#I should tag every loop form

[the-bell-lord]

I mean . Chances are I finish at least ONE of them , right ????

I swear I’ll start consistently posting again soon <\33 (lie) /silly

here uhm . Have some complimentary shapeshifter loops . Throws them at u

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | fake marriage au [18+]

in holy matriphony ch8. two steps back

ᰔ pairing. fake marriage au - neighbor&realtor!gojo x nurse!reader (ft. choso x reader & suguru x reader)

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is your extremely annoying next-door-neighbor who you're pretty sure is the most insufferable man you've ever met. given the fact that you exclusively work the night shift at a chaotic emergency department, just got broken up with your boyfriend of 7 years, and have been taking care of your sick mother ever since her multitude of diagnoses, yet somehow your neighbor is the main source of stress in your life should speak volumes. but when your mother's medical bills start to skyrocket to more than you can manage, and you learn that said neighbor of yours has the best private health insurance plan in the country, you ask him to enter a matrimonial agreement with you for the spousal benefits all in the name of saving a few hundred thousand dollars. but you'll have to see if suffering cohabitation with him is worth any amount of money.

ᰔ genre/tags. fluff, smut, angst, enemies to lovers (sort of), annoyances to lovers (that's more like it), small town romance, fake marriage, next door neighbors, lots of bickering, suburban shenanigans, slow burn, mutual pining, gojo likes to play house but you don't, hatred for the american healthcare system, gojo always forgets to mow the lawn, jealousy, an insane amount of profanity, mentions of cigarettes, depression/anxiety; btw slight age gap bc gojo in this fic is 34 n reader is 29

ᰔ warnings. reader in this fic has a sick mother w alzheimer's & cancer so there is secondary medical angst!!

ᰔ chapter. 8/x

ᰔ words. 10.2k

a/n. hellooo my ihm loves! i missed you all very much. i don't have much to say here lolol but i'll see you at the end!!! hope you enjoy the first gojo pov chapter!!

nav. masterlist

“Now see this? The little bunny ears?” Gojo says from where he’s crouched down towards the freshly-sprinkle-wet pavement of the sidewalk, his fingers pinching sparkly pink shoelace together, his view of the children’s size seven shoe obscured by his tie dangling from his neck. He would flip it over his shoulder and out of the way, but he had not one second to spare when it comes to keeping the attention of a five-year-old. 

“Mhm…” Juno mumbles, nodding her head slowly as she tucks her chin to look down at the tutorial.

“Okay,” Gojo says, “just like I taught you last time, you take the bunny ears…and then cross them over like this…” He does it slowly enough to where she can follow along. And then threads one loop through the other to form a knot.

“They’re friends! The bunnies!” Juno chirps, squealing at the possibility. 

“Yes, Juno, the bunnies are friends,” Gojo says.

“Are they best friends?”

“They can be whatever you want, kiddo.”

He finishes tying the shoe, and the second that he does, Juno stomps her other foot in front of him, the lining of her sole flashing bright with lights from the contact. Pink sparkly shoelace is now splayed out on the pavement once more.

Gojo levels his gaze with her, resting his elbows on his knees. “No, Juno. That’s why I showed you how to do it. You have to do the other one.”

“But! Uncle Toru! You’re faster at it.”

He sighs, hanging his head a little in defeat, some of his fringe he had slicked back for the purpose of his 12PM house showing falls over his forehead from the movement. He looks back up at Juno and she looks entirely thrilled to be stressing him out like this. “I can’t do this for you every time, kid. Your uncle’s getting old. My back hurts, and my vestibular system is degrading. I’m gonna start looking like Grandpa Lou Pickles real soon.”

She slaps her hands to her mouth, one over the other, to try and stifle that full-of-glee giggle that bubbles from her throat. 

There was nothing like making a kid laugh at your own expense. 

Gojo smiles at her then pushes up on his knees to stand up straight with a small huff. He smooths down his tie to lay it flat with his grey suit jacket and corrects any creases. “You’ve got it?”

She nods enthusiastically, kneeling down quickly to tie her own shoes. She makes the little bunny loops, gets confused when she crosses them over, her pinky finger somehow getting caught in the knot, but she manages to pull the laces through and makes a very uneven bow. But at least a bow, it was. 

She stands up, jumps up and down with happiness, clapping her hands together saying, “yay!! I did it!!”

“Good jooooob, Juno,” Gojo says, ruffling her curly hair until she’s annoyed by it and pushes his hand away to smooth down the frizz he just created. “Now, let’s get going. You’re going to be late.”

Gojo doesn’t need to park ten minutes away from Juno’s elementary school, and force her to walk all the way to the entrance, since in theory, he could wait in the agonizing line of parent drop-offs that’ll get her off right at the gate. But some of his favorite memories when he was a kid was when his dad would walk him to school. They’d count every Volkswagen beetle that would drive by, or slugbugs as his dad used to call them, and he’d get a free pass to punch his old man in the hip every single time he saw one. Either that, or a dollar towards ice cream after school at the end of the week. He outgrew the violence by the time he got to third grade. And curiously, that’s also when he developed a sweet tooth.

The nice thing about being a realtor is that Gojo had a pretty decently flexible schedule. And although he found himself working on most weekends, since that’s when he’s able to book showings for the most part, it at least means that he has the capacity to drop his niece off at school at 10am on a random Tuesday when her parents can’t. Because he has no place he’s expected to clock in or show up to that’s against his will. But, of course, that means he’s basically their go-to contact for moments like this. Where they can’t drop her off at dance practice, pick her up from school, or keep an eye on her when she’s at home. He would never complain about it, though. Not with the way Juno blabbers his ear off during the ten-minute walks to school about all the latest happenings of Sophia the First like there was no other person in the world she’d rather share all the drama too. And also the fact that, instead of punching his hip whenever she sees a slugbug, she opts to hug his leg instead. 

“Are those kids still bothering you at school?” Gojo asks her when she hops over a tiny rock.

She glances down at her shoes, the grip of her hand wrapped around Gojo’s finger weakening slightly. “No…”

“Juno, are you lying to me?”

“No!” she yells, loudly, as if she was offended by the assumption.

“You let me know if they are, okay?” Gojo says. He stops walking and pulls his finger from her grip so that she’ll stop kicking rocks and actually pay attention to what he says. She looks up at him and blinks. “I need you to know that no matter what, family will always have your back. Understood?”

Her lip quivers a little. “Yes Uncle Toru.”

Gojo takes Juno’s tiny hand in his again as the two of them continue to walk down the sidewalk and finally pass the noisy cross-section of Juno’s elementary school. 

“Uh-oh…” Juno stops in her tracks suddenly once they’ve reached the courtyard in front of the main entrance where there are bustling children making their way inside the gates. She pulls her hand from Gojo’s grip before glancing up at him and twiddles with a coil of her hair. Parents are walking their children up to the walk-in zone, some giving their kids hugs and kisses goodbye. The colors all around are nauseating, with bright neons and blue and pinks and, quite frankly, hues that not a single person in the world has any business meshing together. Like barf green and mustard yellow. But chaos was comfort to the undeveloped brain.

“What’s up, kiddo?” Gojo says as he looks down at a doe-eyed Juno, turning his ear towards her because it was hard to hear her meek voice over the teachers yelling as they try to round the kids up before first period starts.

“Um…” she blinks, “I forgot my lunch moneys.”

“Oh,” Gojo says, his shoulders relaxing, then he reaches into his pocket for his wallet, pulls out a twenty dollar bill, then hands it to her, “here you go. No problem.”

Juno glances down at it, her tiny hand gentle with the paper, careful not to crease it. She looks up again. “Um. Uncle Toru.”

“Uh huh?”

“Lunch is three dollars.”

“I don’t have any ones on me, sweetheart. Just keep it. Buy one of those books from the book fair.”

Her eyes light up at that before the excitement stifles with some realization. “Oh. Um. It’s,” she counts on her fingers, “twenty-six dollars for book and my lunch.”

He fishes out another twenty, but squats down again to level his gaze with her before he hands it to her. “Your mommy didn’t give you money for the book fair?”

Juno gets shy, averting her gaze to the ground as she rubs her ankle with her other foot. “No…I wanted, um, the fairy book.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But mommy said no. That there is no money.”

“No money?”

She nods. “Mhm.”

“Okay…” He frowns. “That’s all she said to you?”

Juno nods.

“Are–” Gojo starts, but then the loud-pitched shrieking of a couple of girls towards the right cuts him off.

“Juno!!! Juno!!!” they yell, skipping up to Juno with excitement before squeezing her into a bear hug, looking like a huddle of pigtails and sparkly backpacks. Gojo stands up straight again and watches the scene unfold. 

Juno, her cheeks as red as beet, smiles when they pull away from the hug and jumps up and down with them. 

“She’s here! She’s here!” one of her friends exclaims.

“Hey, hey, hey, wanna trade silly bands?” the other one chirps.

Gojo lets out a slow exhale, waving a hand back to Juno when she bashfully glances over her shoulder at him as she walks towards the school entryway with her friends. He makes sure to keep an eye on her all the way until she gets through the gates, into the sea of students. He pushes his hands into his pockets, his gaze set straight ahead at the green paint outside the school, still watching Juno as she approaches the heavy double doors. There is some unsettling feeling at the base of his ribs, as if to warn about unfinished business. The feeling doesn’t pass, even when he’s satisfied at the sight of Juno making it inside school. His brow furrows slightly in concentration, but his train of thought is interrupted by a feminine voice that calls out from behind him.

“Is she yours?” he hears the voice call out, and when he turns his head to the side, he sees a woman dressed in faded mom jeans, a striped long sleeve, and black leather boots approaching him from the side.

“Oh, no,” Gojo pulls a hand out of his pocket to shake his palm in front of him, “she’s my niece.”

“Ahhh,” the woman smiles, “she’s adorable.”

“Right? Super smart, too.”

She lets out a small exhale through her nose, one that’s reminiscent of a laugh, before turning her head to look over her shoulder towards the playground where the preschoolers next door were still preoccupied by their playtime. Gojo trails her gaze to a small group of boys by the monkey bars, and he sees one of them making snow angels face-down in wet dirt. When he glances back at the woman’s face, she looks affectionately disturbed. 

“That’s my Timmy,” she says, “and I really can’t say the same about him.”

He laughs. “It’s fine. I was just like that when I was a kid. He’ll grow out of it.”

“Do you have any of your own?” she asks.

“Not that I know of,” he responds. 

She laughs at that. He had half expected her to roll her eyes. 

“I’m Mari, by the way,” she says with a smile, smoothing her palms down the fabric over her thighs.

“Satoru,” he responds, and he doesn’t pass over the gesture of a handshake, which she seems taken aback by, but still accepts when she squeezes his hand.

“I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before…” she trails off.

He squints his eyes a little to see if he can place her face too. Or maybe come up with places she may have seen him. When he runs a blank, he says, “I’m here often to drop my niece off. My sister and her husband are–” he feels that same sensation in his ribs, “pretty busy these days.” They’ve asked him to drop Juno off at school so many times by now that the moms around the place are starting to recognize him.

“That’s sweet,” she says, crossing her arms and rubbing at her elbow as she glances over at her son again. “I wish I could have help like that. They're so lucky to have you around.”

“Yeah…I should really hold it against them more often.”

She laughs. “Seriously though!” She sighs, and when he remains quiet because he can tell she’s building up to something more vulnerable, she takes the invitation to vent. “Just–...you know, it’s so hard to juggle everything. Work, the kid–”

“Yeahhh.”

“It’s like there’s just never enough hours in a day–”

“Definitely.”

“Some days it just gets so overwhelming to the point where I’m, like…like not even really a person anymore–”

“I can imagine.”

“And–” she stops to look at him, suddenly embarrassed, “I’m sorry, I think I’m just venting.”

He shakes his head at her. “You’re all good.”

She purses her lips together in thought, squinting her eyes slightly at him, before her shoulders relax. “Would you…” she starts, “like to get coffee sometime?”

“Oh, no, sorry, I’m–” he pulls his left hand up out of his pocket to hold it up in the air, but then stiffens entirely when a chill runs down his spine.

Because it wasn’t a reflex of recent events, 

It was a reflex from years ago. 

“You’re…?” she says, tilting her head to the side curiously as if to feign innocence of the fact that there’s a ring on his finger until she hears the words from him personally. As if the ring would vanish with enough wishful thinking.

His shoulders, tense and rigid, slowly drop back down before he breathes in deep and says, “I’m married.”

. . .

As Gojo makes his way back to the neighborhood where he parked his car, he pulls his phone out of his pocket, scrolls through his recent calls, and is surprised to find that his brother-in-law’s name is a bit higher up on the list than he thought it would be. Or wanted it to be.

He lifts the phone to his ear when he presses dial, and the phone almost rings through four times before someone finally picks it up. 

“Yo! The man! The bro-in-law! What’s goin’ on, dude!” he hears Jun’s rather chirpy voice on the other line.

“Hey Jun,” Gojo says into his phone, walking down onto the residential street, “Just calling to let you know Juno’s been dropped off. I found out from one of the teachers that it’s only a half day today, though. So you’ll have to pick her up earlier.”

“Oh shoot…” Jun trails off, and Gojo can already tell what he’s about to ask of him.

Gojo likes Jun. He’s always liked the guy, actually. Although he always thought Sana would end up with someone Gojo didn’t like, as some act of defiance. But Jun was a lot different than the waste-of-space high school boyfriends Sana brought home during her teenage years (sorry if that sounds rude, it’s just that, once upon a time, Gojo used to be a waste-of-space high school boyfriend, as most teenage boys are, so he knows how awful they are and eventually grew into the conscious reasoning of loathing them). But anyway, Jun was a reliable guy. Hard-working, always seemed like he was on the hustle with his business, but he was a little unsettlingly cheerful all the time. The first expression of his that comes to mind whenever one thinks of him is a smile full of pearly white teeth and eyes squinted shut from the curve of his cheeks, but Gojo always figured it was some businessman tactic that eventually integrated into his personality as a whole. 

“Do you think you could—” Jun starts.

“No, Jun, I can’t,” Gojo cuts him off, “I’m closing a sale today.”

He knows he said he could never complain about looking after Juno, but in a sense, forcing her dad to ditch a measly hour of work to show up and pick her up from school is in a way looking after her. Kids need their dads, and it’s a little sad that even just showing up is something not a lot of them care to honor.

“Ayyy that’s okay then, I’ll just figure it out,” he says, “but thanks for dropping her off this morning!”

“Sure thing.” Gojo’s phone starts ringing, and he sees he has an incoming call from one of his clients. “Hey, I’ve gotta go. But remember, her school gets out at 1:30.” And he barely hears the acknowledgement from Jun before he switches calls.

By the time Gojo wraps up his afternoon showing, and spends a couple hours putting together all the paperwork for the sale he’s closing later today, he’s starving. And he considers picking up some Thai food on his way home but then he gets a text from you.

|| 1:04PM Neighbor HerbGarden: hey I made chicken parm. would you like me to set aside a plate for you

He can’t help the smile on his face from the message, and how strangely polite it is. He’s usually the type to call someone to respond to a question they ask him through text (the worst kind of person), but instead he finds him typing back.

|| 1:05PM Gojo: Sure although I’d prefer mine without any poison please

He sees the little three dots as you type.

|| 1:06PM Neighbor HerbGarden: unfortunately I cannot make any such accommodations 

And there it is again, that amused grin he can’t help. It’s uncannily similar to his days of being a waste-of-space high school boyfriend, except now he’s texting on iOS 18 instead of a Nokia brick. But also, he’s not seventeen anymore. It’s kind of dangerous that you make him feel like he is, though.

He hears his phone ping again.

|| 1:08PM Neighbor HerbGarden: also can you please pick up some orange juice from the store

|| 1:08PM Neighbor HerbGarden: without pulp

He blinks at the screen, before responding with,

|| 1:08PM Gojo: 👍👍👍

He stares at the messages for a few more seconds, then up at the blank grey contact number and your name Neighbor HerbGarden. He has a lot of numbers in his phone, from years and years of building clientele both in one of the biggest Metropolitan cities in the country, and also here in Dayton County within the past year that he’s lived here. Sometimes it was just easier and more efficient to save people in his phone as something that’ll make him remember who they actually are rather than just an arbitrary name. In one of the first times he met you, you brought him two bunches of dried oregano from your herb garden, and so he saved you in his phone as Neighbor HerbGarden to differentiate you from Neighbor BasketballHoop to his right.

Gojo presses his lips into a thin line then glances up to the sky as he stands outside of the vacant home he’s about to make major bank on today, and then clicks edit on your contact name.

He backspaces Neighbor HerbGarden then types,

Wife

He exhales slowly, then adds,

… (?)

To the end of the word.

Then shoves his phone in his pocket.

.

.

.

—

“God, that was delicious,” Gojo sighs as he sets the plates in the dishwasher, “I mean, seriously, you could open a restaurant. Er, actually, on second thought, probably not. Considering the natural disaster level of a mess you’ve left the kitchen in after making just one meal.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you say, and he turns around to see you standing behind him still clad in your marinara-stained apron and your hair that was once pulled taut up into a ponytail now falling loose over your shoulders. The only thing that could make the sight even sexier is if you were topless. “Now sign this,” you say, holding up a sheet of paper to his face and placing a stern fist to your hip.

He blinks at you and slowly turns the faucet off before drying his hands off on the towel while still facing you. His eyes briefly skim the top of the page which says Contract.

“Uh, what’s this?” he asks.

“Our rules.”

He doesn’t even take a second to read another single word before his eyes flit up to yours, his brow quirking. “Rules?”

“Yes,” you say, and blow a puff of air up your cheek to get the hair out of your face, “remember? No touching, no sex, no sneaking into my room, no peeping in on me in the shower, and—” You point a finger up, “New one. No. Flirting.”

His mind fixates on the word sex. “No sex? Didn’t you ask me to fuck you the other day?” he says as he leans back on the counter, an amused look on his face as he crosses his arms over his chest. 

“That—” you stiffen then relax your shoulders before pinching the bridge of your nose in frustration of yourself, “I don’t recall such an event occurring.”

“Really? Well thank god I’ve got a ring camera set up in the living room.” He pretends to pull the app up on his phone.

“No!” you yell, reaching out to hold his forearm to stop him, likely through a way of distraction as his eyes flit to the curl of your fingers as you sink your nails into his skin. He quietly sucks a breath in through his teeth. “….stupid ring camera,” you mumble dejectedly, “I hate it.”

He sighs. “Baby. You’re the one that demanded I get it installed.” He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “You and your strange fear of home invasion.”

“Don’t call me baby,” you hiss at him, and it’s rather easy to see the flush to your cheeks, “that counts as flirting.” You slam the paper down onto the counter. “Now sign this.”

“Nuh-uh,” he shakes his head, “don’t wanna.”

“Sign. It.”

“Nope, not without my lawyer present.”

“Ouuuuuu that really handsome one with the tight trousers and the sexy Benz?” you swoon cartoonishly.

He glances up at the ceiling in thought, then takes the bait. “Who needs lawyers, anyway.”

“Mhmmmmm exactly,” you hum in satisfactory agreement then wave the paper in front of his face again like he’s a dog. “So sign it.”

He hesitantly takes the sheet from you. “What good is signing a makeshift contract going to do?”

“I’m sick of people pretending like they don’t know that they’ve wronged me. So, with this contract, when you eventually wrong me, I’ll have it in writing that I specifically asked you not to.”

God damn you were kinda crazy. It was simultaneously hot and scary at the same time. I mean, he’s always known that about you; that you’re a bit differently strung than most people he’s ever met, even more so compared to the women he’s met, but there was something oddly charming and redeeming about it all too. It’s hard to explain. In the city, people are nice to your face but then fuck you over behind your back. Like, invite you over for dinner when their family is in town but then tell the principal that your kid shoved their kid at school just so that their kid gets the last spot on the T-ball team. But here in small Dayton County, people care less of the small gesture frivolities and would rather go straight into repairing your flat tire on the side of the road no questions asked, and no thanks needed, but God forbid you expect them to flash you a smile when you pass by them on the street. He kinda liked the latter, preferred the latter, and considering that you were born-and-raised here, you’re a woman who was as close to that Dayton County sentiment as anyone here could get.

He liked it though. Sure, you cuss him out often and act in ways that confuse the ever living hell out of him, but something told him that when it came down to it, and I mean really came down to it, you were someone he could trust. And trust is a feeling that’s hardly given out carelessly in this day and age.

He finally takes a better look at this contract of yours. Just a few lines of size 12pt font of Times New Roman and a numbered list with rules on it. It was a poorly put together contract of contingencies of which he knew he’d have no business following. Sure, he’s exercised self restraint up until this point, perhaps his biggest challenge thus far having been captured in 720p resolution on that Ring camera over in the other room that faces the couch, but if you kept wearing those prudish nightgowns all over the house and asked him to fuck you in the middle of a weekday one more time, he’s ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure he’d have no willpower left at that point.

He sighs and pretends to fully read all the words typed out on your contract, then flips it around so the contents face you as he holds it up. “Cross out the no flirting and we’re good.”

“I am not crossing that out.”

“If you live with me, I’m going to flirt with you. That’s just how it’s going to be.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Baby. This ask of yours is what’s borderline ridiculous.”

“Stop with the ‘baby!!!” you sneer at him and he can’t help but laugh.

He places the paper down on the surface of the island and clicks the pen, crosses out no, writes in occasional and adds is okay after the word flirting so that it reads: occasional flirting is okay. Then scribbles his signature on it.

“Here you go,” he says as he hands it back to you.

“I did not permit any addendums.”

“Look, honey, it’s the best you’re gonna get.”

He sees you scribble something down onto the page and then you hold it up for him to see.

No pet names.

“Do you agree?” you ask in a way that suggests you won’t take no for an answer.

He sighs. “Sure.”

“Good,” you say, satisfied as you stare down at the contract with approval before looking up at him again with a narrow, almost pissed-off gaze. It gets him borderline excited. “Now, are you a man of your word?”

“I hope so.”

“That’s not very reassuring. Try again.”

“It’s hard for me to say.”

“Why?”

“Well, with you, it’s hard for me to say.”

“That makes me self conscious.”

“Don’t be,” he says.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” you respond, then shuffle across the hardwood floors of the kitchen into the dining room where you sit down there along with all the hospital bills you’ve had scattered there since you moved in.

He sighs, watching as you grab a stack of all your envelopes and papers and manila folders then dump them all on the kitchen island.

“Sorry,” you say, “I’m running out of space.” You turn on your heel to head back to the dining table but then spin to face him again. “And please don’t look at the bills. I’d rather pretend they don’t exist.” Then you turn the corner back to where you came from.

Gojo sighs to himself, his eyes briefly flitting down to the stack of unsorted papers you’ve left on the table. He sees scribbles of paid and to be paid and ask for itemized bill and has already been sent to collections and repeat charge all over them, wondering how in hell you manage to keep track of all this. He feels stressed on your behalf.

Something catches his eye, among all the paperwork. A tiny corner poking out from under a bill for a thirty-four-hundred dollar chemotherapy infusion. The finely printed black ink on it is hard to read, but Gojo tugs it out and holds it up at eye level.

Carevest Capital est. 2024

Invest in a healthier you!

And when he skims to the bottom, he sees CEO Jun Miller, phone: (851)-334-5555 for the contact.

His brow furrows together. He inhales deeply before shuffling his feet over to the dining hall.

“Hey,” he says, pinching the card between his index and middle finger then holding it up, “what’s this?”

You turn over to look at him, eyes wide and blinking innocently before you squint at the card. “Huh? Oh. That’s your brother-in-law’s business card. For his healthcare cost relief company.”

“He gave it to you?”

“Mhm.”

Gojo frowns. He brings the card down to look at it again. Last time he checked, Jun ran a small local auto parts repair shop. Routine stuff like cracked windshields and tinted windows, with the hopes of expanding business to a couple more places within the zip code. Gojo had never heard of any healthcare cost relief company. And he figured Jun would’ve provided some sort of proof of pay for it when Gojo helped him process the loan for their new house. It doesn’t make sense.

Gojo sighs, and chalks it up to ambition. He knows how businessmen are. A lot of his clients are like that. They always think they’ve caught the next-best-thing and want to chase it before anyone else can.

You’re still blinking at him with a mildly confused face.

He shakes his head. “It’s nothing. I wouldn’t put any money into this if I were you, though.”

You sigh and slump your shoulders. “As if I even could.” But then you turn to look at him again. “Why? You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

“What? Entrusting large sums of your money to some company that promises to somehow double it and give it back? Of fucking course not.”

“You don’t trust your own brother-in-law?”

“It—” He’s a little taken aback by the question. “It’s not that I don’t. It’s just that I don’t really trust businessmen at large.”

“Aren’t you…technically a businessman?”

“What?”

You put your elbow up on the chair’s backrest and twist your torso more to look at him. “Last time I checked, you sell houses.”

“That—…that’s different.”

“Is it?”

“I’m a realtor. Not a businessman. Business people, you know, they play dirty to get what they want. I’m just helping people with a task that they don’t always have the time or resources to do.”

“You literally make up contrived skit scenarios so that your clients find houses more memorable, and also pimp yourself out to divorced housewives so they’ll follow through on a return offer. That’s no better than the way a businessman manipulates.”

“Is your opinion of me really that low?”

And he asks it with genuinity. Not laced with mirth, or faux arrogance, or a childlike desire for banter. He genuinely wants to know, after the past few weeks of getting to know each other a little bit better, if you really think of him as someone like that.

As if you felt the way his tone cut through air, setting precedent for what had otherwise felt like a neutral conversation tethering on an edge of hostility, you sit up a little straighter in your chair and your eyes are wide again as you blink at him, and he sees the shallow rise of your chest as you breathe through the movement of your marinara-stained apron. 

“No,” you say, your expression softening, “it’s not.”

He’s not sure what exactly your words accomplish in him, or what reward he gained for seeking them out, if any, but he just lets out a huff of an exhale and grabs his suit jacket off the back of the chair at the head of the table, pulling his arms through the sleeves before shrugging it into place. Then he grabs his keys off the wooden surface and glances at his watch. “Alright,” he says, “that’s good to know.” Then heads towards the door.

.

.

.

—

“You know, Satoru, I met my wife on a military excursion to Thailand. It’s precisely why I’m ruined for all American women. The women over there, they just move with this sort of sensual grace that the women here can’t compete with.”

“Uh-huh,” Gojo barely nods in acknowledgment of his client’s words as he sits at the lonesome dining table located in the otherwise chilling vacancy of this house he’s about to hand over. “So, did you two have a chance to take a look at the walkthrough report?”

The wife curls her arm around her husband’s bicep, and from an outsider’s perspective, it would look awfully inappropriate given she looks at least twenty years younger than him, but to Gojo, it’s something he tends to see pretty often when he makes sales up in the neighborhoods of this part of town.

“Yes,” she says, smiling up at her husband, and the action alone ages her ten years from the ripples of botox visible in her cheeks, “Len and I are so ready to call this home our own.”

“What do you think of Thai women, Satoru,” Len asks him, completely ignoring any and all tasks at hand because he’s not satisfied with the low level of interest his realtor is taking to his fruitless words.

“Never been with one,” Gojo comments flatly as he flips through the closing documents and highlights whatever needs to be signed.

There’s a bitter taste in his mouth, and maybe it’s because he remembers your words from earlier. About pimping himself out or playing dirty like a businessman. Gojo’s brow furrows slightly as he stares a little excessively too long at a simple key release form. But he just feels annoyed. So what if he pretends to get along with guys like Len up until that 6% commission hits his bank account? What’s so wrong about making a living? Not everyone has to be sacred about what they do for work. 

“You’re missin’ outtttt, man,” Len comments as Gojo passes all the papers over to the two of them. He only takes a quick glance at the papers before saying. Gojo taps his pen on the table as an annoyed tick, looking at the documents sitting in front of Len and thinking just sign the fuckin’ papers already, but instead, Len sets his pen down to further stall. “Why don’t we head out to lunch after this? To celebrate. I’m craving some Tom Kha Soup,” he says with an exaggerated accent, then points the pen at Gojo. “And we’ll hook you up with a nice Thai lady while we’re there.”

“I already had lunch,” he says, not even bothering to say and I’m also married because he knows the ‘already having had lunch’ excuse would hold more weight to Len than any declaration of lifelong romantic commitment.

“Bummer,” Len says, “you ate at home?”

“Yup.”

“I gotta start doing that, too, you know, eating healthier,” Len says before leaning back into his chair with a grunt. “Doctor said somethin’ to me about my cholesterol gettin’ too high and that even the statins won’t be able to save me.”

His wife looks like she’s just heard the most fantastic news ever, but conceals it with a frown, then swats a playful hand towards Gojo.

“Does your wife cook for you?” she asks cheerfully.

Technically, you’ve only offered to include him in your lunch plans two or three times so far, and coincidentally only on the days he mowed the lawn in the morning like you asked him to, but he says, “yeah, she does.” To keep things simple. But he also comes to the realization that you’re trying to Pavlov him into doing more chores around the house by feeding him ridiculously good food.

“See, Len? Some men actually appreciate their wives’ cooking.” She pretends to appear offended as she playfully smacks at her husband's chest.

“Sweetheart, you know I didn’t marry you for your cooking,” he drawls, saying it near her ear as if it were meant to be said in secret and she bashfully giggles.

For fucks sake he’s not sure how much longer of this he can take. The feeling of awkwardness as he sits on the other end of the most classic stereotypical conversation he would ever have the displeasure of hearing between a boomer and his too-young-for-him foreign wife. He wonders what you’d say if he bitched about this conversation to you. He could picture you yelling in passion about the perpetuation of the patriarchy with the disgraceful existence of predatory men like Len. 

In the midst of his borderline cognitive crisis, his phone starts buzzing in his pocket.

The number looks vaguely familiar, but it’s unsaved.

“Hey, sorry you two,” he says to the couple seated across from him before he gets up out of his chair, “I’ve gotta take this.” Then excuses himself into the hallway and brings his phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Hello, this is Marium calling from Rockwell Elementary, I’m looking for Mr. Gojo Satoru?”

“Yeah, speaking.”

“Oh, wonderful, thank you for taking my call. I’m just reaching out because we’re getting close to closing up the gates for school now.”

Gojo glances at his watch. 2:57PM.

“The kids got out of school about an hour and a half ago but no one has come to pick Juno up yet. She’s the last one here. We tried contacting her parents, but no one answered, so we had to reach out to her emergency contacts. Mrs. Shapiro is waiting with her, but if someone isn’t able to take her home soon, we’ll have to send her to the KinderCare on Ventura Street once the last bus comes by.”

Gojo pinches the bridge of his nose and shuts his eyes tightly. “No, I'll come pick her up. I’ll be there in ten.”

Gojo now finds himself back at his niece’s elementary school, waiting at the gate for the teacher to being her around to the courtyard. No major sale closed. His clients are going out of town tomorrow, so they had to sell today, and he’s now obligated to share some portion of his eighty-thousand dollar commission with his colleague who’s doing the favor of wrapping things up for the sale in his absence. All because Jun couldn’t even remember the time he was supposed to pick Juno up from school, even after Gojo told him twice when she’d get off. And it was safe to say he was a bit pissed. 

“Uncle Toru!!!” he hears Juno’s voice chirp from a distance, and when he turns his head, he sees her running towards him, her backpack bouncing up and down in her sprint, before she crashes into Gojo’s arms as he kneels down towards the ground and wraps her arms around her.

“Hey, kiddo,” he says, then picks her up, “you ready to head home?”

Before Juno can respond, Gojo hears a man shout from the drop-off zone. He turns his head towards that direction, squints his eyes and makes out Jun’s silhouette approaching from a car that has its hazard lights turned on and he’s hastily making his way over.

“Juno!!” he waves his hand up in the air, the sound of his keys that hang from his thumb jingling as he gets closer. Gojo sets Juno down and is surprised that she doesn’t immediately run to her dad, but instead grips onto Gojo’s index finger with her whole hand and itches her ankle with the tip of her other shoe.

“Hi daddy,” she says, peering up at him underneath the roof of her baseball cap.

Jun crouches down to eye-level with her, and holds his arms out. “Hey sweetheart, how was school?”

She’s hesitant before she slowly releases her tight grip on Gojo’s finger and walks towards Jun, and accepts his embrace. “Good,” she says shallowly.

Jun sneaks a glance up at Gojo’s face, and Gojo couldn’t even hide the disappointment if he tried.

“Hey, Juno, why don’t you go sit in the car? I have Frozen playing,” he says to her, placing a kiss on her temple, and that news entirely excites Juno as she squeals with happiness then runs toward the car. Both Gojo and Jun watch her climb into the car and close the door before properly regarding each other. 

“Listen, Jun, I’m just going to give it to you straight because I’m not in the mood to bullshit,” Gojo says, “I get that you’re busy, but you can’t just forget your own kid at school and leave her stranded to the point where admin have to call her emergency contacts just to get her home safely.”

“I know, I know, it’s just that—”

“I mean, last weekend you forgot what time her dance recital was and completely missed it. The one she had been practicing towards for weeks. You’ve basically asked me to drop her off at school every day for the past week and a half with no good excuse as to why. And then you do this. Like, what’s gotten into you, man?” He takes a breath to prevent his tone from turning too sharp, but when he thinks about Juno sitting all alone in a classroom with her teacher after watching all her friends get picked up with love and taken home on what was supposed to be a fun half-day for her, he feels pissed off at the negligence. “She’s a smart kid. And as proud of that as you should be, it does mean that she’s smart enough to notice these things. And it’s going to make her feel like her own dad doesn’t care about her.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry,” he says, panic on his face as the mistake settles in, “it’s just, you know, with Sana going back to work, her being occupied with the new job and everything, I dunno, I’m so used to her taking care of Juno but now that more responsibility has fallen on me, it’s really hard to manage with my businesses—” he catches himself, his eyes widening, and Gojo narrows his, “…my business.” He corrects himself.

“What could be more important than your own kid?” Gojo asks.

“Nothing. At least there shouldn’t be. You’re right.”

But even after Jun gave him the answer he expected to hear, the question still lingers in his head. Businesses. Jun is running more than just the auto parts company, at least one other one that he knows of based on what you told him regarding the business card. He just found out right now that Sana is going back to work, after about six years of being out of the workforce.

