to.

You waited for him to initiate a conversation about the status of your relationship like one waits for church bells to ring at the turn of the hour—you knew it was coming, but the sound might be too much to bear. And the longer you had to wait, the more you dreaded it. Because how would you react when the time came? You didn’t trust yourself not to run away; neither did Minjeong.

The cold hadn’t come yet. You couldn’t let yourself feel the warmth unreservedly. It was all unpleasantly lukewarm.

Then you went home for a weekend.

It was a good friend from school’s birthday, and despite having spent a lot of time with Sunghoon at the expense of studying, you had done well this semester and thought you deserved a break. After having been away for so long, you had started to underestimate the power of your need for your parents’ approval over you. One small instance that your brother and many other people would’ve brushed off easily was enough to set you off—that same cold look of disappointment when you decided to be honest and told them one of your courses was deadly boring all while being unnecessarily complicated and you had received a low B-grade in it. They barely spoke to you for the rest of the evening.

Exams were a mere few weeks away when you got back. You buried yourself in work, forgot everything and everyone else, even Sunghoon, even yourself.

The cold hadn’t come yet, so you sought it out for yourself.

At the same time, you hadn’t indulged in enough introspection to realize how frustrated you had been at Sunghoon for not trying to create defined boundaries around your relationship. You were unable to do it yourself, you unrealistically wanted him to do the work for the both of you, you got upset when he didn’t. What you were able to do was make up reasons why he wasn’t giving you the what are we talk—he doesn’t like you that much, he just wants sex, he’s settling for you until he finds the next best thing, the real thing. This wasn’t leading anywhere, so you cut it off before he could.

You set foot in the library at seven thirty a.m. on a Monday and every following day of that week, then the next, then the next. He managed to pull you out every now and then—you weren’t that strong against his big pleading eyes, his soft messy hair, his warm hands that entirely covered yours. 

Oftentimes, you were too tired at the end of a long library day to have sex. Sunghoon never held it against you—he seemed more than happy to cook you dinner, let you fall asleep halfway during a movie you had chosen, and cuddle all night long. But your body burned with resentment at his mere presence in your bed, in your home, in your text messages. Who was he to stop you from studying, from achieving your goals, to distract you from that top grade just so he could get off? Even your friends and brother weren’t trying so hard to make you take breaks. The worry that furrowed his eyebrows, which you used to want to see fade away with a caress of your thumb, now infuriated you to no end, it seemed — to you — put-on. He kissed your neck and you wanted to push him away instead of melt into him like you had before.

It was his turn to leave for a weekend for an out-of-town hockey game, and you convinced yourself his absence came as a relief. But on the Sunday evening they got back, as you came out of the library, you spotted your brother waiting right outside of the building.

“Why is it so hard to reach you?” he said when he saw you in lieu of a greeting. “What’s the point of having a phone if you don’t even use it? I called you, like, five times.” “It was on airplane mode.” He rolled his eyes so hard, you could almost hear them moving beneath their lids. “What have you done to Sunghoon?” You stopped dead in your tracks. “Sunghoon? What about him?” you asked, chest constricting at the mere thought of him and at the implication that something had happened to him, even if you were the cause. He hadn’t said it in so many words, but it was clear the truth had been revealed to Jake, and for some reason, it didn’t surprise you. You knew they roomed together and assumed Sunghoon must’ve told him. You tried your best to take it in stride. “I thought we said the hockey team was off-limits after Heeseung,” he said sternly. “Also, Sunghoon, of all people?” he adds before you can say anything. “That’s like, my bro. And he’s the nicest guy ever. Not the perfect pick for one of your victims, I must say-” “Oh, please, he’s not a victim. He’s a consenting adult.” “Then why is he so upset over you spending more time studying than with him?” “That’s the male ego for you, Jakey.” Your brother sighed deeply. “He’s really hurt, Y/N. If you were going to reject him, you could’ve done it nicely.”

You frowned. “Who said anything about rejecting him?”

“You’ve shut him out. You’ve shut all of us out.” Jake was staring at you, trying to get you to look at him, but you kept your gaze on the ground and kicked non-existent pebbles around, hands hiding in your coat pockets. “You might not have meant it as one, but he took it as a rejection.”

You scoff. “There was nothing to reject. It’s not like we’re actually together.”

“Yeah, thanks for telling me anything was going on, by the way.”

“It wasn’t any of your business.”

“It is, ‘cause it concerns my sister and my best friend.”

“He’s your best friend?” you echo, a teasing smile on your lips. He rolls his eyes again.

“God, maybe you guys aren’t so bad together after all. But Y/N—I’m serious. You need to do something.”

“Why can’t he?”

“Because you’re the one who’s been fucking around.”

Ouch. “You’ve known about this whole thing for what, two days, and you’re already blaming me for the fact that it’s not going perfectly? How little do you think of me?”

“I don’t think little of you, Y/N, I just know you have a track record of not being serious about relationships.”

Your body tensed up. Maybe it had been a particularly long day. Maybe it had been a long time coming. Tears well up in your eyes—a sight you’ve not let your brother see in many, many years.

“You know what, fuck this, Jake. I’m stressed enough as it is. I’ve done my best with what I have, and you don’t get to pin this on me. As if I was the only person in that relationship. If Sunghoon has a problem, he can take it up with me directly.”

You walked away. Jake called after you once, and when you didn’t come back, caught up with you. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t wanna upset you. I just-I hate seeing him hurt, you know? And you too.”

“I’m glad my feelings are of some importance to you.”

“Of course they are,” Jake said, too concerned to detect the sarcasm in your words. “And you’re right, I’ve only heard Sunghoon’s side of the story. But it really sounded like-”

“Listen, Jakey, I really don’t wanna do this right now. Let’s talk about it when exams are over. I can’t have anything else taking up mental space. I mixed up my Greek third declension endings earlier.”

“God forbid.”

After some arguing, Jake let you off the hook—“Just for now,” he said. You’d get him to recount his and Sunghoon’s conversation in excruciating detail later.

You come out of an evening of contemplation resenting Sunghoon for bitching about you to your brother, of all people. As if he had been begging on his hands and knees for your devotion, as if you had been cool-headed and detached and not thinking he’ll ask me to be his girlfriend any second now every time you spent time together. You told yourself you were well and truly done with him for the time being. If there was anything to salvage, that was future you’s problem.

But late on Thursday evening, Jay sent you a voice message, something he only did when he was gravely drunk, shouting over loud chatter and rap music that Sunghoon hadn’t shown up to a party and was apparently still practicing. You’d caught wind of their loss at the game, and even though your heart had swollen with concern for Sunghoon, very well aware of how important winning was to him, you’d managed to squash it down. You had bigger fish to fry, namely, an Italian written exam that made up 75% of your overall grade for that course. But after ten minutes of re-reading the same three lines of an article from Republicca, you couldn’t get the image of Sunghoon skirting endlessly around the ice rink and potentially hurting himself out of your head. You told yourself you only had this one exam left and plenty of time to revise for it, packed up your things and headed for the rink.

It was past eleven p.m. when you got there. The rest is history. 

Your grievances came out in an ugly way, but Sunghoon’s refusal to listen to you got the best of your nerves, and although you really did feel that your worry was more genuine than his, you didn’t truly believe that all he wanted from you was sex—at least, you hoped it wasn’t. It was the first time you ever saw any sort of negative emotion on Sunghoon’s handsome features, be it anger, sadness or pain. It tugged at your heartstrings, made you want to wrap him in your arms and get him away from whatever it was that tugged his eyebrows into a frown—even if that was you.

Now, as if the water has inched up your ankles and frozen over, your feet stay planted on the ice for a while after he’s stormed off. You don’t even realize you’re crying until a hot, salty teardrop falls on your lips.

Your feet regain control of themselves, and they seem to move of their own accord as they guide you right in front of Sunghoon’s dorm room. You’re barely conscious as your knuckles rasp against the door, and the tears that had fallen back behind your eyes spill out once more as soon as your eyes meet his. He’s just come out of the shower, a white towel wrapped around his hips, another one that he uses to dry his hair. His movements stop when he realizes who’s standing at his door, mouth falling slightly agape, chest visibly rising and falling. He’s so beautiful, you feel your heart breaking all over again.

Sobs pour uncharacteristically out of you, so much so that you have to hide your face behind your eyes. He ushers you in, holds you tight as everything flows out, the stress, the resentment, the loneliness, the longing. How could he be so close yet so far away this whole time? Did he want those miles of distance between you, or had you forced them upon him?

Sunghoon smoothes your hair down and shushes you, telling you it’s okay and that he’s here, voice strangled as if he’s on the verge of crying, too. A part of you still feels angry towards him, but the bigger part of you knows only he can give you the comfort you need.

“I missed you,” you say when you’ve calmed down partly. You only realize how true those words are once you’ve spoken them. You’ve missed waking up next to him, watching trashy reality TV together, taking coffee breaks that lasted too long in-between study sessions. You’ve missed the scent of his hair, the scent of his skin, you’ve missed watching the way his back muscles shift at the slightest of movements, feeling the weight of his head as he lay on your chest. All for a bunch of As you would’ve gotten without exerting yourself so much anyway.

“I missed you too, baby. Where did you go?” Just like that, you break down again, and he dissolves into apologies. “You’re here now, it’s all that matters,” he whispers against your hair.

“You didn’t see them, Hoon. You didn’t see the way they looked at me,” you say, struggling to speak, unsure you’re even making any sense but unable to stop. “I got As in everything, I worked so hard. Just one B, one week where I had four things due at the same time. Their faces, Hoon, like they were thinking, what was the point of letting me do this degree if I wasn’t even going to excel in it?”

“But you do excel in it, Y/N. You’re amazing at what you do. And even if you weren’t, you love it, and that’s what matters the most.”

“Not to them, it doesn’t.”

“Then forget them.”

“I can’t, Hoon,” you say, voice trembling. “I just can’t. I need them to be proud of me.”

“Isn’t it enough to be proud of yourself?”

“I wish it was.”

“Does it help if I tell you how proud I am of you and of how hard you’ve worked?”

He doesn’t see it, your face is still hidden in the crook of his shoulder, but a small smile makes its way to your lips. “A bit.”

“Then I’ll tell you everyday until you don’t need their approval anymore. They don’t deserve you, Y/N. They don’t even see what an amazing, beautiful, smart daughter they have. Or her sort-of-okay brother.” You laugh, and so does he. Sunghoon’s words and soothing touch against your back already alleviate the weight on your heart. “But I see it.”

You lift your head to look at Sunghoon. His eyes are glassy. “You see how amazing, beautiful and smart Jake is?”

He laughs again as he tucks a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “Yeah, exactly.” The way he looks at you makes you wish you could go back to the day you met him and right all of your wrongs. No more hiding or running away. You only want to stay under that gaze of his. But sadness soon replaces the joy in his eyes. “You mean so much more to me than you give yourself credit for, Y/N. This has never been just about sex for me. Not even for a second.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then what has it been about?” 

He frowns like a student in an advanced math class who’s just been asked what three plus three is—isn’t it obvious?

“I love you.”

Your eyes dart between his as if searching for any trace of deceit there. Of course, you don’t find any—because there hasn’t been any since the start. You’d let your own fears invent things that weren’t there. Your lips tremble and you find yourself bawling on his shoulder once more, your tears like a well that digs deeper and deeper so as to never run out of water.

“I hope these are good tears,” Sunghoon says light-heartedly, but you can detect the nervousness behind his words. You nod your head vigorously, willing yourself to say something back, but your tears overflow, make your breath hitch.

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” you manage in between sobs.

“I didn’t think it was the kind of thing you wanted to hear,” he explains.

“I was waiting for you to say something.”

“I didn’t know. I thought I was being obvious enough.”

“You probably were. I was the one who couldn’t see it,” you admit.

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

“I thought you didn’t want me like that.”

Sunghoon chuckles, a sound of relief. “I’ve wanted you like that since the start.”

“I think I have too.”

“You think?”

You lift your head again and when your eyes meet Sunghoon’s, it feels like coming out of your hiding place hours after the round of hide-and-seek was over. He hadn’t forgotten to come and find you. He was waiting for you to reveal yourself.

Which goes against the rules of hide-and-seek, but you don’t blame him.

You smile; he smiles, deep dimples carving crescents into his cheeks. “I love you, too.”

You hadn’t realized how cold your hands were until Sunghoon found them.

--

Everything after that was a blurry mess of tangled limbs, warm kisses, happy tears and relieved laughter.

Your touch had always been intoxicating, but Sunghoon was particularly sensitive to it that night. The mix of not having felt you close in weeks and the heightened emotions driven by your confessions made his skin tingle everywhere it came in contact with yours. He’d never slept so little without regretting it in the morning.

It goes without saying that most of the night was not spent talking, but you still had things you needed to discuss. The two of you laid out all of your fears, and Sunghoon was immensely relieved to finally get a glimpse into that mind of yours. He made you promise to always tell him what was going on, and he promised you you’d never be too much for him. Always just right.

Now, he gets to wait outside of your exam hall with your favorite flowers in hand, to put his arm around your shoulders during movie nights instead of holding your hand beneath the blanket, to kiss you over the barrier at the end of a hockey game he won. Heeseung’s narrowed eyes at the sight of the two of you is an added bonus.

You text him that you’ll hang around the locker rooms after the game so that you can head to the party together. The end of December is nearing and you can’t wait for the new year, for twelve whole months of not hiding your feelings for Sunghoon from anyone, not even from yourself, least of all from him. At least, that’s what you told him in a sappy, drunken voice message at two a.m. the previous night when the girls made you drink a bottle of prosecco to yourself—their way of congratulating you for an arduous but successful exam period.

He steps out of the locker rooms with Jake and Jay. You’ve never looked quite as pretty, face lighting up as you spot the three of them, his jersey on your shoulders. You’d worn it during your last exam—“I thought it might bring me luck to wear a pretty boy’s name on my back,” you’d told him, to which he’d replied that it was good practice for when you actually took his last name. You’d looked away, fighting a smile.

Now your smile is full-blown as you look at him, but the downside of being an official couple is that Jake has now more material to tease the both of you with.

“Oh my God, you waited for me, what a sweet sister I have been blessed with!” he exclaims, arms outstretched as he barrels towards you.

“Fuck off, Sim,” you say but accept his hug nonetheless. “Nice game.”

“I know.” He pulls away and ruffles your hair. Jay nods at you like you’re someone he shared a class with back in second year and not his friend of almost three years.

As if on cue, just as Sunghoon reaches you and envelops you in a hug, Jake turns around and yells loud enough for all the players spilling out of the locker rooms, “And don’t forget to wear protection! I’m not ready to be an uncle yet.”

“That’s disgusting, Jakey,” you yell back, and he smiles proudly. Sunghoon had never thought the day would come where you’d initiate a kiss in a room full of people—he’s on cloud nine when you take his head in your hands and press your lips to his, murmuring praises about how well he played.

“It was all for you, baby,” he says, trying to appear cool even though a blush is creeping up his ears. 

“Not for the recruiter of the national team?” you asked with a smirk.

He smiles, shrugging. “Maybe a bit for him too. You’re the one I want to impress.”

“Consider me impressed.” You stand on your tiptoes to kiss him a second time.

You head towards your friends, hands warm against each other.

--

In classic mysterious Jay fashion, he organizes a New Year’s Eve party that he can’t attend himself.

He’s on holiday in some exotic country halfway across the world with his family, but he’s offered up their house for a celebration and tasked Jake with making sure no one trashes anything.

The party started three hours ago, and you’re sure it’s in full swing by now—you’re sure everyone is having a jolly old time, getting drunk enough to welcome the new year with a hangover, searching the crowds of people for the person they’ll want to kiss at midnight. You’re sure that people are having so much fun that whoever notices your and Sunghoon’s absence might think you’re missing out.

And maybe you are—but there’s nowhere you’d rather be than where you are now, straddling your boyfriend’s lap in the backseat of his car. He’s a little bit tipsy, you’re a little bit tipsy, it’s obvious in the way you kiss each other, messy, impatient, interspersed with giggles and with perhaps too much tongue. Your hands are not much more polite, harshly grabbing at his hair just the way you know he likes it, and neither are his, having snuck their way underneath your black satin dress long ago already.

When Sunghoon pulled you away from the party, you’d appropriately exclaimed, “But the party?”, to which he replied, “Fuck the party.” It wasn’t like him to curse, or to have anything but a bashful smile on his lips, like a guilty dog who’d been caught doing something it knew it shouldn’t, even though he was just standing there, so when you see his stoney expression, you think something serious must’ve happened.

The something serious turned out to be “that guy who was touching your shoulder.”

Clearly, it’d take Sunghoon a little bit more time to be entirely secure in your relationship. In the meantime, you didn’t mind letting him fuck his jealousy away.

Although he’d been the one to whisk you away, you’re the one who finds yourself begging for him to speed things up. Your flimsy thong does absolutely nothing, so you’re basically grinding yourself bare against his clothed erection—and it’s not like the fabric of his suit trousers is very thick, either. A girl can only put up with so much dry humping before having her boyfriend’s dick inside of her goes from being a want to a need.

“Need you, Hoon,” you coo against the shell of his ear. A few words usually do the trick, but Sunghoon has other plans tonight.

“What do you need, baby?”

“You.”

“I’m right here,” he says, punctuating his words with a squeeze of your ass.

“You know what I mean,” you say, practically whining.

“I’m not sure I do, actually.”

You pull away and, looking at him directly, say, “God, Sunghoon. I want you to fuck me.” His shit-eating grin simultaneously makes you roll your eyes and goes straight to your core.

“That I can do.”

He keeps one hand on your ass as he loosens his tie first, then undoes his belt and trouser buttons. His slacks and underwear pool around his ankles, and all he needs to do is hike your dress up around your hips and push your thong to the side. You wrap a hand around his dick, but your mind is too hazy to do much with it—he’s started rubbing circles on your clit with his thumb, the pressure and speed as perfect as it always is. You let your forehead fall against his shoulders and moan unabashedly, thankful he decided to park the car far enough away from the house.

“You like it when I touch you like this, baby?”

“I love it, Hoon.”

He hums his approval. “You’re so perfect. So perfect and so wet for me, isn’t that right?”

You start to say “yes,” but you interrupt yourself with a gasp. You hold onto Sunghoon’s arm, feel his muscles move under your palm as he slips two fingers inside of you without warning. “Please,” you choke out, a tight knot already forming in your stomach.

“Please what?”

“Need you. Need your dick, baby.”

He smiles as if endeared, but his words couldn’t be more different. “Maybe you should’ve thought of that before going off with some random guy the one minute I was somewhere else.”

“He’s just-fuck, Hoon, he’s just a mutual friend of Jay and I. Fuck, right there, baby.” Forming coherent sentences when Sunghoon’s fingers flick against that perfect spot deep inside you again and again is no easy task, but you need to defend yourself.

“Right there?” he echoes, voice a whisper against your ear. When you nod, eyes shut tight, he slips his fingers out. You look at him, betrayed. “That’s too bad. Why don’t you ask him to touch you right there, hm?”

You don’t know how much of his jealousy is put-on to get you to beg and how much of it is real. You make a mental note to have a conversation with him about this later—right now, you don’t mind playing along if it means your boyfriend will deign to fuck you. You know he wants to, he’s just making you work harder.

You move your hand up and down along his dick, brush his reddening tip with your palm every now and then. “He couldn’t touch me like you, Hoon.” You lean in and trail kisses along his neck, his jawline, his ears. “Can’t fuck me like you, either.”

With exams, hockey matches and any other responsibilities out of the way for winter break, the two of you had had an obscene amount of sex in the past couple of weeks. You’d done other things, of course, namely having much-needed conversations with each other, your friends, your families. Sunghoon’s mother was overjoyed at the news, glad her “duckling had finally met someone” — her words — and his sister kept stealing his phone from him to talk to you when you were on FaceTime. You and Jake had gone home for two days for Christmas, and although Jake had needed to pep talk you into it for over an hour, you managed to tell them that you wouldn’t stand for being belittled for your life choices anymore.

But in-between these conversations, you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. You’ve grown more comfortable with each passing day, both of you bolder in vocalizing what you want and how you feel. And so, you quickly found out that your Sunghoon, your shy, sweet Sunghoon, got off like nothing else on salacious words. In line with his possessiveness, he loved hearing about how he and only he could do these things to you; in line with your need for validation, you could practically come from hearing his praises alone.

“That’s right, baby.” Like the gentleman he is, he fishes out the condom wrapper he had gotten ready from his trouser pocket, tears it open with his mouth and rolls the condom on with one hand, his other one still preoccupied with you. “Come here, my love,” he whispers, his sweet tone worlds away from his previous teasing, almost cocky one. He grabs your hips, guides you closer to him and lines your entrance with the tip of his dick. He lets you go at your own pace, rubs your thighs soothingly as you sink down onto him slowly and adjust to his size. You throw your head back, mind hazy with pleasure as you move your hips back-and-forth against him.

“You feel so good, baby. You’re doing so well for me.” His words make you pick up your pace, and you wrap your arms around his neck, fingers grabbing at his hair and sides of your faces pressed against each other as you start lifting your hips and sinking back down. Sunghoon’s hands hold your ass tightly, guiding you up and down. It’s hot in the car; sweat runs down your hairline and your back, air is running low, the windows are fogging up, but it only adds to the dizzying bliss growing in you. Even the seatbelt receiver digging into your knee doesn’t bother you.

“Feels so good, Hoon,” you moan.

“I know, baby.”

Your hours of studying everyday means your thighs aren’t the strongest—good thing for you that your boyfriend has enough stamina and strength for the both of you. As soon as he feels you tiring, your rhythm becoming slower and more irregular, he picks up your slack. One hand on your back, one arm around your waist, he presses you close to him, his hold on you so tight you can barely move. He bucks his hips harshly into yours, faster and faster, making you cry out with every brush of his tip against that spot deep inside of you. Your whole body shakes with pleasure as your moans grow higher and louder, until the tension in your stomach hits its apex and unravels. A gasp leaves your throat as you come around him, but he’s unrelenting, the overstimulation quickly making tears form in your eyes. Strings of curses and praises of how perfect you are spill out of Sunghoon’s mouth disorderly as he reaches his own end.

Together, you take your time catching your breath, his fingers roaming your back while you trail soft kisses all over his face and neck. “My pretty baby,” he whispers, and it makes your heart swell with so much affection for him that you press your lips to his, shutting him up in case he says something that actually has you exploding.

You wish you could spend some more time just the two of you before returning to the party, but when you check your phone, it’s already five minutes to midnight—he puts his clothes back on as you fix your hair in a rush, Sunghoon helping you wipe away traces of mascara under your eyes, and together, run back to the living room where everyone has gathered. You find Minjeong, Yunjin, Chaewon and Jake, who has Jay on FaceTime. It’s only five p.m. where he is.

Everyone counts down from ten together. The first thing you do in the new year is kiss Park Sunghoon—and you’ll make sure it’s the last thing you do, too.

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[chuluoyi]

𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐋𝐘 (𝐔𝐍)𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋

- sylus x reader

master and servant. man and his right hand woman. you and sylus are labeled many things, but does love exist in many labels of your relationship?

genre/warnings: 18+ suggestive content—minors do not interact!—angst, fluff, unrequited love, explicit smut, fwb, jealousy, hurt/comfort, description of major injury, blood loss, gore, assassin!reader (not l&ds mc), spoilers! takes place throughout long-awaited revelry

note: my very first love and deepspace fic! :') w.c 5.2k ! i have a severe brainrot omg tagging @sanriosatoru per request <3

Everyone knows of your relationship with Sylus.

The leader of Onychinus and his notorious lady assassin, you two strike fear into his foes and allies alike. You are as deadly as you are beautiful, and that's more or less why he keeps you around.

What everyone doesn't know, however... is that behind closed doors, you too share his wealth and his bed.

“I don't mind to spend the whole night with you,” he’d whisper in your ear seductively at nights, deft and veiny hands roaming your body all over. He often made you ride on top of him, dark burgundy eyes hazed with lust, knowing full well that you desired the very same goal he did.

And you’d respond his hunger with the same fervor, crashing your lips into his, your tongues intertwining, your hips moving vigorously against him.

“Ahh... ah!” Before you knew it, his cock—thick and long in size—slid inside you in such a snug fit, making you throw your head back and dig your sharp nails into his skin.

“Keep me going with your voice, kitten.” Sylus growled, eyeing your wobbling lips and tightly-pressed eyes as he sank even deeper inside you. “Yeah, just like that...”

Sylus always began roughly, seemingly not minding your breathless moans and wishes, and you liked him that way too—

“Is this... all you've got?” you panted in a hoarse voice, sweat lining your neck and forehead, the coil in your belly tightened so deliciously each time he thrusted into you. “Surely... y-you can do better...”

“Ha,” he gave a low snort, his red eyes blazing as he grabbed your bum and squeezed it, making you gasp. “Careful what you wish for... sweetie.”