And then he recalls what Juno said to him this morning.

But mommy said no. That there is no money.

Gojo’s brows furrow, and he blinks at a very guilty-looking Jun in front of him, before his expression relaxes and the stiffness in his shoulders relax.

“Is—” Gojo starts, unsure on how to tread the question, “is everything okay?”

Jun stands up a little straighter. “Yeah. Yeah, of course,” he chirps rather unconvincingly, with that same level of faux cheerfulness he often displays.

Gojo sighs, glances over to the right. He sees the preschool next door, with its playground completely deserted, then he glances back at Jun. 

“If you need help,” Gojo starts, “with anything at all,” and he sees the way Jun’s posture dampens slightly, “don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Will do, man,” Jun said, “but I’ll make sure I’ve got Juno’s school schedule in my phone so you won’t have to do this again.” And something tells Gojo that Jun is purposefully pretending as if he didn’t catch onto the fact that Gojo was referring to finances as some preservation of his pride in front of another man.

Gojo gives himself a couple seconds to consider if he should push the subject any further, but just respects the deflection, and says, “alright.”

.

.

.

—

God forbid a man has a drink or two during happy hour at his favorite bar to get over a rather stressful day, just to end up running into his fake wife’s ex boyfriend before he can even catch a little bit of a buzz.

Wait, that’s a lie, the first single malt was starting to flow through his veins.

And he knows you told him that he didn’t need to bother trying to make the guy jealous anymore,

But god, it was just so fun. And he could really use the entertainment right now.

“Oh every position possible, pal. Doggy, prone bone, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl. Anything from the Kama Sutra. You name it, we do it,” Gojo says.

He’s seated at the far end of the high-top, his preferable location as it was away from the bustling tables and gigantic TV on top of all the kegs that’s playing the Seahawks vs 49ers semifinals game, but it’s still close enough to the bartender to make small talk when he wanted it. Up until he was interrupted by the guy to his right who’s standing with fists clenched tightly at his sides from hearing Gojo flaunt of this allegedly stellar sex life he’s got with the guy’s ex girlfriend. Truth be told, Gojo forgot his name. He tries to place it as he looks the man up and down from where he’s seated. Nappy black hair, long enough to curl at the back of his neck, wearing an obnoxiously tight black shirt, along with black leather pants.

“She doesn’t even like cowgirl,” he says defensively, “always used to say it hurts her knees.”

Fuck. Of course you have knee problems. Think, Gojo, think. “Uh, she likes it with me,” he comes up with, “she likes anything with me.”

Gojo glances up at the guy once again when he doesn’t respond back fast enough, seeing the way his jaw clenches and his hands further condense into fists at his side. The amusement of making him get all riled up quickly dissipates, as he imagined it would anyways, and instead, he almost feels sorry for him. Gojo knows exactly what he must be thinking right now. Memories of you naked that he’s preserved like holy water after the end of a seven year relationship, now morphing into visuals of you getting railed by your new husband instead, and that sweet image he has of you in his head will never be the same. Forever being ruined by another guy’s dick. It’s an intrusive thought that every man on the planet has experienced at some point or another, himself included. He’s already fucked you more in this guy’s imagination than he’s even remotely gotten close to doing in real life (well, he was partially to blame for that) but Leather Pants over here isn’t going to know that when he’s losing sleep over it at night. And now Gojo’s got guilt on his conscience. His least favorite feeling.

Ah.

Choso.

Choso Kamo.

That was his name. 

Gojo glances down at his glass of scotch, trailing the line of the rim with the pad of his index finger, feeling more heat radiating off of the rage from Choso’s body than the woodfire flame of the heaters behind the high-top counter.

He sighs then glances over at Choso again, eyeing him in dim lighting. “You’ll find someone else, man,” he says, “don’t get hung up on just one person. It’s a useless kind of torture.” 

He speaks as if he’s entirely detached from the sentiment.

Choso crosses his arms. “So it’s not just some scam, then? You two really are married?” He grits his teeth. “In good faith?” He mocks the law in his tone as if he doesn’t defend it. 

Gojo stares blankly at the surface of wood in front of him, the color charred with black and faded with use, his expression sobering for a moment as he lets out a deep breath. His stare turns shallow, like he’s about to dissociate, and for some reason, the lie doesn’t come as easy to him this time. “You were there in the courtroom. You know the answer to that question.”

Choso huffs, and as if he couldn’t help going against his own oath to secrecy, he declares, “I’m investigating, you know. At least I will be. Collecting evidence.”

Gojo exhales, staring down at the amber liquid in his glass, before bringing the rim to his mouth and tipping some of it back. 

He’s familiar with US federal law regarding marital insurance fraud. 8 U.S.C. 1033 and 18 U.S.C. 371 provide for a penalty of up to ten years in prison for it. And under that statute, perpetrators can also be expected to be fined up to $250,000. And although millions of people everyday get away with all sorts of illegal activity, he knows that there’s also millions of people everyday that don’t. That was the problem with the law in an otherwise tumultuous country. You never know how much you need to truly fear it. As if it were up to personal choice rather than any real social stature.

Truthfully, Gojo isn’t really the type to not think things through before going through with them. He’s fiscally responsible (minus his boat), tries not to get attached to places or people a little too easily, and always makes sure he knows the traffic situation ahead of time before going down Interstate 10. On the outside, he lived a rather simple life. Getting tied up into an insurance scam was certainly not the first thing he pictured for himself when he left New York City for little old Dayton County without anything other than a cabin suitcase that was mostly empty anyways. But he got invested in his rather strange neighbor who’s going through a tough time, and suddenly he’s going against everything that’s inherent to him. As previously mentioned, there is a part of him that finds it exciting. Y’know, that part that enjoys a little bit of chaos and uncertainty, that part of him that chases a thrill. That tendency to think first, act later, the one that gets people into a lot of trouble. But it’s almost like he’s been subconsciously itching for it this entire time. And maybe even for his entire life, now that he (and the alcohol) thinks about it.

But going to jail is definitely where he draws the line on adrenaline seeking.

And besides. He doesn’t want to see you fail.

He knows that to people who aren’t American, the whole idea seems so strange.

Why risk time in prison and the potential to be fined upwards of a quarter million dollars just to get healthcare for you and your loved ones?

But it’s only because that risk of consequence hardly rivals the reality of the situation anyways.

He saw your bills. He knows you told him not to look, because he knows the only way you keep your sanity and keep your head above water is by allowing a part of yourself to ignore the existence of your suffering.

But for fucks sake, forty-two-thousand-dollars out of pocket just for your mom’s two-day hospitalization? And that was just one of the outstanding bills? With big bold letters IF YOU DO NOT PAY THIS WITHIN THE NEXT 5-7 BUSINESS DAYS, WE WILL SEND THIS BILL TO COLLECTIONS.

You put any layman in a situation like that, and he couldn’t imagine suicide wouldn’t cross their mind at least once.

Gojo glances over at Choso’s jacket. The Club at Snoqualmie Ridge. 

As the saying goes, keep your friends close, and keep cops who threaten to perform a full blown investigation of the legitimacy of your marriage even closer.

“You play golf, Kamo?”

“What–” Choso stutters, a little surprised by the question, but his fists relax slowly, “yeah?”

“We should go for a swing sometime.”

“Huh? But—”

Gojo pushes his empty glass of scotch up the table a few inches then gets up out of the chair, standing in front of Choso, gaze leveling before he pats him on the shoulder, and says, “Just to see who’s the better shot.” Then brushes past him to go close out his tab.

.

.

.

—

It’s late in the evening by the time Gojo finishes running some errands and can finally unwind on the couch. A crisp cold can of diet coke in hand…impractical jokers playing for background noise from his 86 inch OLED smart TV, his legs stretched out in front of him onto the coffee table he made himself, and sunk deep into his favorite corner of the couch. The one he’s broken in over the years into that just perfect amount of give to sink ratio. It truly was the simple things in life.

He picks up the book he had left off reading from the coffee table. A white cover with bolded red letters that read Crucial Conversation: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. It was some self-help book one of his partners at the brokerage firm recommended to him that apparently revolutionized the way he sells houses.

“Hm,” Gojo hums to himself, flipping the pages of the book, that freshly-printed-processed-wood smell hitting his senses satisfactorily. He gets to the part he had left off on.

He squints at the pages, hard to read with contacts that are half a step below his prescription, but he at least tries to skim for the buzzwords.

The pool of shared meaning is the birthplace of synergy.

Okay, whatever the fuck that means.

He skims some more.

People don’t get defensive because of what you’re saying; they get defensive because of why they think you’re saying it.

He skims more. 

If you don’t talk it out, you’ll act it out through passive aggression.

He skims more.

The key to building safety is to step out of the content and address the conditions.

He doesn’t really know what exactly this all means but he feels like he should be taking notes.

Right when he leans over to open one of the drawers of the coffee table to fish for a pen, he hears keys jingling by the front door, somewhat frantically, before finally pushing into the lock and then the door flies open. He sits back, slightly startled, as he takes in the image of you storming inside the house looking angry as hell when you slam the door behind you.

“Hey,” he scolds, “easy on the doors, please.”

You’re pacing back and forth in front of the foyer table, clenching and unclenching your fists, mumbling what sounds like profanities to yourself over and over again, cheeks flush with rage, face scrunched up like a prune, and huffing and puffing so fast that he’s astonished he can still make out some of the words that you’re spewing.

“That…little…mother…–” You shuffle back and forth on the hardwood floor, “fucker. What a fucking–” You’re borderline hyperventilating, “JERK!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Gojo rests his book splayed open in his lap and blinks at you. “Uh. Is everything alright?”

“No!!!!” You immediately snap at him, turning to face him, and he flinches from where he’s sat. “No, it’s not!”

He’s too scared to move at this point, let alone breathe.

You breathe in deep then let out an exhale. “That–” You close your eyes from pure fury. “That motherfucking Choso Kamo,” you struggle to even say the words without gritting your teeth, “told the entire Dayton County police department that he’s the one that broke up with me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Wow,” Gojo says.

You glare at him. “I don’t need your fake sympathy.”

“All I said was wow?”

“Well, it felt very disingenuine.”

“But–”

He blinks at a fuming you, who has your arms crossed over your chest tightly, tapping your foot on the ground impatiently, expression narrow. 

He glances down at the page that was open in his book.

“Uh,” he clears his throat, quickly skimming the words, then glances up at you, “Sorry. I acknowledge that my words, er, word, may have been careless, and I apologize.”

Your expression morphs into one of surprise and barebone confusion. “O-Oh…that’s okay. I guess I was just assuming things.” You glance off towards the left, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth. “I’m just pissed off right now.”

“Because of what your ex said?”

“Yes. It’s annoying because now all of our local law enforcement thinks that I’m the one more affected by all of this.”

He watches you pace back and forth again, steam rolling out of your ears, face scrunched up with anger again, looking like you’re about to rip your hair off as you mumble more profanities to yourself.

He looks at you skeptically. “Are you…not?” He knows the second he says it that it was the wrong thing to say.

“I’M NOT!!!” you scream at him defensively. 

“Sorry, sorry, I–” He glances down at his book again discreetly, then says rather stiffly, “...I just want you to know that I am here for you.” 

You blink at him. “Oh…well, that’s—” You scratch at your elbow gently and then tuck strands of your hair behind your ear, “that’s very sweet of you, thank you.”

Hmmmmmmmm. 

He steals another quick glance at the page. “What’s been the hardest part to deal with in this situation?” he asks, crossing his outstretched legs at the ankle and placing his elbow up on the armrest to set his chin down on the knuckles of his fist inquisitively.

You turn to face him again, expression softening pleasantly but there’s still a bit of surprise on your face. “Oh, it–...I don’t know, I think just…it’s a misunderstanding that he’s willingly spreading.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

You let out a hefty exhale, loosely crossing your arms over your chest as you lean back onto the Foyer table. You glance at the floor deep in thought. “Mm…angry. Frustrated. Embarrassed.” You glance up at the high ceiling. “I just hate feeling misunderstood.”

“Mhm…I see,” he nods inquisitively, then glances down at the chart in the book again, “And can you pinpoint when these feelings started?”

You look up at the chandelier, expression curling into one of melancholy. “I think I’ve always just had a hard time expressing myself emotionally, where what I do kind of comes off as different from how I really feel…and so when people take things the wrong way, it just…I don’t know, it makes me upset.”

“I hear you.” He’s running a blank so he haphazardly flips the pages of the book to a whole other chapter and glances down at words that read always gather more information when necessary. Then he looks back up at you. “And what exactly did this guy do to you that’s got you so—” he pauses when you narrow your eyes at him, “…er, that made you,” he watches you nod your head encouragingly as if waiting for him to validate the reality of this situation, “…break up with him.”

You nod, satisfied by his depiction of events, but cross your arms over your chest somewhat stubbornly. When your eyes pass over to him again, your expression softens slightly, as if contemplating something, but then it becomes rigid again.

“It’s…I don’t know. It’s whatever.”

“Did he murder a family member?”

“No.”

“Did he steal money from you?”

“No.”

“Did he cheat on you?”

You avert your gaze towards the kitchen. “…no.”

“Then what?”

You exhale deeply, still avoiding eye contact with him. “The why doesn’t matter. Just know that he failed me and subsequently lost me.”

“Well,” Gojo says, “then he’s an idiot.” And he didn’t need the book to come up with that.

You look back at him with a gentle ease, and your arms drop from their crossed position before you smooth your palms down the fabric of your jeans. You try to maintain eye contact with him but not without blinking your lashes a few more times than usual. “Thanks for, um…letting me vent. I actually feel a lot better after…talking about it.”

“Sure,” he closes the book in his lap, “same time next week?”

“What?”

“—What?”

You squint your eyes at him suspiciously, but then drop it when you let out a hefty sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose in exhaustion. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

He’s not sure if it’s appropriate for a therapist to make a without me? joke in response to one of their clients announcing that they’re going to go take a shower, but he holds back regardless. 

He watches you shuffle across the hardwood floors towards the stairs, mumbling a few more remnant profanities as if you still had a couple left in you to spill. And just when he sees you lift one foot up on the first step, he remember that he should probably—

“Oh, uh, sorry, while we’re on the topic of your ex,” he says, “is now a bad time to tell you that I’m going golfing with him on Sunday?”

Your jaw drops.

The argument that ensues after was less of an argument and more you yelling at him for about ten minutes straight while he’s unable to get a single word in and has no choice but to just take it. Which even he’s self aware enough to know he deserves, regardless of whatever scheming good intentions he may seem to have. And when you storm away upstairs, slam the door to your bedroom with a force that would suggest he’ll have to repair it in the morning, he knows that he’s back to square one with you now. And if this was a real marriage, with a couple of kids running around the house, and a lack of spare bedrooms, he knows that he’d have been sleeping on the couch tonight.

One step forward, two steps back. 

.

.

.

.

.

[end of ch.8, ‘two steps back’]

song(s) of the chapter: woman by harry styles

a/n. hiii loves!! thanks so much for tuning into another chapter of ihm :'') it means a lot to meee. yeah this was the first gojo pov which had me sooooo nervous because like tbh before i wrote this chapter i kinda had no idea who ihm gojo was. because reader's pov chapters are sooo heavily skewed to her pov and she's kind of an unreliable narrator, i never really had to sit down n force myself to confront how ihm gojo feels about things personally. there were lots of times where i was hitting roadblocks in my writing of this chapter because i simply was like "...wait how would he feel about this. i don't even know" hahah idk if that makes sense but yeah i definitely had to search within myself to kinda bring more of his character traits to life and balance his good qualities against his flaws. i hope you enjoyeeddd. once again my classic ihm apology that there's so many random side plots lolol i really am trying to keep the romance at the center of the story but then i get a little carried away xd i promise there will be chapters where there are bigger developments though!! but there may also be some other ones that kinda serve for set-up :''0 i try to make each chapter engaging though at the very least. but speaking of....... i am SOOOOOO excited for chapters 9 & 10 HEHEHEHEHEHEH let's just saaayyyyy we get introduced to a character that many of my readers have been curious about :)))) but yeah chapter 9 is already one of my favorite chapters of ihm so far i've only written like maybe 4.5k words for it and i'm so pumped to finish it and post it!! and then ch10 is...also one of my faves ahhhhh huuuuuuge thank you to my beta reader leni she singlehandedly gave me the confidence to post certain scenes in this chapter that i was planning to cut out but now i'm soooo happy that i kept them in!!! she's a real one fr. and thank you to another one of my beta readers josie who really forced me to think a lot ab ihm gojo's character before i went into writing this chapter lmfaooo she made me realize i didn't know shit about him HAHAH. and ofc thank you to mirl and ayelin too for helping me figure out some of the plot intricacies and providing me w support :'''') i really appreciate it i hope you guys enjoyed!! thank you to everyone who reads and interacts and leaves love for me. i'm so happy to i'm still able to make time for writing and that there are people who look forward to my updates. love you all very much!! hope to see you in the next one <3

➸ you're all caught up!

🏷️: @samistars @pickuptruck01 @mtsyik @imasexy-buffalo @sashisuslover

@thegreatandlvable @tw0fvced @um-no-ok @fiftyfeetstrawberryparfait @gojodickbig

@tofumiao @coolwitchtree @joemama-2 @anonymity-222 @sxnkuna

@xd3pr3ss3dx @readerg77 @tvdumarvelhpsimp @thotwiththoughts @4y3sh4

@bloopsstuff @jaegersity @toffeebrat @cactisjuice @mya1112

@shasaaa15 @astrokenny @tenjikusstuff4 @anujah9 @ariasnoodles

@heiejdhdh @lvrellie @satorugirlie @ducky1232 @suguruslovedoll

@electrckchild @lavender-hvze @crematedstar @sxnkuna @celestialforce

@mrswanggae @readerg77 @sexys-archives @zelzablues @kristinering-actress

@erencvlt @blueberry19000 @angelicscribe @nappingmoon @starmapz

note. i'd recommend subscribing to the fic on my ao3 so you can get email notifs since my taglist is not set in stone :) tumblr taglist is based on interacts; please do not ask me for updates or ask me when i am going to next update (read rules)!

taglist is closed

[febuwhump]

FEBUWHUMP 2024 PROMPT LIST

this year's prompts were chosen through a suggestion poll (in which we recevied 2,281 prompts) and a subsequent vote, where over 1,000 people voted for their favourites. the top 29 make up the core prompts, and a mixture of the next most popular - and this blog's personal favourites - have become the alternates

i’m so excited to see what you all create with these prompts, and hope they’re inspiring enough to trigger a whole month’s worth of creativity for you! if you have any questions, please check out the blog's faq before sending an ask, or check out the previously asked questions on the blog!

please note: this year, notifying the blog of completionist status will happen through a google form that will be released closer to the end of febuwhump.

full write-up of prompts and rules under the cut:

FEBUWHUMP 2024 PROMPTS:

DAY 1: helpless

DAY 2: solitary confinement

DAY 3: "bite down on this"

DAY 4: obedience

DAY 5: rope burns

DAY 6: "you lied to me"

DAY 7: suffering in silence

DAY 8: "why won't it stop?"

DAY 9: bees

DAY 10: killing in self defence

DAY 11: time loop

DAY 12: semi-conscious

DAY 13: "you weren't supposed to get hurt"

DAY 14: blood-stained tiles

DAY 15: "who did this to you?"

DAY 16: came back wrong

DAY 17: hostage situation

DAY 18: too weak to move

DAY 19: "please don't"

DAY 20: truth serum

DAY 21: unresponsive

DAY 22: "you weren't meant to be there"

DAY 23: presumed dead

DAY 24: "i'm doing this because i care about you"

DAY 25: waterboarding

DAY 26: "help them"

DAY 27: left for dead

DAY 28: "no... not like this"

DAY 29: not allowed to die

ALTERNATE PROMPTS:

is there a specific day’s prompt you don’t want to fill? here are ten alternatives you can switch them out for!

ALT 1: human shield

ALT 2: "i love you"

ALT 3: found footage

ALT 4: human weapon

ALT 5: cpr

ALT 6: immortality

ALT 7: last words

ALT 8: killing game

ALT 9: lightning strike

ALT 10: last man standing

RULES:

SOFT RULES:

prompts should be answered in the form of whump

creators can produce whatever kind of media they want

you don’t have to complete all the prompts! you can create however much you want to

you can use the prompts after the event ends and can complete them in tandem with any other event

you can post on any platform you want, however this blog will only be sharing those posted on tumblr

if you want to be featured on the hall of fame then you have until the 3rd of March to inform this blog that you completed all the days

if you have questions consult the faq before asking

HARD RULES: (specifically for being featured on the blog)

when uploading febuwhump content to tumblr, please use the tags:

febuwhump (i’ll also be checking febuwhump2024)

the relevant day’s tag e.g. febuwhumpday1, febuwhumpday2…

nsfw (if relevant)

and any trigger warnings that may be important!

you can also tag the blog, @febuwhump

i cannot guarantee your work will be archived on the blog because I have no idea how many participants there will be. a random selection of works tagged in accordance to the rules above will be reblogged every day of february.

[gdinthehouseee]

One Take, One Chance: KANG DAESUNG x READER

summary: after opening up about his crush on you, you get invited as a guest on daesung's youtube channel. now neither of you can let this real opportunity slip by...

word count: 3829

tags: fluff; flirting, teasing, innuendos, jiyong and youngbae being little shits

ao3 link

Daesung should have known better than to let Ji-yong and Youngbae team up against him.

It started out as a normal Zip Daesung episode—just three old friends gathered around a table, eating delicious food, and reminiscing about their careers. But then, somewhere between bites of grilled meat and playful jabs at each other’s fashion choices, the conversation took a turn.

“So,” Ji-yong leaned forward, eyes gleaming with mischief. “Who’s your dream guest for this show?”

Daesung hummed, tapping his chin in thought. “Dream guest? That’s tough… I mean, I’d love to have so many people on.”

Youngbae smirked. “Oh, come on. Just one name.”

Daesung hesitated, but then a name slipped out before he could stop himself. Yours. Ji-yong and Youngbae immediately exchanged a look.

“Ohhh?” Ji-yong’s lips curled into a smirk. “That’s your pick?”

Daesung frowned, already regretting speaking. “What? She’d be a fun guest!”

“You think it would be fun?” Youngbae practically cackled, slapping his knee. “You’ve been crushing on her for years.”

Ji-yong gasped dramatically. “Wait—years?”

Daesung turned red instantly. “I never said—”

“Man, don’t even try to deny it!” Youngbae cut in, grinning. “Every time her name comes up, you get all weird. You talk about her performances like she personally invented music. And don’t even get me started on that one time you—”

Daesung lunged forward. “Shut up!”

Ji-yong was laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes, he then moved to nudge Youngbae. “This is amazing. Should I play matchmaker again? You both know I have a good track record.”

“It’s not like that!” Daesung’s protests fell on deaf ears. 

Ji-yong held up a hand, cutting him off. “It’s okay, it’s okay. We get it. She’s cool, talented, really good-looking—”

“I hate you both.”

“You won’t for much longer…”

Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t the end of it. The internet saw everything—especially your fans. The moment the episode aired, they latched onto it like detectives uncovering a major scandal. Within hours, social media was flooded with reactions, memes, and demands for you to appear on his channel. Fans dissected every second of his flustered reaction, zooming in on the way his ears turned red, looping the moment he choked on thin air, and outright begging you to make it happen.

Your heart sped up and ached at the thought of it, in fact. You have met Daesung a couple times, but only in passing at various awards shows before getting swept away within a minute or two by demanding managers, and even more demanding schedules. So the thought of being able to sit down and talk properly—intentionally—with him? It was everything to you. If only your schedule wasn’t so—

“You’re doing Zip Daesung soon, by the way.” 

You paused mid-sip of your drink, finally snapping out of your thoughts, and staring at your agent across the table. “I’m sorry—what?”

She barely looked up from her tablet, scrolling through your upcoming schedule. “They sent the invite. I confirmed.”

You blinked. “You what?”

“They wanted you on. You’re free that day. It’s happening.” She finally glanced up, raising an eyebrow. “Why? You like Daesung, don’t you?”

That was besides the point.

“I just—” You bit your lip, barely stopping the smile threatening to form. “I mean… have you seen what’s been happening online?”

“Oh, I’ve seen it. The clip of him getting teased? Adorable. The fans demanding this episode? Hilarious. And let’s not forget G-Dragon himself declaring the fact that he’s a matchmaker.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“You’re smiling.”

You immediately wiped the grin off your face. “No, I’m not.”

She just snorted. “Sure. Anyway, I already let the show know you’ll be there. They’re excited. Daesung is definitely excited.”

You exhaled, shaking your head. “You’re evil.”

“I prefer efficient.” She glanced back at her tablet. “Now, do you want me to send a standard confirmation, or should I let them know you’re looking forward to seeing Daesung blush in person?”

You shot her a look.

She grinned. “I’ll keep it professional. But you are going to have fun with this, right?”

You picked up your drink again, a slow smirk forming. “Oh, absolutely.”

A couple weeks later, the day had finally arrived. You stepped out of the car, adjusting your outfit as you took in the cozy restaurant set up. Warm lighting, carefully arranged cameras, and the familiar hum of production staff moving around filled the space. Everything looked inviting, intimate—perfect for casual conversation over a meal. Perfect for messing with him.

One of the production assistants came out to happily greet you, leading you inside and attaching a lapel microphone to your collar as they informed you how excited the man of the hour was excited to see you. Of course he was. Naturally, you were too. Not that you said anything more than a polite return of the compliment. 

The cameras were already rolling when you walked in. Daesung sat at the table, holding up a sleek bottle, mid-sentence in what was clearly a sponsorship plug. His voice was smooth and confident as he looked straight into the camera. “…which is why this is the perfect drink to enjoy with any meal. It’s refreshing, healthy, and, most importantly—”

Then, his eyes landed on you, and everything fell apart.

His grip on the bottle tightened. His words stalled, lips parting slightly like his brain had just short-circuited.

Somewhere off to the side, you heard a quiet whisper. “Oh my God, did you see that?”

Another voice, barely stifling laughter: “He’s doomed.”

You paused for a second, glancing around. The restaurant set was dimly lit for ambiance, and beyond the bright filming lights, you couldn’t quite make out the source of the voices. Probably some staff members who were getting a kick out of his reaction.

You smirked, stepping forward as the cameras captured everything. “Oh, don’t let me interrupt.”

Daesung blinked rapidly, scrambling to recover. “N-No, it’s fine! I was just—uh—finishing up.” He turned back to the camera, clearing his throat like that would somehow fix everything. “Anyway, be sure to check it out. I highly recommend it.”

With extreme focus, he set the bottle down—carefully, like he was afraid even the slightest wrong move would send it flying across the table.

Another whisper floated through the air. “He’s gripping that bottle like it’s a lifeline.”

You resisted the urge to look around again, choosing instead to slide into your seat across from him, resting your chin in your hand. “You sure? You seemed really into that.”

His laugh came out slightly too high-pitched at first, but then something shifted. His shoulders relaxed just a little, and suddenly, there was a glint in his eye.

“I mean,” he mused, tilting his head, “I was into it. But I wasn’t expecting you to be this early.”

You raised a brow. “Oh?”

Daesung leaned back slightly, a slow smile forming. “Yeah. I thought I had more time to prepare.”

You blinked, caught off guard for the briefest second. You’d come in expecting him to be the flustered one—but now? Now, he was looking at you like you were the one who needed to catch up.

And damn it, that was actually kind of attractive.

Another whisper from the shadows. “Did he just—?”

“Oh, he’s fighting back. This is getting good.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly, ignoring the voices as you smirked at Daesung. “Oh, I see how it is. You needed time to brace yourself.”

“Something like that.”

Fine. If that’s how he wanted to play it, you’d just have to turn it up a notch. You leaned in slightly, voice softer. “Well… I hope you like surprises.”

“Oh, I love surprises,” he said smoothly, voice dipping just enough to make it clear he was enjoying himself. “Especially when they walk into the room before I’ve had a chance to properly welcome them.”

“Is that your way of saying you would’ve rolled out the red carpet if I was a little later?”

“No, that’s my way of saying I would’ve had time to mentally prepare before you walked in and completely threw me off.”

“You know, I’m starting to think you wanted to be caught off guard.”

Daesung leaned forward just a little, mirroring your posture. “And why would I do that?”

Your smirk deepened. “Maybe because you like it when I have the upper hand.”

For a split second, you saw something flicker across his face—something dangerously close to intrigue. But before you could claim victory, he exhaled through his nose in a soft laugh, shaking his head.

“You’re quick,” he mused. “But…” He tapped his fingers against the table, eyes flickering over you before locking back onto yours. “I do like a challenge.”

Your breath caught just slightly—not enough for the cameras to notice, but enough for him to see it.

Oh. Oh.

So that’s how he wanted to play it.

Another whisper, nearly choked with laughter. “They’re just flirting at this point.” “Just wait till the food actually gets here.”

You still couldn’t quite see who was whispering, but you had an idea. Not that it mattered. Because right now, Daesung was looking at you like he was enjoying every second of this, and damn it—so were you. Game on. A small pause settled between you, but it wasn’t awkward—it was charged, humming with amusement and something else you weren’t ready to name yet. Daesung’s eyes still held that playful glint, a quiet challenge lingering between the two of you, but before either of you could push it further, the soft clink of dishes being placed on the table shifted the moment.

The restaurant staff had begun setting down the first course, steam rising from the carefully plated dishes. The rich aroma of broth, spices, and grilled meat filled the air, making your stomach tighten in anticipation.

Daesung exhaled through his nose, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly as he picked up his chopsticks. “Alright, before we accidentally turn this into a staring contest, let’s eat.”

You let out a soft laugh, shaking your head. “Sure, let’s call it accidental.”

His lips quirked, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he gestured toward the dish in front of you. “Do you like this? I asked them to include some of your favorites.”

Your brows raised slightly, pleasantly surprised. “You did?”

He hummed, grabbing a piece of meat and dipping it into sauce. “Of course. I did some research, you know. I couldn’t invite you on and not at least pretend to be a good host.”

There was a teasing edge to his tone, but the thoughtfulness behind it made warmth bloom in your chest.

You picked up your chopsticks, giving him a small smile. “I appreciate it. That’s very…” You paused, tilting your head. “Dare I say—charming of you?”

Daesung chuckled, shaking his head. “You could say that. Or you could just admit you’re impressed.”

“I’m slightly impressed,” you admitted, picking up a bite of food and tasting it. The flavors melted on your tongue, perfectly balanced. “Okay, more than slightly. This is really good.”

He grinned, clearly satisfied. “See? And you doubted me.”

“I never doubted you.” You gestured with your chopsticks. “I just assumed you’d be more focused on trying to make me flustered than actually making sure I enjoyed the meal.”

His laugh came easy this time, smooth and genuine. “Who says I can’t do both?”

You rolled your eyes, but the smile tugging at your lips betrayed you.

The conversation slipped into an easy rhythm as the two of you ate, teasing remarks woven between casual questions about schedules, recent projects, and shared industry experiences. It felt natural—comfortable, despite the bright filming lights and the knowledge that thousands of people would be watching this later. Even the quiet murmurs from the shadows—who you still hadn’t identified—faded into the background as you found yourself getting lost in the push and pull of conversation.

Daesung was witty, effortlessly charming, and heart-warmingly attentive, making sure your plate was never empty and that you were comfortable. While the playful teasing never fully disappeared, there was something undeniably genuine underneath it all. And that? That was even more dangerous than the flirting.

You twirled your chopsticks between your fingers, watching Daesung as he took a bite of food. He was comfortable now, smiling easily as he spoke, completely in his element. The earlier nerves had faded, replaced by his usual warm charisma. Naturally, you had to ruin that.

You set your chopsticks down, leaning forward just enough to make him notice. “You know…” you mused, tilting your head. “I have to admit, I was really looking forward to this.”

Daesung’s chopsticks paused mid-air. He blinked, processing your words before offering an amused smirk. “Oh? My show, or… me?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

His eyes flickered with something unreadable, and for a moment, it seemed like he was going to play along. But then you reached for your drink, casually taking a sip as you let your words sink in.

That’s when you saw it. The slight shift in his expression—the way his fingers tightened around his chopsticks just a little too much, the way his tongue darted out to wet his lips like he was suddenly aware of how dry his mouth had gotten.

Got him.

He cleared his throat, shaking his head as he picked up a piece of meat and placed it on your plate. “Eat. You’re getting too confident.”

You let out a soft laugh. “What? I can’t compliment my charming host?”

His jaw tightened for the briefest second, but then he exhaled a short laugh, shaking his head. “You are dangerous.”

You popped the bite of food into your mouth, chewing with exaggerated innocence. “Oh? I thought you liked a challenge.”

He let out his own breathy laugh and ran a hand through his hair. “I do.”

“You sure?” Your cheeks were almost starting to hurt with how long you’ve been smiling. “Seems to me like you could have used that mental preparation.” 

As much as you enjoyed getting under his skin, there was something equally enjoyable about watching him find his rhythm again. He wasn’t flustered so much as he was enjoying this—meeting you beat for beat, letting the conversation slip into a smooth back-and-forth that neither of you had to think too hard about. A natural rhythm. A comfortable challenge.

Daesung picked up another piece of food and placed it on your plate, eyes flickering up to meet yours. “Eat. I’d rather not lose to you on an empty stomach.”

You let out a soft chuckle, picking up the bite he’d given you. “Fair enough. Wouldn’t want you to tap out too early.”

His grin widened. “Oh, don’t worry. I never tap out early.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Daesung’s smile faltered for just a second. A single second of realization.

Then—

A sharp, choked sound came from somewhere off-camera. A full-bodied laugh followed, then a chair scraped against the floor as someone collapsed with laughter.

Daesung instantly straightened in his seat and frantically waved his hands, his ears turning bright red as his brain clearly scrambled for a way out. “No, no, wait! That is not what I meant! I just meant—I meant that I—I don’t give up easily! Like—I keep going! I mean, not like that! Not that I wouldn’t—wait, no, that’s not—”

The more he talked, the deeper he sank, and the moment he clamped his mouth shut, realizing the hole he’d dug for himself—

A loud, dramatic sigh.

“Alright, that’s enough,” a voice announced, followed by the unmistakable shuffle of footsteps.