And then your vision literally tilted upside down—Sylus gladly flipped your position so he could see you even better. This way, he also had even better access to you, intertwining your hand with his, spreading your legs wide so he could rut into you.

“—!” Breath was knocked out of your lungs as immeasurable pleasure washed over you, crashing and receding in an instant. You almost screamed as your back arched.

He broke into a satisfied smirk. “Let it out,” he murmured against your neck, biting gently into your skin, voice muffled. “You never hold back with me, do you, hmm? So, don’t start now.”

“You b-bastard...” you looked up at him with a breathless smile, knowing how close you were to losing your wits.

He simply made your nights worth remember. His allure was undeniable, with a voice that was naturally sultry. And his hands... fuck, they did heaven's work.

It didn't take you long to finally reach your climax, and once you did, your moans were the nastiest all night as you continuously lined his back with scratches.

You could feel how he was chasing his own orgasm all the while, before pulling out right at the last minute and made a mess on your belly, falling beside you.

“Tired?” Sylus’ chest rumbled with laughter as you laid sprawled there in a haze. His eyes narrowed at the sight of your burning cheeks. “I really like this look on your face right now.”

You rolled your eyes, catching your breath and shivered. “I bet you tell that to all other women you manage to lure to your bed.”

“How presumptuous.” He sent you a sour scowl. “I have a high standard— you should consider yourself lucky.”

Well, you do. Holding back a smile, you changed the topic. “I’m cold. Clean me up already.”

“Now, now… what a spoiled little thing you are…” Sylus chuckled, his voice deep and low, yet wrapping his arms around you nonetheless, hoisting you up.

Nights of passion. Mutually beneficial relationship. Nothing more and less.

No strings attached.

This is thrilling. Intimacy without commitment is more than enough to spice your checkered life. After all, what could be better and more rewarding than fucking the hottest man in N109 Zone and getting away with it?

At least, you thought so.

. . .

“Damn, you’re going to make me sore…” you grumbled, letting out a deep sigh as you sank into the sheets after he had cleaned you up, still basking in the afterglow and ready to drift off to sleep. “Ahh...”

Sylus’ lips curved into a wry smile as he watched you make yourself comfortable on his bed, slipping on his black shirt. “Well, I’m just that good, and you did ask for it.”

“Are you going out?” you asked in a small voice, teetering between sleep and wakefulness as you noticed him taking out his favorite gun. “It’s midnight.”

“Luke and Kieran said she has arrived.” Sylus said in low voice, not even sparing you a look. “After all, she has gone through all that trouble to come here, it is only right that I greet her myself.”

The woman. Sylus had told you several times, how a woman with Aether Core and powerful Resonance Evol would eventually come to N109 Zone. And that when the time came, he would make her resonate with him.

A part of you didn’t really know what to feel about this vague plan of his. “Will you bring her here too?”

“I’ll have her stay here until we have reached resonance,” he responded casually while shrugging on his coat.

Sylus valued others depending on their worth. He said it so himself—he isn't a philanthropist. He saw potential in your evol—the Speech Manipulation—which is why he rescued you three years ago, even after you had swung a blade to his throat.

This time must be the same. You played with the edges of your hair. “Well, consider me jealous then. Seems like I’ll have a rival soon.”

Your quip finally caught his attention, as he finally turned to you, one side of his mouth upturned.

“Ha.” Sylus strolled over to where you lay on the bed and placed a hand under your chin, letting out a throaty chuckle. “Is there even anyone brave enough to go against you?”

You shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “We shall see about that.”

Little did you know, the coming of this new girl would be the start of the undoing of your mutually beneficial relationship.

You would've expected the woman bearing Aether Core inside her to be way more interesting than that clueless, weak and easily spooked hunter from Linkon City.

But your and Sylus' definitions of interesting clearly differed though, as you caught him smiling after he pulled the most outrageous stunt on himself— having her shoot him right in the heart.

“She is funny,” he said to himself, almost snickering even as you wiped the blood off his toned body. “She was shaking so much the moment I pulled the trigger.”

“Is that your only finding—” you snapped as you wrapped the bandage around his bare chest, fuming. “—after shooting yourself just to mess with her?”

Luke and Kieran told you how he had used his Evol to pull the hunter girl onto his lap, then handed her a gun and made her shoot him. You couldn't believe it at first, until the sight of Sylus staggering to his bedroom, his shirt bloodied and clutching his chest made you almost scream in horror.

“Is that really necessary?” you scowled, tightening the bandage with more force than needed. “Or are you just trying to get her attention?”

Sylus’ sharp gaze settled on you then, seemingly not taking your comment well.

“What’s got you so worked up about this, hmm?” he asked, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips as he observed your cross expression. “Last I checked, we agreed not to get involved in each other’s personal affairs.”

Personal affairs, he said? Everything you two had done had long past breached all personal boundaries.

But the fact remains that you two are nothing more than—

“Fine.” You tied the bandage abruptly and about to storm off, making no effort to conceal your ire. You couldn’t say you were worried or that you hated seeing blood smeared across him. That was never in the agreement.

Until you felt a hard tug on your arm—

“And where does the angry kitty think she is going, hmm?”

Before you could discern it, your back was pressed against the wall—your left arm pinned beside your head, with Sylus filling your view.

His sculpted abs were right in front of you for the taking, his scent permeated the air, and his unsettling swirls of crimson eyes had you completely captivated.

“Have I ever told you that you look beautiful when you’re angry?” Sylus laughed as he leaned in, gripping your chin with his other hand. “If I didn’t know you were more than capable of slitting my throat in my sleep, I’d want you to look at me like this every day.”

It struck you how your heart raced wildly under his intense gaze. With his perfect face so close, the only sound that seemed to be most prominent was the pounding of your own heartbeat.

“What’s wrong? We’ve been closer than this,” Sylus taunted with a wide grin, his breath warm against your ear as he pressed his body against yours. “What’s making you so nervous?”

If you knew anything about Sylus, it was that he took pleasure in seeing you squirm in his hold. You glared daggers at him. “I hate you.”

“How lovely.”

“You’re infuriating,” you spat, devoid of any amusement.

He barked a satisfied bout of laugh once again, before releasing your chin. However, to your surprise, that very same hand groped your chest roughly—

“Then perhaps...” he hummed, a wicked glint in his red eyes, whispering to you with sultry voice right before he pulled you into him and devour your lips in heat: “You can help to fix me, sweetie.”

His kisses were hot as his tongue and hands made his mark on your body. Pressed against his bare skin, you gripped his strong, broad shoulders as he lifted your legs to his waist.

As always, he managed to dissolve all your lingering thoughts with lust. You just never knew one day you would finally reach the last straw though.

. . .

"Are you going out again tonight?" you muttered, tracing your fingers along his abs as you lay in his arms, still a bit giddy after your passionate session.

"No, I'm sleepy," he replied quickly, his voice low as he pulled you closer and closed his eyes. "Go to sleep already, kitten."

"I can't sleep."

"Poor you. I can though."

You quirked a frown at him. "You're so annoying these days."

"Oh?" Sylus cracked his eyes open, a smirk on his lips. "If you find me so disagreeable, you can always make me obey you, no?"

Your speech manipulation could make people do your bidding and it was a pretty useful talent. Apart from the first day you met Sylus three years ago in the wasteland of N109 Zone, you had never tried using it on him again.

"I won't, you idiot." You sighed and turned away, your back facing him. The idea of bending him to your will somehow didn't sit right with you. It was against your conscience now.

"Why are you facing away? It's freezing," he grumbled almost in a petulant voice. You nearly rolled your eyes, until you felt his strong arms wrap around your middle from behind.

"Why are you hugging me? We’re not usually this touchy after sex."

"I'm telling you, I'm cold, and you're my heat pillow."

"You're so damn insufferable..."

Despite your sharp retort, a smile found its way to your face. Moments like this were rare, and when he was the one seeking you, you couldn't help these butterflies in your stomach. Still...

You two are not in love, dammit. Sometimes it confused you a great deal. What is love anyway?

“Caw, caw, caw!”

“Mephisto, shush.”

Sylus’ robotic pet crow had surprisingly taken a liking to you shortly after you began living in the base. He obeyed your commands just as he did with his owner. The same couldn’t be said for Miss Hunter though, as Mephisto seemed to have a strong dislike for her.

You were idling at the living room with the crow when you realized how close it was to dawn.

“Luke, Kieran,” you called to the twins, who were bickering over a crate of oranges, frowning. “Where did Sylus go?”

Both stopped and looked at you, and Kieran blurted out, “Boss? Oh, he went out with Miss Hunter!”

You supposed you shouldn’t be surprised, but you were nonetheless. “And he still hasn’t come back?”

“Ah, yeah... but I think they just went on a short errand. He’s probably back or already on his way?” Luke mused, and you clicked your tongue.

It irritated you, it gnawed at you—how Sylus had been spending so much time with that hunter these days. He was trying to make her resonate with him, but still, the way you saw it, he was going through his playbook—

Just as he had done when he pursued you.

Calling her “kitten”, “sweetie”... everything he did with her seemed like a replay of the first year you spent in this place.

Deep down, perhaps you had hoped that, in some way, Sylus would see you as you saw him. Love might be out of reach in your bleak existences, but you at least wished he would consider you an irreplaceable presence.

You were petty, and you knew it.

“Mephisto,” you whispered to the cooing crow as it turned to you pliantly. “Go find and bother her, okay? Don’t let her out of your sight,” you added, letting the bird fly away on your command.

Deciding to rest in his room, you left the living room with a sense of exhaustion. You had stayed up for Sylus on a whim, as he had promised to share his plans for the upcoming auction soon. However, sleeping at dawn was giving you frequent headaches, and the habit was wearing on you.

You took a bath and then headed to his bedroom, and you would have never guessed what scene you'd walk into—

Sylus, in his bathrobe, and that girl… nestled against his chest on his bed. The very same bed where you two made out just the other night.

“Y/N?” Sylus looked at you over the girl’s shoulder, and you were frozen on the spot, feeling an indescribable rush of emotions washing over you.

In the next moment, the hunter girl scrambled away from him in panic, her face flushed with shame. “I-it’s not what it looks like! I swear! Sylus— I was just trying to find his brooch and—!”

In that instant, something inside you turned ice-cold. Her frantic explanations—none of it registered to you. The fact that he let her into his bed was enough for you.

You weren’t sure if Sylus noticed, but your eyes darkened, your fists clenched, and a storm raged within your chest.

“Sorry for intruding,” you said frostily, cutting her off and casting a contemptuous glance at both of them before turning on your heel and slamming the door shut.

It was no use, you finally realized. In this twisted relationship you two shared, there could never be anything more than hot sex and flirtations.

Somehow it hurt more deeply than you expected, as though your heart were being scorched. Yet, you couldn’t even find the tears to cry—as you weren't allowed to do so.

Sylus noticed the change in you immediately.

You vanished from the base and returned in the evening, not sparing him even a look and he could tell then that you had come back a different woman.

And it was the part he hated the most. These days, he couldn't read you at all.

"Luke and Kieran, keep an eye on her tonight," he instructed his two underlings as the two of them were getting ready.

"Who? Miss Hunter?" Luke questioned.

"Or boss lady?" Kieran supplied.

Both of them liked you as well. Unlike him, you’d spend your free time indulging their nonsense, and over time, they even gave you that friendly moniker.

They didn't really know the nature of your physical relationship though. Or at least, didn't really know fully.

"The latter," Sylus gruffly replied, and then he went to the hunter girl to prepare her as well.

He had a justified explanation. If you had asked him, he would tell you nothing had happened. Your ire was better than silence, definitely a hundred times better than this.

But why didn't you come to him?

And why does he want you to come and demand him for an explanation?

However, tonight was the auction for the Aether Core. He had to finish this first before he could get a word with you later.

At least that was what Sylus had thought... until he saw you at the auction venue.

You were stunning in that black cocktail dress. He didn’t know when you had your hair done, but you looked as if you had spent the entire day preparing for this occasion despite having barely two hours after coming back. You were definitely a head-turner, drawing the attention of many vermin as you navigated the ballroom with grace and everlasting smile.

And it grated at him. Severely. Sylus's eyes were locked on each lowlife hell-bent on taking his life and desperate to get into your pants, knowing he would end them all tonight.

...and as if it wasn't enough, he then saw you entertaining one of them with that sort of smile you used to reserve for him.

. . .

"Mm-hm, really?"

"Yes, I've heard they are inside the safe number 209."

You coyly smirked, looking the man with mask in front of you, whom you had led to a deserted hallway, who had been complying and smiling at each and every question of yours.

"Thank you then." You flashed him your best smile, about to go back to the main hall.

"And uh, miss," he suddenly turned to you in a flurry. "I believe I haven't gotten your name—"

You chuckled, facing him again. "Oh, you want to know my name?"

"Very much so!"

This was like bread and butter to you. You effortlessly wrapped an arm around the man's neck, standing on your tiptoes, and whispered in his ear:

"Halt."

He went rigid the moment the command left your lips, and you could feel his panic rising as you pulled away.

"W-what happened—!?" he thrashed against the invisible hold manifested by your Evol in pure panic, to no avail, whereas you regarded at him with a cold smile.

"What a shame. I planned to let you be, but then you gave me the perfect opportunity." You maintained your eerie smile as you pulled out a thin, needle-like blade from the hem of your dress. "You have been a great help. Thank you."

With that, you slit his throat, and blood splattered onto the ground in a continuous pool as he jerked, collapsing like a broken statue.

You felt nothing at the sight, but you knew you weren't alone as you felt his presence.

"You started the party without me?" Sylus' deep voice resonated through the hall. "Didn't know you have that much of bloodlust this early, sweetie."

The clench of your heart was still there, even when you had decided to discard all your lingering feelings for this man. Still, you put on the perfect poker face when you met his eyes.

"I want this to be over and done with quick. I'm exhausted already."

Sylus eyed you calmly, yet somehow it felt as if the depths of those red eyes were trying to assess your soul. "Your actions said otherwise. Is flirting with him necessary?"

"You're one to talk, Boss," you scoffed at the last word. "As long as it entertains me, why isn't it?"

Sylus didn't deign you with an answer, and you decided to pour more oil into it.

"Strictly professional, no?" You lifted your chin defiantly. "Last I checked, we were not supposed to meddle in personal affairs—"

You didn't realize it until he did, because the next thing you knew, his right eye suddenly glowed with that terrifying shade of crimson. "You—!"

He has seen it all. In the three years since he took you in, Sylus had never used his Aether Core-infused right eye on you to peek into your mind. The first and only time it had happened was when he restrained you from attacking him on the day you first met.

This was the second time. And now, he knows. Of your petty feelings, of your deepest, truest desire.

At first, Sylus remained silent, but then his eyes narrowed at you, low voice booming through the hall.

"Jealousy is unbecoming on you, Y/N."

And after all that he knew, that was the only thing he could come up with?

You felt shame wash over you. You wanted to run from him. This was too much because he most definitely didn’t reciprocate your feelings, did he?

"I don't want to hear it," you resolved, the space around you felt constricting all of a sudden. You walked past him, about to break into a sprint—

Sylus immediately caught a hold of your arm though, sending a glare at you. "You—"

"It ends here," you blurted in heat. "I don't want it anymore. We're through, Sylus."

"Listen to me!"

He snarled at you, and it was the very first time he did so. However, you paid him no mind and pulled out your ace card, staring hard into his eyes. You could feel the start of his black and red mist, but your Evol was faster—

"Move."

His hold on you loosened, and he jerked back several foot away from the impact. You kept your manipulation on him, avoiding his fury-blazed eyes, bolting away before he could catch you.

. . .

The night escalated so much worse than you had imagined. Explosions and a sudden appearance of an Arbiterwings threw the whole auction into chaos.

You were fighting off the sudden wave of wanderers alone, relying solely on your blade since your voice was too hoarse to use your Evol. When one of them struck you and sent you crashing into a wall, you just sat there in a daze.

It was exhausting. Usually, Sylus would be by your side, covering your back at the very least. He wouldn't let a single scratch get to you. His black and red mist of doom would dominate the battlefield, offering you protection while at it.

You loved that bastard. It was so beyond stupid. Why did you have to ruin everything by having these feelings? If your heart was gone, would these feelings go with it too?

You got your answer sooner than you thought.

White-hot pain engulfed you when something impaled you right in the chest. The searing agony was mind-blinding, the only thing you could discern was your own wails.

No, the feelings didn’t go. Even as you teetered on the brink of death, that damned love only evolved into many regrets.

And in your final moments, you could've sworn you felt the exact moment your heart stopped beating.

"Oh my god! Luke! She is here!"

"Kieran...! Is she alive?!"

"So much blood—! Luke, call Boss! Call Boss here!"

"Boss! We found her!"

"What do we do?! Shit! It's right... in her heart..."

"What!? Boss! S-she is...! Oh lord..."

You had a dream, and it was of your first meeting with Sylus.

Three years ago, in the wasteland of N109 Zone, you were a mere scavenger until he found you. You had thought he was a threat much like others in this lawless city, so you unwittingly showcased your Evol before him in defense, until he pinned you down on the hard ground, crimson eyes holding you in place.

"I'm giving you two options: go with me and live, or die here in vain," he had told you then, a smug smile on his face. "I assure you, so long as you're still useful to me, you won't have to worry about food or roof above your head ever again."

What kind of homeless person would refuse that tempting offer?

Since you followed him, Sylus had never been untrue to his word. He made good of his words, idly engaged you in his circle, showered you with gifts, and at one point—

"You're... trying to tempt me, aren't you?" he growled amidst kisses, pinning you on his desk. Apparently, seeing you up close and personal every day in his home had worn down his patience. He was just a man, after all.

You wickedly giggled, even breathless, cradling both sides of his face and admiring those ruby eyes of his. "What if... I am?"

"Then consider me tempted, little kitten," he chuckled, his baritone voice casting a spell over you. "Remember though, curiosity can kill most cats."

Thus began your thrilling relationship, and you knew you would gladly stay with him just to have a taste of that heaven. And you knew too, he wouldn't cast you easily this way.

And of course, so long as you are useful to him, that is.

When you came to, you felt warm, and your position was so comfortable that you were almost lulled back to sleep.

At first, it didn't register to you where you were. The scene before you was so familiar, but you were so lethargic that you were late to recognize it.

"Awake?"

Sylus' bedroom. The realization dawned on you as that deep, low voice questioned you flatly. You jerked instinctively, looking up at him as he came into view, holding a glass of wine.

He was still the same. Even with you out of commission, he would still indulge himself with his wine. Somehow you couldn't really pinpoint what you should feel about it.

However, Sylus then did the thing you didn't expect him to. He went back to his pantry to get a glass of water, and then he came to your side to prop you up.

"Drink," he commanded, positioning the glass on your chapped lips. You complied and did so, feeling relief for your throat. Once you were finished, he gently laid you back on the bed and tucked you in, never once taking his eyes off you.

"How are you feeling?"

"Have been better," you quipped dryly. Then it dawned on you that he had never been this gentle with you before. He was showing care, which confirmed one theory you had about him: Sylus could be considerate when he chose to be.

The very fact that you ended back here didn't really faze you much, because in the end, you belonged to him out of all people. Just one thing that still didn't make sense in your mind: "What did you do?"

His burgundy eyes squared at you. "What?"

"There’s no way I could've survived that," you mumbled, trying to gauge his reaction. "You must’ve done something."

“Ha, when it comes to these things, you’re sharp,” Sylus said with a light scoff, and you frowned.

"Answer me."

"Aether Core," he supplied. "It was now in you, repairing your coronary system."

"You..." you were rendered speechless. "You—what? You infused my heart with a Protocore...?"

Just like the one in his eye, he had implanted you with that dangerous fragment that was from something as horrific as a Wanderer. The very thought made your breath hitch.

"Stay calm," he commanded, his hand found yours when he noticed your horrified expression, squeezing it as if to provide some sort of reassurance. "You'll be fine."

"H-how... why..."

"That was your only chance, or you would’ve been dead." Sylus' tone was harsher now, his jaw set firmly. "I keep telling you not to rush in carelessly, and yet you did. Did you even know how bad your state was when I found you? No, you didn't."

The way he spoke made you feel as though you were being blamed, and overwhelmed with your frustration, you retorted sharply, "No one asked you to save me."

Awkward silence lingered for a good one minute after your jab. You turned away from him, feeling conflicted, because you knew you should be grateful that he did so, because it meant the Aether Core inside you now was the one he had been looking for in that auction.

He gave it up to save you.

Still, it confused you.

“If I died...” you began, bitterness creeping into your voice. “Then it just means I’m no longer useful to you. You always discard things that no longer serve your purpose.”

You turned back to him, meeting his impassive gaze. “So why? Did you pity me after discovering my feelings? Is that why?”

There are many labels in your relationship. Master and servant. Onychinus leader and his right-hand woman. But you were also his lover, even unsaid. Was that fact that did it? Or a mere charity for the weak, you?

Suddenly, Sylus placed his palm over your chest, right where your heartbeat pulsed. You stiffened, bracing for some sort of impact.

But no, it wasn’t anything sensual like he usually did. His hand—large and warm—was a comforting presence, resting on your chest and feeling the steady rhythm of your heartbeat.

"Haven't I told you that I never act out of pity?" Sylus' voice was strained but softer than usual, his deep burgundy eyes holding yours. "Do you really need me to spell it out?"

You didn't dare to look away, for the moment of truth was right in front of you.

"My only regret is not being able to pull you back," he said quietly, his tone somber. "I shouldn't have let you get hurt."

Oh. You blinked, taking in his sincere words, something inside you softening and warming at his words.

You had noticed it too. Despite his roguish exterior, he had always looked after you during your time together. It was just that you hadn’t dared to hope for more.

“The naughty little kitten has managed to worm her way into me, it seems,” he chuckled then, flashing you that cocky smile. “So now, she has to be held responsible for her actions.”

His red gaze narrowed as he added. “Moreover, since I have saved your life— you owe it to me not to throw it away so easily. So you can’t rush into danger carelessly again, you hear?”

Those playful remarks were enough to dispel your doubts and insecurities. They answered everything you had been questioning, and knowing it, finally you let out a relieved sigh and exasperated snort. “You shameless bastard...”

And when he leaned in to place a fleeting, innocent kiss on your forehead, you realized that, in his own way, he saw you just as you saw him, even if only a little.

Sylus settled into the bed beside you, wrapping his arms around you and letting your head rest on his arm. Tonight, there were no passionate kisses, no steamy foreplay, or dirty talks— just you being alive and well in his embrace.

“How long have I been out?”

“Three weeks, woman. Luke and Kieran keep mourning you everyday.”

“Three weeks?! How did you manage without me for that long?”

Sylus glanced at you, a contented smile on his face as he held you close. “It’s been horrid.”

Neither of you would be caught dead saying “I love you”, and yet, regardless, you knew that right this moment meant so much more.

[yanderenightmare]

TW: yandere, noncon/dubcon, angst, unwanted pregnancy, blackmail, ish-baby trapping

PART ONE only avaliable on AO3 due to Tumblr restrictions

fem reader

You went cold and forgot how to breathe.

When you got to the kindergarten, they told you his father had already come and collected him early. All looking at you as though you were crazy, assaulting the daycare workers with your hands in a bruising grip, shaking her by her shoulders—demanding she tell you where he took him. 

She spilled the name of some family restaurant down the road and said he’d wanted you to join them there. The poor thing was on the verge of tears when you let go.

Rushing out, you all but ran down the streets before pushing yourself through the doors—cold-sweating and swivel-eyed—in a panic, scanning faces with his name coming out weak under your breath. 

With your vision spinning, you felt faint before you heard it.

“Mommy! Mommy! You’re here! Look! I’m King of the castle!” he shouted, and your peeled eyes snapped to see him up high in a bright red plastic tower.

But before your shoes could hit the soft foam of the playground, you were intercepted by something larger.

“He’s fine,” he said under his breath, catching and stopping you in your beeline, holding you by the waist. “I need to talk to you.”

Something old and instinctive didn’t bother paying him heed—as if forgetting how to speak, you just ignored him in favor of pushing past him, eyes glued to the sight of your son blissfully unaware, playing with other kids with an oblivious smile on his face. But his grip was stronger than your instincts, firm enough to keep you still but not enough to hurt you, even when you tried twisting yourself free.

“Come on,” he urged.

You were about to sneer something, finally looking at his face—that face you hated—but the bark of curse words got held back.

“Look around you. Let’s not cause a scene.” The wild animal within went silent while your eyes flickered around at the surrounding picnic tables where families were having their dinner. “We can talk outside. My assistant will look after him.”

You didn’t feel much inclined to listen, but still, even though it made you hate to fold on his behest—reluctantly, you accepted the sense of what he was saying. Looking back at your son still laughing up in his tower with cinched brows. You didn’t want to scare him when he didn’t know what was going on, even though you felt the need to scream at the very top of your lungs.