Before Daesung—or you—could react, two figures emerged from the shadows, stepping into the frame like they owned the place. Ji-yong and Youngbae. Cackling. Absolutely delighted.

The crew lost it.

“Sorry, we couldn’t let this continue,” Ji-yong said, slapping a hand onto Daesung’s shoulder while grinning ear to ear.

“Yeah,” Youngbae added, shaking his head in mock disappointment. “He was drowning. We had to step in.”

Daesung let out a very real groan, dropping his head into his hands. “Oh my—”

You, meanwhile, just sat back and watched, thoroughly entertained. “So that’s where those whispers were coming from.”

Ji-yong smirked, winking. “You’re welcome.”

Daesung shot them a look. “I hate both of you.”

“No, you don’t,” Youngbae jumped in.

Ji-yong leaned in, elbowing Daesung. “So. You never tap out, huh?”

Oh, this was the best decision you’d ever made.

What was once a standard episode of Zip Daesung had quickly unraveled into something much less structured—and far more chaotic.

Ji-yong and Youngbae made themselves comfortable, as if they’d been invited rather than having quite literally crashed the shoot. Youngbae, in true older-brother fashion, took it upon himself to steal bites of Daesung’s food, nodding in faux approval as if he were a judge on a cooking show. Ji-yong, on the other hand, leaned forward with his chin in his palm, shooting you knowing glances every time Daesung so much as looked in your direction.

Daesung, to his credit, tried to regain control of the show.

Tried.

But every time he attempted to steer the conversation back to the meal, the questions, anything remotely professional, one of his so-called friends would derail it entirely.

“Oh, let’s talk about your crush,” Ji-yong had said at one point, eyes sparkling with pure mischief. “You know, the one you definitely don’t have.”

“Yeah, how’s that working out for you, buddy?” Youngbae added, far too pleased with himself.

Daesung nearly knocked over his drink.

“I mean… they do have a point.” You noted.

Daesung gave up.

He slumped back in his chair, sighing so deeply you thought he might just melt into the floor. “This is my own show. I invited you. And yet, here I am, suffering.”

Ji-yong patted his back. “Yeah, but it’s great content.”

By the time the meal neared its end, the restaurant was filled with laughter, empty dishes, and a camera crew that had long since given up on maintaining any sort of structure. What had started as a playful, casual interview had turned into a full-fledged comedy special. Eventually, the director called it a wrap.

Daesung exhaled, slumping forward onto the table.

You chuckled, stretching slightly. “That was fun.”

“For you, maybe,” Daesung muttered, glaring at his so-called friends. “I just lost all credibility.”

Ji-yong smirked. “Oh, you never had any to begin with.”

Youngbae stood, stretching with a grin. “Alright, we’ll get out of your hair now. Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do.”

Daesung’s jaw clenched. “That’s literally not helpful.”

Ji-yong just winked before the two of them disappeared into the background, still chuckling to themselves.

As the crew packed up, Daesung rubbed his temples, exhaling deeply. “I am never letting them anywhere near my show again.”

“I don’t know… I think they added a nice touch.”

“Of course you do.”

With the cameras off and the crew packing up, the once-buzzing atmosphere simmered into something quieter, more intimate. The overhead lights were dimmer now, casting a warm glow over the table where you and Daesung still sat.

And yet, for all the teasing and easy banter, something in him had shifted. He was quieter. Fidgeting. Stealing glances at you, then looking away just as quickly. You noticed, of course. How could you not? The normally playful and effortlessly charming Daesung was suddenly hesitant, almost unsure—like something was on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it. You waited, giving him the space to speak. But the words never came.

Instead, he exhaled softly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well… I guess I should walk you out.”

You tilted your head slightly but didn’t push. “Alright.”

The two of you stood, gathering your things as the last bits of the production crew wrapped up. A few of them shot you knowing looks—they had clearly been hoping for something more to happen on camera—but they said nothing as you made your way toward the exit.

The cool night air greeted you as you stepped outside. The streets were quieter now, the neon signs of Seoul humming softly against the darkness. You turned slightly toward him, offering a small smile. 

“Well, thanks for having me,” you said, keeping your tone light. “Even if your show got completely hijacked.”

He huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “Yeah, that was… something.”

A beat of silence passed.

For a moment, it seemed like that was it—that he was just going to let you leave. That the teasing, the lingering glances, the undeniable tension had all been in your head. And then—

“Wait.”

His voice was quieter now, less sure, but there was urgency in it.

You turned back just as he took a step closer, rubbing his hands together like he was working up the nerve for something.

“I—” He exhaled sharply, then met your gaze, determination flickering behind his warm eyes. “Would you… wanna make a real date out of this?”

Your breath caught.

For the first time tonight, the teasing stopped. Your mind blanked for a split second, heart skipping an unsteady beat. A real date?

You searched his expression, almost in disbelief. He noticed it immediately—the way your fingers tightened slightly around the strap of your bag, the way your lips parted like you weren’t quite sure you’d heard him right. The way your usual playful, effortless confidence wavered just a little. Just like that, his entire demeanor softened.

He let out a quiet chuckle, stepping just a bit closer. “What?” His voice was warm, teasing, but gentle. “Did I break you?”

You blinked, snapping out of it. “I—” You cleared your throat, shaking your head. “No. Just… I thought maybe after tonight you’d—”

You stopped yourself, suddenly feeling ridiculous for even saying it.

“What? Change my mind?” He scoffed, crossing his arms. “Please. You think I went through all that just to let you get away?”

You stared at him, still thrown, and that was when he really saw it—genuine nerves flickering across your face, the disbelief that he actually wanted this for real. Wanted you.

Something in him melted. Then, just as quickly, his signature grin returned.

“Wow.” He let out a dramatic sigh, shaking his head. “You were so smooth five minutes ago. Where’d all that confidence go?”

Your jaw dropped. “Oh, shut up—”

“No, no, I liked that!” He grinned, pointing at you. “Should I make you nervous more often? You’re kinda cute like this.”

“I hate you.”

“Still wanna go on a date with me, though?”

“Unfortunately.”

Daesung laughed, bright and full, and you rolled your eyes before finally letting your own grin slip through.

“Alright,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets, still watching you with something undeniably fond in his gaze. “Then let’s go.”

taglist: @thanosscrossmain @maskedcrawford @mirahyun @riddlerloveb0t @onyxmango @sherrayyyyy @seunghyunwifey @mattsturniolosbabymama @redhoodedtoad @bettelaboure @cinnamonbear22 @xxxicddbr88 @infinetlyforgotten @babygirlewis @loveesiren @tulentiy @babyrvis @ldydeath @wcnderlands @eru-vande

[jensthwa]

mountebank chem pt. four (JYH x reader).

part of the love's an uncharted path universe ★.

SUMMARY:

* 𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤: 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐲. The first time you met Yunho, you knew he was going to be part of the biggest tragedy of your life: the loss of your freedom, of your free will. You didn't know why back then but what you did figure out is that you and Jeong Yunho were going to, eventually and very publicly, date each other at some point. Is that reason enough to hate his guts? Well, of course! Now, when the time comes to fulfill the prophecy, how the hell are you going to pull it off? And, most importantly, what do you need to do to not fall in love with him in the process?

PAIRING: rich!yunho x afab!rich!reader.

GENRE: enemies to friends to lovers.

WORD COUNT: 24.1k.

WARNINGS & TAGS: SMUT ☽ (MINORS DNI) attempt !!! at comedy, dual pov (both yunho's and reader's), use of fem pronouns sometimes, angsty angst that angsts in the form a verbal fight, tears, unresolved feelings and denial, tension, a heartfelt conversations with bro and lots of yearning!, a time jump (three months or so), mingi and love being unhelpful but helpful at the same time, yeosang being a cutie pie and a little bit of his story gets mentioned!, the L word, confessions, apologies, mentions of body dysmorphia and body related insecurities, soft!dom yunho (he's a little bossy), switch!reader (oc hates to let him win i guess), reader has breasts and a vagina, mirror play, teasing, light choking, messy kisses and makeouts, masturbation (f), just the tiniest bit of voyeurism, praise kink if you squint oh my god, fingering, multiple orgasms, love making (who else cried), the post-sex convo and more feelings and dreams are discussed.

NOTES: hi everyone! WE MADE IT!!!!! here's part four of this mini series that is PART OF THE LOVE'S AN UNCHARTED PATH. after this, there's an epilogue/little part five to let everyone know sort of what happens after this + to set up the next story in the universe. i also just want to adress that one of you kindly suggested to change up some of the terminology i use in the warnings and for some other things in the fic itself and i thank that person a lot! but i also want to encourage you, if you feel something's missing or if i can do anything to be more inclusive in my stories, to let me know! i hope you all enjoy it part four of mbc, we've come a looong way and i'm happy on how this turned out. this is 100% self indulgent, as all fics should be, and i think i've re-read it so many times that if you find a typo or something that just doesn't make sense, you can blame it on english not being my first language i guess lmao. i hope you enjoy it and if you do feel free to send to my askbox/reblog/type in any feedback or thoughts! <3

POSTED: february 2nd 2025.

taglist: @kyunlov, @tinyelfperson, @0115degrees, @daniela-f-uwu, @ultrapinkvoidbouquet, @kyeomooniee, @fairylover68, @sushiinmidnight, @qveenbunni, @calmoistorm, @potatomountain, @svintsandghosts, @lemonkait00, @blue5ummer, @fancypeacepersona, @hyukssunflower, @i-love-ateez, @alsomimi, @e3ellie, @st3ft0n3s, @hotteokkay, @xylatox

masterlist - part one - part two. part three.

You dream about him. Every night. 

His mouth on yours and his hands handling you with care fill the gray matter of your brain and rots it. It fits you. 

A rotten brain for a rotten person. 

The scenario repeats in a loop in your head even when you're awake, alone in your house office, accompanied by staff at the main office building. It doesn't really matter what you're doing, who you're with or if the task at hand requires your full attention, Yunho still invades your mind and makes you feel like you're leaping, flying through skies and then falling, falling, falling, before hitting the ground hard. 

Because at the end of the memory, it plays what you did. 

The way you pulled away, the way you left him there without a proper explanation. 

You didn't have dinner with your brother, it was over nine o'clock at night. You needed an escape goat, a plan, an excuse to flee from the happiness you grasped with your sticky, messy, disgusting fingers. 

Everything you touch seems to turn to shit. 

So you can't touch Jeong Yunho even if you want to. 

You shan't, you won’t, even when he’s so close to you it takes a lot for you to hold back. He’s a message away, a meeting away from you. And his messages on your phone kept piling up this week until they didn’t. 

And now, as you watch him enter the meeting in a suit and tie, you do your best to pretend nothing happened between you even though it's supposed to. To everyone else's eyes, you’re still a couple. 

You’re grateful for that. You don’t sit together, you can’t sit together. Of course you can't, that would be very unprofessional. You can't voice your opinion about any decisions made by his team (or rather, his brother's team) today because that would look like you're doing it to either spite him or to be on your boyfriend's side, it would look like corruption! 

God bless the stupid societal and corporate norms. You won't even have to speak to him today, if you're lucky. You know he's shadowing his brother today, learning his way through these meetings you've been attending for years or at least pretending to do so.

There's absolutely no reason to speak to him today. 

Yay. 

Sukwon sits at your left, at the head of the table, and Yunho sits with his brother at Sukwon’s left. Neither your father or his are here today so everyone’s shoulders are a little less tense and the meeting is a quarterly one, which means people are going to be explaining graphics and reading numbers you have to stay focused on. 

There's things you have to write down, there's statements you have to whisper in your brother's ear so he can say them out loud instead of you. 

But Yunho looks way too good in his suit and tie and it's a little distracting. 

And he's looking right at you, too. 

You can hear your co-workers immediately gossiping about it, you can see your brother turn to you, then to him, then to you and you can faintly see how he raises a brow. Faintly, because you're pretending to read over some papers in front of you by the time he bumps your leg to try and catch your attention. 

You step on his foot under the table, he mutters an offended ouch and pinches your arm in retaliation, which causes you to stop pretending to eye the documents and turn to him. 

“Stop it.” 

“You started it,” he says and then Sukwon gives you that look that lets you know he knows something you don't, although it can possibly be like that because he's a clueless little shit. “Did something happen between yo—” 

Well, maybe not as clueless. Good thing you wore great heels today, the face he makes as he's trying to pretend that the sharp end of your Louis Vuitton is not stabbing him in the leg feels like a victory. 

“Keep quiet, the meeting is starting.” 

Oh, how you love winning. 

The thing is, you can't even enjoy it now. Yunho’s face pops up on your mind again and it serves as a reminder of just how close he is. 

As someone from the sales team starts their presentation, your eyes drift to Yunho in a way that feels oddly familiar. 

There, trying to stay upright even though you know he's zoning everything out, there's this memory from your junior year in highschool that never tortured you the way it does now. 

Although he's always been very tall, Yunho used to sit near the window, in the second row of the classroom you both shared that year. Not his decision, certainly whoever made that decision was not the sharpest tool on the shed because all he did was look out of the window and close his eyes when the teachers were not paying enough attention to him. 

And you used to stare at him just like you're doing now. Through the corner of your eye, with your back straightened and ninety percent of your attention on the topic at hand. He held the other ten percent, tenderly, softly, without realizing what he was doing. 

Just like he held you that night. 

At the time, you wondered what went on in his head every time he drifted away from the class. New ways of making your life impossible? A new insult to your integrity, maybe? Highschool Yunho was everyone's dream but, for you, he meant nothing but nightmares and headaches. 

Nothing has changed much. 

But instead of wondering if he's thinking about new ways of pestering you with his presence, now your heart races at the possibility of him thinking about the kisses you two shared last week. 

You hope no one notices the sudden shift on the chair or the gulp you make to keep your emotions buried deep down inside of you, where no one can reach them. 

Trying to regain focus and ignore Yunho completely, you look at the projected graphics in front of you. The person doing the presentation turns to the next slide as soon as you're beginning to understand what the hell they're talking about. Surprisingly, your brother turns to whisper at you about it. 

“The new company sales are lower than expected.” 

When you turn fully to him, you can see he's biting his cheek in concerned concentration. You want to roll your eyes. 

“I told dad no one would care about this company and you were the one who approved for us to go forward with it.” 

“I know.” 

“Dumbass,” you whisper, scrunching your nose and turning to the presentation again but your brother nudges you slightly and you have to look at him again. 

Only for your eyes to completely bypass him and land in Yunho. 

God fucking damnit.

Is this what having a crush is like? Is tortuous and you hate this even more than when you couldn't stand seeing his face out of pure annoyance. 

This is why you probably never had a crush on anyone before. But it's strange, because it doesn't feel like something new. Yes, Yunho attending meetings is new but the feeling is familiar and grossly nostalgic of something you feel like you left behind.

And now has come back in full force. 

You never had a crush on Yunho, at least not that you know of. 

But this feeling is telling you otherwise and it's maddening and disgusting and— 

“Something definitely happened, hm?” 

Eyes flicking over your brother's sudden concerned expression, you push back on the seat and sink in it a little. This way, when you look up to him, Yunho is nowhere in sight. When you speak again, you make sure only Sukwon hears you. 

“We can save it, don't worry about it. I'll write up a proposal of how we can market the concept of the company in a way that it at least piques people's interest.” 

Your brother huffs, unsatisfied with your deflection and the way you visibly close up at the mere thought of telling him if something did happen between you and Yunho. 

But he says nothing. It stings that you know he's going to leave it at that, the support you're supposed to have slipping through your fingers as you do your best to keep your feelings to yourself. It's not his fault, not really. 

He doesn't know any better. 

You don't know any better, either. 

But your focus on the meeting comes back and you end it with thirteen pages of virtual notes and a list of things you need to do today to keep this shitshow of a company afloat. 

There's a split second when you get out of the room that you feel Yunho’s eyes on you. You're afraid he's going to take the opportunity to talk to you, so you look up and around trying to find something, someone you can use as a distraction, as a shield. 

But then there's like four pairs of hands dragging him away and you see that annoyed glint in his eye, usually reserved for you, as they turn him around and away from you. 

Yes, of course they wouldn't let him speak to you right now. He's shadowing his brother, he has important things to do! 

Yay. 

You ignore the beating of your heart as you move quickly through the halls. Sukwon and Gunho are already aiming for the elevator so you opt for the stairs, knowing you won't have to speak to anyone at all if you get to your office like this. 

Well, Sukwon's office. You have yours on a lower floor, not as unnecessary space-taking as his, but you usually work there because you enjoy the view. 

So when you finally close the door behind you and the view is blocked by thirty piled up boxes you start thinking that the universe is upset with you. Is this your karma? Everything and everyone against you just because you walked out of a kiss before making a mistake? 

Is not like Yunho cares that much about you anyway!

Huffing, you look around the room until your eyes land on that stupid tree you started painting when Sukwon told you he wanted to redecorate his office. Its branches extend just a little more than what you remember and there’s a part of it that was unfinished the last time you saw it. You can only assume either Seonghwa or your brother had something to do with it.

Which sucks. 

Because you’re so painting over the stupid tree one day. 

You stare at it while your mind wanders. Head slowly filling up with noise, you finally feel at ease when your thoughts are nothing but work: You need to write up a proposal to that stupid vintage-esque focused company to see if there’s some salvation for it. You need to speak with marketing, get one of them to go along the process with you. You need to sit down with your brother and kindly tell him to never allow something like this to ever happen again. 

Making a mental list to organize and prioritize everything you need to do, you barely register footsteps echoing in the long hall. You should’ve, because it’s lunchtime and there’s no one on the floor, but you don’t. 

And so when the person you least want to see comes through the door and lets out a heavy sigh, you turn to him like he grew a second nose over the course of the twenty minutes you last saw each other. 

“I hate it here, I truly do.” 

It almost makes you want to laugh, but you remain stoic as you move through the office. You take a few boxes and you put them down on the floor until there’s some light leaking through the window and illuminating the space enough for it not to give you a headache as you work. 

Sitting on your brother's chair, barely sparing him another glance before turning on the desk computer and pulling up an empty document. You click and tap a few meaningless things: You pick the font, you mess with the font size for a second before setting it back to its default. Anything to help you look busy and not like your heart is going a million miles per second. 

“Can I help you with anything, Yunho?” 

Blurry, in the background, you can see him look around the office, probably taking the mess in. He moves too, walks until his expensive shoes are tip to tip  with a literal mannequin resting against the wall. 

You stop paying attention as you write the date and the proposal title. Something simple, something that both your father and the CEO of the dumb not-approved-by-you company that has you in this predicament can understand. You hate to say that you assume they’re not very smart if they put out such a dated and non profitable idea for their company. 

Still, you try to address Yunho like nothing’s bothering you and like you’re not nervous you two are in a room alone after everything that went down. 

“You can ask Seonghwa what that means,” you start, sighing like his friend and your brother are hopeless. Because maybe that’s what they are. “They’re not running any ideas by me even though I’m the one that spends the most time in this office, so.” 

“Hm,” he starts and you can hear him walking around, but your focus is now on the first few words of the proposal. You realize there’s really nothing you can start before speaking with marketing and so you open the notes app, to have a list of ideas to run through them at least. “Thought you worked from home.” 

“I do. I have an office three floors down, too.” It’s easy sharing information with him now, especially if it means there’s something to talk about that’s not… Well, the kiss. “I hate it, it’s in a corner and people can see into it. It’s easier to work here.” 

“And Sukwon hyung doesn’t mind?”

“Considering he’s never here, I doubt it.” 

“Cool, cool.” 

There’s something in his tone that makes you want to look up, lump in your throat growing in size enough for you to cough it away. You don’t look up, you can’t look up even if you’ve misspelled the word rebrand like four times already. 

But then the light you managed to cast onto the space disappears completely. You feel something besides you, the soft material of an expensive suit blazer grazing your arm and cheek. You see veiny, masculine hands secure themselves around the arms of the chair before he’s turning you to face him. 

You gulp. 

He’s leaning down close, closer than he should be, closer than what he’s allowed to be considering anyone can walk in on you. You’re flushing, you can feel the redness creep up your neck and heating your ears and face before you gather the courage of raising a questioning brow. Yunho stays silent, his eyes scanning your face and briefly landing on your lips before returning your stare. 

“Can I help you with anything, Yunho?” You ask him again, quieter this time, voice trembling a little. 

“Princess,” he starts, the corner of his lip raising just a little, like it’s funny he has to say what he’s about to say, “are you ghosting me?” 

Shit. 

“Why would you— Why would I—,” a nervous chuckle abandons you and then you huff, trying to seem offended at his accusation, “W-what do you mean by that?” 

Leaning into your space a tiny bit more, he repeats “Are you ghosting me?” 

Creasing your brow, you straighten in the chair but do nothing to pull him away “No.”

“Then what about the ten messages I sent you and you left on delivered?” 

Faking a surprised gasp, you move to take your phone out of the pocket of your jacket and unlock it to swipe through your messages “You did? Oh, my God, I’ve been soooo busy.” 

“You’re shit at lying to me.” 

“I’m not lying to you—” 

“Are you okay?” 

Your eyes snap from the phone to his face, genuine annoyance creasing your eyebrows this time. 

“You don’t have to ask me that everytime you see me, Jeong.” 

“But are you?” He asks as you finally find his chat and open the messages you dreaded to see the entire time that passed. There’s a few of them practically begging you to speak to him, one apologizing for the kiss and the other ones you don’t even see because Yunho is taking the phone from your hand and placing it on the desk next to you. “I mean, what happened didn’t trigger anyth—” 

You hate he’s this considerate with you, even after you clearly walked out of the situation with a poorly formulated excuse.

“What happened was a mistake.” 

Yunho physically deflates and lets the chair go, the tension on your shoulders lifting a little now that he’s not as close. 

“What?” 

“It was a mistake, we shouldn’t have done that. We’re professionally obligated to work together, fake all of this together, so it shouldn’t…” You pause and consider for a bit before doing something you never do: take the blame “I shouldn’t have. I apologize.” 

Letting out a breath, you turn the chair and delete the misspelled rebrand to write it the correct way, heart too weak to even look at his reaction. It doesn’t matter anyway, you’re never doing anything like it again. 

You hear him shuffle with the boxes at both your feet and, from the corner of your eye, you see him turning away from you and then back, hands on his hips “I don't think it was a mistake.” 

“Well, it was.” 

“I liked it.” 

That brings out a genuine, short lived laugh out of you “Thank you, I’m a great kisser.” 

You open your brother’s email and pretend there’s an urgent matter inside the contents of one of them until Yunho’s hand closes over yours, over the mouse. 

“Y/N.” 

There’s a lot of things about Jeong Yunho you hate: The swoop of his hair when there’s no gel on it, the free aspect to his nature you’re never going to get even if you try to, that one time he called you an ugly giant after wearing platforms for the first time ever. 

And the sweetness of his voice when he says your name, the plea you hear on it and the shudder it brings to your spirit. It shakes you, it moves you to look at him again, to actually take his feelings into consideration. 

He’s staring at you with so much hurt, it makes your heart sink into an abyss of guilt. 

“Hm?” 

“I think I like you.” 

Oh. 

Oh, no. 

Your heart drowns deeper, your resentment towards the situation grows branches like the tree on the wall. They hug your pride and your ego, they poke you on your side for reciprocating Yunho’s feelings just a little. 

Well, a lot.

“You think?” You ask him and your voice sounds far away. He nods. You stand up from the chair, hand squeezing his before letting drop. “Stop thinking then.” 

His eyes closing shut and his jaw tensing is the last thing you see before you busy yourself with the boxes against the window. You pick up two at a time, heavy and the cardboard smelly as you walk to the other side of the office, away from him. 

“I’m being serious, Y/N.” 

You sigh “So am I, Yunho. You don’t like me, you liked that I kissed you.” 

“Oh, I forgot you know exactly what goes through my mind and my heart, thank you for the remainder!” 

Looking at him over your shoulder, you drop the boxes against the corner wall “Lower. Your. Voice.” 

“No, no. Because that’s not an appropriate response to what I just told you!” He walks towards you and you meet him halfway, heart beating with annoyance at the way he’s speaking to you. He towers over you again, jaw clenched and voice a mere murmur when he speaks again “You have no say in what I feel, how I feel it, when I feel it.” 

“I know I don’t, you idiot. I was just providing you with a bit of perspective.” 

“Perspective?”

“What do you like about me?” Chin up and nose scrunched in a way it only does when you’re really angry, you insist “Why now? Why do you suddenly care? Is it out of pity? Is it because it’s convenient, because we’re already pretending? Is it because you want to fuck me?!”

“Watch it, Y/N.” His tone is laced with clear offense at what you offered just a second ago. 

“You don’t like me,” you start, shaking your head, “you can’t like me.” 

“Why not?!” 

He’s breathing hard, walking backwards, offering up his palms to the sky and looking around the room like any of that is going to give him an answer to his questions. 

“Why not?” He repeats and there’s that hurt in his voice that, for some reason, makes your eyes water. Are you having a panic attack? A heart attack? Everything hurts. Liking Yunho hurts, wanting him hurts. He comes back, his eyes searching yours even though you can’t do anything but cast them down, to your shoes and his shoes and the boxes and the carpet “Why can’t I like you, princess? What’s not to like? What kind of self-deprecating ideas do 

you have in your head that makes you think I can’t care about you like that?”

Shaking your head again and closing your eyes, you are barely able to stifle a sob and force your tears back. You want to tell him that that’s not the reason but you would be lying to him if you did. 

That’s part of the reason. 

Behind the whole letting your mother’s win argument, there’s an undeniable amount of self hatred that can’t let you feel like there’s any truth behind his words. 

Why would he like you? Why would he care about you? 

Your hands are dirty and sticky and your being is way too clumsy, so everything you love drops and breaks and turns to dust before your eyes. The fact that there’s this whole fake relationship deal in the middle of it and you can place the blame on your mothers is a blessing in disguise. 

It’s a weapon you can use. 

Even if you don’t want to: His hands are cradling your face, his forehead dropping against yours and drawing a surprised gasp out of you because you didn’t even feel him get him close. 

“I like you, I care about you,” there’s certainty in his tone, like he made up his mind, like he’s confirming his feelings to both you and himself, “I… I—” He takes a breath when you open your eyes and beg him to not say what you think he’s about to say. He takes the hint. “Do you not like me back, Y/N? Are you trying to… Is that what’s happening?” 

You say nothing, but swallow back your feelings and brace yourself on his forearms, nose budging his as you move a little. 

He reads your silence wrong “Y-you do?” 

You think it matters if you do or not. Your heart is already breaking by the time the words are on the tip of your tongue. 

“We can’t,” you whisper to him, letting your tears wet your cheeks and squeezing his forearms when his thumbs start to move in trying to dry them, shaking your head to signal him to stop. As your eyes catch his, you prepare yourself for the gentleness you’re about to lose, with the care you’re about to push away for his own good. “Because if we do, they win.” 

You didn’t know your heart could break this way, as you watch his expression morph from confusion to pain to utter, genuine anger. It’s the same face he made last week, in your living room, as he yelled at his mother for even daring suggesting that you two should be together. 

There’s a time when hurting Yunho brought you some sense of vengeance, a time where you considered it payback for being that person literally planned and made for you. 

Now, you want to hit your head against the wall for even daring filling his eyes with tears, for being the reason frustration descends and wets his shoes as he looks down. 

“Oh.” 

He lets you go and you miss it. You immediately want to take your words back, push him closer to you, hug him, kiss him, whatever it may be to keep him next to you.

You start to mourn the loss of the bond you were able to form with him right away. 

And it hurts. 

He nods again. And it hurts. “Oh, that’s what this is about.” 

It fucking hurts. When he laughs, hands on his face as he wipes his tears away, you feel like you’re going to pass out. 

“And you don’t care about me enough to tell them to go fuck themselves.” He says, a resentful statement that leaves his lips before a breathy laugh does. 

Opening your mouth, you attempt to contradict his words. That’s not true at all, he has to understand, he understands you, he— He raises his hand to stop you from speaking, he shakes his head like he doesn’t want to hear it. 

Like your excuses, even if he hasn't listened to them at all, are not worth his time. 

“I get it.” No, you don’t. “I understand.” No, you really don’t. 

But you say nothing. As he’s slipping through your fingers like sand, at your own doing, you just stare at him with sorrowful eyes and an apology on your teeth. 

He looks at you like he’s expecting you to stop him as he reaches the door. You want to, you really do. 

You don’t. 

“Thanks for letting me know.”

When the door closes behind him and leaves you alone in an office that’s not really yours, feeling like you’re not yourself, you finally allow the reality of what you just did to hit you. 

Hand shaking, you cover your mouth and let out a sob as you let yourself cry what you just lost. But, as you do, you remind yourself that you don’t really deserve Yunho’s care. 

You don’t really deserve his love. 

Hurting him is probably the easiest way out he has of whatever he thinks he’s feeling for you. 

Walking slowly to the desk, you wipe your tears away and nod to yourself. Yes, this is exactly what needed to happen. Good. Yes. What were you doing before he came in? 

You grab the mouse. 

Ah, the proposal. Of course. 

The noise comes back, louder this time. Unbearable and ear-piercing, it forces you to close your eyes and listen to the beat of your heart before you push the sound away. You can’t afford to crash right now.

You skim through your tasks in your mind and, as you do, the reminder of a little notification you saw on your calendar this morning, with Yunho’s name on it, is what finally lets the panic break through your senses. 

“No.” 

And you spend the rest of the afternoon typing your escape plan away. 

By the time your brother remembers he has an office, it’s dark outside and the proposal is

printed and in a folder placed neatly in the middle of his desk. 

He closes the door, raising an eyebrow at the way you’re resting your shoulder against the window behind his chair, the boxes blocking them all piled up in the corner you initially started moving them to this afternoon. 

“You’re still here.” He muses and you turn to him, scoffing at the obvious. 

“Well, somebody has to work.” 

“I was working,” he sounds a little bit offended, but when he passes in front of you and pulls back his chair to sit on it, you faintly smell whisky and cigarettes. “I was at a meeting in the gentlemen's club with Gunho.” 

“That’s hardly working, Sukwon.” 

Looking over his shoulder, he’s face to face with your unimpressed expression. Of course he went to the stupid club with Gunho, of course he didn’t do shit today. 

“Let me remind you that I am, in fact, older than you.” 

“And?”

“I deserve respect and zero questioning.” 

You hum, slightly amused this time. You know he’s goofing around, you know he’s hardly mad at the implication that you do all the work he’s supposed to do plus yours but there’s this slight worry in his face that’s unusual.  

“Is Gunho oppa okay?” 

Your brother frowns “Of course he is.” 

“Are you okay?” 

“Yes, I’m— Why are you asking?” 

Shrugging, you turn away from him to look at the city through the window again. You can see the river and the buildings that encapsulate it perfectly and it brings you a strange sense of comfort everytime you zone out and just people watch those who feel free enough to walk along the bridge at this hour, with the cold and the rain and the mess that the leaves leave behind as they fall. 

“You look distraught.” 

“Well, you’ve been crying, of course I am.” 

Interesting. You didn’t think he could tell, which means your face is puffy and you look ugly. Great. 

“The mess in this office made me tear up when I got in this afternoon,” you say, swerving around the accusation with ease because there’s no way in hell you’re telling your brother what’s up with you. “I’m going to need your help when it comes to explaining that to dad.” And then you use your chin to point to the proposal sitting in front of him. 

“You didn’t have to do this today, I know sales are low but-” 

“Oh, that’s not it. That one is sitting on your email. This—” you take two steps, tap the front of the folder with your nails, “is a new thing. A thing he won’t understand nor approve unless you understand it and approve it.” 

And then you move back to your position by the window, staring at the lights and the buildings one more time without explaining anything else. When you hear the flick of the pages being turned, you know he understands how serious you’re about it. No space for debating, no time for complaining: you need him to get it done now, and so he will. 

Because your brother can be a lot of things but he’s not dumb. 

And he can read a room like no other except maybe you. 

Seconds turn into minutes and then the clock ticks and blends together as you wait, shoulder hurting by the time your brother lets out a heavy sigh. 

“No, I won’t approve this.” 

Definitely not what you wanted to hear. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You want to—” 

Defensiveness floats you, over-stimulates your senses and makes you see red at the rejection of your proposal “I want to expand our market, our clientele, our opportunities to keep this company on top. Can you relate?” 

“Y/N…” He scowls at your attack, at your tone “You’re running.” 

“I’m doing something for the company!” 

You think your roar is heard all the way to the first floor. Sukwon stares at you wide-eyed, mouth agape for a second before he closes it again. He has to fix his tie, his suit ironed for once as he takes the jacket off and discards it against the chair. 

Brat, princess, annoying little sister. You know that’s what he calls you, he has called you that ever since you were a child and in the most endearing way possible. You have yelled at him before, you have stomped your foot and cried and moaned until you got your way, until he agreed to let you do something. 

You have never screamed at him like this before, though. 

It shows in the way your chest rises and falls quickly, in the way he has to take a calming breath to not yell back at you. Your eyes are full with tears when he looks up and the crease of his brow disappears because, even though you both could be closer and understand each other better, he still is your brother. 

Your brother, who loves you and cares about you in his own way. 

It proves more difficult to let him see the real you, more difficult than what it felt with Yunho or with anyone else. 

So when the tears fall down your cheeks, you wipe them away quickly and pretend they were never there. 

“I don’t know what the hell happened,” he starts, calm, taking a step into your direction and raising his hand and you recoil a bit out of habit. He hesitates for a few seconds but then he’s squeezing your shoulder and pulling you into a tight hug that feels unfamiliar, unusual and weird until it doesn’t. You melt into the embrace because you need it, because it allows you to let go of your frustration and cry it out on your brother’s chest, “but you’re going to explain it to me whether you like it or not. And only then, I will consider saying yes to your proposal.” 

When you pull away to look at him, it’s with a pout and a scowl that draws a breathy laugh out of him. 

“Stupid.” He pushes you away a little before pulling you back in for a hug, “Always keeping things to yourself instead of letting me take the weight of it all. Stupid.” 

It takes a few minutes, but when the hug doesn’t seem necessary and your usual disgust for physical touch comes back into your system, he allows you to take two steps back and clean your face with the back of your hand. 

“Haven’t seen you cry since you were a child,” he whispers and you shrug, ignoring the fact that your heart stings at the comment. “What happened?” 

You tell him everything that night. 

Yunho hasn’t seen you in three months. 

Which, at first, came as relief. He didn’t want to see your face ever again after the things you confirmed to him back in your brother's office. Who needed you, right? He told himself his mother loved enough to understand the sudden change of heart, although she doesn’t exactly know what happened between you in the first place. 

Maybe he should’ve been honest when he got the chance, back in your house, the afternoon they told you both about the pr relationship. 

He was so close to telling the truth, too, when he walked out of the living room and into the hallway to clear his head and not scream at his mother in front of yours. It was there, at the tip of his tongue, and then his mother appeared in front of him with that spark behind her eye that could only mean one thing: it didn’t matter what the truth was, he was going to do this even if it killed him inside. 

Her words the next second confirmed it and he wondered right then if his freedom was worth the suffering:

“Either you do this or I’ll make sure you’re never able to dance again, Jeong Yunho. No more public university, no more friends, no more staying at the dorm, just your father’s company,” and he was about to refuse, yet again, she raised her finger as a warning. “I mean it. Y/N is perfect to clear the company’s image but if we can’t use her then we’ll have to work twice as hard as we do now to clear it.” 

And Yunho would rather fake an entire life with you than work for the man who single handedly ruined his life the second he was born. He didn’t hate his father, he thought about him like a concept he would never understand even when he desperately tried to, but he would never become part of his company.

Not in the way his mom suggested, anyway. 

He just needed to get through college, pretend to be interested in the family business and then land a freelancer job elsewhere, in a foreign company maybe, one who didn’t seem a threat to his father’s and then move on his own when he had enough money saved. 

Independence. He needed independence. Strangely enough, he needed you to gain that independence even though you meant the exact opposite to him, in his head. 

So he doesn’t know why he yelled at you that afternoon. To take it all out, maybe? He thought he hated you back then, too.

He had already agreed to it in the hallway, to his mom. 

He had already agreed to it the second he was born. 

Which is crazy because that’s not a normal experience to have. And if you were born a boy or him a girl, none of this would’ve happened in the first place. You’d be friends, like Gunho and Sukwon, and maybe he’d be forced to be with someone that wasn’t shoved down his throat for so long. 

Imagine his surprise when he kissed you back that night in his dorm. No, scratch that, imagine his surprise when he started liking you the second you showed your true colors to him. 

You’re not perfect by any means, but neither is he and it only took you allowing him to enter a little bit into your mind, into your heart, into your soul, for him to fall for you hard. Or maybe he always liked you? His mind didn’t allow him to sleep at all when you left, but it didn’t allow him to go and follow you that same night either, so the conundrum continued to torture him until it didn’t. 

After the fight in the office, he went home and sat in his childhood bedroom for a while. He had dinner with his brother when he came home to look for some documents in his father’s home office and then he went back to his dorm and stared at the ceiling until Yeosang came back from wherever he’s been disappearing to these days. 

He pretended everything was fine under Yeosang’s scrutinizing gaze but his friend and roommate knew him so much it only took less than a week for his sudden mood to reach the ears of the rest of the friend group. 

Not so subtle messages started entering his phone. He answered all of them and then used the excuse of being on the app to check your chat in case you sent a message and it didn’t notify him for some reason. He told them everything was okay, that he was feeling a bit under the weather. 

And he managed to convince them until he checked his calendar one day (the one he shared with you) and realized all foreseeable events had been cancelled. You had another meeting where you two needed to coexist, a company dinner with both your team and Gunho’s team that he needed to go to as your plus one and, surprisingly enough, a paparazzi session scheduled by your mother that you needed to first prepare to and then do. 

All of this was explained to him by his PR assistant. It surprised him to see that many postponed and canceled the app. It angered him to assume you canceled everything just because you didn’t want to see him. 

He didn’t want to see you either, but he had to. Weren’t you the one who more than once scolded him for not being professional enough? 

Ha! 

It was his opportunity to tease you about it. And so, when he was told to go to your brother’s office the next day, he had this whole speech ready to go. He would tell you to stop being so dumb, that a kiss and his feelings is something that can be ignored. That he needed you both to forgive and forget. 

Yunho needs to continue his plan, even if his own heart breaks in the process. And as he got down the elevator and walked the hall to reach the office, his heart desperately asked him to reconsider. Because there, while pushing the door handle to enter the space he dreaded to be a week prior, Yunho realized he wanted to ask you to be his again. 

When he found nothing but Sukwon on his chair, his conviction deflated and his ego sank to the ground. 

“Yunho!” Your brother sprung out of his chair, excitingly rounding his desk until he reached for him. Arm around his shoulders, Yunho raised a brow at the sudden animosity. “Were you expecting someone else?” 

“N-no.”

“Right.” 

He knew Sukwon could call his bullshit from a mile away. But it didn’t matter, he was already sitting down in front of him in the new couches facing each other. He wanted to point it out, but Sukwon beat him to it. 

“Your friend Park Seonghwa has amazing taste.” 

“Ah,” he breathed out a laugh, a nervous chuckle that made him gasp for air a second after, “yeah. He, um, was top of his class before he graduated.”

“I can tell,” Sukwon nodded and looked around, scrunching his nose in a way that reminded Yunho of you. “Y/N is not going to be available for the next few months.”

What? 

“W-what?” 

“I know you came here looking for her and we’ve known each other since you were born, Yunho, I think we can skip the shitty formalities.” 

“Hyung…”

Sukwon shaked his head, laughing with a relaxed sincerity that is such a Sukwon thing to do “There’s never not been a moment in my life where my sister doesn’t surprise me. I know you know her and I know you two have grown… Closer since this whole PR thing started but I don’t think you can grasp the full Y/N effect until you live with her, you know?”

He didn’t. Not at all. 

“She crafted in four, maybe five hours a project that would’ve taken me at least a month to sit down and write,” he explained and Yunho swallowed thickly, the lump on his throat going down. “And she wanted to get it done as soon as she got the approval from dad. So, I hope you understand that she couldn’t exactly give you a notice before postponing and cancelling your shared schedule.” 

Ah. So you didn’t want to speak to him at all. He scoffed, annoyed. “So she asked you to tell me?” 

“Nope. In fact, I’m pretty sure she would kill me if she knew I’m meeting with you at all.” 

Yunho blinked, confused. 

“Oh.”

“But I love you like a brother, Yunho. You’re my family, you’re her family even though she hates it and I realized recently that the four of us need to stick together. If everything else goes to shit, we’ll still have us.” 

The four of you. Including him and Gunho. 

“And as a family, we owe each other honesty. We owe each other loyalty and forgiveness and understanding. You see where I’m going with this?” 

“No,” he admitted, frowning a bit. “What does any of that have to do with me and Y/N? We don’t like each other, I know you and Gunho noticed at some point. It’s the way things are supposed to be.” The words had a bitter taste, but he pushed through them. 

He sounded like you.

Sukwon let out a sigh and he got up from his seat to squeeze Yunho’s shoulder “She comes back in three months, Yunho. She’s doing something from the company but she has to come back, right?” 

Yunho shrugged, pretending the information didn’t spark something close to hope inside of him. 

“Understanding. That’s what we owe each other: Love and understanding… And lunch. Your brother actually owns me lunch, feel free to join us.” 

Your brother is the weirdest guy ever. However, he realized that as Sukwon walked out of the office and left him to consider his words, that he was already planning on telling you when you came back. 

He missed you already, too. 

And yet, he didn’t find the courage to tell you at all. It tormented him, greatly, vastly. It consumed him through his classes, his dance rehearsals, his performances. It tugged on his heart the days he had to go to the office and pretend he cared about the company, and through his hang outs with his friends. 

They asked about you all the time. He had to remind them you were on a business trip, he had to make up a story, he had to tell them the details were apparently confidential when he didn’t even know where you were.

He could’ve just called you. He could’ve just asked you. 

His finger over your contact on his phone while he sits in Wooyoung's room during a house party, in the dark. 

He could just ask you. 

He–

“Okay, what the fuck is going on with you?” 

He drops his phone, the light of the screen going out as it lands down on the bed. 

“Holy shit, Mingi!” 

 A light turns on and he squints his eyes at the sudden intrusion. 

“You scared the shit out of me!”

“I walked in here like five minutes ago,” his best friend deadpans and Yunho pouts like a child. “You know, I’m starting to feel like I don’t mean that much to you anymore.”

That offends him deeply and he scowls before tossing a pillow in his direction  “What the hell are you even saying?” 

“I’m a patient person, Yunho,” he catches the pillow and tosses it back, “and I’ve been waiting for you to tell me what's been going on for the last month and half but you keep saying everything’s fine.” 

“Because everything’s f—” 

“No, it’s not!” 

Mingi is tired, he can tell. He’s been holding his worries inside since the day he told everyone about his relationship with you and Yunho feels awful. This is that part of his life that’s hard to talk about. He only explained to Mingi about the dreadful desire that his father has of making him work for him around a year ago and he’s known Mingi for so long at this point that it does feel a little like he doesn’t trust him enough. 

But it’s hard and he has kept his feelings and desires buried for so long he thinks he might’ve accidentally dragged his feelings for you along with it and now they’re all mixed up and scratching the walls of their enclosure, begging to come out of him. 

“I’m not used to push people around to tell them about their feelings but you’re my best friend and—” 

“I kissed Y/N.” 

Mingi stops mid sentence, blinking a few times before moving to sit beside him on the bed. Yunho hopes, as he faintly hears the music outside of the room getting louder and Wooyoung screaming something that he can’t exactly make up, that Mingi doesn’t think he’s suddenly confessing his afflictions out of pressure. 

Instead, the words came out of his mouth like he couldn’t resist telling them in the first place. After keeping it to himself for weeks, nearly three months, it finally feels like breathing a little. 

“O… kay.” He says as a response and it’s Yunho’s turn to blink at him in disbelief, Mingi laughs a little. “So you kissed the girl you like. Isn’t that something to be happy about?” Yunho gapes at the insinuation of Mingi knowing he likes you, except, it doesn’t come as a surprise. His friends are very observant, to his absolute horror they can’t be fooled. “Did she reject you? Is that what’s going on?” 

“No! I mean, yes. We… She kissed me first!” He defends himself, taking a quick inhale before cursing softly under it. “And then I kissed her. And then we kissed and she left and she ghosted me for a little, actually. And then I saw her in her office, that's not actually her office but her brother’s, and I… I kind of confronted her? And then she rejected me.” 

By the time he finishes his rambles, Mingi looks amused and a little worried. 

“You have to be in this… Fake relationship with her and that’s tormenting you, then? Because she rejected you?” 

“No, that’s not… We’re not— I am, we are still in the fake relationship, it’s just that she’s gone.” 

“She died?!” 

“What? No! No, she’s,” Yunho closes his eyes, laughing at the assumption because he knows Mingi said it to get that exact response in return, “she’s not dead. She, um, she’s on that business trip.” 

“Oh, that’s right! You told us—”

“I lied.”

“What?” 

His poor best friend looks confused beyond belief and that guilt of not telling him everything creeps in once more, threatening to shut him up until he reminds himself Mingi is trustworthy and deserves some clarity. 

“She is on a business trip, I just don’t know why or how or where she is,” he finishes softly, his lips in a line and revealing just how uneasy that makes him feel. “I don’t know where she is and I think that she left because I— Well, when she rejected me we didn’t end up on the best of terms.”

“So you think it’s your fault.” Mingi finishes with a nod, letting out a sigh a second after. “Well, it’s not.” 

“It kind of is, though.” 

“Yunho, it’s not. She’s a grown up, if she decides to run away from her feelings instead of facing them she’s kind of a dumbass.” 

“Mingi!” Yunho’s pushing him a bit with his hand on his shoulder before he can help it. 

“She is!” Laughing, his best friend takes no offense at the push and instead pushes him back, teasingly. “Remember that one party you had at your place, when your parents were gone on that business trip with your brother?” 

“Oh, that party?” 

“Yeah, that party,” Mingi nods, looking away for a second, something shining in his face Yunho realizes he’s longing for. He wants that to shine on him, too: the security that being with the right person brings you. “Love tried to run away from an argument that night, too. I just didn’t let her.” 

“Are you calling your girlfriend a dumbass?” 

“Yeah,” and instead of saying it with a grudge, the confirmation comes out of a place filled with, well, love. “She was a dumbass back then, at least.” 

“Y/N is not like that at all,” Yunho says after a bit, “she’s not a dumbass for running away from this. Our thing… It’s kind of different. We’ve been put in this situation since we were kids and we hated, like actually hated each other for a while. We treated each other so badly, Mingi, you have no idea the way she gets under my goddamn skin sometimes,” and despite saying it like it’s a bad thing, he can’t help but smile. Mingi notices this, too. “You know I don’t have the best relationship with my parents, right? Well, hers is way worse.” 

“Wait, you told us that this relationship was something to clear your company’s image?” Mingi recalls and Yunho feels another pang of guilt against his ribcage. 

“It is! It totally is, it’s just… Well, she was born a girl and I was born a boy and our parents have a very, um, old-fashioned concept of love and what it’s supposed to look like. It was decided a long time ago that we were going to end up together.” 

There’s a few seconds of silence before Mingi bursts out laughing so hard it drowns the noise from outside the room. 

“That’s funny to you?” Yunho asks, light-hearted and smiling at the sound of his best friend's laugh. 

“No, no, it’s just… Your parents are forcing you two together for some weird legacy, bloodline reason and you fell for the girl you’re in a fake relationship with and you’re supposed to hate?” 

Now that he hears it like that…

“Basically, yeah.” 

“Oh, San’s girl is about to have a field trip with this information.”

“Dude!” 

“What? It’s dumb! Y/N is a dumbass, you’re dumber for not just calling her and telling her you miss her and you’re both really fucking dumb for not telling your parents to fuck off. You’re grown!” 

Yunho sighs, shaking his head. “She doesn’t like me like that, Mingi.”

“Yes, she does!” He laughs again, covering his mouth with his hand once he realizes Yunho is getting annoyed with it. “Yunho… Ugh, is this how you all felt those few months where I was crying over Love?” 

“I didn’t feel anything.” 

“Because you’re a puppy,” Mingi’s shoulder brushes against his in a not so subtle way of teasing him and his eyes blank in pretend annoyance. “You are. And you’re a pretty great guy, Yunho. If she doesn’t like you back it’s not the end of the world.” 

Yunho nods, but he’s suddenly not as convinced as he should be. 

“And you’re also one of the strongest people I know, in here.” Mingi’s finger taps over his heart on his chest. “But you don’t have to carry your burdens on your own. This is all… It all seems pretty dumb to me but it must be really hard on you, hm? Especially since you want to live a life separate from your family, right?” 

That, Mingi knows. “Mhm.”

“And so does Y/N?”

“No, I’m not so sure about that,” he murmurs back and his heart aches when he thinks about you and the way you’re treated home, in the way your mother has treated you in front of him. “I think she thinks she’s nothing without her family but I also think she was raised to believe that. They… Well, even her brother has a hard time seeing how fucking amazing she is.” 

“Is she?” Mingi drops his head to the side, doubt and a little prejudice on his expression. “Is she fucking amazing, Yun?” 

“She’s… She’s such a good person. Which is really crazy for me to say, because I thought she was a spoiled brat for a long time. And she is! But she’s also… She cares so deeply and she’s enjoys painting and she’s so great with kids and—” 

“And you have it bad,” Mingi laughs again, shoving him against the mattress with a push and standing up from the bed. Yunho laughs, recognizing the amount of pushing as tipsy Mingi behavior and nothing else. “So bad. Were you about to call her?” 

He feels called out and a little shy about it. He blushes and all. 

“Maybe.”

When his focus goes back to his phone, it’s when he hears it. 

And his heart drops to his ass. 

A distant curse and the sound of a call ending is enough to send his mind into a new, different spiral. 

“Was that…?” 

Yunho picks up the phone, checks the last call he made and your name appears next to the nine minutes and a half his conversation with Mingi lasted. 

His mouth runs dry, his throat closes as he turns to screen to show it to Mingi.

“Holy fuck.” 

“What do I do?” 

“That’s insane. San’s girl is going to have the best night of her life.” 

“Mingi!” He blocks the phone, tosses it on the bed and gets up to shake his best friend's shoulders. “What. Do. I. Do. Now.” 

Your heart still beats like the day you not-so-accidentally listened to a conversion you shouldn’t have. 

There’s the distant memory of your phone vibrating under your pillow at the hotel you were staying at for the night. It happened only a few weeks ago, near the three month mark into your trip around the country, looking for businesses worth the investment in little towns. That far into your adventure, you had met at least a dozen small companies worth every penny inside your father’s pocket, more so than the one’s already signed. You had met wonderful people who didn’t exactly know who you were and you had been treated so kindly it made the ache in your chest go away. 

At least for a little bit. 

So when you sleepily read Yunho’s name on your screen at two am in the morning, the sting of the pain was unfamiliar and the first thing that crossed your mind was that something bad happened to your brother. Or his brother. Or him. 

What other reason did he have to call you when he left that office hating you all over again? 

“H-hello?” 

Nothing. Just silence and maybe a distant melody, the ruffling of the phone against something. 

“Yunho? If you called me to piss me off I swear to God—”

“Holy shit, Mingi! You scared the shit out of me!” 

Mingi? 

There’s a deeper voice you can hear on Yunho’s end and that’s when you realized he didn’t mean to call you in the first place.

And you should've hung up there. But you didn’t and so you listened to their entire conversation and realized one thing: 

Mingi was right. You are a dumbass. 

And Yunho is even dumber, but that’s something you would have to rub on his face when you gather the courage to see him again. That day is not today, you made sure of it. 

You see, you’ve changed just a tiny bit these past three months. It’s not like you went to a spiritual retreat but by crafting that proposal while fleeing your feelings and the mess that you made with just one kiss, you came around something you never experienced before. Not fully, at least: 

Freedom. 

You spent Christmas and New Years all alone, with no one dear to you around and you saw the fireworks from your hotel window and you felt and suddenly you understood what Yunho sees in in sleeping in that tiny dorm with a roommate and a pile of dirty clothes in a corner, with no pushing their way into the room to pick his messes up and no one making sure he eats at the correct time, the correct meals and the correct porcelain for the day.

No rules, no conditions, just a place where he can be free and himself. 

You did all of that while also making sure you didn’t abandon your priorities. You went to sleep late because you wanted to and then you went to bed early the next day because there were no rules, no events you needed to attend to, no photographers asking you to smile.

There was no one to tell you that you looked fat after eating one delicious, non dietetic meal. There was no devil (your mom) whispering in your ear how everyone would notice the carbs, the bloat and the tiny zits. 

There was no one there to stop you from cutting your hair. And so you did. What once was kept long and straight in order to keep a traditional, clean look, now rested in waves on your shoulders,

It makes it so much easier to walk out of the shower, in less time too! 

And although your heart yearned for Yunho everyday, especially after hearing his conversation with Mingi at two in the morning when you weren’t even supposed to, it was the first time in years you felt happy enough to drop the mask, the pretences, the good posture and even the makeup. 

Yup, you went out without makeup three times! That’s some information that would send your mother into cardiac arrest at the very least. 

So now, as you try to move fast through a college campus that’s not yours, with a box that contains something you call an apology and it might not even be, your heart is beating with the same amount of strength just at the thought of all this backfiring. 

Because you’re not ready to see Yunho, not yet. You want him to come and find you, to come and tell you if he wants to accept you back into his life, under his terms, after you so insistently kicked him out of yours. 

You sneakily checked his calendar. You bribed your assistant, who bribed his assistant, so now his schedule for the week is in a screenshot on your phone and you have checked it four times to confirm this is a good time to be here. 

He has dinner with his family and yours (who don’t even know you’re back yet) at his house, on the hill, which is forty minutes away from his campus. That’s exactly the window of opportunity you’ve been waiting for since coming back. 

And you came back a week ago. 

You may or may not have memorized the code for the door from that only time you came to his dorm and so it’s not really a surprise when you quickly enter it and hear a screech behind you when you are busy closing the door. 

When you turn around, Yeosang is shirtless and covering his chest with his hands “Y/N!”

“Yeosang.” You say with a small bow, struggling to not laugh and turning your face away, looking at the postered up wall. “So nice to see you here, in your room.” 

“W-what are you… I mean how do you… Should I call Yun—” 

“No!” When you turn to him again, eyes wide with worry, he has a shirt on and his phone in his hand. “Please don’t… Let me do something real quick and then you can speak to him, okay?” 

You start to fumble with the box, placing it at the end of the bed and opening it up fast. You throw the lid on top of Yeosang’s bed and then get to work, pulling everything out. 

“Oh, I don’t know. I hate lying to my friends, Y/N.”

“And you’re such a great friend for that but you won’t be lying to him because I’m not asking you to do that.” 

“I wouldn’t even if you did ask me to.” 

“Well, I don’t know about that…” 

Okay, so you changed a little bit. Not a lot. 

You sigh, struggling with the placement of your gift/apology because Yunho changed his sheets and so the color scheme it’s not perfect anymore. 

“What’s all of this?” 

“Yunho enjoys dancing,” you start and you see him nod from the corner of your eye, so you smile. “He told me he did it to have this dorm but I didn’t buy it at all, and so when I was on my trip I… Sort of thought of him a little bit, not a lot.” You clear your throat, a slight heat creeping up your cheeks. “But I didn’t want to wait another day without giving this to him. I just… I can’t exactly be here when he sees it.” 

You finish, turning back to Yeosang and you realize you’re out of breath, nervousness creasing your brows. 

“Would you please let me know how he reacts to it the next time we see each other?” You ask softly, almost shy and Yeosang visibly relaxes at the tone. It makes you feel understood somehow and so you relax a little bit, too. “If you’re here when he gets here I mean, um, you are all dressed up.” 

When you point to his outfit, he seems to remember that he was, in fact, getting ready to go out when you walked in. His hair is wet but styled and all. 

“Oh, I was… I was just going to the club.” He points to a camcorder on his beat and you raise a curious brow, but don’t really ask anything. “I’m making a dance documentary for one of my classes. Yunho is in it, too.” 

That peaks your interest and he laughs, possibly at the way you light up at the mention of your fake-boyfriend-possible-love-of-your-life name. “He is?” 

“Yes, he’s… A big part of it, actually, but I go to this club to get footage and… You should ask him to explain it to you.” 

Now, at that, your smile sure turns sour because there’s no actual way of knowing if he wants to see you again or not. 

After all, he didn’t attempt to contact you after that phone call. 

You don’t know if he noticed that he called you, either. 

It’s kind of killing you inside, all the space you need to fill with assumptions instead of facts. 

“Sure, um…” 

“I can stay until he comes back.” 

“Oh, I don’t want to ruin your plans for the night, Yeosang. You should go and—”

“I want to see it. I want to record it,” he explains, looking over your shoulder and into the gift in Yunho’s bed. “He says he’s not sure, but I think he wants to dedicate his life to it, you know?” 

“To dancing?” 

Yeosang nods. 

Your voice sounds very small when you ask him “Do you think he’s going to like it?” 

He smiles, softly, endeared almost.

“He’s going to love it,” he assures you, “And your haircut, too.” 

You chuckle at that, touching the ends of it that rest on your shoulder “You think?” 

“Yeah! It suits you, actually.”

“Thank you, Yeosang.” 

This time, and after making small talk with his roommate, you leave Yunho’s dorm with a smile on your face instead of tears running down your cheeks. 

There’s exhaustion pouring out of Yunho by the time he reaches his dorm door. He closes his eyes, rests his forehead against the cool wood of it and lets out a sigh to collect himself. He needs to have the energy to take a shower, after all. 

It’s not as late as he expected it to be, the digital clock on the wall glows blue and neon and lets him know it’s around nine thirty. Good, that’s great. 

He misses you. 

And it’s hard not to think of you when he’s surrounded with people who know you, who bring you up when it’s time to talk about positive results for the company, or the time you organized an event for you mother because your brother had no taste to pick the venue or catering or whatever the fuck they were going on about tonight. 

It didn’t escape him that Sukwon glanced at him every time your parents brought you up and he wonders if it shows in his face just how much he longs to see you again.

He’s thinking about your face when the room unexpectedly lights up and Yeosang is standing on his own bed, in the corner, smiling like a creep. Yunho almost falls as a curse slips past his lips and he stares at his friend like something is deeply wrong with him. 

Because it is. 

It’s almost comical how breathless he is as he asks him: “What the hell is wrong with you?” 

“Hey!” 

“—Standing in the corner like a serial killer.”

“Turn around, Yunho.” 

“What?” 

“Turn,” he repeats, slowly, as he climbs out of the bed, the camera pointed in his direction still. “Around.” 

So he does. 

And what he sees… Confuses him. Until it doesn’t. 

There’s a few things on his bed: There’s some polaroid pictures lined up, different people he doesn’t know in them, all in different traditional attire and Yunho can see there’s inscription in them, the dates all read from early november to two weeks ago. 

There’s tickets to a competition that’s supposed to be sold out. He knows, he tried to get a ticket the second they announced it but couldn’t. The top dance teams are going to battle for some bucks but, most importantly, they’re going to battle to keep the dying scene alive. 

A book titled Why Dance Matters next to a golden retriever plushie with a suit that makes him giggle out of the pure weirdness of it. 

There’s a copy of grease with some signatures in the front. He can make out something that reads as Barry Pearl in it, he thinks. His mind reels at what that means. 

A cd in a clear case with a beautiful sunset and a building he recognizes immediately as the orphanage you took him to. Six silhouettes he can only imagine symbolizes him, Jaemi, Hyunjoon, his brother, Soyi and you. 

But what confirms it’s something you did, it’s the envelope that sits in the middle of it all. It's waxed and sealed with something that looks regal, elegant and, when he picks it up to see the seal up close, he smells your perfume. 

He turns to Yeosang, eyes watery, in request of an explanation. 

“Open it! I’ve been dying to read it but I’m a great friend,” Yeosang almost wiggles with excitement and Yunho’s eyes water a little. “Or so she said.” 

“She was here?” 

“Y/N?” His friend asks in return, weirded out. “Well, yes.” 

“When?” 

“An… hour and something ago.” 

“Where did she go?” 

“Are you okay?” 

He’s speechless, envelope shaking a bit in his hand as he pushes the need to run to you away. He doesn’t know what this means, he doesn’t know what the letter says either. His heartbeats are thumping on his ears and muffling Yeosang’s words a little bit. 

He needs to calm down. 

He needs to read the letter. He’s–

“You’re crying,” Yeosang turns off the camcorder, closing the screen and tossing it softly on his bed before taking a few steps in his direction. Concern is written all over his face, a little bit of guilt too. “I shouldn’t have let her in, right? I knew something was off with you but I had no idea that you two had fought or—” 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Yunho quickly dries off his tears, shaking his head at his friend’s anxious apology. “I just… I missed her so much, Yeo.” 

“Oh.” 

“So fucking much.” 

“Yunho…” He closes his eyes and jumps a little a Yeosang’s sudden embrace, but he’s grateful for it. Envelope trap between his chest and Yeosang’s rib, he takes a bated breath filled with things he can’t quite burden his friend with. 

He remembers Mingi’s words loud and clear, but the only thing Yunho wants to do right now is find where you are so he can see you again. Hug you again. Kiss you again. 

That night, after he realized he had dialed your number by mistake, he had a full on breakdown in Wooyoung’s room and it took Mingi and Mingi’s girlfriend to talk him out of fleeing the country out of embarrassment, out of guilt. He thought back then he had definitely lost you, because the consensus the three of them came to was a ‘let her reach you if she wants to clear things out’ instead of a ‘call her and explain it yourself before she has the chance to reach out to you first’. 

Mingi said you had to at least prove you had any interest in making things right, in fighting to at least keep your friendship with him. 

As he opens up the letter, he immediately knows he should’ve just called you. 

He even forgets Yeosang is right beside him, looking away to give him some privacy to read your words without actually letting go of the embrace, just in case he needs it. Yunho knows this, he’s thankful, his legs shaking with need to go after wherever you are. 

And he’s about to ask again but, as he turns his head to regard his friend and explains the letter a little, he’s one step ahead of him. 

“She’s staying in a hotel, not her house.” Yunho opens and closes his mouth, about to ask him the name of the hotel when he shakes his head. “The luxury one in Itaewon. What? Did you think I would let her go without getting the information first?” 

Yunho shrugs, Yeosang clicks his tongue in disappointment, letting go of him and putting, at least, ten steps between the both of them. 

“She’s very talkative when she’s not with a big crowd, Yun. Now move.” 

“I think I—” He starts to say but stops midway, looking down at the letter and then at his friend again. 

Yeosang gives him a soft smile, the one he curves on his lips when he’s endeared with something, with someone. Yunho went clubbing with him once, he knows the smile very well. 

“I know,” he says in a murmur and then sighs like it’s a task to be around him. “Now, let’s go. We’re going to the same area anyway and I could use the ride. There’s the box.” 

In the car (one he ordered from an app, not his family car), his leg moves up and down and his hands tremble with anticipation and, as the imposing structure of the hotel comes into view while he stares at the window, he swears he feels at ease. 

For the first time in months, he feels like he’s home. 

And it’s all because he’s about to see you again. 

Yeosang is not a very discreet person. He’s soft spoken and he looks like he cares about his friend’s a great deal, but he has that clumsiness of a person who’s used to being transparent about things. 

He asked you if you just got home with a spark of hopefulness in his eye, like he couldn’t wait to clue in Yunho about it, like he knew what he was going to do when he read your letter and saw your gift. 

Yeosang asked you like Yunho had already forgiven you and that had filled you silly head with warmth and hope and expectations you shouldn’t have because, as far as you noticed, Yunho is not the most honest friend to have. 

So you asked yourself if Yeosang knew about the fight, if the rest of his friends knew. 

And you still told Yeosang where you are staying. 

There’s only one lamp helping with lighting up the bedroom, the city outside of it alive and busy like it always is. The amount of lights beyond the river bring you comfort, something familiar spreads on your chest when you take them in and you admit, for the first time in three months plus the week you’ve been staying here, that you love this stupid city even if it makes you feel trapped most of your days.

But here? In this space that you have made yours over the last seven days? You love it. 

Your hair is wet and your face is clean of any product. You told yourself to go about your night routine like you weren’t expecting something else to happen. That way, when it doesn’t because you feel that what you did is unforgivable as much as it is cruel, you won’t be as disappointed. 

So your face is moisturized and you have your nightgown underneath the silk bath this hotel provides and you’re totally not thinking about Yunho being in the same city as you, you are totally not freaking out over the reaction to your gift, you’re chill. 

You’re chilling, you’re cool. 

And the way your heart leaps when you hear a knock at the door means nothing, because you ordered room service like thirty minutes ago. It’s fine. 

He’s probably not showing up. 

So why the hell is he there when you open the door? And where’s your room service when you need it? 

“Yunho!” 

“Y/N…” 

The atmosphere turns weird and tense right away and you grab onto the frame of the door as he stares at you with indecipherable emotion in his eyes. Is he happy to see you? Is he here to curse you out? 

Is he mad? He’s totally upset at you. He is, he’s… Skinnier, just a little bit. His hair is lighter, too, like a brownish blond that suits him and his skin tone and he looks so good even if there’s dark circles under his eyes. 

You missed him so much. 

“Come in! Um…” You say after what feels like hours of silence, of you two just staring at each other with a little disbelief, opening up the room door wider and stepping aside so he can pass right by you. 

His cologne makes you a little dizzy, drives you a little crazier but there’s not enough time to focus on that because he has the box you left earlier in his dorm in one hand and your letter in the other. 

You close the door, taking in a little calming breath that does nothing to appease the erratic beat of your heart. 

The eighty two square meters of this room suddenly feel like ten and when he puts the box down on the coffee table of the immediate tiny living room space of this suite, you feel like it’s over. 

He turns around, a hand on his hip and the shade that the lamp casts on him doesn’t allow you to determine if he’s clenching his jaw or not, if he’s upset or not, if he’s—

Yunho raises his hand, the one holding your letter. 

“What’s this?” 

Oh, he’s so upset. Okay, good, you foresaw this the moment you decided to give him something. It’s okay, you tell yourself as you walk the steps separating you and take the letter from his hand, you can deal with this. 

And, although you have changed a little in the months you didn’t see him, there’s a long way to go before your defensiveness stops being the only way you know how to approach a situation targeting you and your ego. 

“If you didn’t like it, you could’ve just thrown it away or burned it, Yunho, you didn’t have to come all the way here—” 

“Read it to me.” 

You look up at him, blinking once and then twice at his request. 

“Didn’t you—” 

“Princess,” he says, letting out a tiny breath in between his words, “read it to me. Please.” 

Now that you’re physically closer to him, you can pick up this gentleness in his features that you know well. It’s the same expression he had back in the orphanage, when Jiwoo took Jaemi in her arms and he was left staring at you with his cheek pressed on his forearm while he rested on the table. You think about that exact moment a lot, late at night, when the only thing overwhelming your thoughts it’s him. 

You swallow the lump on your throat down as you take out the letter from the envelope. It’s a little dark but there’s really no need for you to read the words when you know them by heart. You wrote and rewrote them at least a hundred times before deciding the letter looked good and that it wasn’t too long, too obnoxious, too sweet, too cringy. Just the right amount of emotion in case it came to bite you in the ass, like now. 

“S-sure,” you let out a sigh, past caring if he sees you’re a little affected by the situation as a whole. “Yunho, I’m sure you’re reading this after seeing the gift layed out in front of you. Take it as an expression of gratitude for all the times the mere thought of you got me through a day, even in this time when we’re supposed to be upset at each other. I think about you a lot and I think about what I did, too. I’m— This all sounds to stupid and formal,” you criticize your own work without thinking it through, frowning and looking up at him. “This letter is supposed to be an apology and it reads like an email.” 

Yunho shakes his head, a tiny smile tugging on his lips. “Go on, please.” 

Sniffing because you feel uncomfy and vulnerable, you continue.  

“I’m sure you’re wondering why now and not three months ago. Well, it takes a lot for me to defy the expectations people put on my shoulders. As you know, my last name is laced with success I didn’t work on and letting go of things you’re used to is hard, but I did. I went away, I learned, I grew up a little bit and in my journey the only constant was you. Not the fight we had, not the way we have treated each other throughout the many years I’ve known you. I’ve always seen your life from the outside even if I was a part of it, I’ve seen your social media posts and wondered if I wasn’t deserving of the same kindness you display to your friends on them but, as you proved to me that I am deserving of it, I understood that it wasn’t your voice in my head telling me I didn’t, it was mine.