You allowed him to lead you outside, but as soon as the fresh air welcomed your rigid state, you were at once whipping around and pushing him away. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” snarling at him. “How fucking dare you?!”

“Calm down. He might still see us,” he hushed, hands raised in halfhearted surrender, casting a nod to the glass walls separating you from the frivolity inside. “Let’s just talk rationally.”

“Rationally?!” you scoffed in a shout, eyes still manic. “You fucking kidnapped my son, you psycho-”

“You wouldn’t answer my texts or calls,” he snubbed. “He’s my son too-”

“Fuck you,” you interrupted to return the favor. “If you fuck with me on this, I swear I’ll ruin you.” You had a finger raised at him, breathing furiously—looking down-right mad—sweaty and disheveled from your run with your face twisted with such a state of frenzy. “I’ll tell everyone how I got him in the first place!”

Despite the threat, he didn’t seem all that fazed. 

“Think about it…” he said calmly, much in contrast to you. “Who do you think people will believe? A teenage mom abusing her son for a paycheck or his estranged father wanting to provide for him?”

You blanched, and before anything else made it out—whether it be more rage or something else, he was already further silencing you.

“Not to mention… the trial would be gruesome, and Junior would have to grow up with it always hanging over his head—is that really what you want?”

You look at him, and you still can't believe it. How could it have turned out like this? You’d been perfect only a month ago before he’d shown up at your apartment.

You thought you’d sent him on his way for good that day, but only now did you realize he had no plans to leave you alone.

“Come, let’s talk in the car. It’s cold, and you’re not dressed,” he ushered, taking your arm again where you stood, stunned and still, trying to wrap your head around his threats. Letting yourself be led into the black vehicle standing perfectly parked in its neat white rectangle.

You both got in the back with enough room to battle your homey sofa nook at home.

“I don’t want this to get ugly,” he started anew—his voice still so irritatingly calm, unfairly so. “I just want to see my son-”

“He’s not yours,” you croaked, feeling the situation slip from your fingers—battling a drumming heart, shifty breaths, and the mean sting of tears welling up in your eyes.

“If you try and keep him from me, I’ll sue for full custody. And given I’m the only one out of us who isn’t a pro-bono case and the only one with any future that isn’t managing a register, I’d say I have a pretty fair shot at winning.”

You can’t keep from bursting out crying then, overwhelmed by the fear of losing the only thing that mattered and the pure disgust of the man who’d given it to you. It felt like everything was tearing—your whole life—crumbling before your eyes.

“Don’t cry,” he soothed, his hand coming to drape your hunched shoulders where you held your tears. “I don’t want to take him away from you…” His attempt did little to comfort you, but the next words had your heart grasping for what little hope they offered. “And I’m not going to either.”

You looked at him through the hurt of swollen eyes, tears still falling while he wiped them away with the course pad of his thumb—rubbing your cheek affectionately. In any other circumstance, you’d surely slap him, but right now, all you could do was listen.

“I’m buying a house,” he revealed, still holding your cheek and gaze. “Fit for a family. Safe neighborhood, good school district, giant backyard.” The list went over your head—it was all too surreal to register. You couldn’t even fathom what he was getting at until, “I want the two of you to come live there with me.”

Stunned, you remained completely silent until the tears dried, and he let go of your face. 

“You don’t have to say anything right now.” He reaches across you and fetches the seatbelt before coming back over you to click it in place. “I’ll go get Junior and drive you home. Just stay here.”

You do as suggested and stay seated as he pops his door open and leaves—feeling all but cemented in place as your thoughts go tumbling around and around as if caught in a rip curl. When Junior jumps in beside you, a farfetched smile is all you can offer. Thankfully, he’s so enamored by a toy he’d gotten to notice much of your state.

When your door opens again, you’re led out and onto your neighborhood street. The fresh air does little to clear your mind. Feeling all but feverish as you hold Junior's small hand in yours while the man of your nightmares smiles all too fondly at the two of you.

“I’ll come pick you up after your shift on Monday.,” he says decidedly—cheerfully as he ruffles Junior’s hair enough to make him giggle. “Bring the rascal with you, and he can pick his room first.”

You weren’t planning on staying. You were never planning on staying—certain you would leave the second the opportunity to skip town arose—you just need to scramble the money together first. 

But the house was huge… nothing you could ever dream of, and while it made you desperate with grief, you couldn’t deny it either… Junior really loved having a dad.

It nearly brought sick to your throat to call him that. It was a shot through the heart every time you heard Junior’s boyish call, squealing with giggles, saying “Daddy, daddy, daddy-”

None of it seemed right to you. Seeing his bright smile, now at the age where a new tooth fell out every other week—looking so goofy as he proudly shows the two of you the new one he’d just knocked out playing soccer at school. “Mommy, Daddy, look!”

What’s worse is that you can't even deny how good the man you hate is at it all—spoiling him with gifts and making him laugh—giving piggyback ride after air-plane flight after tickle-fight and a game of tag and hide’n’seek. 

And it’s not just the easy stuff. He’s good at the shit that used to make you go crazy—putting him to bed, getting him dressed, making him eat the right stuff, and not just scuffle down candy. It’s as if the two of them have developed a secret language you’re not a part of. If Junior weren’t a toddler, you’d even suspect he’d been bribed and told to do his best to make you lose your mind. But no, it’s just reality.

The man you live with drives and picks your son up from school as if he’d done it since he was born, goes with you to meet the teacher if and when he gets into trouble and helps the two of you pick out the right shoes—shoes that you can now afford, thanks to him.

“I thought I might sleep in the master bedroom tonight.” He says, leaning against the frame in the doorway.

You’d been living there a month now. He’d been generous enough to sleep in the guest room up until now.

You don’t know how to deny him. It feels as if anything you might say would just be ignored or threatened until you eventually took it back. You didn’t want him in your bed—you didn’t want him in the same house—in fact, preferably, you’d want him to be six feet deep in the dirt.

You end up not answering. But he’s used to that by now. 

“I get it…” he says, taking steps into the room you’d wrongfully thought was your safe space. “You don’t trust me.” He sits down at the edge of the bed and reaches out across the sheets. You’re too late to pull your feet to yourself before he has one in his hand. He doesn’t do much but stroke it. “But you can.”

The sincerity in his eyes makes you want to gouge them out. It’s all been some cruel joke ever since you moved in—all the pleasantries and presents, as if trying to distract you from the past. Your wardrobe is chockfull of it, and so is Junior’s room—filled to the brim with lies.

“I’m never gon’ hurt you.” Another lie. “I did you wrong once, and I’ll spend the rest of my life makin’ up for it.” 

You want to shake your head, laugh in his face—anything to reject it. But you’re terrified of what he might do if you didn’t play along. The threat of losing Junior is enough to make you cooperative.

“I know I’ve not been fair—pushin’ you into all of this so fast.” He gets down on his knees on the floor as if praying, right down beside you. “I took advantage of a vulnerable situation ‘cause I’m an impatient asshole—but I promise you—” He takes your hand in both of his. “If you give me the chance, I’m gon’ make our lives together like somethin’ outa’ a fuckin’ fairytale—all that happily ever after shit and more, just like you always wanted.”

The kiss he presses upon your knuckles beckons goosebumps to rise all across you. All his words feel like a bad script read by an even worse actor—in fact, this whole thing feels like a prank. And still, it doesn’t surprise you—he’s been laughing at you ever since you were children.

And now, laughing still, only with a fucking ringbox in his hand.

“I want Junior to see us as a united front. I don’t want him askin’ question why we ain’t sleepin’ in the same bed, why we fight behind locked doors, why you cry in the bathroom.” 

He pops the black velvet lid and reveals something so outrages it almost looks tacky lying there in a plush bed of red silk.

“I want us to be happy.” He picks the little thing out and holds it up between his thumb and index, still holding your hand in the other. “I want us to be real.” You can almost see your life flash before your eyes as it threatens your ring finger. “Let’s make us real.”

You don’t say anything as he eases the tiny hoop on, sliding it all the way back until it sits snugly right at your knuckle—dazzling in the dark. A tiny tear slips down your cheek—equally dazzling.

He played some with the digit—a smile on his face. 

“Looks good on you, Mrs.” As he calls you by his last name you almost shake the ring off as if it burned to wear, but it all gets lost when he rushes forward and locks his lips with yours.

You yelp against his mouth, kept from turning away by the large hand holding your jaw, threatening to seize your throat and squeeze. You remember how it had felt. You don’t want more of a reminder, so you intercept his tongue with yours before he forced it down your throat.

He groans at the warm welcome, and your entire body shudders in memory.

You hadn’t let anyone touch you since that time five years ago. It had left a poor taste in your mouth, and the hunger for it had never come back.

You choke it down now as he climbs on top. 

♡ BNHA – Bakugou, Dabi, Hawks ♡ JJK – Sukuna, Geto, Gojo, Naoya, Toji

♡ FEM x M INSERT masterlist ♡ GN x M INSERT masterlist

[deadsetobsessions]

Damian Wayne was like a duckling. A violent, stab-happy, danger-prone duckling, yes, but a duckling all the same. Which means when Danny almost got stabbed by a sleepy, instinct driven Damian, he was able to wave it off with a laugh. Damian, on the other hand, stared in horror at the butter knife firmly lodged in Danny’s arm.

“PENNYWORTH!” Danny jerked back at Damian’s scream. “RICHARD! FATHER!”

God damn, the kid had a pair of lungs on him. Danny’s wince was interpreted as pain to Damian, who gently grabbed his injured arm and started to pull him towards the kitchen’s marble island.

Danny blinked, non plussed as his hearing picked up a thundering of feet as the present family members scrambled towards Damian’s distress call.

“Wait, Damian, I’m fine. It’s-”

“You have been impaled, you imbecile! Had it been any of the other simpletons, they would have-!”

“Ouch.” Danny put his other hand in mock hurt over his slow-beating heart. He literally doesn’t care about the butter knife. He’s just impressed there was enough force in there to impale him. “Are you calling me names now? After- gasp- stabbing me?”

Before Damian could reply, the beginnings of regret, remorse, and guilt on his face, Alfred, Dick, and Bruce burst into the kitchen.

“What happened?!”

“My word, master Danny!”

“What is it?!”

“I’m fine. It’s like a small stab. Not even a big stab. I’m good.”

Dick paled, seeing Danny’s arm clutched in Damian’s hand.

“That’s- that’s a knife. In your arm. How is that ‘fine’?!”

“What happened.” Bruce asked Damian, gently removing Danny’s arm from Damian’s death clutch.

“I- I did not mean to,” Damian starts, guilt coloring his voice.

“He didn’t,” Danny cuts in. “I startled him and got stabbed for being dumb. I won’t fault him for having a defense mechanism like that, ancient knows what I might do if you guys startled me.”

The awkward silence that settled at his words made Danny twitch awkwardly.

“Uh, so, can I add this knife to my collection? Even if I didn’t get mugged?”

“Danny.”

“Bruce.” Danny stared stubbornly back. With his uninsured hand, he patted Damian on the head. He was going to enjoy the fluffiness before Damian’s guilt was no longer enough to hold him back from snapping at Danny’s hand like a grumpy alligator. Bruce loses, obviously. He’s a teenager who was also an ex-vigilante. Batman’s got nothing on a determined halfa.

“Master Danny, I must insist you refrain from getting stabbed. There is only so much gauze and antiseptic cream in the house.” Alfred returned- huh, when did he leave?- with a med kit.

Danny called bullshit because he knows there’s a whole ass medical bay beneath the manor.

“Sorry.”

“No need to apologize.” Alfred said, promptly beginning the extraction of the butter knife.

“Are you okay?” Dick asked, hovering worriedly. “He- are you…?”

Damian was allowing Danny to ruffle his hair, so…

“Yep, I’m good. This isn’t even on my top thirty most painful stabbings,” and it really wasn’t. That honor was given to the GIW and that one time Jazz accidentally stabbed him with her earrings. “That was pretty impressive, actually. It’s like, a butter knife. The other ones had pointy ends.”

“Do not clump me with those pathetic wastes of spaces. I am naturally superior and would… would never harm you on purpose.” Damian said, getting quiet at the end like he was trying to plead to Danny to believe him.

“Of course not. But- if you want help me keep the knife, you can hit me with a mug, it would technically be a mugging.”

The pun got the desired effect. Damian leaned away with a disgruntled look and Dick stopped hovering as close in order to let out a small cackle.

“Done.”

“You should go get changed, kiddo. We’re going to see Tim’s photography at the Gotham Gallery today.”