“Not my mother’s voice, not anyone else's, but mine. Accepting that was hard but I did it and I did it on my own but as a result of the impact you had on me the second you turned around and held me with the care I now think I deserve.” Something drops on the paper, wets it and blends the ink of the pen you used together and you realize there’s tears running down your cheeks. “I can’t ask you to forgive me for what I did. But just know that I kissed you because I wanted to, not because you were being kind to me. And I pushed you away because, out of everyone that has come and gone from my life, you’re the only person who has the possibility to break my heart and mend it the times you seem fit…” 

You look up and to the side to wipe your tears. You’d pat yourself on the back for how you read this to him, without any stutters or mistakes, but the truth it’s that melancholy swallows you as you reach the end of the letter. It’s more emotional than what you’d remembered, too, now that you’re reading it outloud and in front of the man you love. 

There’s no need for you to read what comes next because you want to say it looking at him. 

“And I’m sorry. I love you and I don’t love you just because we kissed or because we are forced to be together. I love you because you’re part of me, because you’ve always been. I love you and I can’t stand to lose you. Again, I’m sorry,” you repeat, looking down at the words again before finishing in a whisper: “Yours, Y/N.” 

There’s this pregnant silence that follows that makes you fidget on your feet. It takes a second for you to gather yourself together again, wipe your cheeks and look up at Yunho. There’s disbelief in his expression and you wince in preparation for what’s about to follow. 

“Like I said,” you start again, extending the letter to him so he can take it, “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I don’t expect you to do anything, really, a-and I understand if this is all too childish or too cringy for you to say something back. I don’t need you to say something back! Really, I don’t,” you laugh amidst the sudden verbal vomit and shrug, not even looking at him anymore. “I j-just wanted you to know. And I mean it: If you don’t want me that way, it’s completely fine, Jeong. I also settle for being your friend, i-if that’s easier for everyone— For you, if that’s easier for you,” you correct yourself, “because I don’t really care what anyone thinks anymore, including my mother, she can go fuck herself and she can win all she wants if that means keeping you in my life and—” 

He grabs the letter and in a second he uses the tight hold you have on it to push you closer, tearing the paper in the process. 

“Kim Y/N, you big dummy.” 

He lets go of the letter and you do too, hands resting on his chest as you stumble forward a little, the paper falling to your feet as his right hand settles on your cheek, the left one on the nape of your neck. 

“Excuse me?” 

Yunho laughs, breathy and pointed while his eyes scan your face. “You heard me.” 

“Are trying to piss me off, Jeong Yun—” 

This time, when Yunho kisses you, it doesn’t feel new. It doesn’t feel like defiance, it doesn’t feel like you’re breaking the rules or letting your mom win. 

It feels like coming come. 

The ache in your soul stops the second his lips move against yours, deliciously slow and firm while he holds you close. His hands shift, they move the satin robe as they descend and find their place on your back, on your hip. Your chest collides with his with a soft nudge forwards and you sigh against his mouth, welcoming the way his hands tighten on you, feeling finally at ease in his embrace. 

You thought, when preparing his gift, writing the apology letter and then earlier at his dorm, that your self control was something to be admired. Yeah, you love him deeply and all, but you had the restraint to give him the opportunity to decide what he wanted to do with all the things you told him. 

Now you think that there’s nothing in the world that could stop you from kissing his lips raw, from pulling his hair a bit when your fingers tangle in it, from drinking the sound you get in return. 

Fuck your self control. You want Yunho like you never wanted anyone or anything before. 

That’s why you’re grateful when he pumps the break, lips leaving yours and breath on your lips. When you open your eyes, he’s already staring at you. With the way he’s holding you, you barely have to get on your tippy toes to nuzzle his nose against yours with care and the action reminds you of that day at the office, before you fucked up, but the feeling is way different. 

This time, your gut tells you that whatever is about to happen with the two of you is something that’s going to linger, that he’s going to stay one way or another and your heart thumps loudly at the thought of having Yunho in your life forever. 

Four months ago, the thought would’ve given you a headache. 

Now, it heats up your cheeks as his hands return to your face. 

“I’m sorry, I had to kiss you. I also should’ve gone after you that night, in my dorm, I— I’m also sorry, Y/N,” he lets go of you softly, putting a step in between the two of you so he can take your hands in his. “I’m sorry I cornered you in the office and I’m sorry I expected you to just… Drop all of your beliefs and convictions for me. That’s the most delusional thing I’ve ever done.”

“It’s okay—”

“But I love you,” he breathes out and you feel like the air it’s been knocked out of your lungs. “I’m a big pretender, you know? I… I try to be as positive as someone can be, I try to be aloof and I ignore a bunch of things in order to let myself be distracted from what my family expects of me, so I couldn’t understand when you didn’t want to do the same. I do now.

“And I don’t let myself enjoy a bunch of things either, Y/N, but I do allow myself little moments of happiness. When I’m with my friends or when I dance, I tend to have those little moments and then I allowed myself to see you in a new light and I… If I thought those two things brought me some sort of respite from my sorrows, I had no idea you of all people could feel like… Like…”

“Home?” You offer, your voice a sweet whisper full of understanding. 

“Like home.”

He swallows tightly, averting his eyes to the floor for a second. 

“I’m sorry for not returning that call,” he says, his brows creasing a little bit, “I took advice from drunk people in love, so I thought I was doing the right thing by letting you come to me.” 

“I was doing the same,” you whisper back, shrugging his worries away. “Letting you come to me, that is. I couldn’t even— I mean, I should’ve given you all of this in person instead of dropping it off like a scaredy cat.” 

“You did hear the conversation though?” 

“Yeah. Mingi called me a dumbass and I’m not going to forgive him.” 

He laughs, shaking his head in disbelief. “He was right, a little bit.” 

“He called you dumber,” you return, frowning at his jab even though you know he didn’t intend any ill with it. “So yeah, you could say he was right.” 

There’s a few seconds where he just stares: at your hands, twined together with ease and familiarity. At your face, a loving smile lifts the corners of his mouth up before he steps closer again and lets his thumbs trace the curve of your mouth, your cheekbone, your nose. 

“I missed you so much, my love.” 

Oh.

Fuck. 

You warm to the pet name immediately, its significance running through you like a shudder and making you gasp softly, almost imperceptibly. You guess it shows on your expression, the smile on Yunho’s lips widening as his knuckle presses on your cheek gently. 

“You liked that I called you that?”

“Shut up.”

“My love,” he repeats, pecking your lips, “I love you. I’ve… I actually don’t know if I’ve loved you this way all this time, but I’m sure I loved you to some degree. I cared— I care about you.” 

You tear up again. 

That voice that tells you that you don’t deserve him comes back, a distant murmur of it this time, but it’s still there. 

For a good reason, too. 

“Forgive me for being so horrible to you all these years,” he makes a face, like he can’t believe you’re apologizing for that right now. “I wish I could say I did it because I was a vain, stupid child but it was all very much thought through.” 

“I know.”

“And I was horrible. I’ve been thinking about it for weeks now, I—”

His lips press softly against yours again. “Stop it. I was horrible to you too, we were both stupid and childish and we had our reasons.”

“Did we, though?” Your nose scrunches while you truly think about all the times you could’ve been nicer to each other and chose to be mean instead. 

His eyes water a little. You frown, fingers tightening around his wrists, you turn to kiss his palm. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“I just love you a lot,” he sniffs and you catch with your knuckle the tears that roll down his cheeks. He closes his eyes, letting out a breath and untensing his shoulders at the same time. “And it feels so good to be able to say it.” 

“When did you figure it out?” Curiosity takes over you for a second, you allow yourself to wonder about it without any guilt now. 

He hums, thinking about it with a pout on his lips “Like I said, I think I’ve always loved you to some degree. I just… Didn’t know it. I’ve never loved anyone like this before but I think that when I saw you with Jaemi and my heart felt like it was about to come out of my mouth, I kind of knew.” 

“So when I kissed you…”

“I knew,” he nods, “and I should’ve been more insistent when I was trying to talk to you. Go to your house, do something, but I’m… A little inexperienced in this type of stuff.” 

“Because you have no bitc—”

You’re already giggling before he interrupts. “And you love me like I am, so now what?” 

The smile on your lips is so wide you have to look to the side, focus on the shadow of the chair in the tiny living room space for a second to compose yourself. 

It doesn’t really work, because he’s smiling as hard when you turn back to him. 

And then, for the first time since he got here, he seems to notice the length of your hair. He brushes it back with his fingers, the strands barely damp now, and gasps when he reaches the tips at your shoulders. “You cut it!”

With a nod, you laugh at his sudden surprise. “I did, I’m about to get disowned.” 

“Oh, your mom is going to pass out at the very least.” He agrees right away and you laugh again before he joins, his teeth nipping at his lower lip for a second. “She’ll forgive you, though.”

“You think so?”

“You look too beautiful to stay mad at you for long.” 

Oh, your poor heart. You shake your head, diverting the attention from you by brushing the strands of his hair that rest on his forehead back. 

“Blond?” 

“Kind of, yeah. It’s this… Honey something that my hairdresser suggested.” 

Humming, you let your fingernails scratch his scalp gently as they go down, hands resting on his shoulder when you’re done. “They did a great job,” you say before you click your tongue, cocking your head to the side. “Are you sure they weren’t just calling you honey and you misunderstood?” 

His brow lifts, the corner of his lips does as well and he’s ducking his head so he can speak in that cocky tone of his you’re so used to. Only this time, there’s an edge to it that sends a shiver down your spine. 

“And If they did?” 

You know what he’s asking, you know why he’s asking. You find yourself curious about this type of teasing on his behalf, so you allow it to happen.

In your own terms.

“Did it happen?” You return, leaning even closer, hands grasping the lapel of his suit jacket and tugging on it, pretending to smooth it out with your palms afterwards. 

“Princess…” 

When you look at him, there’s this fiery energy that crosses his expression and it makes your imagination run wild with possibilities. 

Now that you both got through the emotional part of your reunion with tears, with overdue confessions and very necessary apologies, what’s left to resolve is this pent up tension that’s always been something more. With the way Yunho behaves sometimes, so proud and tough, you have a vague idea of what it could be like. 

And it makes you giddy with anticipation. 

You would like to turn your assumptions into facts. So you play dumb, fakely perking up when he calls you, blinking with pretend innocence a few times to sell the act. “Hm?” 

Catching the way his jaw ticks at your behavior, you realize that the rush that went through your body every time you got under his skin was not out of the pleasure of winning. 

It was because you liked it. 

Very much so, that the way his eyes scan over your body like he's deciding what to do with you and your attitude make you let out a tiny puff of air that he drinks right up when he crowds you again, hands on your hips and lips on yours once more. 

His mouth doesn't move with any trace of carefulness anymore. Before, you were able to tell he needed to kiss you, longingly, with all the things he couldn't say before on his lips against yours. Now, his tongue makes its way past your teeth and swipes against yours in a way that makes you stumble backwards, almost leaving the tight squeeze of his hands behind. 

Yunho catches you, walks with you until you feel the arm of the tiny couch supporting your weight as well. 

He leans in a little bit to help you up on it, his body immediately in between your legs, his palms making their way downwards. One is on your lower back, thumb absentmindedly caressing the area, and the other one is pressing right next to your leg on the couch so he can bite your lower lip and give both your lungs a bit of a break before diving into your mouth again. You wrap your arms around his neck and keep him close. 

Closer, closer, closer. You need his body pressing against yours as you try to keep up with the intensity of his kisses. You've never been kissed like this before, never with so much love and passion and want and need. 

You've been kissed while drunk and touched while high in the past, you've been fucked by people you don't remember the names of and you had dropped the sleeping around once you graduated college. 

There's so much of your youth you wish you've done sober. Because now, when his tongue catches a soft moan and his hand moves from your lower back to your leg, under your robe, you don't know why you freak out. 

No, you know exactly why. 

Breaking the kiss, you take two seconds to look at the plush of Yunho’s lips after being deliciously smothered with yours. You're both breathing hard, chests rising and falling in tandem and gasps for air filling the room. 

His hand moves higher, measuring your reaction and you know he's about to ask if it's okay to touch you when you grab his wrist and stop his movements. 

“We don't have to—” 

“Is not that,” you say right away but you're both speaking over each other. 

“I mean, there's a lot we need to talk about. I want you to tell me about your trip and—” 

“Sure, we can do that later,” you nod. “Right now, I'm— I mean, let me turn off the light and you can touch me all you want.” 

He frowns. 

“What?” 

Heart picking up for a different reason now, you clear your throat and try to cough the anxiety away. You can talk to him about these things, it's okay. It doesn't really matter how embarrassed you feel once the words come out of your mouth. 

“Um, I went up a few pounds while on the trip and— And that's a good thing!” You say when he looks at you like he's about to tell you that it's okay. “I ate whatever I wanted, it was great, really. I just…” 

“You did?” He asks in a soft, excited whisper.

“I don't know if you'll, um, i-if you're going to like it.” You finish, blinking the shame away. 

Yunho’s expression softens and you take it as an agreement. You've only been touched in the dark, anyways, so you push into his chest a little bit and off his embrace (even if you don't really want to) and start moving towards the only light casting shadows on the room. 

Only to be tugged right back by a firm hand on your arm.

With his chest against you and his lips grazing your ear, you can barely help the way you shudder. There's something hard poking your ass and the apparent size of it has you gulping, salivating even. 

But you have to turn off the light. 

“Come here,” he murmurs and softly moves the both of you to stand in front of the mirror that's next to the entrance. 

Even if you tried not to, it's something you've been avoiding the whole time you've stayed here. The mirror is huge, floor to ceiling and its position it's very elegant, very fitting for the purpose of this suit that's supposed to be reserved for people who need different outfits for different events. 

You haven't really used it other than quickly checking your clothes earlier today, before leaving to go to the dorm and, even then, it was only a quick ten seconds.

It stings a little that, although you've made progress, your body and the way you perceive it still have such a grip on you. When you add the man your heart desires to the mix? Well, there's little to nothing you can do to let go of your insecurities.

The heat of Yunho's body leaves you for a second and he's turning another light, the one closest to the entrance, adjusting its intensity so the ambiance is not broken by the bright glow of it. 

You gulp again when he returns, but melt into his chest when he presses his body against yours again. 

How can you feel so comfortable with him but so uncomfortable with yourself? It's weird, it's strangely very you but you can't even tell him that because the intensity of his gaze when you catch it in the mirror shuts you right up. 

You know he's telling you to listen to him, to notice how serious he is about this as his chin rests on your shoulder. 

“I've called you ugly before, right? I've have actively contributed to your insecurities in a way that I'm not going to forgive myself for, ever,” he starts and the direct approach to it makes you teary eyed all over again. He notices, lips finding your shoulder to comfort you. “The thing is, Y/N, that I never actually meant it. I think I was pissed off because you were— and are so fucking beautiful.” 

You close your eyes and let out a pleading sigh “Yunho…” 

“No,” he says and you feel how he shakes his head, his chin still on your shoulder. “Someone needs to tell you this. You live in your head way too much.” 

He understands. 

You love him so much. 

“Open your eyes, princess.” 

You do. 

“Look at yourself.” 

You don't. You look at him instead. 

He's staring at you through the mirror and he straightens his back to rest his cheek against your temple, the height difference at his advantage because, this way you have to look up at him and it will give away the pure rejection you have for your reflection. 

“I don't think I've ever found someone as beautiful as I found you. When I realized that, that was what pissed me off… Well, I think I somehow buried the thought away but you are so breathtakingly pretty, Y/N.” He takes in a breath and you lose yours, his hand resting on your hip going up and tracing the curve of your waist. “But it doesn't really matter what I think, it matters what you think, hm?” 

Turning his head, his nose presses against your skin now and he leans in, nuzzling softly, with care, until his lips peck your jaw. 

“I can assure you that you can go up a hundred pounds, go down, up again and I wouldn't care. It doesn't matter, I have found you beautiful in every version that you have presented yourself in and I will find you beautiful if you change your whole appearance everyday. I love you,” he reminds you, “and I love everything that you bring along with you. Insecurities, panic attacks and clever insults to my clothing included.” 

The chuckle that you let out makes him smile against your cheek and he gives you a little peck before putting some space between your face and his. He looks you up and down in the mirror again and you can see genuine want in the way his pupils dilate. You see it happening in real time but then you also see his self-restraint. 

You're at a loss for words, but manage to mumble out “Thank you, Yunho.” And then you turn your head, catching his lips in a soft closed mouth kiss that he returns right away. 

“Whenever you're ready to let me prove how beautiful I find you, I'll be here.” He says when you let his mouth move away from yours, your lips softly pecking his jaw instead and getting a sigh in return. “I can wait.” 

Then, the worst thing happens: His hands leave your body and he starts to step away. 

It's a little embarrassing how quickly your entire being protests and you realize that there's a clinginess to you that you're not so sure where it came from. You reach for him, barely turning, and tug him right where he was. 

Looking at him through the mirror again, you enjoy the genuine surprise on his expression and the way it turns into desire when you put his hands on you again: on your stomach, on your hip. 

When you turn your head to look at him directly, his eyes stay fixated on the reflection. His hand on your stomach turns, knuckles softly caressing you. You want to ask him what he likes about that but don't, instead, you tell him what goes on inside your head. 

“Yunho, I do want you. I want you… But I also want to make sure that you like me.” 

He looks at you then, mouth ready to reassure you again but you shake your head to shut him up. 

“I heard you,” you confirm, smiling a bit and then closing your eyes at the visage that accompanies the concept of your body in your mind. You know it's far from what it actually looks like but that also means that you don't know exactly what it looks like and that's terrifying. “I know you love me but would you like me?” 

“I do,” you hear the frown in his voice and take a deep breath before opening your eyes again. “Princess, do you trust me?” 

You nod without a second thought and he leans in, nose almost touching yours. 

“Would you let me show you how much I like you?”

It takes a second or two, but you nod again.

“And would you let me know if it's too much?” 

“Yes,” you breath out, too intoxicated by the closeness, by the way his lips softly trace yours without actually kissing them to think about the implication of his words. 

When he pulls away again, you let out a sound that gives away how much you want him. Yunho’s lips curve and when your eyes finally focus on his again, you can see the quick decision he makes as he looks at the mirror again, resolve and purpose in his expression as he takes off the jacket of his three piece, tossing it on the sofa. 

There's something magnetic in the way he rolls his sleeves up, securing them in his forearms and your eyes follow the motions and trace the veins that you're able to see before he turns away from you. 

He takes one of the chairs he's able to easily mov, placing it behind you both. You realize you've walked a few steps closer to the mirror, and so your back is pressed against it when his attention returns to you, when he takes your face with his hands and crushes his lips against yours without explaining what he just did. 

You brace himself on his forearms, nails pressing on his skin because somehow this kiss feels different. Its pace is not hard to keep up with but it feels like you are, the care he puts in his movements as his palms brush your hair back slowly and then go down, down until they're reaching the knot that keeps your robe closed. 

This time, instead of panic, you feel your stomach flutter. Butterflies all over, there's goosebumps on your skin when he tugs the robe open and feels the satin of your pajamas with his fingers. He makes a noise and, at first, you think it's out of protest because you're not already undressed for him.

But then his knuckles trace the hem of the nightgown and he makes the noise again, tongue flicking against yours harder, getting a moan out of you.

Yunho’s lips find your cheek, your jaw, nipping at the skin of your neck and over your pulse when he gets to it and you close your eyes, head falling against the mirror and head moving to the side so he can kiss every inch of skin if he wants. 

“You smell so fucking good.” 

That makes you smile, a droopy curve to your lips before you bite a sound back “I showered.” 

“You always do,” he whispers into your skin, lips finding your ear. “You always have. Do you know how many times I had to control myself around you?” 

“Hm,” you muse, pretending to think about it. “Do you know how many times you had to?” 

“Oh, trust me princess, I know.” 

He pulls back and you open your eyes. You wonder if yours are carrying the same intensity as his when they go down your body, taking your sleepwear in. 

It's a simple blue v-neck slip dress with some floral lace at the trim lines. It splits on the sides and falls mid-thigh. Something very basic in your opinion, but you don't miss the way his eyes are glued to the skin of your thigh. You're not wearing a bra and your nipples are painfully hard. 

“I didn't actually expect you to come to me tonight,” you lie a little, lips turning up into a shy smile. “So I didn't—” 

“Is this what you wear to sleep?” He interrupts and you watch him gulp. 

“Mhm.” 

“Every night?” 

“Something like this,” you tug at the fabric, softly, “yes.” 

“Fuck.” 

You giggle in return at how affected he seems, but the amusement dies when his eyes return to yours. Holding your hand, he takes a step back and then another and another until he's falling with a thump on the chair he brought close. 

He takes you in one more time before letting go of your hand and manspreading on the chair “Come here, princess.” 

The tone of his voice makes your entire being shake and you take in a breath before following his command. Which is crazy because you never, ever would've followed an order from him. 

But now you can't help yourself. 

Standing in between his legs, you can see when he holds the arms of it after attempting to touch you as soon as you get close enough for him to be able to reach you and, when you're about to straddle his lap, he shakes his head and clicks his tongue in response. 

You understand what he wants immediately and you turn around, watching your reflection in the mirror as you sit down on his legs that he managed to close again in the three seconds it took you to do so. 

You're breathing hard by the time he accommodates you both on the chair, his very clear erection pressing against your ass and lower back and making you dizzy at what you're looking at. 

The image on the mirror is clear, it allows you to see both your reaction and his reaction when you fidget without thinking about it on his lap and the friction it causes brings you a whisper of pleasure. 

“You're a dream, Y/N,” he says and you can tell it came out of his mouth without really thinking about it. Finally, he moves his hands and his nails press on the skin of your shoulders, goosebumps evident and tremor barely concealable when he drags them down the length of your arm and over your hands that rest on top of your knees. 

He covers them with his and you stop following his movements in the mirror to look at his face “Can I?” 

You swallow and then nod and he giggles, this hard facade he has on slipping as he presses a reassuring kiss to your shoulder “Can you say it, my love?” 

“Yes,” you say quickly, your voice betraying you “Please.” 

He closes his eyes, a curse under his breath. “Don't beg me, princess, I got you.” 

You can't help but be curious and, although this is something you can find out as the night goes on, you end up wondering out loud either way: “Why? You don't like it?” 

He shakes his head, that hardness in his expression returns when he opens his eyes to look at you and the curious glint of your expression through the mirror. 

“Do you enjoy it when I beg you, Yunho?” 

And then you slightly move on his lap, trying to pass it like an absentminded movement. 

He sees right through it and the realization shows on his face. 

“Ah,” he laughs, back falling against the chair and head lolling back, “are you going to be a brat, princess?” 

Your mouth quirks at the quick and accurate read he gives your attitude. 

“Of course you are.” 

Again, the bravery your amusement gives you is short lived. He uses his hands over yours to open your legs and his, fast, earning a surprised squeak out of you. Your first instinct is attempting to close them but he huffs and perches your legs on his. You loop your feet around them to avoid falling forward at the lack of things to hold on to. 

This way, your panties are on full display as well. They're simple cotton white panties and there's a wet patch in the middle of them that grows a little at the display, at the image you see in the mirror. 

Yunho curses under his breath again. 

“You're my dream,” he says, a little bit distracted again and then he remembers himself. “I don't like people begging me, I don't give them the time to.” 

Raising your eyebrows, you're about to protest because you don't want to hear about his encounters with anyone else, but he won't let you. 

“One time, I almost had a fight with a friend over teasing. You know her, Mingi's girlfriend,” he says and you don't know if he's smiling at the memory or at the way you squirm under his touch when his fingernails start dragging over the skin of your inner thighs slowly. “I told her the truth: I'm too impatient to tease. She said it's necessary, I said I never needed to tease anyone to get with them and it went on for almost an hour.” 

He reaches the plush that has formed on your inner thighs and you can physically feel your centre growing wetter. 

“I never got it,” he insists and, when he pretends that he's going to touch you where you need it the most only for his touch to go back down the expanse of your thighs, you let out dissatisfied huff. “Now I think I do.” 

“Yunho…”

“You wanted to beg?” He asks, mouth against your ear and hot breath on your cheek. “I can make you beg.” 

You give in almost immediately. 

“Please,” tongue wetting your lips, you attempt to move in order to get some sort of relief but he's quicker than you. Strong hands hold your hips steady and you puff out some air again. “Please touch me.” 

It's clear the whine on your voice affects him because he pants against your cheek, nudges your face with his nose and then dives with his lips to kiss your neck again. 

“Be still, princess.” He commands and you stop trying to wiggle against him, only to rest your back against his chest when he brings his hands down in a caress and holds you fully open for him again. “I got you, but do as I say.” 

He takes your nod as an answer this time and his lips travel down your neck, to the skin of your back and then your shoulder. You watch in the mirror as his teeth catch the strap of your nightgown and, when he speaks again, it's a little muffled because of it.

“Can I take this off you?” 

You take a breath before replying “Yes.” 

And then he slips the strap off your shoulder with his teeth and you swear you're ruined for everyone else entirely. 

There's no way anyone is going to make you tremble like he did just now.

He goes ahead and does the same to the other strap, hand quick in catching the gown from falling completely. 

“Should I?” 

“Yunho… Stop teasing me.” 

He chuckles and takes his time to redo what he just undone: he pulls the strap on your left shoulder up again, switches the hand that's holding your second to last piece of clothing up, and does the same to the other strap. 

“But you look so pretty in it.” 

Your skin heats up harder than ever before. 

“You look so pretty like this, all breathless and ready for me to touch you… Do you know how happy it makes me that I can touch you, princess? That you’re in my lap and not in my head?” 

You swallow back a whine “Y-you thought about me like this?” 

“I dreamed about you like this,” he kisses the nape of your neck and then focuses his attention on the shoulder he neglected before, “for months.” 

You hum in acknowledgement at his words, but your mind is elsewhere because his hands return to their ministrations on your inner thighs and it's hard to concentrate on anything else but the pad of his thumbs ghosting over your panties as they move. 

He finally concedes and lets his hands wander upwards until they get ahold of the hem of the nightgown and, in one swift movement, you're left in nothing but your underwear in front of him. 

Well, in front of the mirror. He's watching the reflection of your body carefully and you can barely spare a look at it, breath caught in your throat at his reaction. 

When he sees your naked torso, he fully lets out a moan. 

You feel slick rush out of you at the sound but don't turn to yourself to verify what exactly about you made him react that way, made him get even harder against your ass. 

“God, look at you.” 

Breathing hard, you turn your head slightly so that your nose touches his and you think he's about to drop it, give in and kiss you when you feel his thumb and index pressing against your cheek, turning your head to the reflection again. 

“Is this okay?” 

You know he's referring to the hold on your face and you mumble out a yes, still looking at him through the mirror. 

“I said, look at yourself.” 

You do. 

Legs open and still perched on top of his, white panties turning a little see through due to your arousement and nipples pebbled in full display, you allow yourself to enjoy the two seconds of clarity before your body starts to shape shift in your head, before your thoughts turn you undesirable and before you fall into your dysmorphia. 

Yunho is right there to catch you, though. 

“Do you know how lucky I am that you're even allowing me to see you like this, Y/N?” 

The hold on your face relaxes and you follow the movement of his hand, down until it settles on your throat, relaxed, not even putting any pressure. 

“Still okay?” 

You nod. 

He puts in slight pressure now and, when you moan, he chuckles but doesn't say anything to acknowledge what makes him laugh. Instead, his hand keeps descending until his fingers rests in between your breasts and then he softly cups one of them, thumb passing over your nipple and making you jump at the sudden contact before letting go. 

“So fucking pretty. You see this?” His fingers take hold of the skin of your tummy that connects with the curve of your waist and he pinches slightly, making you squirm and tickling you a bit. “Everything you are, everything you have makes my heart beat,” he kisses your shoulder again, “and my dick hard,” and again, “and makes me want to prove to you that there's no one in this world that can come close to you, not in my eyes, my love.” 

Oh, my God. 

He says it in a way that makes you want to believe him. And, deep down, you know you do. 

Even though it's complicated, even though it takes effort to make years and years of self-loathing disappear, you know you can try. 

Because you desperately yearn to see yourself from Yunho's point of view. 

This time, when you turn to kiss him, he doesn't put up any restraint. His dominant mask slips off of him for just a second when you grab his face, pliant mouth moving at the rhythm and pace yours is marking, a whine getting muffled with your tongue. 

He gives your legs rest, closing his legs (and, in consequence, yours as well) and, when you tug at his hair so you can mark his neck down at the weird position you're in, he groans and you want to smile but he's searching your lips before you can even leave a bruise on his skin. 

“I love you, I love the way you think about me, I love what you make me want to think about me,” you assure him when you pull back to look at him. His cheeks are red and his lips are swollen and you love the way they're parted as he recovers his breath. 

“Lesson learned?” 

“Mhm,” you kiss his lips again and take the hand resting your waist, bringing it down to your clothed sex so he can feel how wet you are “now please, would you touch me?” 

“Fuck, you really do love to beg, hm?” He says and it's breathy, like he can't actually believe, and he doesn't give you time to respond because he's already kissing you again. “Let's go to bed.” 

“W-wait.” 

“Yeah?” 

The way you glance at the mirror is a dead giveaway of what you truly want. It makes him take in a sharp breath and grab your face in between his hands, fascination written all over his expression. 

“Do you want to watch when I touch you?”

You breathe out a moan in response.

“You want to watch yourself while I make you come?” 

A little shy but with resolve, you nod. 

He curses. 

Next thing you know, your legs are perched over his again and they’re wide open. Your arms fly back to hold onto him, onto anything that helps you not fall on your face but then his perfect, veiny hand presses on your torso and you fall back comfortably into his embrace again. 

He wastes no time, lips marking a path from your shoulder to your neck and fingers ghosting your clit over your panties and you whimper, impatience making you move against his crotch and making him grunt at the friction. 

“I k-know you just s-said you just discovered the joy of t-teasing but can you please do somet— Fuck!” 

His thumb presses on your bundle of nerves over the cotton and you can’t help but shake. 

It has been a while since you’ve even touched yourself truly, with want and need behind. It’s been a while since someone else touched you there, period, so the sensation feels new and you kind of feel like an overly inexperienced woman with the way you can’t help the immediate build up when he starts moving his thumb.  

It’s electric and you notice that your eyes closed the second he touched you, so you remember yourself. You remember what you asked for, what you actually want to see. 

When you open them again and look at Yunho, you find him already looking at you. His parted lips turn into a proud smile when he catches your eye and he nods, kisses trailing up to your ear, teeth nipping at the skin. 

“Good girl.” 

Fuck. 

He stops his movements to let his index, middle and ring finger cup your sex entirely, press into the fabric and let it soak with your arousal. You see in the mirror and you watch, with fascination, how he manages to twist the cotton to the side and expose your pussy for you both to see with the same hand. 

“You’re so wet, princess, I bet you taste so good…” 

Your brain short circuits and malfunctions when he finally touches you without anything in between his skin and yours. His index reaches out and collects the evidence of how much 

you want him, of how much you want him and you moan when the fabric snaps against your pussy when he lets go of it. 

“Do you?”

He toys with the stickiness on with his fingers, rubs it in between them and then brings his hand up so you’re able to see it without the mirror’s help. 

“Look at me,” you do, obedient, “and open up.” 

You open your mouth and allow his fingers to get in and rest against your tongue. You suck out of instinct, eyes never leaving his, and he gulps as he watches you taste yourself until your arousal transfers from his fingers to your tongue. 

“Let me taste it now.” 

Licking into his mouth, the fingers that were previously on yours settle on your throat, not allowing you to fully lean in and kiss him like you want but, instead, letting him have control of it. 

You swear you see stars when he sucks his tongue into his mouth and he hums, pleased with the taste. 

“You taste so fucking good.” 

Letting you go, you’re breathing hard when he pushes you a bit to put some distance between the both of you. 

“Get up and take these off.” He snaps the elastic of your panties and the sting against your skin makes you whine. 

You can’t think, can’t speak, can’t do anything but wait for him to lead your actions and the consensual loss of control feels so freeing that it makes you dizzy. So you oblige, getting off his lap and allowing him to turn you around so that your ass faces the mirror. When you look at him, he’s looking at the reflection and not you, so you decide, with a boost of confidence because of the hunger in his eyes, to give him a little show. 

You bend over, forehead almost touching his chest and proceed to take off your underwear that way. You open your legs a little, giving him a clear view of it when the fabric falls from your legs and pools at your ankles and, when you twist your head to the side to look at his reaction, his tongue is out and licking his bottom lip like he’s starving for it. 

For the first time ever, you feel both sexy and desired at the same time. 

He reaches for your ass in a way you’re not so sure it’s calculated and you fall fully into his chest with a soft moan when he opens you up for him even more. 

“So hot,” he says, low, under his breath, like he’s not even thinking before he speaks and he lets his fingernails drag on your skin (something you’re learning he enjoys doing and that you also like, a lot) until his hands fall to his knees again. “Fuck.” 

He still hasn’t even touched you properly and you already feel drunk on his touch. You feel that way, at least, when you prop your hands against his chest and push yourself up. He turns you around quickly, sits you on his lap with your legs open again and sighs. 

“I’m not going to make you beg for it anymore when all I want to do is watch you come, princess.” 

Arm around your middle, he presses you flush against his chest and takes your right hand in his. It allows you to let go of the grasp you have on him a little and, when he guides your own fingers to your pussy, you get why. 

“Show me how you like it.”

You feel lewd, exposed and dirty in a way you never thought you would enjoy. But here you are, craving 

“Yunho…”

“Show me,” he insists, “so I can learn.” 

Isn’t it a little bit funny that he sounds like he’s the one begging you when he speaks? 

You show him. Starting with collecting a bit of your slick, you drag a finger upwards from your entrance to your clit and then, only when you can see it fully glistening in the mirror, is when you press down and caress it in circular motions that send electricity through you right away. 

As you do with everything, this is something that, although you don’t really have time to even think about doing most of the days, you have perfected. There’s a science to it, a method that you’ve discovered via need and lust and that has never been so thoroughly explored than right now. 