“Oh, for real?” Danny patted Damian’s fluffy hair one last time, pushing away from the counter. “Oh, I’ll clean up here first and-”

“That will not be necessary,” Alfred scolded, a mop somehow already in his hands. “Please see to it you are prepared for the day.”

“Thanks, Alfred. Can I keep the knife.”

“Very well.”

“Sweet. See you guys later?” Danny pranced off after seeing the nods.

——

“He’s… he got stabbed a lot. Before us, I mean.” Dick tapped a furious rhythm onto the counter. “Not that we’ve stabbed him until now but even once is concerning for a civilian.”

“He was used to it.” Bruce replied.

“Perhaps we should join Todd in his endeavor and ensure that his worthless tormentors are permanently out of the picture.”

“God, he said top thirty. He was counting.”

Damian silently withdrew a kitchen knife.

“No murder with my quality chef’s knives, Master Damian.”

“Tt.”

“Master Jason follows the same rules. Now, out of the kitchen. I may be old, but I remember the last time master Bruce and master Dick stepped foot in here and I will not have a repeat.”

[monstersflashlight]

A/N: This is a longer version of this story and it’s purely self-indulgent (like 99% of my stories lol). Enjoy!

Set up by a baby-orc

Orc x fem!reader || sfw, meet-cute, possibly soulmates

There was a little orc pulling at your hand, taking you with him to the door. "Come on, teacher, come with me." You let him drag you out, chuckling at his insistence.

He was such a cute kid, you knew you shouldn’t have favorites, but some kids made your heart all soft because they were just so fucking cute. And the tiny orc dragging you to the door was one of them. He was so shy when the school started, and in only a month he’d come out of his shell so much you couldn’t be anything but proud.

"Where to? I have job to do, hon, the other kids might need me," you tried, amused at his antics. But he wasn’t having any of that, grabbing your hand stronger and pulling until you follow after him with a laugh.

"You need to meet him!" He insisted, pulling harder and making you wince internally. Baby monsters had an amazing amount of strength even when tiny, you had to remind them to be careful with the humans, especially with you. Ouch.

"Who?" You asked, genuinely curious, following along with him out of the school and into the little patio where the parents and guardians could wait until the little ones were ready to go.

"My uncle!" He exclaimed, pointing across the patio with his tiny chubby green hand. You walk next to him for a few more steps before you look up.

You were about to tell him you couldn't get out of the school when you looked up and faces the prettiest orc you've ever set your eyes on. He was looking at you with the same level of amazement, and something inside of you just... knew.

You walked like a zombie next to the baby orc, not even registering what he was babbling about next to you as he pulled you along until you were right in front of him. You had to look up, and up, and up to be able to stare at his face, but you felt like it was too much, too soon, and ended up looking back down to the baby who was still talking animatedly.

“I told you she was human! Look! Look! Her skin is not green!” He sounded so excited you couldn’t do anything but laugh as his uncle blushed in the greenest green, making him look impossibly cute, probably even cuter than his nephew.

“I can see that,” he said in a low voice, so deep and so growly that made you want to press your legs together. You bite your lip not to giggle when his eyes fixated on you. He had such dark eyes you felt like he could see into your soul, and when he focused his sole attention on you for a fraction of a second, you felt your heart-beat spiking, your mouth suddenly very dry.

“Isn’t she pretty? She doesn’t have tusks like me!” He says it as if that’s such a feat and you have to cover your mouth to avoid laughing out loud.

“Yours will grow eventually, though,” he explained, kneeling on the floor so he was closer to the kid’s height even if that’s not near close to the baby sized orc. He was on his knees and he still was a couple centimeters taller than you. Your inner size queen was screaming very loudly.

“They will?!” The baby sounded so shocked that you choked on your saliva trying to avoid laughing.

“Yes, hon, yours will grow until they are as big as your uncle’s,” you explained, touching his head affectionately.

You tried to avoid looking at his uncle, but every time you caught a sight of him on the corner of your eye you felt a shiver ran down your spine. You were shivering with the need to touch him, even if it was just a poke in the cheek, and you had to physically close your hand to avoid doing exactly that.

You didn’t know what was with him or why you were feeling like only looking at him, took all the air out of your lungs, but you were giddy and shy about it. You didn’t know what to do or what to say. “I should go back to the kids,” you let out, breathless after looking at him for less than ten seconds.

“Yeah. Yes. I guess so.” You were walking back to the school when he said behind you: “I’ll be seeing you again… that’s a promise,” his gruff tone made you shiver as you smiled as big as the sun, not daring to turn around and look at him one last time.

But when you were about to enter, you turned around slightly and saw him still on his knees, looking intently at his nephew as the baby told him something. He looked up and your eyes met, and your breath got caught in your throat, your heart beating fast and your face flushed. He smiled at you with his beautiful tusked mouth, and you almost had to fan yourself, smiling back as you ran inside, your hand on your chest trying to calm your frantic heart.

Maybe the kid had a point about meeting his uncle.

A/N: Let me know if you want a part 2 of this, if enough ppl is interested I’ll write it.

[pellucid-constellations]

Trial and Error (6)

Pairing: Azriel x Reader

Summary: Based on the request: "Azriel with single mom reader? I feel like being a single mom in ACOTAR would be tricky as hell… reader comes from autumn court and flees to night court because she got pregnant out of marriage? 😯 the shame"

Word count: 2.4k

Warnings: Angst, brief mention of an abortion

a/n: guess what everyone here’s another chapter ahhh!!! Love you 🫶

Read part one | part two | part three | part four | part five (part five bonus) |

Main Masterlist ♡

~~

Your breath left you, lungs emptying of every comfort until they felt tight and constrained. You might have made a sound—might have gaped as Azriel’s eyes darted across every square inch of your face to gauge a reaction. 

Mate. 

Had he said—

“What?” you finally choked out. 

Azriel shook his head with a pained furrow of his brow. “I didn’t want to tell you like this.” His hands steadied as they cradled your cheeks—stability in a time of utter confusion. “But I had to, y/n. You… I needed you to understand why I care so much. Why I want you to let me care. Why you…” 

His words trailed off. 

Something compelled you to reach up and wrap your fingers around his wrists. You stared into his eyes with nothing to offer him but the uncertainty and poorly disguised hope edging considerably closer to the surface. 

“Why I what, Azriel?” 

Azriel licked his lips before he spoke, mouth dry at the prospect of the conversation. “Why you can tell me. Everything. You can trust me with everything there is to know about you and Melanie. I wouldn’t—I would protect the both of you. Over anything.” 

You felt a piece of you deflate. Azriel’s fingers slightly spasmed against your skin as your shoulders slumped. 

“You can’t promise me that, Azriel,” you sullenly replied. “You work for the High Lord. You can’t promise me you would keep things from him for my benefit. I can’t trust that—” 

“Y/n, you are my mate,” Azriel emphasized, eyes wide and pleading. “I know you can’t feel it yet within you but it has been carved into my chest from the moment we locked eyes. The way the bond pulls each time I see you—the way it screams at me to keep you safe. I can’t…” 

His words broke off as he spoke them—cracked and fractured and desperate. 

Azriel cleared his throat and started over. 

“There are two things you should know. First, the High Lord and Lady—Rhysand and Feyre—they would never do anything to put you in danger.” You opened your mouth to argue, but Azriel gently spoke over the rebuttal. “They would never. They do not even know you but you are my mate. As an extension, you are their family. Whatever it is you are running from, they would go to lengths to run with you.” 

“You can’t promise—” 

“I can. And I am. Because the second thing you should know is that I have waited for my mate for centuries. I have dreamed of you and wanted you and I don’t know if that scares you but I hope it can be some consolation.” 

The kitchen lulled into a silence punctuated by your heaving breaths, the unsteady sound countering Azriel’s flickering wings as he stood before you. You had no words for him, nothing to rectify the worried way he captured your gaze with his own. 

Your instinct fought against everything he said. 

To put all of your trust into Azriel—all of it. To make him an integral part of Melanie’s life, of yours. 

Could you? Was being his mate enough? You didn’t feel the pull yet, the indescribable ache that caused the desperation on Azriel’s face. 

“—and,” Azriel’s voice was low but startling as his eyes shifted to land on the wall behind your head. “It’s not just the bond. It’s you. I care about you, y/n. I care about Mel. I can’t go back to acting so casual about that. I want to be all in with two of you. My life has… it’s changed. It’s different now, because of you.” 

He found your eyes again.

Something shifted in your chest, but it didn’t snap. 

You wanted him to be all in, but something still needed to be aligned. 

You had heard stories about mates in the past—about mates that had children before the bond had made itself known. The stories did not end well and they certainly did not match the pleading way Azriel held you or the hopeful pool of hazel that his eyes had dipped into. 

“What about Melanie?” you whispered, squeezing his wrist with your fingers because although he had included her in all of his pinings, you needed to hear him say it. 

Azriel adjusted his stance and blinked at you as if you were speaking another language. “What about Melanie, angel?” 

His soft-spoken endearment was like a punch to the gut. “W-Would you love her the same? Even though she isn’t yours? I’ve heard what can happen with—” 

“I don’t care about that—I’ve never cared. I can’t imagine looking at her and not loving her, y/n. She is so much of you.” 

A loaded breath left you as you leaned forward and rested your forehead on Azriel’s collar. You were still sick, still exhausted, and this overwhelming display of affection and devotion was filling you more than you thought you could handle. You released your hold on his wrists to bunch your fists into the front of his shirt. Azriel acted instantly, one hand coming to the back of your head while the other rested along your back. 

“I want to trust you,” you promised. “I do. It just might take time. I can’t—I don’t think I can tell you yet. I don’t know why, I just—” 

“I know, y/n. You don’t have to tell me. Just… just let me in. Let me be here.” 

~~

The rest of the day moved slowly. 

Azriel stayed. 

When Melanie woke up from her nap, a walk was introduced, Azriel proclaiming that the group had spent entirely too much time inside and fresh air was needed to fight the remaining sickness. That suggestion was met with a raised brow from Melanie who argued that sleep was supposed to be what made us better, Mr. Azriel. Why do you keep changing it?

You had watched the interaction with new eyes; the way she squinted up at him with a skeptical gaze and the way he stared down at her with a smile so wide it looked as if it hurt. Did he smile that broadly all the time? You hardly saw him in any public context, so it was difficult to know. 

You doubted he did. 

He smiled at you the same way when you teased him for Melanie’s benefit. 

The walk was soothing and beautiful and Azriel had wrapped two scarves around Melanie’s neck before he let her get out the door. She had huffed and pointed at his own neck, frustrated that he wasn’t wearing a scarf, but his shadows answered for him as they whisked around Melanie’s eyes and turned her around. 

As she giggled, Azriel shrugged a jacket over your shoulders. 

“It’s not that cold, you know,” you commented later as footsteps echoed along cobblestone. “I don’t know if she needed both scarves.” 

“Can’t be too careful. Wouldn’t want her to get more sick.” 

“We aren’t that kind of sick, Az.” 

“I know.” He tore his gaze from Melanie and directed it towards you. “But I can’t do anything about Autumn fever. I can, however, make sure the two of you don’t catch a cold.” 

You pressed your lips inwards and breathed through the fluttering in your chest as he looked upon you. His gaze was unabashedly admiring and you couldn’t remember if he’d looked at you like that before he’d told you you were mates, or if he had been holding himself back before. 

“I am from the Autumn Court,” you thought to say, if only to quell some of the strange feeling in your chest. “Although, you already knew that. Your healer kind of gave it away.” 

“You don’t have to—” 

“I want to,” you interrupted. You looked out towards Melanie as you skirted along the Sidra, your daughter kneeling by the shore to look in at the fish. “Maybe not all of it at once. But for now, I’m from the Autumn Court. I came to Velaris when I found out I was pregnant.” 

You shoved your hands into the pocket of the jacket Azriel had placed on your shoulders. You realized it wasn’t yours when your knuckles swam in the space. And the scent of night-kissed air delicately wafted up.

Azriel said nothing as you collected your thoughts. He simply watched Melanie giggle and dip her fingers in the water. 

“Um, I came under duress, obviously. The circumstances of my pregnancy weren’t exactly optimal and there were several people that would have been… more than upset that I was pregnant.” 

“What does that mean—upset?” 

“Several things. They could have taken Melanie from me, made me end the pregnancy when I didn’t want to, sent me into hiding for shame. I didn’t stick around to find out which horror-fueled thought would come to fruition.” 

“Is that who you’re running from?” 

You tilted your head to the side as a light breeze swept past your skin. Azriel was already looking at you with an intensity that felt out of place compared to the joyful laughs that flowed from the child by the water. But that was good, you reminded yourself, you were keeping her away from all of these harsh realities for as long as possible. 