It’s like you have kept your needs like a nasty little secret inside of your heart, just like you did with your love for Yunho, and you’re letting it all out. 

You pick up the pace, alternating from circles to side to side motions and the pleasure quickly becomes overwhelming. Or have you been touching yourself for him for minutes now? Time disappears in every sound you unconsciously let out, it blends with the glint of passion in Yunho’s eyes and it dissolves in an orgasm that quickly takes over you and shakes you forward. 

“That’s it,” he mutters with his lips against your temple and his hands holding you steady. “Now’s my turn.” 

He replaces his hands with yours, bats your fingers away when you try to prolong your pleasure and takes over at a relentless pace, overstimulating you.

It goes on like that for a minute or so where you shake and you readjust in his lap and you shake again when he bucks your hips and you feel him firm against your ass. You desperately want to help him feel this way, too, but there’s only so much you can do when he teases your entrance with his index and finds you relaxed enough to put it in slowly. 

Slowly until it glides in and out smoothly and you hold onto your forearm, and whimper and his name spilling from your lips in bliss when his ring finger joins. You hope you don’t look too delirious, you wish you’re not making a fool of yourself for feeling the heat pool on your lower belly so quickly again. 

“Oh, yes, yes, I’m—” 

“Don’t look at me or what I’m doing, look at yourself.”

Huh?

“W-what?”

“Watch yourself come,” he reiterates, breathless and, when you disobey and look at him through the reflection, he’s already focused on your face, mouth hanging open and brows furrowed with determination. “I want you to see how beautiful you look coming all over my fingers, Y/N.” 

He curves them upwards and the sensation somehow intensifies “Shit.” 

“Come, Y/N.”

You’re not sure if you’re able to prove his words to be true. When you come undone, you’re looking at yourself and in the mirror is someone you don’t exactly recognize. Someone you don’t perceive as yourself because, yes, the person staring back at you is beautiful. And that person looks sexy and sensual and is glowing with pleasure written all over their face but they’re not someone you have categorized in your brain as you. 

And then you understand. This raw, pure, unfiltered state of you is something you hadn’t reached before. Naturally, you had never seen yourself come. And you hadn’t been handled with so much care through an orgasm before, so you lived it fully and then, only when you stop shaking and your legs fall from his and your feet are on the floor, holding your weight steady, is when you allow yourself to look away from your reflection and turn to the man responsible for the best orgasm of your life. 

His lips are quivering, his eyes are closed and his chest rises and falls against your shoulder as he holds you to him. 

“You… Jeong Yunho…” 

He smiles, probably at the way your voice trembles and gives away just how fucked out you already are, but he doesn’t open his eyes  “Yes?” 

“My turn.” 

When he opens his eyes, you’re already standing up in front of him, his hands shifting on your body, the fingers that just made you see stars leaving a wet trail on your skin before they settle on your stomach. 

And, although he seemed tough and dominant just a minute ago, he puts no resistance when you grab his arm and make him stand up as well. You get on your tippy toes to nuzzle his nose with yours and he holds onto you again as you stumble backwards, towards the bedroom. 

“You’re too dressed, Jeong.” 

“Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy me in a dress shirt,” he says, a smug smile in his lips when your back hits a wall and he presses his body to yours, “prepping you to take my coc— F-fuck, princess.”

Your hand teasing his erection over the fabric of his expensive pants is enough to shut him up. Good, you already let him have his fun (and yours, by consequence) and, even if you enjoyed the loss of control, there’s something equal parts rewarding and hot about winning it back with the simple press of your thumb where you believe his leaking tip is. 

“You’re too overconfident sometimes, Jeong,” you whisper against his lips and it may be your two amazing orgasms or the way you love to have something over him, a little bit of power at least, that make you overly confident right now as well. He puckers out to kiss you but you don’t budge. “Want to see if you prepped me right?” 

It’s a question for consent. You have to make sure he wants you this way, too. That this is fun for him, too. And when he pauses your heart feels like it stops for a second, just like time. 

But right after there’s this quiet agreement you both come to and his mouth devours yours as you move in tandem, in coordinated effort to undress him: You loosen his belt and work on the button of his pants while he unbuttons his shirt and both your feet move with synchronized steps until he’s falling on the bed and you’re getting on your knees in front of him. 

He, however, stops you with a hand caressing your face softly. 

“Later,” he mutters with a soft smile that’s laced with something passionate and lewd you feel you’re about to discover. He leans in, teeth catching your bottom lip and pulling until you’re whining and you taste a little blood on your mouth. “I need to fuck you right now.” 

He doesn’t need to tell you twice. You do however make sure to peel his underwear off him while you’re on your knees, the size of him making you wet and ready all over again.

When you stand up, he grabs your tired legs to pull you closer. It feels like a pause in the middle of passionate urgency, but when he takes his time to kiss under your belly button and the expanse of your hips, you feel like it only adds fuel to the fire. 

The fact that he’s even taking the time to explore you makes you want to combust.

“Oh.” He bites you right over your hip bone and you take his hair into your fingers, pulling him back. “Y-you said you needed to fuck me?” 

“I do,” he laughs against your skin and then leans back, taking him with you and you let him, falling on your side before he pushes you against the mattress, body covering yours and palms touching you all over. “I just enjoy taking my time with you.” 

“I can see that, Jeong.” 

He’s distracted again within the second, looking down your body and taking you in like it’s the first time he’s seeing you even though he had a clear view of you and your pussy in the mirror five minutes ago.

And there’s this urge that takes over you, you can’t even fight the words that come out your mouth next.

“Make love to me.” 

He pauses again and then your words register in his brain, you can see the exact moment they hit him and you think you see him tear up a little before he blinks the deep emotion away to focus on the moment. You have to do the same. 

“I will. Every day of my life, if you ask me to, if I’m so lucky to.”

The rest of the night, from the moment he says those words, kisses you and moves you so you’re in the middle of the bed, it all passes in slow motion. 

And it all passes really fast, too. 

Yunho makes love to you. He enters you while looking into your eyes and whispering how much he loves you against your lips and you say it back. He holds your hand as his hips move and his length drags deliciously inside of you. He marks your chest with his lips and your heart with his love and he closes his hands over yours when his pace picks up and he allows to lose himself in the moment too. 

You make love to him as you push him onto his back, his pretty face all flushed, the pink coloring his neck and his chest where you hand rest as you ride him and watch his control slip from him, as you memorize his moans and grunts and as your walls squeeze him in before coming again on his cock and it only takes to firm, hard strides for him to spill himself inside of you as well, the prove of your love making spilling out of you a little when he holds you to his chest and he pulls out of you, both of you sated, both of you in love. 

It feels like an hour has passed when someone speaks again, the silence in the room comfortable and accompanied by the beats of both your hearts. In reality, it’s only been around ten minutes where you’ve closed your eyes and breathed the remnants of Yunho’s cologne, cheek pressed against his chest and his fingers drawing random figures on your naked back. 

You decide to break the silence when you remember something. 

“I think they forgot my room service.” 

There’s a pause and then Yunho is laughing loudly and it makes you smile. His chest vibrates and you can see, on your peripheral, how he covers his eyes with his forearm. 

“I’m being serious, I ordered like three hours ago.” 

“Maybe they knocked and we didn’t hear them,” he mumbles tiredly and you finally look up, chin pressed where your cheek was a second ago. “We were pretty… Busy.” 

“That’s worse, Jeong!” 

“Why?” He asks, genuinely clueless and then it clicks for him. He brings down his arm and opens his eyes wide with shame. “Oh, my God.” 

“Mhm.” 

“How are you going to look the receptionist in the eye?” 

“She knows me, too. She asked me to take a picture with her  when I check out.”

Yunho sighs and says nothing. He looks at you, hand on your back moving until it reaches your face and he lets his knuckles trace your nose in a way that makes you scrunch it. 

“I forgot you were famous.” 

“We both are,” you w-hisper back, lips forming a thin line as you think. “I mean, if someone leaks that we’re both here, it won’t look weird because we’re supposed to be together.” 

“Supposed to?” He frowns. 

“Well, yes, to the public at least.” 

Yunho pouts. 

He pouts and your stomach twists and turns with nerves and butterflies. You’re joking, kind of. 

“Are you not my girlfriend, Y/N?” 

Oh, he’s adorable. It’s so easy to tease him when you’re both not at each other’s throat. 

You wonder if you’ll ever have a fight again, your heart weak for him even when you try to keep the joke going. 

“I haven’t been asked to be anyone’s girlfriend…” 

The deadpan expression that follows your quip breaks your resolve entirely and you laugh, hiding your face on his chest as he mumbles something you don’t catch. 

“What?” You look up at him again. 

“I said that you’re annoying and that you are my girlfriend.” 

“No, I think you said that you love me.”

There’s something so reassuring in the way the annoyance disappears from his expression and it’s replaced by something sweet and he looks like he can barely fight the words back when he replies with: “Yeah, I do.” 

You hum, happy with his response “I thought so.” 

Pressing your cheek against his skin again, there’s only two seconds of silence before his hand is on your shoulder and shaking your body. 

“Say it back, Y/N.” 

“So needy,” you tease and he shakes you again, groaning, so you sigh and pull away from his body to sit up a little. “I love you too.” 

He leans into your space, a blissful smile curving his lips before he pecks your mouth in a sweet, short kiss “Good,” he whispers, falling against the pillows and dragging your body with his so that you’re resting against the soft material as well. “When did you come back?” 

“A week ago.” 

“Hm,” his hands return to your body, fingernails dragging softly up and down your arm, “your family doesn’t know.” 

At the mention of them, you close your eyes and squeeze, reality washing over you. 

“I’m sure my mother does.” 

“She doesn’t,” he assures you, “she would’ve mentioned it by now and she only talks about the project you’re going to lead once you’re back.” 

You open your eyes “What project?” 

“I’m not sure,” he says softly, “I thought you were already leading one?” 

“Something like that,” you nod. “I, um… Was networking in a way, gathering new information on new companies to invest in and help their growth. Small business with original concepts that we can boost or help bring to the city and all of that.” 

“Did you have fun on the trip?” 

“Yeah,” you answer truthfully, “I did. I met a lot of people, I visited places I never even knew existed, I also learned a lot about myself and about what I want… And I got away from Satan for a while.” 

He knows you mean your mom, so he snorts out a laugh and shakes his head at the jab. 

“I missed you a lot, though.” 

His amusement dies slowly but happiness remains on his face. You’re sure yours is a reflection of his, as well. 

“I missed you too,” he answers in a murmur and you nuzzle the hand that reaches your cheek before giving it a kiss. “I’m glad you had fun and it sounds like being away helped but… Never do it again.” 

“Oh?” You try to tease but he insists. 

“Never leave without telling me again, please,” his whisper sounds like a plea and your heart beats louder. “I’ll miss you too much.” 

There’s an impulse, a need that soars through your blood. “I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get away again but, when I do, you can go with me.” 

“I will,” he answers right away and at the confirmation that you want him there with you, you see the tension slip away from his features, “my bags are already packed and all.” 

“I bet they are,” eyes rolling back in annoyance, you press a palm on his chest and push him a little. “Needy.” 

“Shut up.” 

There’s a lot of things to talk about. A lot of things you want to tell him, to mention, to bring up and discuss with him. Like what happens after you leave this bubble you’re floating in, if you tell your brother and his right away, if he’s going to tell his friends or wait until you’re a little far along in the friendship to do so. 

You have to ask him if he wants to tell your parents like… Ever. You’re not so sure you even want to. 

But he shuffles and moves until his naked chest is against yours and his hands are around your body, chin resting on the top of your head as he yawns. 

There’s this feeling of calmness that washes over you as you consider that, maybe, this can be the way you fall asleep from now on. No sleeping or sleepless nights, just Yunho’s embrace and his steady breathing above you, the beat of his heart, a lullaby that lulls you until your eyes are closing and tiredness takes over your senses. 

This time, you dream about a future together and nothing more. 

If you read all the way down here: THANK YOU SO MUCH. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and please remember the next part it's much shorter and would be the end of this mini series!

© jensthwa, 2025.

[okay-babe]

Saw your Alastor request game and HAD to give it a try

A wholesome “ZIP ME”. Alastor helping with getting ready for the day or assist and just shows appreciation 🥰🥰🥰🥰

In love with you for requesting this prompt because I am in such a fluff writing mood rn <3

(Also for my anons who also requested this prompt, I still plan to write something for those as well, so they should be out before too long!)

Morning Routine

tags: alastor x fem! reader, established relationship, extreme levels of fluff, domestic bliss, soft alastor

Throughout your life (and death) you had woken up to many a nice view, from the rivers and lush wetlands of Louisiana to the sight of the city hundreds of feet below you.

And yet, none compared to the view of your beloved when he was half-ready for his day, which was typically the stage at which he woke you from your always deep and well needed slumber.

And today was no different.

Alastor hummed a distantly familiar tune from behind your still sleeping form as he slid in beside you on the bed you shared, body resting atop the covers as he leaned forward to press a kiss behind your ear. In response, you shifted slightly, nose scrunching the smallest bit as your lover's breaths tickled the soft flesh he had so very recently offered his affections to.

Alastor chuckled slightly under his breath at the sight, raising a gloved hand up to the exposed portion of your upper arm to run a feather-light touch down its length, immediately causing you to shiver.

After a few more moments of tickling breaths and nearly fleeting touches, your breathing pattern shifted slightly, eyes blinking open and squinting at the sudden invasion of light that was always there to greet you each morning.

Groaning softly, you were quick to close your eyelids once more, brow furrowed with displeasure at your wakefulness as the Radio Demon laughed beside you.

"Why good morning, dearest, how lovely to see you!"

He teased exuberantly as you huffed in reply, just barely opening your eyes enough to make it obvious that you were glaring at him before closing them once more to yawn.

"Ah ah ah,"

Your lover tutted from beside you, his grin wide and immensely amused as he continued,

"I'm afraid the time for rest is over, my dear. No more exhaustion allowed."

You scoffed in response, only just barely fighting off the urge to flip him off as you sat up slightly, tugging your knees toward your chest and blinking your blurred vision away to the sound of barely moving water and a whispered breeze that always seemed to flow through the far less inhabitable side of the room you and your husband slept in.

Satisfied with your vague efforts to get up for the day, Alastor hummed in contentment, standing just as he always did after waking you so he could continue his typical routine, allowing your hungry eyes to follow him eagerly.

It was like this every morning, and you'd be a fool to believe he didn't know and find some semblance of amusement within it, but even still you couldn't bring yourself to care.

You gained far too much enjoyment from watching your love's lithe and nimble fingers do up the buttons of his shirt and tie the fabric of his bow tie to feel any shame over it.

Or, at least, enough shame to make you stop.

You continued your enraptured staring for several more minutes, eyes trained heavily on the view of the overlord rolling up his sleeves and sliding his belt through the loops of his dress slacks as if he were a modern art exhibit designed to utterly enthrall you.

Your gawking continued all the way up until Alastor turned back toward where you were sitting upon the bed, his head tilted slightly in mock curiosity as he began to approach you once more, donning all but his coat, a sight which made you blush in spite of yourself.

Sure, you had known the demon for an extremely long time and had seen him in far more compromising and promiscuous positions and outfits than this, but still. There was just something about the sight of him, dress shirt sleeves rolled up over his elbows and svelte torso and legs so clearly in view, that made your heart rate quicken inside your chest.

"You're going to be late, you know."

Alastor all but crooned suddenly, snapping you out of your reverie with a few quick blinks and an awkward clear of your throat.

"Huh?"

You asked, sitting up slightly further as your lover began to leisurely unfold the clothing he'd laid out for you at the foot of the bed earlier that morning, no doubt all too aware of how slow you were prone to waking up and hoping to save some time.

The overlord chuckled, a subtle shake of his head highlighting his amusement as he looked in your direction once more, red eyes lingering in a manner that reminded you of just how tremendously the being standing at the end of the bed adored you.

He regarded you with a gentle and exasperated fondness as he replied,

"The reopening is today, dear heart."

He purred, grin as wide as ever as he approached further, extending his hand outward and helping to maneuver you so your legs were hanging off the side of the bed, ignoring the sudden panic in your expression brought on by his words and quickly silencing it before it could be vocalized with a quick press of his lips to yours.

He pulled away slowly afterward, index finger curling beneath your chin and lifting it to ensure you were looking him in the eye,

"And whatever would we do without our darling front desk receptionist there to woo our guests on sight?"

His tone was teasing now, lilting and oh-so amused as he took both of your hands in his and slowly pulled you upward and onto your feet, humming that same distantly familiar tune from earlier all the while.

"Not to worry though."

Alastor continued with a mocking tap of his index finger against the tip of your nose,

"With my help you'll be up and ready with time to spare."

He winked at that, instantly causing you to roll your eyes before knowingly bringing your arms up above your head, causing your love's grin to widen further at your immediate understanding of what was to come.

"Well look at you!"

He cried with feigned surprise and delight as he grasped gently at the hem of your sleep shirt, tugging it upward and over your head with a flourish before he knelt down before you and pulled your underwear downward just the same, his eyes never once leaving yours as he did so.

"You're becoming a regular pro at this, darling."

You scoffed a bit at that, though your lack of exasperation was made clear by the lifted corners of your mouth, never quite able to lay flat with your Alastor around.

Humming a different tune now, the sinner reached behind you on the bed to grasp at a new pair of undergarments for you, holding them open to make them easy to step into before pulling them up and rising with them, laying the fabric flat upon your hips before moving to help you with your bra.

Far too used to this process by now, you simply sighed and let your lover do as he would, your still tired body leaning into his every touch as he ran skilled fingertips up and down your spine and pressed them dexterously into the tense muscles of your shoulders until he felt you were sufficiently relaxed beneath his hands.

Once that was finished, he was quick to have you sit upon the bed, long fingers grabbing at your stockings and garters and bunching them up expertly before sliding them onto your feet and up your soft legs and thighs with ease, though he was notably slower with this task than he'd been with the previous two, taking his time to admire you and allowing his hands to feel your skin before covering it with the fabric in his grasp.

When he was finally satisfied with the state of your stockings, Alastor leaned back slightly, taking in the sight of you with a pleased smile and an ever adoring look in his eye before he placed twin kisses against the skin just above where your garters held your stockings into place, as if in farewell.

It was then and only then, with his desires to admire you satisfied (at least in part) that your beloved grabbed your work attire from the bed. It was something he had chosen for you himself when considering the concept of uniforms, a sweet yet professional looking black dress that you knew from having tried it on a few days prior fit you perfectly, (no doubt because your lover had long since memorized your measurements and given them to the tailor himself).

Pooling the rich fabric at your feet, Alastor looked up at you expectantly, and immediately, you stepped into the middle of it, allowing him to once more pull another garment up your body, rising with it as he had previously with your underwear until your arms were in the sleeves and all there was left to do was zip up the back.

Feeling the cool breeze upon your spine, you shivered slightly, the difference in temperatures striking.

"Al,"

You murmured, adjusting your hair to ensure it wouldn't get in the way of what came next,

"Would you mind?"

Immediately, the overlord was nodding in almost enthusiastic agreement, motioning for you to turn around for him to provide access to the still unzipped portion of your dress.

"Why of course not, dear heart. Let me see."

Blushing at the nickname in spite of it having seen years of persistent use, you did as you were told, turning 180 degrees until you were facing away from your lover, back bared to him so his deft fingers could easily find the gold trimmed zipper there.

Grasping onto the metal between his thumb and forefinger, the demon slowly began to tug it upward with a notable level of patience, his opposite hand moving to your shoulder to push at some of the fabric there until he'd created a patch of bare flesh to press a few soft kisses to, his teeth nipping at you ever so gently from time to time just to make you jump in surprise at the unexpected sensation.

This continued for a few quiet and very much appreciated moments until finally, the overlord moved away with a dramatized sigh, pulling the black fabric of your sleeve back over your shoulder before he finished zipping your dress up the rest of the way.

Hearing your darling take a step back from where he'd been standing just behind you, you were quick to turn around to face him, your smile growing brighter when you saw the immediate fondness and adoration in his eyes, that thinly veiled softness he reserved solely for you so very apparent that it made your heart lurch happily inside of your chest.

"What do you think, Al, am I presentable?"

You asked lightheartedly, giving him a slow spin as if wanting to make sure he saw every possible angle.

Alastor all but scoffed in response, though his eyes betrayed his affections far too obviously, making it easy to tell just how much he was enjoying your slightly slower morning together.

"Don't be silly darling, you're always the belle of the ball."

He teased, reaching out to take one of your hands in his eyes as he spoke, using it to tug you closer until you were nearly chest to chest with him, eyes widened in surprise.

The next thing you knew, his lips were on yours, warm, loving, and slow, before he finally pulled away with a sigh, expression contented and smile exceedingly genuine.

"Come on then, dear."

He said after a moment of silence, stepping away once more to guide you toward the bathroom attached to the room the two of you slept in,

"Let's finish getting you ready before Charlotte sends poor Vagatha after us for being so late."

[just-some-random-blogger]

If I'm Going Too Fast

3 times Bill Weasley offered to help you with your wallpaper and the 1 time he didn't.

Bill Weasley x Reader | 3k+ | cw: fem!reader, fluff, angst, jealousy, irrationality, typos, etc.

A/N: the dividers + title are from the song reptilia by the stokes. also im using the Sweets & Sweeties cafe I thought up for my george (& fred) fics but its not necessarily the same universe.

@agreeeeeeeeeee tagging you because you said you wanted to see a 'i hate everyone but you' fic sksksks.

♦♦♦ Now every time that I look at myself ♦♦♦

"Hi!"

Bill lifts his eyes up from the papers he was reading and does a double take before coming to a stand. He wipes his lips, "hi! Hi... Sorry-"

You walk inside, surveying his office. You immediately spot the open window and the curtains billowing with the cold breeze. You sigh.

Bill notices the paper bag you held and scrambles to tidy his desk. Just as he's about to walk over to you, you walk over to the window.

"It's cold, Bill," you mutter, reaching for the window.

In a few wide strides, he manages to take your wrist. You turn; he takes the bag from your hand and closes the window himself, "I know."

His red hair blows into his face, the last thing the wind does before it is forbidden entry by the glass pane. Bill turns back to you, then inspects the paper bag, though he already knew it was something you got him for lunch.

"Cake," you mutter, stepping forward, to brush his locks to the side.

He lifts his gaze and nods, "thank you, darling."

You raise and knit your brows simultaneously. His cerulean eyes were pinkish from exhaustion. The freckles littered across his cheeks were weighed down by the same pressure weighing his gaze. Still, his dry lips curve into a smile for you. You press your hand to his cheek, "is something wrong?"

His reaction is immediate. He sighs and leans into your touch. He moves the bag away and snakes an arm around your waist, "none more than yesterday," he leans his forehead on your temple, "business as usual."

You would have enjoyed the kiss he pressed on your cheek more if his words actually brought you comfort instead of concern. Business as usual to him was working himself to the bone. Your hand comes to his chest, rubbing up his collar to straighten it, "William."

His shoulders tense. He slowly pulls away.

You share a look and a sigh falls from his lips. He rubs your back, "I'm-"

"Bill, there's another-"

Both your gazes shoot to the door. The man who opened it immediately goes silent at the sight of the two of you.

Bill clenches his jaw, "did you not see her walk into my office?"

"Bill," you turn to him, "he didn't."

"I didn't," the man mutters softly, raising papers, "I was intructed to-"

"I don't care," Bill points, "get out."

The man lowers his gaze and leaves without a single word.

"Bill," you repeat.

He releases his hold on you, unwanting to hear a lecture. He walks back to his desk and waves a hand, "they know better than to disturb me when you're here."

"But you shouldn't have-"

"He should have knocked," he places the bag on his desk, pulling the boxed cake out of the bag. He stares at it for a moment, realizing that it was only one slice. He turns to you with knit brows.

You sigh, "I'm not staying for lunch."

His lips part, "but-"

"I have to go pick up some wallpaper for the store."

"Oh?" he puts the cake down, "what's happened to the walls?"

You shake your head, "nothing. Just want to put new wallpaper."

He nods and walks over, taking your hand, "I can try to leave work early today to help you pick some out."

You let him pull you in again. You smile and prop your hand on his shoulders, momentarily kneading out the strain on his firm muscles, "you know if you have to try, that means you can't, right?"

A line instantly forms between his brows, "I-"

You smother his answer with your lips and wet the dryness of his mouth with your affection. Bill melts, immediately succumbing to your warmth. His arms loop around you, pulling you closer to him, as if eager to fuse your bodies together. Your own arms slink their way around his neck, bringing him closer to your height.

You pull away to catch a breath. He chases after you with a whimper, silently pleading to meld his tongue with yours. You rub your noses together, "don't work too hard, Mr. Weasley."

He furrows his brows as his nostrils flare. He brushes his knuckles against your cheeks, "I promise to try lea-"

"Bill," another man interrupts, "about the— bloody hell-"

Bill snaps over his shoulder, "get the f-"

"Sorry! I'll go-"

"No, wait!" you raise a hand, "I was just leaving." You pull away and kiss his cheek.

"You are?"

You smile sweetly at him before jogging to the door. You smile at the man, who clearly had something important to tell him. You mutter, "good luck."

He clenches his jaw as he turns to Bill.

♦♦♦ "I thought I told you, this world is not for you" ♦♦♦

"There you are."

You turn, finding Bill jogging up to you.

"I've been looking everywhere for you, love," he sighs the moment he is beside you, "why'd you run off?"

You raise a brow at him, feeling a chill run down your spine when his hot hand comes to your bare back, "wearing this dress was a mistake."

Bill pulls his head back, examining your form fitting, drop-back dress, "what? Why would you say that?" he glides his nails up and down your spine, "you look stunning."

Goosebumps form on your arms, "look at what everyone else is wearing."

He doesn't. He tilts his head instead, "what does it matter what everyone else is wearing?"

"Because!" you quip under a whisper, taking a step closer, "this is a work gathering."

"It's a soiree," he squeezes your arms, brows knitting at the feel of your pricked skin. He rubs both of your biceps.

"Yeah," you huff, "with all your co-workers and bosses present."

"You look incredible, baby. Better than anyone here—"

"Bill-"

"I promise you, you wore the perfect dress for the occasion."

"That is not what they're saying."

His smile crumples into a weighted frown, "what?"

You lean your head into your hand.

"Who says?"

"It doesn't matt-"

"No, it does matter," he tilts his head, "did someone give you a hard time over your dress?"

You huff, taking his arm, "it wasn't like that. I just... I overheard a someone mutter something about 'Mr. Weasley's flaunty plus one'."

His jaw slacks.

"I didn't think my back would cause such a scene."

"It shouldn't," he snaps, looking around the room with narrows eyes, "how dare they speak of you like this when I only agreed to attend at your encouragement."

"Hey," you pout at him, "this is a big night for Gringotts."

He turns back to you, "so?"

You tilt your head and take his cheek, "Bill..." you smooth the crease between his brows, "you're one of the reasons why they're celebrating."

"It feels rather opposite right now," he turns to you, "I'd much rather help you pick out wallpaper for your shop."

You chuckle, tucking hair behind his ear, "your brothers already helped me pick out wallpaper, sweetheart."

His lips part, "... they did?"

You nod, "it's bright and floral," you rub his chin, "you'd hate it."

He purses his lips, leaning into you with a disagreeing headshake, "I could never hate something you like."

You chuckle, causing his lips to curl upward. Your eyes widen when he pulls you in for a kiss, feeling his tongue dart out to your lips. You and immediately pull away, "William Arthur Weasley."

"What?" he secures a hand on your hip.

"As if it's not bad enough—"

"Darling, they're already talking," he cuts you off, "might as well give them someone interesting to talk about."

♦♦♦ The room is on fire as she's fixing her hair ♦♦♦

Bill stops in his tracks upon seeing you in the lobby. The suitcase in his hand felt so suddenly like it weighed a tonne. The wand in his coat jacket silently screamed to be drawn and that a hex from its master's lips be drawn with it.

You laugh. It makes his eye twitch.

He calls out your name; it echoes in the large expanse of the room and time stops for a moment.

You turn and only then is your attention averted from the two men who also looked out to see who was calling for you.

"Ah, Weasley," one says, raising a hand to him.

Bill's jaw sets as he strides over.

The other man beside you whispers in your ear. Bill's body tenses at how you cover your mouth as you laugh, only to use the same hand to slap the man's arm.

Bill calls out to you again. You smile, "hello, darling. Ready to go?"

"Oh, no, don't take her away," one slaps a hand on Bill's shoulder, "we've only just started.

"Donovan," the other slap's the hand off Bill, "watch your hand. Lest you get the curse-breaker to curse you."

"Oh," Donovan pulls his hand away, "right, Bartholomew."

You look between the two men and chortle, covering your mouth with your fingers. Donovan, Bartholomew, and Bill look at you. The latter is deeply unimpressed by how you smiled at the two.

"What's got your knickers in a twist now, smarty pants?" Donovan asks.

Bill tenses at the mention of your knickers.

You punch Donovan's shoulder, "it's just so silly that you go by your first names!"

Donovan rubs his arms, feigning injury. Bartholomew tilts his head, "that we go by our first names?" He chuckles, "what should we ought to go by?"

You scoff and stare at them like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Don and Bart."

Don and Bart? Bill's jaw clenches. Who were these ninnyhammers?

They groan at your words where you snigger, reaching out for Bill. When you take his arm and finally come to his side, his irritation is partially tempered, but Don and Bart are still at it.

Bart mutters, "horrendous."

"Agreed," Don shakes his head, "we're not 14 anymore."

"Says the not-14-year-old who still the expression knickers in a twist—" you point, "when I was laughing too!"

Don raises his hands in surrender, "you know what I meant. You're easy to get a reaction out of."

"Yeah," Bart says, "were-"

"How do you know each other?" Bill snaps, patience worn to inexistence.

You recognize his tone and squeeze his arm.

Bill does not turn to you, eyes too busy skimming the two.

You respond gently, "we were batchmates in Hogwarts, love."

"Ah," Bill says through a glare, "you work for the bank now?"

"Yeah," they say in unison, "we-"

Bill doesn't wait; he turns around and starts walking off, bringing you along with him. You whimper, looking over your shoulder as you try to keep up with his long strides, "Bi-"

"How long have they been talking you up?!" he mutters, eyes fixed upon the exit.

"Talking me up?" you mutter as you jog beside him, squeezing his arm as you did, "they weren't-" you gesture with two fingers, "talking me u—"

Bill's dry laughter cuts you off.

You huff, trying to slow him down by pulling him back. He's too strong to stop.

You both reach the door, and the moment you're outside, you yank your arm away from him and pull back, "that wasn't what w-"

"I recognize them," he snaps, hand tightening on the handle of his suitcase, "they were eyeing you in the soiree."

You huff and wrap your arms around yourself when a cold breeze whips between the two of you. Your hair is blown into your face, but you make no move to comb it back, "yeah... they said they saw me at the soiree but couldn't believe that it was me, which was why they didn't appro-"

"They didn't approach because-" he slaps a hand to his chest, "- I was with you."

Your face tenses. You rub your arms.

You watch him pace for a moment. You draw in a deep breath, mentally preparing yourself for how he'll react to what you'll say next, "Don and Bart are my friends. I happen to be glad that they came up and talked to me."

Bill's freezes, his jaw feathering at your admission.

"We were just chatting, Bill," you mutter, finally tucking your hair behind your ear, "I promise you, it was nothing more."

"To you," he motions, "I bet they feel so high and mighty now that they're bankers."

You step forward, "I don't think that. I used to help them with their homework, for Godric's sake. They'll never b-"

"Why didn't you just go to my office?" a line forms between his brows as he shakes his head, "you know you're more than welcome to do so."

You lower your head and shrug, "I don't want you to become mean to-"

"I told you, they know better to—"

"Would you stop cutting me off?" you blurt, face tightening as you look back at him, "had I waited in your office, I would have just stared into space, but a while ago, at least, I got to talk with someone I hadn't in a while."

Bill's shoulder's slump. His face hardens, "what did you even talk about?"

You stare at him for a moment. Irritation rises up your neck, pulling a scoff from your lips, "work. Life."

"Wallpaper?"

You pull your head back, "what?"

"Did you tell them about the wallpaper I was going to help you put up over the weekend?"

You watch his face go red from the cold and his anger. You shake your head in disbelief, "do... do you think I made it look like we aren't together?"

"Well, you might have forgotten that-"

"Everyone in Gringott's knows we're together Bill," you feel your throat tighten, "everyone except you I think."

You both stare at each other for a moment. Bill feels a shiver run down his spine as you brush your hair back, revealing how your eyes sparkled with tears. He huffs and mutters your name.

"Go home by yourself tomorrow," you dismiss, walking off with not a care if he followed or not.

♦♦♦ "You sound so angry, just calm down, you found me" ♦♦♦

The bell at the front door jingles.

"Welcome to Weasley's Wizard Wh-" Fred emerges, "Bill!

Bill looks around, tightening his hold on the flowers he had.

"Aww," Fred places a hand on his chest, "you didn't have to."

Bill pulls the flowers away before his brother can get it. He raises his brows, "they're obviously not for you."

"I beg to differ," he smirks and crosses his arms, "if they weren't, you'd be next door at Sweets & Sweeties havin' a cuppa with your sweetie."

He merely stares at Fred.

"And George," the younger Weasley motions with his head.

"George?" Bill frowns.

Fred nods, "George."

"What's he doing there?" the elder Weasley turns to the wall, as if he could see through it.

"I hate to break it to you, brother, but brother's gone off to steal your girl," Fred walks off, leaving Bill to follow. He knew better than to believe George would ever do such a thing, but it still got him high-strung, just as Fred intended. The latter continues, "he's helping your sweetheart with the wallpaper you were supposed to be helping with while you're too busy being jealous."

"Why'd you think I brought flowers?" Bill snaps.

Fred turns, "for me!" and tries to snatch the flowers.

Bill dodges and pushes him back with a glare.

The younger recoils then clears his throat, "right. So..." he shrugs looking back at Bill, "why are you here then?"

"Because she's not there, Fred!"

"I just told you she's there!"

"WHY WOULD I BE HERE IF I SAW HER-"

"YOU OBVIOUSLY NEED GLASSES, OLD MAN!"