“Yes.”

“Can I ask—”

“No.” You were quick to cut him off. Your tone wasn’t mean or harsh; it was exhausted. “You can't ask who or why—not yet. I haven’t actually said any of those names aloud since I left. That part might… take me a while.” 

“That’s okay,” Azriel softly reassured. He took a half step towards you, hesitated, but then fought against that and wrapped an arm around your shoulders, tugging you into his chest. “I just need to know what I’m up against. If you think they know where you are or if they’re still looking for you.” 

Melanie had begun throwing rocks into the Sidra, the sound of the stones plopping into the water mingling with silence and birds chirping. 

“I don’t think they know where I am,” you mumbled into his chest. It was so easy to stay there. “But I think they’re still looking. I don’t think they’ll stop.” 

You felt Azriel’s lips press against the crown of your head. His chin found a home there as you both shifted to watch Melanie. 

“Okay. Okay, that’s fine.” 

“Is it? You didn’t exactly sign up for this.” 

“I signed up for you. Whatever that entails.” 

A calm silence washed over the scene by the Sidra. Azriel brought his other arm around to hold you closer to his chest and you let him, seamlessly sinking into his hold. Melanie was none the wiser to the conversations behind her as she began dropping sticks and leaves into the water. 

Azriel kissed your hair once more. 

“It could be safer—“ Azriel began, words laced with reproach. “—if some of the Inner Circle were involved.” 

You wrenched yourself back as quickly as the words left his mouth. “No,” you shook your head vigorously. It made an ache bloom at the base of your neck. “No, no court involvement. You can’t tell them anything. You can’t, Azriel. I know you said it was safe but you don’t understand. This can’t have anything to do with High Lords or court politics or, or—” 

“Okay, okay—hey, I’m sorry. Come here.” 

The panic had taken hold of your bearings and inched close to your heart. You reached up to place a hand against the pressure there as Azriel tugged you back against his body and glanced toward Melanie to ensure she hadn’t picked up on your stress. 

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” he comforted, running his hand down your hair. “Nothing with the court, okay? I won’t tell any of them.” 

“Do you promise?” you all but whimpered. A tinge of embarrassment seeped under your skin at your actualized panic, but the fear took precedence and Azriel showed no repugnance at your reaction. 

For a brief, fleeting moment, you considered that a promise didn’t really mean anything at all—not before. 

But, from Azriel, it felt like something. 

“I promise.” 

A small voice then sounded, facilitating the natural end to the sharing you had offered. “All of the fishies are gone.” 

Azriel didn’t even attempt to move you away from his chest as he spoke, his words creating vibrations along your body. “That’s because you keep throwing things at them, Mel.” 

“I wasn’t throwing things at them. I was trying to offer those things to them.” 

You turned to speak to your daughter, Azriel’s arms unmoving around you. “Why were you offering things to the fish?” 

“Just in case they’re water gods. Ms. Fern tolds us about them in school. If you make them offerings then they protect you.” 

Your laugh was echoed by Azriel. The two of you shared a smile before you slowly unraveled yourself from him and beckoned your daughter forward. “Well, I’m sure they were very grateful for your offering. It was probably just their bedtime. Just like it’s almost yours.” 

Melanie made a face but didn’t argue, instead taking steps past you to stand at Azriel’s feet. “Mr. Azriel, is it my turn to cuddle? I don’t want to walk all the way home.” 

You watched Azriel’s mouth twist into a small smile that was obviously in place of a much larger one. He looked over Melanie’s head to send you a wordless question that you were quick to nod in response to. 

As if you would tell him no. 

Azriel reached down to haul your daughter up, settling her against his hip as if he’d done so a hundred times. Melanie rested her head on his chest almost as quickly as he’d grabbed for her, fiddling with a stick she still held in her grasp. You made to walk alongside them and calm your pattering heart, but certain people had other plans. 

“You too, mommy,” Melanie called, peaking the side of her face out from Azriel’s chest. 

“Me too?” 

“Uh huh. You come too. Mr. Azriel has two arms. And I can hold your hand.”

You sent a knowing glance up to Azriel, but he forwent the snickering and already had his arm open by the time you looked. “In,” he prompted with raised brows. “And you have a hand to hold.”  

[nanaslutt]

The wrong place at the wrong time

snopsis: you walk in on a particularly interesting facetime between gojo and geto in which gojo tries to convince geto that the prostate is magical thing, but he needs your help in convincing him

contains: fem reader, sub!gojo, geto is on the phone while you and gojo fool around, dirty talk, prostate milking, anal fingering, hand job, masturbation, bisexual satosugu

MDNI

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ

..."You what?" You stopped in your tracks in the hallway in front of Gojo's bedroom, staring incredulously at the white-haired man lying on his back, one knee propped up, his arm outstretched above him, Geto's face filling up the phone screen. "Oh? Were you eavesdropping on our conversation?" Gojo asked, covering his mouth as he snickered behind his hand.

"Your door is wide open and you practically just screamed at the top of your lungs that you've fingered yourself before, was I not supposed to hear that?" You asked, your face scrunching at your own words as if you couldn't even believe what you were saying.

"I don't care if you hear~" Gojo cooed, his hand dropping back down to his chest. "Is it really that surprising?" Geto's voice chimed in through the speaker on Gojo's phone. "What's that mean?" Gojo chipped, turning his neck to pout at the dark-haired man, his soft hair falling graciously against the sheets around his head.

"I think he means you're shameless, Satoru." You said, crossing your arms over your chest, leaning against his doorframe. Gojo smirked, unable to deny your words. "You always have been one to talk brazenly about your endeavors in bed... like you were just doing." Geto agreed, his deep voice coming out smooth and sultry through the phone.

"Well, you asked if I had any ways to spice up your alone time... since you're too scared to go find a hookup~" Gojo outted the man, resulting in a tsk from the speaker. You shouldn't be standing in the doorway still, but this conversation was too intriguing to walk away from.

"I didn't mean fingering my ass, save that for the people who really love it. Like you, apparently." Geto deadpanned. Gojo sat up in his bed, his hand placed behind him as he held his phone out in front of him, pouting at his best friend. "It really does feel good, I'm telling you It'll change your life~" Gojo cooed, raising his eyebrows at the dark-haired man.

"I bet my roomie can attest too, I hear you whimper through these thin walls late at night when you think I'm asleep," Gojo revealed, turning his head to look at you. Your jaw dropped, words failing to find your tongue as you stared at him dumbfounded. Yeah, you absolutely should've minded your business.

"W-what the fuck?" You stuttered, feeling your cheeks heat up at Gojo's unexpected words. You heard Geto laugh through the phone, followed by a quiet "Does she really~?"

"Since when was this conversation about me now?" You said, your face scrunching in displeasure as embarrassment flooded your body. How was all of the attention suddenly on you? "It's okay, everyone gets horny, so no need to feel all shy about it~ You sound really cute anyways, you have nothing to worry about."

A loud groan fell from your lips, your hands uncrossing to cover your face, your displeased noises becoming muffled from how hard you pressed your hands to your face. Geto's laughter became hysterical at your dismay. You felt a headache start to come on.

"Heh~ further proves my point though, fingering yourself feels good Suguru~ I don't want you to come crying to me when you're 80, complaining about how you wish you would've tried it when you were in your prime," Gojo said, raising his chin smugly.

"With your eating habits, you'll be lucky if you break 60." Geto quipped, "Anyways, I wouldn't even know where to start." He confessed, Geto's voice coming through softer, honest. A sinister smile formed on Gojo's face as Geto's words reached his ears, an idea popping into his head. His eyes falling on you made your body tense where you stood, wondering why he was looking at you again. You thought you had successfully escaped being the center of attention.

"Wanna help me show Geto how good your prostate can feel?"

The words fell from your roommate's lips as nonchalantly as he had just asked what you wanted for dinner. You kept your hands over your face, your fingers cracked over your eyes so you could see him. You felt a blossom spread in your tummy at his proposition, what did that even mean? How would you have any involvement in this? You didn't even have a prostate.

You felt your heart rate pick up, the organ beating faster in your chest as you stood underneath his awaiting gaze, trying to wrack your brain for the right words to say. Your eyes darted around the room as you tried to escape his eyes long enough to think of a reasonable reply.

You and Gojo have lived together for 2 years now. The two of you practically joined at the hip, courtesy of Gojo who had no concept of personal space and hated being alone. Gojo liked to refer to your personal space as 'our personal space' you had grown used to it.

The childish man could be obnoxious and crass sometimes, but he also had a strange sort of charm to him. He was very observant of your needs, and somehow always knew what you were thinking. Not to mention he was undoubtedly easy on the eyes, no matter how annoying he was--and you would be lying if you said a few of those nights you spent alone in your room with just your fingers to keep you company that Gojo had referred to; hadn't featured said man in your fantasies as you fucked yourself.

After going over these facts and losing yourself in your own mind as you did so, you decided on what you were going to say back to Gojo. Snapping back to reality by dropping your hands to your sides and making unsure eye contact with Gojo, you spoke. "H-how would I help?" You didn't realize that those very words had sealed your fate.

—

"D-deeper cmon~ touchin' me like you're scared I'm gonna break or something." Satoru teased, wiggling his ass back into you. You felt your face heat up at his words. Well sorry... I've never exactly fingered someone's ass before, excuse me if I'm a little tentative... you shot back in your head, opting to just bite your lip and take his jab in the world outside of your head.

Gejo had placed his phone on his five-foot tripod on the side of the bed, giving Geto a perfect view of Gojo who was laid face down ass up, with you sitting on your knees behind him, a bottle of lube by your thigh, the cap was still undone in case you needed more. Your finger was about halfway into Gojo's ass, slowly and shallowly pumping into him. He was right, you were afraid he was going to break, afraid that if you moved too suddenly, you would hurt him.

The camera was angled near the end of the bed so Geto could also see Gojo's hungry little hole swallow up your fingers, making him palm his large hand over his cock at the sight of it pulsing around you. "You listening Suguru?" Gojo breathed, his head lying against the sheets, and turned to the side so he could see Geto staring at him, and a little sliver of your blurry, shy face.

"Oh, I'm listening," Geto responded, squeezing his hand over his tip as he spoke. He didnt want Gojo to know how much this was affecting him; watching his best friend get fingered by his cute roomie; so he kept his camera on his face for now, keeping the minstrations on himself to himself.

"G-good... you better take it all in for when you try this later~" Gojo cooed, confident that Geto would actually try this. Geto nodded, jerking his hand over his clothed cock harder as he pretended to listen to his words. A choked moan from you brought the attention you detested so much to be centered on you once more. "You okay there?" Geto's voice chirped teasingly through the phone, his eyes taking in your flustered face.

"It's... It's in." You whispered, your words barely being loud enough to be heard through the phone. "Your finger?" Geto asked you, keeping his voice and face monotone as he slid his hand underneath the band of his sweats, his growing arousal needing more than over-the-clothes touching to be satiated.

You nodded, a deep blush spreading across your face as you relished the feeling. Gojo was so tight around you, even tighter than your cunt felt when you touched yourself. "Yeah, I can feel it too, so stop teasing me and move it already~" Gojo groaned, pushing his hips back against your finger, slick from the abundance of lube you used.

You swallowed hard watching Gojo fuck his hips back against you, the motion only resulting in your finger jolting around slightly, not enough to give him any real stimulation. "O-okay." You mumbled quietly, before you pulled your finger out, and screwed it back in. Gojo breathed out through his mouth, relieved you were finally moving.

"How's it feel?" Geto chimed in, his hand now tentatively stroking over his cock, his sweats and boxers alike pulled halfway down his thighs. Gojo grumbled, pouting dramatically against the sheets before he spoke, trying to angle his head to look at you the best he could from his current position. "Feels like I have a finger in my ass," Gojo replied with a short giggle.

Geto hummed in response, tilting his head at his companion through the phone. "Though you were gonna show me how good your prostate feels?" Geto teased, slowing his strokes over his cock as he waited for the real action to happen, not wanting to blow his load too soon. "I would if my cute roomie started listening to me~" Gojo cooed, disguising his jab at you in his teasing words.

You knew he was immediately referring to how gently you were being. Curse you for being curdious of his most sacred place in all of his body. "Fine, you want it harder? Don't come crying to me if you get hurt." You said with a sigh, shaking your head. You placed your free hand on his ass, giving yourself some leverage before you started fingering him properly.