For a moment, the Weasley brothers stare at each other. He gives Fred a searing gaze, but his resolve remains. He knows then he's not lying.

"Unbelievable!" Bill huffs, storming out.

Fred presses his lips together then waves, "come back soon!"

The bell rings again as Bill leaves. He walks over to the shop next door, finding the store to be, indeed, empty. He debates going back in, but he didn't want to be blindsided if in case the twins were in fact playing a trick on him.

He quickly realizes there were no tricks upon hearing the sound of laughter coming from the end of the street.

You and George each had a paper bag clutched to your chest as you walked with your arms linked. He thinks of Fred's words: George was going to steal you. He clenches his jaw, feeling irrational at what was clearly an offhanded teasing remark from his idiot brother.

And yet... there it was, the same impatience he felt just yesterday with Don and Bart. He turns to his feet, crushing the stems of his flowers with how frequently he squeezed them.

"Bill!" he hears his brother call.

He looks up, finding George grinning at him. You merely stared.

"We were just talking about you- aw!" George winces, turning to you, "what? It's true."

Bill stays put as you both walk over. You avoid his gaze, even going as far as hiding behind George. His brother is quick to shimmy out of the way though, "interested in the back of my jumper much?"

You don't have a moment to respond as George takes the paper bag from you, lurching forward in faux struggle, "wow," he exaggeratedly grunts, "this is heavy! I'll go put them inside."

Neither of you speak as George walks into your shop. The bell rings as the door opens and closes. You lick your lips and turn to your feet.

"For you," he offers the flowers.

You slowly look up. You can see he looks like he didn't sleep very well and yet you can't help the words itching inside your mouth, "aren't you worried George is talking me up?"

Bill's nostrils flare.

You clench your teeth.

"I don't like it when we fight," he mutters.

"I'm not fighting," you shrug, "I'm telling you what you told me."

He lowers the flowers. A line forms between his brows, "what do you want me to say?"

Your lips part and your heart drops. Your brows furrow, "wh-" you shake your head, "what did you come here to say?"

"I came here to make peace."

"Oh, but you're not going to apologize?"

He scratches his nose, that was the thing, "I can't help the way I feel."

"What? You shake your head, "what about how I feel?" you quip, "how you made me feel?"

Bill lowers his gaze.

"No, you can't help the way you feel, but you can help the way you react. It's not my fault you think Don and Bart like me."

"I know it isn't but I-" he cuts himself off with a laugh. He brushes his hair back, frustrated by what was happening. He speaks slowly, as if it would help you understand, "I can't help the way I feel."

You look at him in silence.

Bill looks everywhere else but at you.

You cross your arms, feeling your eyes water, "fine," you huff through your nostrils, "I'm sorry talking to my old friends made you feel a way you can't help."

He drops his head then finally turns to you. His stomach drops to see your eyes were now pink and glassy. He speaks your name and steps forward. You pull away when he tries to touch you.

"I-" he whispers, "please don't cry."

You furrow your brows, "that's all you have to say to me?"

"APOLOGIZE YOU IDIOT!" two separate voices call in unison behind two different windows.

You both flinch, then Bill glares at his brothers, pointing the bouquet of flowers at them, "shut it. This is none of your business!"

"Only it is though!" Fred blurts from the inside of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

Bill is about to respond, but then he notices you're about to walk away. He grabs your shoulders, "No— I'm sorry."

You look at him, tears now streaming your cheeks.

"Merlin, I-"

It was too late now. It took him too long to say it. He releases you and you immediately retreat into your shop.

George calls out to you as you go to the back of your store. He then turns to his brother and motions with his head, "what are you waiting for?!"

Guilt bites at Bill, and it's why he figures he shouldn't push you anymore than he already has, "I shouldn't."

"Shouldn't?!" George runs out your shop, "you should be the one helping her with her wallpaper, you absolute buff-"

Bill cuts him off by shoving the flowers into his chest.

He bristles as he watches his older brother walk away, "coward!"

Fred marches to his twin, joining in, "yellow-belly!"

"Ugly!"

"Red head!"

George slaps the flowers on Fred's chest, "we're red heads, idiot."

"No, I'm not," Fred takes the flowers, combing through his bangs, "I've always had an orange undertone in my mane."

George rolls his eyes.

"What? You're just jealous."

[dollscotton]

20:16 • sᴛᴀʀɢɪʀʟ ɪɴᴛᴇʀʟᴜᴅᴇ (NSFW)

♡ dom!husband!Seonghwa x sub!housewife!reader

♡ domestic, smut

♡ WC • 1108

♡ Warnings!! (tags) • multiple positions, breeding, hair pulling, choking, exhibitionism(?), nipple play, creampie, breeding, multiple orgasms, wet dreams, raking. (pls lmk if I missed anything.)

♡ This has been rotting away in my head but I could never get to writing it. Now I've written it in half an hour listening to 'stargirl interlude' (The Weeknd, Lana Del Rey) on loop. It really helped tbh idk why I didn't think of it sooner 😭. Anyways enjoy, enjoy this while I work on my long fics. Lmk if you want a part two ♡♡.

♡ ᴛᴀɢʟɪsᴛ

＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ＊*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙ ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚

   His hands were on your hips, pelvis meeting with your ass every second. The blue strip light of your cabinet illuminated the black marble below, contrasting with your white almond acrylics that desperately wanted to dig into the material as you felt his cock slip in and out of you.

   Your tits moved forward at every smack, threatening to spill out of your apron until they did, cascading like curtains over the neckline. Back arching, his cock hit into you at a deeper angle, making both of you cry out. He leaned down, grabbing you by the waist and breathing into your neck, his words inaudible due to your ears ringing.

   “My perfect little housewife, letting me fuck you for all of the city to see.” Seonghwa grunted, one of his hands coming up to pinch at your erect nipples. You whimper at the slight pain, grinding your ass against his pelvis before he pushes you down, holding the back of your neck and pounding into you at a rough pace.

   “Hwa!” You squealed, now feeling a tingle down your spine at the thought of someone below potentially seeing you; though it was a bustling city your windows were not tinted and it was nighttime. Everyone had a complete view of you being pounded by your husband. Seonghwa always fucked you like this, it was though he actually wanted someone to see. The clerestory windows of your penthouse give the people a full show of your bare form.

   Your husband slowed his pace. “Shh, baby, you want the neighbors to listen in?” He huffed, giving your cheek a firm slap before picking up his pace again. You shook your head, trying your best to keep the noise to a minimum despite the clapping overriding the noise of your television. Ironic, as you turned your head towards the windows.

   “Your logic does not make any sense,” you whined, city lights reflecting off your eyes. “If they can see me, they should hear me.”

   You weren’t sure where the boldness came from, but it definitely did not go unnoticed by Seonghwa, who hummed with a smirk forming on his features. “Yeah? You want a noise complaint, pretty?”

   He didn't wait for an answer, leaning over to grab the television remote and turning it off. Tossing it aside he began his pace once more, grabbing your hair and forcing your head up. “Let them hear you.”

   Tears stung at your eyes at the sudden tug, but you didn’t have time to wipe at them as you already felt the knot in your tummy forming. Your knuckles turned white. Your eyes start to roll back as your noises gradually get louder, as do Seonghwa once his balls start to tighten. 

   His hand snakes around to your clit, middle finger working its magic around the pearl as he moans purposefully in your ear. “You’re gonna make me cum, baby.” He says, making sure to make himself sound extra whiny.

   “,’m cumming,” you blubber, foot thumping against the ground and knee colliding with the cabinet as your lower half spasms around his cock, juices coating him like glaze. Seonghwa’s cock kept moving in and out of you regardless, thrusts starting to stutter and moans getting caught in his throat.

   “Gonna fill you up, 'm gonna fill that pussy…” He trailed off, pausing and holding you firmly against him as he came inside, breeding your little hole. You both groan in contentment, and you pull him out, turning to face him as you sat yourself on the freezing counter. “Again,” you whine, opening your legs.

   Seonghwa didn’t waste any time, pushing back into you and moving at a fluid pace. His arm went up and held the handle of the cabinets above for support, the other hand playing with your tits and wrapping around your throat.

   “Oh fuck me,” you sniffle, looking into his eyes. Your eyes shifted between looking into his and where you two met. He threw his head back, letting out a dry chuckle mixed in with a guttural moan. “You’re fucking crying.” he mused, tightening his grip.

    “I love it, I love it Hwa,” you whimper pathetically, locking your legs around his waist to pull him closer. Your grip on the counter’s sharp edges tightened, the edge digging into your palm. Your fingers were going to ache soon. “Love it so much.”

   “You just love this cock so much, baby.” he grunts, shuddering at the feeling of your gummy walls clamping around his sensitive tip. “It’s gonna breed you so much.”

    Seonghwa’s face leaned into yours, taking in your expression. His pretty little housewife, all spread and open for him to breed. The hand that was wrapped around the handle of the counter went down to your thigh, raking his nails into it. His balls started to tighten once more, his cock felt harder inside you. You looked down at where you met before looking back up into his eyes, sharp as slits. 

   Your husband leaned down to suck harshly at your jaw, hand still on your throat, and hand now gliding over your under thigh as he started spurting into you again. The squelching sounds now increased in volume. You could feel the mix of your juices drooling out of your pussy and down to the rim of your asshole, making you moan softly and your eyes shut at the warmness.

   “Pretty girl,” Seonghwa cooed, placing a soft kiss on your forehead. His hand rubbed your shoulder as the warmness of your body slowly dissolved, only feeling the sweat on your back and wetness between your legs. 

   You slowly opened your eyes as your head came to again, your senses coming down from the intense session. Seonghwa kept crooning at you.

   “That’s a good girl, open your eyes baby.” he said, still rubbing your arm. Your eyes fully opened again, being met with your pillow.

   “You’re awake,” Seonghwa murmured softly, hovering over you. You looked up at him, blinking unnoticed tears away. You could tell by his expression that he was amused, though his eyes were soft as they admired your sleepy features. “,’m felt so good,” you babble mindlessly, thighs closing. The discomfort of sweat now gets to you as you sit up.

   “Poor thing, having wet dreams again. You’re like a pup in its rut, darling.” Seonghwa ruffles your hair, “grinding and wetting against the sheets again. You’re all drenched.”

   You heat up at the revelation, sighing deeply and leaning forward into your husband’s neck in embarrassment, who pets and scratches at your scalp and nape comfortingly. He chuckles softly; “Don’t frown, I’ll take care of you, baby.”

[maximwtf]

“Should have known better.”

Kinich x Reader

Words: 2500

Google Docs Pages: 4.1

Warnings: Kinich character story spoilers, angst/hurt w comfort/good ending, saurian death?, platonic relationship

Opening: Kinich is not one for strong reactions, even when dealing with bigger issues. But does his composure falter when a pressure point from the past is pressed?

AN// G/N Reader. Tell me why I completely missed out on Kinich lore even after getting him the first day the banner came out :”D ANYWAY now that I’m in the loop, this just had to be done. Likely not going to write for him again, just felt like doing this one. Hehe, anyway I’ll now disappear to work on another Capitano fic ;; (Was excited about that so I'm sorry if the ending of this is ooc and/or rushed)

“Should have known better.”

Tagging along with Kinich while he was on the job wasn’t something you were used to doing often. But on the other hand, you knew he didn’t mind having you there. Company apart from Ajaw seemed to be something he craved every now and then, not that you blamed him for that. Plus, you never asked for any portion of the funds he was going to get for the commissions even after helping him complete it. Simply enjoying the time spent with him, which had been hard for him to understand in the beginning. Why would someone work on a commission for free, only taking his company as payment? But by now, he seemed to not mind whenever you tagged along. 

And it wasn’t like you were completely useless either. A rather seasoned warrior and a fighter as you were, allowed him to get through commissions faster which wasn’t something he’d turn down especially if it was for free. 

The area this time wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen before. Some high cliffs that surely would have frightened the less seasoned, but by this point standing on the edge of one didn’t stir those feelings within anymore. Not even while in the heat of battle, like now. 

Your eyes followed Kinich, hooked onto a saurian after having just gotten rid of one. The pack was rather large this time, having caused so much trouble for the people near the cliffs that they’d asked for help from Kinich. 

Your attention was brought back to the situation at hand soon after. Dodging the saurian’s hook, taking a little more speed into your steps before raising your weapon against it. Eyes keen to follow each step of the creature, making sure the hit would land. But while your attention was occupied, Kinich noticed another one  behind you. An easy target, really. It hadn’t even targeted you yet, so getting it to fall off of the cliff would have been easier than having to spend time on fighting it. Kinich loaded his shot, aiming with practised ease and watching to make sure it hit the creature. Though, as soon as it did the saurian managed to hook itself onto your ankle before the explosion ultimately made it lose its balance. Slipping off of the cliff and into the ravine. Affectively throwing you off of your feet with the heavy pull, quickly starting to drag your form along with it down the steep drop. 

There wasn’t any vegetation to take a hold of, grassy ground with dried bushes and a few flowers. Your hands grasped the ground, digging up dirt along the way. Attempting to kick the hook off of your ankle, but it held on tight. Especially when the saurian was basically dead weight in the ravine. Hanging off of you, making its hold ever stronger.

Your eyes quickly moved to Kinich, aware how little there was you could do anymore. A moment flashing by as pure desperate panic flooded your eyes, no words coming out in the moment. Focused solely on trying to get your body back up as it was actively being dragged into what seemed like the end. But your companion appeared frozen. 

Kinich had but a few moments to react, if even that. Having noticed the hook attached itself and soon after you were already hanging on the edge. Grasping at anything nearby to hold on. But even that feeble moment had been enough to make his mind run a course into a dark pit of memories. 

The young yet such a tough boy who’d been chased out by his father. And by a mere mistake, had watched his by then fragile father stumble. Taking a step back a little too close to the edge of the cliff, and with a heavy thud land on the bottom. 

How his body had frozen just as it had on this day. How his whole body had felt the tremble going through it, something he’d never felt before. A warm pressure at the back of his eyes as his body began to move towards the edge. How he’d seen what remained at the bottom of what seemed like an endless drop, having pulled himself back straight after. Chest tightening by the minute. The young yet such a tough man from then on clutching his small hands into fists. Fighting the tears back down, gritting his teeth as his mind raced. The situation was more of a mess than anything he’d seen before. Yet by some miracle he was able to numb his mind enough to push himself back onto his feet and find a grapple hook to bring his father to proper rest. 

But all that was then. Something he thought he wouldn’t have to ever think about again. Yet the lump in his throat as he approached the edge of the cliff proved him otherwise. But what was he so frightened of? And just then, he heard a thud. Something that echoed for but a mere moment. But a sound that felt like something in him had shattered. No rational thought of ‘I haven’t even seen what happened yet’ was able to ease his mind.  Yet his body felt almost as if it was moving on its own. It had been from the moment he’d watched your fingers slip off the edge. Hurrying there to see what could be salvaged. 

Even if his mind had seemingly decided the fate of the situation, his body hadn’t. He wouldn’t allow something like this to happen again. This was not a way to go, for anyone. Least of all you. 

You felt the ground under your hands slip, the last bit of the cliff giving in under the weight. Falling alongside you and the saurian. The speed of the fall was so frightening you could have sworn your heart stopped beating for a minute, before even the thought of doing your all to survive came to mind. 

The walls of the ravine in certain parts were tight enough for roots to connect from one side to another. Not all of them would support the weight of a human, but a few of the older ones were thick enough to be worthy enough to give it a try. To try and wedge yourself between a pair of them. 

And by a miracle, the Night Kingdom wasn’t going to have you on this day. Not now, at the very least. You’d managed to grip a pair of the roots. Gravel, dirt and smaller rocks trickling down the sides of the ravine at the sudden pull on the old roots. For a moment fearing they would give out like the edge of the cliff had. 

You held your breath, eyes widened. As if even the most subtle movement would restart the fall. Even the saurian had mostly stopped thrashing around, almost like even it understood the gravity of the situation. And if it did, that was a problem. The roots weren’t going to hold up the weight of you and the saurian. It had to go for a chance to get back up to even be possible. 

As soon as the air stilled, confirmed the roots were going to allow you a chance. To watch you fight for your life while hanging off of them by your arms. You started kicking the saurian, wiggling and moving the ankle it was attached to. The hook’s hold had slipped earlier when you’d lodged yourself between the roots, so it was no surprise that the already frightened saurian couldn’t hold on for longer. Its hold slipping, keeping you on the edge up until you heard the loud thud that echoed at the very bottom of the ravine. 

The air was so still, only the sound of your heavy breathing and soft trickle of the gravel that fell from the walls of the ravine. Following the fate of the saurian. Leaving you hanging before even thinking of trying to find a more stable spot between the roots. Kinich being still up on the cliff having slipped your mind completely. Focusing all your energy and instinct on finding the most suitable spot to get on before even attempting to come up with a plan to get back up. 

Kinich so desperately wanted to hesitate, not look down the ravine. Not after the thud that had echoed from the bottom of it. The sound that had stirred those memories to resurface, powerful enough to make him wonder if he even wanted to check and confirm the source of the sound. 

But then again, Kinich couldn't just leave and assume what had happened. Peeking over the edge, keen eyes scanning the bottom of the ravine. Only being able to spot the saurian, unmoving at the bottom. His brows furrowed, eyes moving across the walls of the ravine in confusion. A silent breath escaping him after spotting your form lodged between the roots, having heard the rustle of the dirt falling down from around the roots. Not even giving himself time to be relieved before his mind started ticking. Trying to figure out a way to fish you back up. 

“Hold on, I’ll reel you back up.” He called out, voice stoic as ever. And if you hadn’t been in such an attention requiring situation, you could have heard the slight waver in his voice. 

You peered up, merely seeing the man’s shadow before he disappeared off of the cliff edge. Way to leave someone hanging, you thought. A slight snarl appearing on your face before at last making it close enough to the wall of the ravine to calm down for a moment.

Soon a few rocks fell from the top, catching your attention. A grappling hook slowly lowered itself to your level before Kinich appeared at the top. “Wrap it around yourself.” He instructed, the same tone of voice still there. Doing his all to hold it together. Panicking now would only lead to worse losses, and that wasn’t a price he was willing to pay. 

Though, he would have been a fool to not admit the way he was feeling. Having noticed how his hands had shook while fetching the hook. How his breath had hitched at the thud, how tense he felt even now. 

The tug at the end of the rope caught his attention, peering back down to make sure you were securely attached to the grappling hook. 

Trying your best to help him, you used the wall closest to you. Placing the tip of your boot to each crevice you could spot, making the weight a little lighter for him. 

Soon a heavy breath escaped your lips when the familiar grass appeared back into view, crawling back on the top of the cliff. Kinich taking a hold of you, easily lifting your form back up. Dragging you rather far from the edge without even noticing before he let go. 

You allowed yourself to lay on your back, breathing heavily as the seriousness of the situation slowly started to sink in. Staring at the sky, following the few clouds that travelled across in that time. Turning to look at Kinich, watching as he hadn’t allowed himself to sit down. Leaned against his knees, hair hiding most of his face as he stared at the grass. Breaths heavy. A relieved yet tense silence between the two of you. 

Observing him a little longer, it wasn’t hard to tell that he’d clearly been shaken up by the events. And maybe it hadn’t hit you just as hard yet, but you felt almost worse for him than yourself. It wasn’t often that you nor anyone else saw him like this. 

With a silent groan you sat back up, thinking for a moment before deciding to speak up. “You couldn’t have known it would attach itself to me…It’s okay.” Knowing he wasn’t going to let this slip with you merely telling him that it wasn’t his fault, yet still trying. He wasn't the kind of person to not blame himself when he’d been involved in something like this. “No, I should have known. Waited for you to get out of its range. I knew better than that.” Kinich replied, voice surprisingly calm as he stood back up. Completely dismissing your earlier forgiveness. 

You couldn’t get a word in after, not that there was much you could say. He wouldn’t believe you if you kept telling him that he was not at fault here. Merely watching as he kneeled in front of you, eyes scanning your form before doing a more thorough check up for injuries. Lifting each of your limbs, moving them to make sure that nothing was out of place. Mumbling something about the adrenaline wearing off soon and having to check up on you after that again. Gaining him a slight eye roll from you. 

The chuckle you let out couldn’t hide the nervousness still deep in your system, still feeling the need to make him understand. To make him listen, it wasn’t his fault. That there was no reason to think of how it had happened, but to move on and be glad you’d both made it out in one piece. 

You took a hold of his hand, stopping it from wandering around your form. Obsessively checking that everything was okay. Giving him a look before pulling the man down to sit and calm down. Feeling his hand still tremble, clear that he was still on edge about this.

You may have not known everything of his past, and you didn’t have to. No matter what he may have encountered before you’d even met him didn’t matter now. He was allowed to be shocked and panicked, but what you firmly believed he shouldn’t do was to force himself to be so uptight. To make himself move on so quickly. Especially when that didn’t seem to be an unconscious choice, it was one he forced himself to make. 

“Hey, we’re both alive and well…mostly in one piece. Calm down, eh?” You tried to smile at him. Watching as his eyes stared into yours, careful as he eased out and more willingly sat down. A breath escaping him, giving in. If just a little. 

You placed his hand against your chest, breathing calmly. In a way an attempt to calm yourself at the same time, maybe tricking your brain by doing this for him. Watching as wind so high up in the cliffs blew against the both of you, sitting there in silence. Waiting until the initial shock wore off. 

And likely would have waited for longer. If it hadn’t been for the subtle grunt that escaped you when letting go of his hand. Likely having sprained something in your shoulder due to the fall. But it was enough to bring Kinich back on track, quick in his actions as he tugged you back onto your feet. Mumbling something about not wasting any more time and having to go find a medic. Gaining him another eye roll.

[megamuscle885-blog]

Skitter Flow

We're so s-small in the end man.

She wanted pussy but I gave her trauma. Haha.

Opp was talkin crazy. Shot him in both timelines.

We're out here smokin the shit that'll send you to the birdcage.

I have no loyalty for anyone. Never did, never will.

My money longer than Pale. My money longer than a Grey Boy loop.

Popped a xanny and wiped out every op within the state.

Fed him spiders. Made his ass a statistical outlier.

The worms are back.

I'm on twelve vicodins smokin that shardspace bisexual warrior monk cultivated sidepiece myrrdin deluxe cauldron reserve hashish. Shit will send you into a trigger vision, it'll have you witness Crystal God Whales.

Shorty told me no tongue so I made her gag on it.

The opps cut up shorty's face so I took two thirds of his gang in the divorce. Sent his ass into a two year coma. Froze him solid in a whole other dimension. Turned that motherfucker into a footnote at his own execution.

I don't give a fuck if I go blind, I don't need to see the price tag anyway. [The Undersiders laughing in the background. Scapegoat expresses his disbelief.]

I'm wearin that darwin bark spider gucci. Haters in shambles, dressed in their mom's pantyhose. Everyone can see your gross dick son. Should get that checked out.

I love drugs. I love drugs.

This miasma got me making out with them butch puppygirls. Changed the trajectory of her life.

The bugs are back. [Long pause followed by howling laughter from the Undersiders.]

This fight was over the moment I stepped into the room, cunt.

These cops are interrogatin me about this S-Class gamer girl as if I hadn't left their new boss buried under a freshly poured concrete foundation not two hundred feet away.

I'm out here huffin those bakuda bomb brain blasters. Shit will give you a concussion. I'm numb to all forms of pain.

Ventilated that three year old nazi with the gold plated glock to spare her ass the torment nexus.

This zaza will turn your skin translucent and make your skeleton visible. This zaza will turn you into a teenage mutant ninja salamander with LSD spit. This zaza will turn you into solid carbide titanium.

I only handed back the free world cuz I was bored.

I'm eatin that premium challenger pussy juice marinated Fugly Burger meal. The Endbringers are all I think about.

All I need is a pack of newports and the touch of a woman, and I'll fight God.

AAAAH! The worms!

You keep talkin mad shit for someone who still has eyeballs. I don't fuck with warning shots, jit.

There are bugs under your skin.

I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!

Made her choke on it so hard they had to weekend at bernie's her ass.

Surrounded by pussy but I chose war. These lesbians screamin their hearts out. I'm sorry babe.

Fuck it, cut ties.

They forgot I'm her.

This shit's so small in the end man.

[sometimeslwish]

Santa (Saintess)

The song started playing while I was at the dentist waiting for my turn and the brainworms took over, so now we have this. It ends abruptly because I couldn't get myself to continue it or give it a better ending.

Tags: Sylus x reader, genderless reader, reader could be mc (depends on what you want to imagine), fluff, dancing, implied hispanic speaking reader, little bit domestic, suggestive.

No more than three seconds into the song and you went for your phone, quickly raising the volume of the music. You didn't know what the song had, but it felt like crack. The effect of it never wore off, always getting you to lose yourself in the song and dance and sing.

Este deseo, no lo puedo negar (This desire, I can't deny it)

De mirar tus labios, no puedo parar (Looking at your lips, I can't stop)

Rehusando nuestros cuerpos (Refusing our bodies)

Sudando como en el desierto (sweating like in the desert)

Images of Sylus popped in your head and you couldn't help the small grin as you imagined the both of you dancing together to the song. You'd have to teach him, or at least guide him in some way, you weren't sure he'd listen or even dance to this particular type of songs. Then again, you hadn't been sure Sylus would've been the type to sing or dance in the first place so, maybe he'd do it if you asked nicely enough.

Mami, es que tu me encantas (Baby, it's just that I love* you)

A ti yo te rezo, mi santa (I'll pray to you, my saint)

Una diabla, como baila (A devil, the way she dances)

Ninguna en la disco te alcanza (No girl in the disco can keep up with you)

No no no, es que tu me encantas

A ti yo te rezo, mi santa (I'll pray to you, my saint)

Una diabla, como baila (A she-devil, the way she dances)

Ninguna en la disco te alcanza (No girl in the disco can keep up with you)

You continued singing as you cooked, dancing softly to the beat and losing yourself into the music. Unbeknownst to you, the man staring in your little daydreams was currently leaning against the door frame, with a fond yet hungry look on his face as he admired your form. He'd been there since near the end of the song, before you had chosen to put it on loop to continue dancing. Your voice had been akin to a siren call, beckoning him closer into the depths and he'd never been one to deny himself of you. He had been content on quietly enjoying your voice, but you'd looped the song and started dancing, and his attention had remained on your hips after that, following every move like a man entranced.

Oh, my baby, do me like ogbono

You drive me to your place

I move with your rhythm and base

I move to your rhythm and base

Maybe he should take notes from the singer, get you to ride him next time and experience the wonders of your hips moving on him.

"Shit-" You yelped, wielding the spatula like one would a dagger, your stance ready to throw hands, "Sylus!" You dragged the vocals in admonishment, relaxing as best as you could with a racing heart, and you took your headphones off as you put the spatula down. His chuckle in response was rich, much like the man himself, and you scowled at the warm feelings it brought. How dare he, when he'd just startled your soul off of your body. He pulled you closer, kissing your forehead before nuzzling your nose and resting his forehead against yours. Your arms wrapped around his waist, and with his scent and warmth, your heart was able to calm down.

"Good morning, sweetie."

"Morning, Sy-sy," you didn't bother correcting him. The n-109 zone was dark no matter the time, and even if it was evening in Linkon, it didn't matter much when he'd just woken up. You raised a hand to run your fingers through his hair, fixing his bedhead in the process, and the relaxed sigh he let out through his nose was akin to a pur, or the soft rumble of a dragon. Your dragon.

You hummed softly before raising on your tippy toes to kiss his cheeks, leaving many kisses all over them. He looked too soft, it was starting to give you cuteness aggression.

"I didn't know you could dance like that," his hands moved from your waist to your hips under the excuse of stabilizing you, the tips of his fingers sneaking under the fabric of your pants and your underwear. You had the impulse to bite his cheek but decided against it once you remembered the food you where making.

"Oh, hold on, the food." You pulled away, against his better wishes, and hummed along to the song. Unlike before, you didn't have Sylus attached to you as you moved, so you settled for swaying. "Want me to teach you how to dance like that?" You asked as you started cleaning up the kitchen, packing away what you no longer needed while waiting for the food to be ready.

*Translating this one was tricky cause there's many words in both the English and Spanish language for me to choose from. "Encantas" translates more to the giddy feeling of delight you get, but it's also a way of saying "I love you" so... yeah

[seiwas]

₊˚⊹｡ 20/20 | oikawa tooru

wc: 931 summary: oikawa finally gets around to doing lasik.  contains: mentions of lasik eye procedure, lots of cheesiness, too sweet!! there are ants!!, vague mentions of ldr in case that’s triggering for anyone! could be read as gn! a/n: super belated birthday post for our july 20 birthday boy! i hc that oikawa’s eyesight is bad and gets worse as he gets older -> why he needs to get lasik done!! i love him!! he’s a big baby!! also inspired by one of the prompts from @/nightprompts's list of prompts here.

comments, tags, and reblogs are greatly appreciated ♡

Oikawa finally gets his Lasik procedure done during one of his off seasons. 

Thank god, because you honestly think it’s been a long time coming. His eyesight from high school has only gotten progressively worse since going pro—contacts drying his eyes out the longer and more intensely he plays. 

There’s a sigh, then, “Wooow,” Oikawa squints, scrunching his nose to form (those cute) little creases near the corners of his eyes. You look at him, concerned, worried that the light is too much for him post-op. “I really can’t see, baby.” 

You’re about to reach for the cap tucked in your bag before he stops you by the wrist, continuing, “You’re blinding me with your pretty.” There’s that (damned) smirk on his face when he says it too—like he’s been preparing for this moment since he finally agreed to getting Lasik. 

Honestly, you wouldn’t be surprised if this was the exact reason he finally did decide on pushing through with the procedure.

You remove his fingers from your wrist and hold his hand gently, rolling your eyes as you lead him down the steps of the eye clinic. The corners of your lips curve up, a familiar warmth blooming in your chest. You should be immune to him by now, but your body seems to have a reflex that reacts every time Oikawa tries to make you blush.

He raises a hand to shade his eyes, blinking a few times before fully opening them slowly. And what a sight it is: you, looking up at him from the last step of the stairs, trying hard to hide the smile he knows he’s responsible for. 

“Baby, stop smiling so brightly. I still have light sensitivity.” 

You laugh, the sweetest sound he’s ever heard. He hops down the last step and lands right beside you. 

“How long have you been waiting to use those?” you tug at his hand for him to lean down little, placing the cap you’d fished out from your bag on top of his messy brown hair. 

“As if you don’t like it, meanie.” Oikawa pouts, and his lips jut out ever so slightly to expose light pink. 

You smile even wider, shaking your head as you readjust his cap to settle amidst wavy hair. Your fingers trail down to play with the tips of his ears as they coax him lower for you to land a small peck at the tip of his nose. 

“M’sorry. I like it, Tooru, but I think we should set another doctor’s appointment.” your eyes meet his as you hold back a giggle. He raises his eyebrow, questioning. “I think you might have caught a serious bug–” you pause for emphasis, “–the love bug.” 

There’s a look of disbelief on his face, brown eyes wide and mouth agape. You burst out laughing. 

“You’re even worse than me! And you call me cheesy?!”

You loop your arm around Oikawa’s as you walk to the car, still laughing as he continues to mumble about how you’re seriously starting to take after him. The walk to the car isn’t too far from the clinic entrance, but it takes you a bit longer considering you’re essentially guiding a 6’ 1” pro-athlete densely packed with muscle straight out of his Lasik procedure. 

When you first heard the real reason why Oikawa evaded the procedure for so long, you thought he was joking.

You thought he’d held it off because he was busy, or that he was afraid of the entire thing (if ‘lasik eye surgery procedure video’ in his search history was anything to go by), but nope. Oikawa’s biggest concern was that he wouldn’t be able to clearly see you. For a day, or maybe two—at least until the aftereffects of light sensitivity disappear. He’d shared it to you so shyly, as if he hasn’t already bared to you the contents of his heart (full of volleyball, and friends, but most especially you). 

And it’s cheesy (which isn’t far off from his usual sweet-talking), but it’s true. 

One of the things Oikawa hates the most is missing moments of you—the in-betweens of breakfasts and skincare by the bathroom sink, those long tangents you go on about a dog you’d seen on the street in the middle of recounting your day. Since getting more free time in his career, Oikawa’s always chosen to spend those few extra hours on you. 

It’s hard enough as is, spending half the year communicating through phone screens. To compromise that because he’d be ‘sensitive to light’ or something was enough of a dealbreaker already. 

So here you were, tending to your big baby of a boyfriend who lives half the world away. You really wanted your trip to be a surprise—after all, lining up your holiday with his off season has only happened one other time despite your many years together. 

But if this was the only way to convince your pro-loverboy that he didn’t have to worry about not being able to see you, because you’d be around him anyway, then so be it. Anything for him. 

.

Once Oikawa settles in the car, he’s knocked out, sleeping by the passenger seat as you drive yourselves back to the apartment.

The next few days find you guiding Oikawa around like a baby learning how to walk. He’s constantly stumbling, picking up things he’s not supposed to, and ‘accidentally’ bumping into you any chance he gets. You know he’s exaggerating, but he wouldn’t be your Tooru if he wasn’t, and you love that about him. Fully. Wholly. 

You wouldn’t have him any other way. 

[ceasarslegion]

caesar. ceasar who was mysweetstruggles. why. hitler kin? what. what. hello???

Mysweetstruggles was a blog that existed for a wild, wild few months way back in the day. I was still in high school when the whole thing happened.

When the height of tumblr kin drama was tearing this site's reading comprehension asunder, folks claimed that "kinning" something meant that you literally, actually, legitimately were whatever character or object you claimed to kin. If you kinned komaeda, it's because you believed you literally were komaeda. This was complete with claims about having "kin memories," which were repressed memories of your past lives of whatever you kinned. The kin drama often came in the form of other kinnies demanding you face "accountability" for the actions of the mostly fictional characters folks would kin, and claims of others "faking it" by being "doubles" of yours. As if uh... as if komaeda is a real person and not a guy a writer came up with. On the other end of the spectrum, people were writing callout posts for folks who tagged their art as "kin" for either kin drama reasons or because they were so anti-kinning that they looped back around to being extremists in their own right.

It was a weird place to be. Nowadays when people claim to "kin" something it's mostly because they really identify with that thing or historical person or character, not because they claim they literally ARE that thing. Let's all breathe easy and count our blessings that that fresh piece of hell is over.