"Yeahhh~ Cmon, give it to me~" Gojo cooed, that annoyingly cocky tone laced throughout his voice. His unaffectedness to having your finger in his asshole made you want to wipe that smirk off his face and replace it with a more desperate look. You tried to be nice, but clearly, that wasn't what he wanted.

Geto watched you carefully as you pulled your lower lip between your teeth, readjusting yourself on your knees closer to Gojo before you pulled your finger out of his hole and grabbed the lube, spreading it across two fingers this time. "Hey, I said give it to me not pull out complete- ahh!" Gojo's complaint was short-lived when you thrust both of your fingers in his ass to the hilt all at once.

Gojo gasped against the sheets like the wind had just been punched from his lungs, his eyes wide as he stared at the wall in shock. "You're so impatient Satoru." You shot back, starting up a decent pace on his ass, your fingers colliding against him causing the fat of his ass to ripple under your hand as you held him steady. Geto laughed at how fast Gojo's expression changed from cocky to desperate, the sight making his cock twitch in his hand.

"A-ah- ah-" Gojo softly whimpered, his hands curling around the pillow under his head for comfort as you fingered him. Your pace now felt words better than your sloppy, slow one just seconds prior, but something was still missing. He needed you deeper, lower. Your fingers just barely ghosting over his prostate was not nearly enough, he needed you to jab directly into it, to abuse it with no remorse.

"Deeper baby, a little deeper," Gojo instructed, the teasing in his voice long gone, now replaced with a carnal need. "Angle your fingers down, curl them down like you're trying to touch my stomach." You quickly took his words into action, wanting to see him crumple under your hand. "You know all the tricks, huh?" Geto chimed in, wishing so badly he was there right now.

What would be his role? Would he be the one fucking his fingers into Gojo's ass while you sucked him off? Maybe he would have you lean forward so he could eat your pretty pussy out while you fingered Gojo, both options sounded delicious. His hand sped up as he lost himself in his fantasies, his free hand curling into the sheets as his eyes stayed glued on the two of you.

You angled your fingers down, towards his tummy like he had instructed, and jabbed your fingers in, curling them when your fingers fucked into his ass to the hilt. The guttural moan Gojo released sent shivers down your spine. "Oh fuck- right there, do that again-" He begged, his arms tightening around his pillow as he shamelessly wiggled his hips back against you, trying to get your fingers to hit that spot inside him again.

Your face scrunched in pleasure as you repeated the motion, feeling a walnut-shaped ball under your fingers each time you curled them inside him. "Ohmyfuckinggod-" Gojo grits through his teeth, his teeth clicking together each time his jaw opens and closes in pleasure. "That looks like it feels good, Satoru," Gojo smirked, the only tell of his arousal being how a light blush spread across his face. Pretty impressive considering how much he was leaking on his fingers from how hot he felt watching the show the two of you were putting on.

Gojo tried to open his mouth to respond but you had gotten more confident with his unabashed moaning, your fingers pistoning in and out of his tight ass, drilling straight into his prostate. "Ah- ah- ah-" The white-haired man moaned so prettily, all the sounds coming from his body being music to your ears. "Does that feel good, Satoru?" You ask, your words coming out more timid than you would've liked.

Your roommate nodded profusely, an adorable red blush spread across his cheeks as his eyes rolled back in his head from how good he was feeling. "So f-fucking good- Ngh- feels so- intense! Nghhhh-" Gojo whined, his words coming out choppy and slurred from the whines being fucked from his body.

“Oh fuck baby- fuck- fuck my ass baby ohmygod- harderrrr-“ Gojo slurred, whimpering into the sheets like some slut. You pressed your thighs together, your clit throbbing at his desperate show of his need for pleasure.

Geto pressed his lips together as subtly as possible, trying to appear unaffected as he rapidly jerked his hand over his cock, matching your pace inside Gojo's tight hole. His camera was shaking slightly with his movements, but he was feeling too good to care. The both of you were quite preoccupied anyway, it's not like you would notice his camera shaking anyway.

"Grab his cock pretty girl," Geto instructed, his eyes falling lower with his arousal, a warm heat flooding over his body. You looked over to the camera, making eye contact with Geto, who kept his unwavering eyes on yours, his eyes slightly glossed over with his arousal.

"Yeah- y-yeah, m-my cock, touch my cock-" Gojo jumped in, a drunken smile plastered on his face as he tried to look at you over his shoulder, his pink face nodding profusely. You looked away from Geto to look down between the white-haired man's legs, your eyes finding their target--being his long, thick cock that dangled heavily between his legs, a steady drip of pre-cum dripping from the tip of his cock each time your fingers hit his prostate.

"Been watching his poor cock leak since you started this, the tip is so red," Geto added, his voice failing to sound as unaffected as he would've liked. If Gojo was in the right headspace, he would've teased Geto at the fact that he just admits to staring at his cock throughout this whole endeavor, but alas, he was too busy drooling and whimpering against his sheets to tease anyone right now.

Blushing, you abandoned your hand that was placed on Gojo's soft ass to drop it between his legs. The second your lithe fingers wrapped around his neglected cock, his whole body jerked harshly, almost like it was trying to escape your hand. "Fuck-" Gojo grit, wincing at how sensitive his cock was from being neglected for so long.

"Oh shit, bet it's sooo much right now, huh?" Geto asked his best friend. Gojo's eyes found Geto's through the phone screen, tears welling up in his pretty blue eyes as you immediately fell into a quick rhythm, your hand jerking over his length at a pace that matched the one inside him. Gojo could only nod pathetically, his face scrunching in pleasure as your hand focused on his tip, jerking over the sensitive red head quickly, causing cute squelches to echo throughout the room.

"You're so wet, Satoru." You whispered in awe, your mouth dropping into a small o as you milked his cock, the pool of pre-cum on his sheets between his legs making it look like he had already cum several times--you had no idea how he still had so much to give.

Gojo's body jerked around, the tears that had welled up in his eyes finally fell down his rosy cheeks, over the slope of his nose, and joined together on his pillow. "Fuck- please p-please- Nghhh- A-ah-" He didn't know what he was begging for. He was unsure if he wanted you to stop, or give him more. All he knew is that it was all so fucking overwhelming; having everyone's attention on him.

"Talk to us Satoru, how's it feel?" Geto asked, his words coming out more like begs as he felt himself steadily approach his orgasm, his hand focusing on his tip just like yours was doing on Satoru's. "I- I don't know I- fuck it's so much- too much-" Gojo answered, his eyes twitching and rolling back in his head.

You showed no mercy, jerking your hand faster over the entire length of his cock you stood on your knees and pistoned your fingers into his prostate more directly with the new leverage, resulting in Gojo's ankles crossing and kicking up at the intense pleasure. "I thought you wanted it rough? Do you take it back? Want me to stop?" You asked teasingly, knowing you weren't going to let up even if he begged you to stop.

"No! Nonono don't stop p-please don't stop-" Gojo cried, his head jerking against his satin pillowcase as he fought through the intense pleasure, his body jerking and spasming without his permission. "He's a fucking mess, look what you did~" Geto laughed, his dick twitching with interest at Gojo's teary, drooling face.

"Ahhh- ah- right there- keep f-fucking me right there-" Gojo gasped, his hands digging into his pillow as his eyes squeezed shut, his orgasm welling up in his tummy. "I think he's gonna cum pretty, is his cock twitching?" Geto asked, knowing very well what the telltale signs of a man's orgasm were.

You nodded, Gojo's cock was throbbing profusely in your hand, and his tight hole was squeezing more consistently around your fingers as well, almost like a heartbeat--it was so cute. "Oh yeah, you're gonna cum aren't you Satoru? Gonna cum from a few fingers in your ass? Hmm?" Geto teased, taking a sharp inhale in through his teeth as his own hand sped up, his cock twitching in his hold.

Satoru nodded, unable to voice his thoughts. Unable to scream from the top of his lungs, "Yes! Yes, I'm going to cum!" Instead, his jaw fell completely slack, drool pooling out of his mouth and onto the sheets as you worked him right up to his orgasm.

"Me too, look at me Satoru, look at me." Just moments before Satoru was pushed over the edge from your merciless fingers, he cracked his teary eyes open and was faced with Geto's long cock filling up the expanse of the phone screen, his massive hand jerking quickly over his length, making it almost look blurry from how fast he was going.

The visual of his best getting off to his ass being pummeled was all Gojo needed to be pushed off the edge. With a high-pitched cry of your name, his shaky hand shot back to grip your wrist as the first rope of his orgasm shot out of his cock, adding to the pool of his cum already between his legs, soaking into the sheets.

His hole squeezed tightly around your fingers, acting as if he was trying to snap them off, keeping them deep inside him. “Don’t stop- D-don’t stop” He begged pathetically, his wrist being dragged with you as you kept thrusting into him, working him through his high.

You moaned with him in awe as his body was wracked with tremors, threatening to collapse against the sheets. “I won’t, I got you Toru, I got you.” You consoled, paying special attention to his tip as you milked him for all he was worth.

Gojo’s thick cum made a mess of your fingers. Most of his hot cum landed on the bed sheets, but when someone cums as much as he does, it only makes sense that you got some on your fingers.

“Oh fuck- so pretty-“ Geto groaned, his jaw muscles clenching under the weight of his teeth as he came. You and Gojo both watched as white streaks of cum landed on Geto’s abs and thighs, the squelching on his own cock got louder as his cum acted as lube over his cock, increasing the already messy slick on his length.

“I didn’t realize you were getting off to this Geto.” You said, your chest heaving with your own arousal as your eyes flit back and forth between Gojo’s tight hole and Geto’s cock on the screen.

Through his groans, you heard him laugh as you watched him wring out his cock, making sure all of his cum had released from his cock. “How could I not? You guys are so fucking hot.” His gruff voice spoke, the camera flipping back to his handsome face.

You and Gojo both silently mourned the loss of the view of Geto’s cock. Although it was fairly hard to be disappointed when his pale face came into view his cheeks dusted in a deep pink, sweat beading on his forehead, his chest heaving as he tried to recover from his orgasm.

“H-hey-“ Gojo whined, his strength returning to his body as he gripped your wrist he had a hold of, signaling you stop moving inside him. You mumbled a quick ‘sorry’, you had gotten distracted watching Geto cum, forgetting you were pleasuring your handsome roommate underneath you.

You slowly pulled your fingers out of his ass, Gojo whined dramatically at the loss, his hole clenching around you in sensitivity. “You don’t wanna let me go, do you?” You giggled, your fingers finally slipping free of his tight hole.

“Fuck no~” Gojo giggled, the cloudiness slowly clearing from his brain, allowing his signature snarkiness to come back to him. Geto laughed as he set his phone down, you watched out of the corner of your eye as he wiped his softening cock clean with a towel.

“Suguru~” Gojo called in a singsong voice, his body collapsing on his side, his cock twitching limply against the sheets. Your hands rubbed along his thighs as he relaxed into the bed, noticing how a cute red flush was also dusting along his thighs and shoulders. Adorable.

“Were you paying attention? You have to admit that looked nice, right~?” Gojo asked teasingly, raising his eyebrows at the dark-haired man through the screen. Gojo’s ability to bounce back from even the most intense prostate orgasm was astonishing.

“I think it looks nice on you, sure.” Geto laughed, throwing the towel he used to clean his cock to the floor, grabbing his phone back in his hand as he laid back against his bed, throwing his arm behind his head.

Gojo pouted, rolling on his back to look at you for help with puppy eyes. “What are you looking at me for?” You asked, sitting back on your heels as you jerked your head back, looking around the room for anyone else Gojo could be looking at.

“I thought you were gonna help me convince himmm.” Gojo drawled, his arms pushing himself up to sit on his ass as he reached out for you. You blushed as you let him pull you into his arms, your hands falling on his chest with a surprised noise as you sat on his thighs, just under his cock.

“I could only do so much you know…” You said, avoiding his eyes as his hands made a home on your upper thighs, stroking the skin teasingly. ���Maybe you should‘ve cried a little harder!” Geto chimed in, winking into the camera.

Gojo pouted, wiping his hands over his still-wet cheeks to rid the evidence of Geto’s teasing. “So all of that was for nothing then?” Gojo asked, looking between the two of you incredulously, his hand that had whipped at his cheek slapping back down onto the skin of your thigh.

“No, not nothing,” Geto said, looking smugly into the camera. You and Gojo looked to Geto confused, waiting for him to elaborate. “I discovered how bad I wanna fuck you both. That’s not nothing, right?” Geto revealed nonchalantly, making you and Gojo’s jaws drop in tandem.

You felt your face heat up at his confession. Maybe you hadn’t convinced Geto to play with his ass just yet, but you had unknowingly convinced him to play with something even better.