Anyway, mysweetstruggles came onto the scene in the height of the old kin drama. She claimed that she was kin with uh... Adolf Hitler. She claimed that she was Hitler in a past life and that she she reborn as a neurodivergent Jewish girl so she could "atone for [her] past sins." For obvious reasons, this stirred a lot of shit at the time, because it was also the height of when tumblr thought that reading American Psycho meant that you personally wanted to murder all sex workers with axes irl. Not that I'm equating these two, I'm pointing out that the morality crusaders were even worse then than they are now, so a blog like this got a LOT more attention than it probably should have.

Anyway, it went on for a while where she would post about how sorry she was for the holocaust in the unique crytyping style of when you wanted to communicate that you were upset or ashamed of something on the 2010s internet. She got tons of asks asking what the hell was wrong with her and she'd post every single one with replies about how she "couldn't control her kin" and how "she had memories of her past that had to be hitler" and that she realized she was kin with Hitler during history class when she recognized her kin memories as Hitler's.

In the middle of all this, she would also post aesthetic edits of weimer republic cinema and things that looked both German and from the 1940s at the same time, suspiciously. It was never outright swastikas but it was about 2 steps removed from a roman eagle and an iron cross.

And then when all the hate she inevitably got from this came to a head, she made an absolutely legendary post where she claimed to be her older sister, claiming that all the tumblr hate had led to the cops being called on their house, that "Addy" was arrested for having a mental breakdown, dragged to an "insane asylum," and that she was never going to be let out again. It had a good dollop of "you guys did this by hating on a teenage girl who claimed she was reincarnated Hitler."

The blog stayed up for a good few months after that post and then was deactivated for good. But you can still find screenshots of her posts if you type her URL into Google images

EDIT: I FORGOT ABOUT HER CLAIM THAT HITLER WAS GAY AND THAT HOMOPHOBIA WAS WHY HE WAS FORCED TO DATE EVA BRAUN INSTEAD OF HERMAN GÖRING...

[cinnamongorll]

Unburied - Chapter 1 🫀

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Original Female Character Summary: Recently pardoned for his crimes as the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes is expected to rebuild his life, but the ghosts of his past force him to remain in the shadows. Elise Monroe, an assistant at a biotech company, is drowning in the demands of her job and her boss’s ambitions. When their worlds collide, a fragile friendship forms, but Bucky’s haunted history plunges Elise into a web of vengeance and hidden truths. As the tension between them builds, so do the threats that lurk in the shadows. In a world of uncertainty, one thing is clear: Bucky’s past won’t stay buried for long. Tags: slow burn, friends to lovers, pov first person, pov third person, multiple povs, eventual smut, violence & gore, ANGST, protective Bucky, mutual pining Word count: 5.1k

next chapter | masterlist | ao3

_________________________________

Chapter 1:

‘THE WINTER SOLDIER PARDONED.’ 

The words, printed in bold, track across the bottom of the TV screen on a constant loop. 

In the corner,  a blurred CCTV photo of the Winter Soldier appears. A black mask covers the bottom half of his face, his hair conceals the rest. The focal point, though, is his large metal arm, frozen mid swing, inches away from landing a blow to America’s hero. 

Beside it, an aged photo of ‘Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes’ from 1941, off to fight in the war. He stands against a brick wall, his cap slanted on his head, his uniform crisp. It’s the smile on his face, the light in his eyes that makes it difficult for Bucky to look away. 

The reporters’ voices grow louder, more animated, and finally, Bucky manages to tear his eyes away from the two echoes of himself on the screen. 

“Now, I believe we should consider this a threat to our national security, Joe. How can we ensure that a man with this kind of history isn’t going to hurt anyone again?” The bald man on the screen declares. His face grows redder with each heated word, making his eyes bulge and his collar tighten. 

“The White House has made it clear that James Buchanan Barnes is no longer under HYDRA’S control,” Joe responds, cutting a nervous glance at the camera. “We have to trust their judgement in this manner” he adds, shuffling the papers in front of him with a hollow smile. 

The red faced man scoffs, seemingly unfussed about criticising the president’s decisions on live television.

“Come on! He’s a trained assassin! He can speak god knows how many languages, can use every weapon known to man. He has a metal arm for pete’s sake! This kind of being should not be allowed to walk the streets.” 

The screen flashes with another CCTV image of the winter soldier. Bucky’s hand curls around the remote. 

Joe straightens and his plastered smile falters for a second before he fixes it. 

“You do make a point there, Seth, but we have to remember that James Barnes was once a hero. He fought the Nazis -” 

“And how many Nazis has he helped since then?” Red faced Seth cuts him off, leaning back as he lets the viewers at home absorb his words. 

Joe sighs deeply and glances to the left, clearly urging his director to wrap this segment up. He looks down at his papers again before speaking. 

“The reports say he was brainwashed, frozen for years at a time. Many might consider him a sympathetic character -” 

“Those sympathies do not outway the pain he has inflicted,” Seth interrupts again, louder this time as he leans forward. “A tragic backstory does not make him less dangerous.” 

There’s a sharp cracking sound. Bucky looks down to find the remote mangled in his metal hand. He instantly relaxes his grip but the damage is done, the broken fragments of plastic fall to the floor next to his feet.

Dread floods his body, muffling the reporters’ voices. Bucky flexes his hand, watching as the glow from the TV reflects off the shined vibranium.   

The reminder of his pardon still trails across the bottom of the screen. He knows that the panic will have died down by tomorrow, gone in a week, but right now, his face, albeit blurred, is splattered across every TV in the country. 

He found out about his pardon weeks ago, when he passed the psych evaluation and was told about his mandatory weekly therapy sessions. It didn’t surprise him, though, that they waited to release the news to the press. Better to hold off, see if he’ll slip up and start killing people before they make their decision public. 

Bucky wipes his flesh hand across the bottom of his face, rubbing his thumb along the stubble on his jaw. He sighs deeply as his eyebrows pinch together.

It doesn’t take long for the reporters’ voices to break through his panic. 

“Thanks, Seth for joining us tonight and sharing your… passionate views on the topic.” Joe turns back to the camera, his voice drops as his smile fades. “James Buchanan Barnes is pardoned. The Winter Soldier is gone. That’s all for tonight.” 

He glances down, shuffles his papers. The camera cuts to the weather girl giving her nighttime report. 

Bucky stands so quickly the couch moves backwards. He stalks across the room to his small kitchenette, swiping his baseball cap and gloves from the counter and striding towards his apartment door, footsteps heavy.

The air is cool when Bucky steps out onto the street. A frigid gust of wind grazes his cheek, ruffling his recently chopped hair. He pauses in a shaded part of the street and pulls on the baseball cap and gloves, a precaution for anonymity, not a defense against the chill. Bucky is used to the cold. 

He begins walking, his chin dripped and his gloved hands shoved in the pockets of his leather bomber jacket. The streets are quiet, it must be near 11pm, but Brooklyn is still bright, projecting a warm glow to light his way. Bucky tucks himself closer to the buildings he walks past, choosing to remain in the shadows. 

“How can we ensure that a man with this kind of history isn’t going to hurt anyone again?” 

Bucky clenches his jaw, his boots strike harder across the pavement. 

“This kind of being should not be allowed to walk the streets.” 

His hands curl into fists. 

“The pain he has inflicted” 

A muscle jumps in his cheek. 

“The Winter Soldier is gone.”

Bucky releases a breath, resembling a scoff. 

With each step he can feel that heavy sensation crawling over his body, the one that reminds him of his strength, what he’s truly capable of. 

Bucky might have his mind back but his body still belongs to the Winter Soldier. 

All of HYDRA’S training: languages, surveillance, hand to hand combat, firearms, explosives. None of it has disappeared. Bucky is still as deadly as before. The only difference is that now he can choose whether or not to kill. 

Without realising, Bucky scans his surroundings, searching for cameras, threats, places to hide. It’s a habit he can’t break. 

Maybe Seth has a point. Maybe people should be wary of him. 

The cafe is just up ahead, Bucky slows his pace, not wanting to rush inside and scare the other customers. Not that there would be many at this time. “Maggie’s” is open 24 hours but it’s usually dead after 10pm, other than the occasional late night coffee drinker like himself. 

Bucky isn’t sure how much caffeine actually works on him, he suspects that the super soldier serum dulls its effectiveness, but if there’s even a small chance it will keep him from falling asleep, he’ll take it. 

His gloved hand pushes against the glass door, fogged up with age and grime. A bell rings softly as he steps inside. The smell of burnt coffee and old wood hits him immediately, welcoming him back. 

The place is empty, apart from a woman in the back corner, typing rapidly on her laptop with two empty mugs beside her. Bucky’s eyes don’t linger for long, he quickly dismisses her as a  threat. He doesn’t have to worry about being recognised, either. She doesn’t even look up from her screen. 

Bucky rolls his shoulders and walks up to the counter. Maggie is there, wiping invisible dirt off the red vinyl top. Her grey hair is tucked up in a bun, reading glasses sit perched on her head. She smiles when she notices him, the wrinkles around her eyes creasing with recognition. 

“Evenin’ soldier,” Maggie greets in her husky voice, tossing her rag over her shoulder.

Bucky stiffens, as he always does when Maggie uses that nickname. The first time she called him “soldier” he was so shocked, so stoked with panic that he asked her what she meant before he could stop himself. 

“Ah, I can spot y’all from a mile off,” she had replied, scanning her watery blue eyes up and down his rigid figure. “You’ve all got that same look. Too still, too quiet - like a coiled spring. Just waitin’ for someone to give you orders.” 

Bucky shifts under Maggie’s sharp, observant stare. He dips his chin in greeting, causing the rim of his cap to cover a little more of his face. 

“The usual, huh?” she asks, not waiting for an answer, already shuffling over to the coffee machine. Bucky lets out a slow breath and leans an arm against the counter top. Maggie isn’t one for conversation either, thankfully. The only sounds are the soft clink of a coffee mug and the hiss of the machine. 

He can’t help it, Bucky’s eyes subtly scan every inch of the place as he waits, carefully titling his body to check each corner. Still just the woman with her laptop and empty mugs. This time, when his eyes graze over her, his quick stare is a little more assessing. 

Her hair, somewhere between blonde and brown, is pulled back into a haphazard ponytail. A tousled fringe frames her face but doesn’t cover her eyes, dark and razor sharp, as they flicker across the laptop screen, reflecting the bright glow. 

She looks to be in her late 20s, slender build, average height, her movements controlled, posture relaxed but upright, no visible weapons - 

Stop. Bucky urges himself, blinking rapidly. She’s not a threat. 

“Here ya go, soldier,” Maggie says, her voice cutting through his mental checklist, as she presses the ceramic mug into his gloved hand. Its warmth bleeds through the leather, dull and distant. 

The bitter smell of cheap coffee momentarily grounds him. Bucky pulls a crumpled $10 bill from his back pocket and lays it on the red countertop. It’s too much for coffee, but Maggie doesn’t complain. The cash register dings as he turns and begins walking to his usual seat, in the opposite corner to the woman with the laptop.  

The chair is made of plastic, he imagines most people would find it uncomfortable but Bucky is content. He can see the whole cafe from this angle. Every possible threat laid bare in the dim light. A slow, steady breath leaves his mouth. 

Bucky lifts the mug to his lips and takes a sip. The coffee is bitter, sharp on his tongue. But it’s hot and he savours the burn as it goes down. He glances out the window, watching the rain pick up, splattering the foggy glass, making the lights outside even more blurry. 

Minutes crawl by. The clock on the wall reads 11:30pm. Bucky swallows the rest of his coffee, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the vinyl table top. After a moment, he realises that he’s unintentionally matching the pace of the woman’s typing. The clatter of keys is deafening in the empty cafe. 

He wonders what she’s doing on that laptop. Something important, surely, or else she wouldn’t be here until almost midnight. Maybe she’s wondering why he’s here too. 

Bucky adjusts his position in the seat, flexing his gloved hands against his dark jeans. In a few hours, the sun will be up and he’ll have to face the day. His next therapy appointment is in the morning. Dr. Raynor will ask him if he’s had any more nightmares. He’ll tell her he hasn’t. 

Will it still be lying if he doesn’t sleep? 

Bucky is picturing the frown on her face when the door swings open, the bell clattering against the frame. 

Behind the counter, Maggie jumps. Bucky even notices, from the corner of his eye, that the woman in the corner stops typing for a second before resuming her rapid pace. 

Bucky doesn’t move an inch. He finds it difficult to be startled. It’s like that human instinct was trained out of him. 

Instead, he subtly shifts back in his chair, becoming invisible as the newcomer enters. The air shifts with the cold draft that follows him in. 

Male. Late 40s. About six foot. Roughly 200 pounds. Dark jacket. Heavy boots. No obvious weapon. 

The newcomer walks swiftly to the counter, no wasted steps. Bucky doesn’t stare, but his peripheral vision is keen, analytical. 

He orders a coffee, handing Maggie some coins, then tucks his hands into his pockets, looking around. 

That’s when Bucky notices it. A brief moment, a flicker of attention. He follows the tilt of the man’s head across the room to the woman on her laptop, still too absorbed to notice her surroundings. 

Bucky can’t see the newcomer’s expression but the look lingers long enough for his instincts to kick in. The ones trained into him. Bucky’s posture remains relaxed, casual, but there’s a new stillness to his body. A tension beneath the surface. 

The man takes his mug from the counter. His hand is calloused, rough. Probably works in some sort of manual labour. With his coffee in hand, he pauses, considering, before he crosses the room, not even glancing Bucky’s way, and plants himself down at the table next to the woman. 

Bucky’s lips twitch into a thin, unreadable line. His vibranium fingers flex once, then still. 

The clatter of keys slows to a crawl and, for the first time, Bucky watches as the woman’s eyes lift from the laptop. 

Dark brown, he notes.

In a flash, they’re gone. Back to the screen like they never left. Her typing picks up again, but the pace is different. Aggressive at first, quick and urgent, and then slow, distracted. 

Beside her, the man leans back in his seat, rolling his broad shoulders. He sips his coffee with a casualness that could only be manufactured. Legs spread, fingers tapping against the ceramic mug like he’s inviting attention. 

The man doesn’t look over at the woman directly, but there’s a pattern to his movements. A glance in her direction between sips, his body turned just slightly, not making it obvious. Testing the distance. 

Bucky catches the slightest shift in the woman's shoulders, stiffening as she straightens her spine. 

He grinds his teeth. A subtle shift in his jaw, a flicker of a muscle that betrays every murderous thought running through his mind. 

The man clears his throat. In the quiet cafe, it might as well be a gunshot. 

The woman flinches. Her typing halts, fingers hovering over the keyboard. 

Bucky shifts in his seat. The first visible movement he’s made since the man walked through the door. He begins to hope that the man looks over at him, begs for it, actually. 

Another sip. The man smacks his lips, makes a sound low in his throat. 

The woman exhales sharply through her nose, and takes a final, longing look at her screen. She closes her laptop with a quiet snap and reaches for her bag. Not rushed or panicked. Just done. 

Bucky’s fingers flex against his knee, then still. His shoulders ease, just barely, but his jaw remains tight. He watches, heavy lidded, tracking her movements. 

The man isn’t so subtle. His thick, oil-slick gaze roams over her as she gathers her things and tugs on her black trench coat. 

The woman stands carefully, adjusting the strap on her bag, before sliding through the gap between the two tables. She doesn’t rush, her movements are purposeful, eyes locked on the exit. 

Bucky inhales a soft, woody musk as she passes his table, not even looking in his direction. 

The bell jingles softly as she steps out, into the night. 

The air in the cafe shifts. Heavier, somehow, in the emptiness that follows. 

Light eyes, hooded but biting, flick towards Bucky’s table. It’s only a glance, brief but deliberate. It’s enough for Bucky to feel that heavy sensation crawl across his body again, settling in the weight of his vibranium arm. 

Bucky tilts his head in acknowledgement, it’s subtle but unmissable. His stare is undisguised. His expression unreadable. 

For a moment, neither of the men move. Sounds reduce to the hum of the refrigerator in the back, rain hitting the windows, and the scratch of Maggie’s pen, working on her crossword. 

A normal person might have flinched, when the man’s chair scraped against the tiled floor, sending a screech ricocheting through the room. But Bucky just narrows his eyes, studying his response, concluding its predictability.  

The man stands, his cheeks sporting a faint red glow. He adjusts the cuff of his sleeve then lifts his mug, draining its contents in one long gulp, and sets it down with a deliberate thud. 

He doesn’t look Bucky’s way as he walks to the door. 

The bell rings again, harsher this time. A warning to the night air. 

Bucky watches him go, the door swinging shut behind him. 

He exhales slowly, waits a beat. 

Then, just as smoothly, Bucky rises from his chair and follows. 

The smell of the rain hits him with the first step outside, boots splashing in a puddle. The “Maggie’s” sign glows neon red above him, illuminating the beads of water that roll down his leather jacket. 

He blinks, angling his head, letting car horns and distant music fade into the background. The feeling in his gut takes priority. It’s a churning sensation, muscle memory. His mind ticks like a clock.

There. To his left. The man. 

Bucky’s not following him. Not yet. He’s just walking in the same direction, pace even, enjoying the night air. But a tension lingers, pressing against his ribs, nudging him forward. 

Bucky shoves his hands in his pockets. His eyes are scanning the street in front of him, tracking the man, analysing his movements, calculating threat levels. 

A man heading home wouldn’t be so cautious with his steps, wouldn’t hold his shoulders so tight, wouldn’t glance behind him, then pretend he didn’t. 

Bucky keeps a careful distance. Out of sight but never out of range. There one second. Gone another. Invisible. Alert. 

He adopts this persona a little too easily, embracing the cold detachment without resistance. 

“This kind of being should not be allowed to walk the streets.” 

Bucky’s steps falter, just a little. Enough for his mask to crack. 

He imagines his conversation with Dr. Raynor in the morning. 

“What did you get up to last night?” she’ll ask, glancing between him and her notebook. Pen poised over the page, ready to translate his furrowed brow and grumbled answers in her sharp scrawl.

“Oh nothing. Just followed a man four blocks home because he looked at a woman wrong.”

Bucky cringes and lets out a dry, humourless laugh. 

Paranoid? Probably. But Bucky wasn’t betting on it. 

The man is still moving at a decent pace. Determined. Confident. 

Bucky inhales, slow and deep. The damp air clings to his skin, thick with the scent of wet pavement and gasoline. 

Just go home, he urges the man. Don’t make any trouble. Bucky’s hands curl into fists in his jacket pockets.

Up ahead, the man turns. The movement is so sharp, so calculated. Bucky’s instincts snap into place like the bars of a cage. 

He knows that move. Knows what it looks like when someone spots their target. 

Before he can react, before he can track the man’s new path, a door beside him bursts open. A young couple tumble out into the street, hands in each other’s hair, lips on skin. 

Bucky steps out of the way, muscles tightening. It’s only a split second. But it’s enough to put a considerable distance between himself and the man. 

He quickens his pace, scanning the street. Searching for that purposeful gait.

The pressure on his ribs grows, pressing harder, constricting his breath. His heartbeat remains steady. His focus sharp. 

Then - there. 

Bucky’s head whips to the side, following the flash from the corner of his eye. 

An alleyway. The man, walking, quicker. Following something. Someone. 

Bucky turns so fast the night breeze whooshes in his ears. He stalks towards the alley, vision focusing with each step. 

It grows quieter. The noise of the street dissolves. The air is thicker, heavy with a feeling he knows all too well. 

The light fades at the gap between buildings. The streetlight’s orange glow dilutes to a pale echo, circling the alley’s entrance.

The alleyway is long, narrow. Its darkness stretches, ending in a faint glimmer. 

The scent of garbage is striking, intensified by the rain. Bins are overfilled, spilling over. 

Bucky hesitates. Pausing at the mouth of the alley. Reality tugs at the edges of his mind. No cold words have been spoken. No electrical currents have flooded his brain. He can keep walking, bet on his own paranoia. 

He rolls his shoulders. Not tonight. 

Bucky steps into the blackness, following a shadow. 

No, two shadows. 

There’s a vague shape of movement at the far end. A figure. 

The man isn’t just walking towards it. His posture has changed, his steps fall into a pattern that matches Bucky’s. 

Predatory. 

Bucky loosens a breath, slows his steps. Frigid instincts dictate his every movement. 

Slowly, carefully, he takes his hands out his pockets. Flexing his fingers, testing his control. His head tilts, only slightly, keeping the man in his periphery as he scans the rest of the alley. 

Footsteps silent, heels barely skimming the wet ground as he balances his weight. Ready. 

The man moves. Locking in on his target. 

The figure at the end of the alley. A silhouette against the streetlight’s remaining brightness. Dark jacket. Tousled hair. 

She’s turning, just slightly. There’s a flicker of her profile. 

Recognition slams into him. 

Her. 

Paranoia be damned. 

Something cold flares inside him, ice floods every vein. Muscle memory overrides. 

His weight shifts, he moves, vibranium arm raised. 

Too late. 

A sharp grunt. A body hits the wall. 

Bucky stops short, boots skidding against the concrete. His mind is computing, struggling to catch up with the sight in front of him. 

The man. Pinned to the wall. Knife to his throat. Sharp silver reflecting the light from the end of the alley. 

Bucky’s eyes shift to the woman. Her breathing is ragged. Stance steady. Her grip on the knife is strong. 

But there’s a tremble to her hands, betraying her shock. 

The man’s eyes are wide, frozen in his panic. He looks down at the woman like he’s seeing her for the first time. The victim in his mind has vanished. Replaced by a predator. 

Bucky swallows. His muscles are coiled tight, desperate for release. But he waits for a signal, a struggle. 

The woman turns. Her dark gaze snaps to him. 

It’s wild, burning, frightened. 

Then it shifts, her eyes narrow. Something registers beyond her panic. 

She recognises him. 

Fear bolts through him. Then, no, he realises, not from the news - from the cafe. 

Bucky can see the moment she pieces it together. Her eyes flick between him and the man. 

No, he wants to say. I’m not with him. 

She inhales, sharp and sudden. Her grip on the knife tightens, the point grazes the man’s thick, leathered flesh. His skull presses against the brick. 

The look she throws Bucky’s way is repulsed. 

“Are you next?” she demands, a slight tremble cloaking her words but not quite disguising their bite. 

Bucky watches her carefully. A heartbeat passes between them. Her gaze doesn’t falter. 

He raises his gloved hands slightly, just enough to show he’s not a threat. His posture is casual but his muscles remain tight. 

“Relax,” he answers, voice calm. “Not here to hurt you.” He nods towards the knife in her hand. “Or to get stabbed.” 

His tone is even, dry, but there’s a sincerity in his eyes.

She just stares back. Expression unreadable.  

“Wouldn’t be the first time, but I’m really not interested.” Bucky deadpans, lowering his hands as he shifts his stance, feeling her out, testing the tension. 

Her eyes don’t leave his face. 

“So, what? You just follow women into dark alleys?” she accuses, shifting on her feet, flexing her fingers around the knife. 

“No,” he denies quickly, a slight furrow forming in his brow. He nods towards the man. “I was following him.” 

The man’s body jerks as the knife digs deeper, biting his skin. Blood beads at the wound and rolls down his neck. 

The woman blinks, her breathing hitches. Her eyes flash with something - guilt, maybe. She clearly didn’t mean to press that hard. A slow, shaky breath releases from her lips. 

Unease begins to build beneath Bucky’s skin. His gaze sharpens, instincts taking over. 

The man pinned to the wall is only seconds away from realising that her grip on the knife has loosened slightly. One quick grab would have her disarmed. 

A second passes. Bucky sees the man’s shoulders stiffen. The shift of his jaw. The twitch of his hand. 

He catches the woman’s eyes. There’s a flicker of hesitation there. She doesn’t know where to go from here. Not sure what to do. 

She doesn’t know whether to trust him. 

Then it happens. 

The man moves, hand snatching for the metal blade. 

Instead, it meets vibranium. 

Bucky steps forward, his hand slamming around the man’s wrist. Twisting it at such an angle that the man releases a sharp hiss from between his teeth. 

The knife clatters to the wet concrete as the woman jumps back, a gasp escaping her lips. 

The man struggles against Bucky’s grip, swinging his other hand in a desperate attempt to land a few blows. Bucky doesn’t even flinch. His fingers tighten, the vibranium almost humming with restrained force. His other hand lifts slowly to curve around the man’s throat. 

His jaw clenches, a muscle twitching in his cheek as he holds the man in place. 

Ice returns to his veins. Muscle memory is taking over. Bucky knows he should let go. But he doesn’t want to. 

His voice cuts through the air, cold and commanding. “Grab the knife. Go,” he snaps, turning slightly towards the woman, his eyes not leaving the man. 

There’s an anger rippling in his body, hot and foreign. Melting the ice. He’s done his job, he’s saved the girl. So why doesn’t he want to stop? 

The woman doesn’t hesitate. Bucky sees her hurried movements out of the corner of his eye. She bends to grab the bag that had fallen from her shoulder during the struggle, then swiftly swipes the knife off the ground. 

The man’s eyes follow her. Bucky’s fingers tighten around his throat. A sharp warning. 

Bucky waits, listening for her retreating footsteps. But the only sound is the man’s ragged breathing and his own rapid heartbeat, pounding in his ears. 

“Get out of here. Now.” Bucky’s voice is low, final. 

She stands still for a moment. The seconds stretching his patience. 

Then, with a shaky breath, she turns and walks towards the glow of the streetlights. Footsteps slow, weighted. 

Bucky watches her go from his periphery, his teeth clenched, muscles tight. The alley is quiet, colder now against his burning skin. 

It’s just Bucky and the man. 

Bucky’s lips twitch. 

The man’s body tenses under his grip, feeling the shift. He knows what’s coming. 

Both hands, vibranium and flesh, flash to the man’s shoulders. A quick pull back, then he slams forward. Skull thudding against brick. The impact ripples through Bucky’s arm. 

A choked sound escapes the man’s throat. 

Then Bucky’s lips are at his ear. 

“If you even think about following her again, I’ll find you, and I’ll kill you,” he promises, his voice a low growl. 

Fire and ice crackle under his skin, but he holds back. He has to. 

The man says nothing, just groans under his breath. 

Bucky releases his grip in one sudden movement. He steps back slowly, eyes never leaving the man. 

The man’s eyes dart to him before he swallows hard, peeling himself off the wall. He glances in the direction the woman went, but then, reconsidering, he turns and heads back the way he came in, his steps hurried and uneven. He doesn’t look back. 

“How can we ensure that a man with this kind of history isn’t going to hurt anyone again?” 

Bucky’s chin dips, a heavy exhale slipping from his body. 

How quickly it returned - that cold, biting detachment. The frost that controlled his actions.  The bitterness that hardened his restraint. It was pure instinct. Calculated. Methodical. The way he stalked the man, slammed him against the wall, threatened his life. The lack of remorse. 

“The Winter Soldier is gone.”

His jaw tightens, teeth grinding.

The anger was new, this time. 

Bucky wasn’t used to it, the white hot burn beneath his skin. The fire, fueling his movements. 

As the Winter Soldier, he had felt nothing. Only echoes of emotions, lingering in the back of his mind, frozen. Sometimes they’d melt, dripping through the cracks. But every time he reached out, they slipped through his fingers like water. 

This anger was new. Or maybe it wasn’t. An old feeling, perhaps, now returning to him. 

He could have killed that man. He wanted to. But he didn’t. 

“The Winter Soldier is gone.”

No. Bucky still struggled to accept that. 

But maybe he has adapted, transformed into something new. 

He stands there in the dark alley, listening to the rain splash off the pavement. Whatever buzz the caffeine had given him had worn off, and a deep, heavy tiredness begins to tug at his bones. 

The sun will be up soon. He’ll go to therapy. Dr. Raynor will ask him about his night, how he’d slept. He’ll lie. She’ll know. 

Then he’ll return home to a dark, empty apartment to watch more reporters debate about his right to exist. 

The same question will linger in mind, heavy and unshakable: 

What’s the point? 

……………………………….

His phone buzzes from the desk, pulling his focus from the computer screen. 

Bored eyes glance over the notification, quick to dismiss the distraction, before he catches sight of the words: 

BREAKING NEWS: James Buchanan Barnes, formerly known as the Winter Soldier, officially pardoned by the U.S. government. 

His phone is in his hand. Fingers quick, urgent, as they seek more information. 

As the confirmation settles over him, his pulse slows, along with his breathing. Everything around him pauses, forgotten, inconsequential to the information now plaguing his brain. 

Flashes of memories, once thought buried, resurface. Building, growing, cracking in his mind. 

His hands begin to shake. His vision burns - red hot. 

The phone is no longer in his grip. He throws it, hard, across the room. 

It smashes against a wall with a sharp crack, pieces scattering across the floor.

It doesn’t matter. The damage is already done. The words are still there, burned into his mind. 

[dawneternal]

The Benevolent | Eris x Healer OC | Two

☁︎ notes: so much tea drinking in this chapter?? my bad

☁︎ warnings: descriptions of wounds and blood, talk of physical abuse, implied domestic violence

☁︎ word count: 1.9k

☁︎ AO3 Link // Masterlist

☁︎ tags: @mybestfriendmademe @teddyhoneybear @cauldronblssd @imma-too-many-fandoms @tele86

Eris barely remembered the night before. He did not remember the questions his father had asked or the nonsense he’d given as answers. He knew in his gut that the truth remained tucked away and that’s all that mattered. 

He did recall his mother hurrying away, though the image was blurry from the pain. He thought he remembered an angel, kneeling by his bedside and blessing him with a touch to his brow. But of course, that was delirium from the blood loss. Every snap of his father’s whip, however, echoed through his memory in a loop.

He woke once in the night, head pounding as he surveyed the room. The moonlight revealed his mother’s sleeping form on the couch by the fire. On the floor beside his bed, another figure slept curled up with a throw pillow. Maybe two figures? It was hard to tell, their outline bulky beneath the quilt. He had a vague understanding that he should be dead, or at least in a great deal of pain. But the bedding felt real enough beneath his hands, the ache in his head like an anchor.

He did not have a chance to wonder about it any further before sleep pulled him away again. He dreamt of the angel and her lovely voice, deep and smooth, easing his pain. 

Worry not , she had said. So Eris slept deep and easy. 

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ 

When Eris woke he braced for the full impact of his injury to envelope him, but it never arrived. There was a dull ache throughout his body, but nothing compared to what he felt the night before. He found that he could sit up and move and even stretch with no resistance. 

He flicked on the fae lights and twisted in the mirror, examining his back. There were large, pink scars still tender to the touch. And he was clean, not a hint of the ocean of blood that had threatened to swallow him in his bed. 

That was how his mother found him, staring at his back with confusion and frustration written across his features. She let out a silent sigh as she set down the tea tray, preparing for his interrogation. 

“Someone else was here,” He said. Or rather, demanded, eyes meeting hers in the mirror. 

“Yes. The healer I hired.” She did not look at him, focused on spooning tea leaves into the sieve. 

“Beron forbade it.” His tone was sharp. 

“He will not know. He was called away this morning and you leave for the Spring Court this afternoon.” 

Here she was, pulling strings again. He would always admire her cleverness and always dread the consequences. She was constantly doing favors just so she would be owed one in return. It was the oldest Fae trick in the book and the only way she could gain footing in this court. 

Most of the court and its people would follow her over Beron in a heartbeat. But his reach was wide and his eyes all-seeing. Not to mention his punishments, always cruel and disturbingly creative. Thus, these games of bargains and favors remained. Whispered in dark halls and midnight meetings. Sometimes outside the borders of the court. So far, she had managed not to be caught. Beron underestimated her and one day it would be her salvation and the last nail in his coffin. 

“You hired a secret healer?” 

“And swore her to secrecy, yes,” It was an idea she’d toyed with for a while, but Eris had always asked her not to do it. It was not worth it, to risk some healer’s life on his sorry behalf. 

“Did you tell her the nature of the job?” 

Edana pursed her lips, quiet as she placed sugar cubes into cups. He sat down slowly, releasing a long sigh as he went. 

“The risks, mother,” He said, weariness making it sound more thorny than he meant. 

“Do not scold me, son,” Her tone was firm but her voice shook. She looked at him, russet eyes gleaming. “You would have died last night if she had not been there. I have said it before and I will say it as many times as it takes for this court to hear me. I will not lose another son.” 

Her lips trembled as she let her body crumple into a chair. Eris stood and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to her ruddy hair. Two sides of the same coin, they were. Too soft for Beron’s preferred shade of games, too stubborn not to play their own. 

The purple smudges under her eyes were so pronounced Eris wondered if she’d slept at all. If she’d truly slept in years. 

“Why now?” He asked, his voice soft. An uneasiness grew in the pit of his stomach. Edana took a moment to answer, her eyes troubled and distant as she warred with something that Eris couldn’t see. 

“Things are brewing, Eris,” She said, “Not just in your father’s court, but in Prythian. I needed to ease my mind. To have one less things to worry about.” 

He didn’t bother asking what she alluded to. She would have told him already if she were able to. Whether it be Beron or some other higher power, she stayed vague for a reason. It did nothing for that sense of unease.

“Thesan has requested to speak with me,” Edana sighed, sounding a little more like herself again, “I assume I will be receiving a scolding from him as well.” 

“No more scolding from me,” Eris sat back down and pulled a cup of tea towards himself, “You know what you’re doing. I just don't want to see you hurt.”

She gave him a small smile and took a sip from her own cup. 

“You’re a force to be reckoned with, mother. One day you will get your justice.” 

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ 

Lady Edana sat across from Thesan, tea and pastries arranged on lace runners between them. The table sat on a balcony, so similar to where she had met with Aya. Fluffy clouds floated past the stone pillars, the arches between them like picture frames housing masterful paintings. 

Edana did not care for the Dawn Court. Everything here was too farefree, threatening to float away with the lightest touch. She preferred to be on solid ground, back in her own court with its scents of humus and ripe apples. 

“Edana,” Thesan began. His eyes avoided hers, as if her opinion would be read clearly within the amber. 

Edana said nothing, anger ebbing and flowing through her like the tide. One moment she had herself worked up, convinced that everyone around her was trying to prove that she was nothing but a fool, a paranoid little housewife. Then she would remind herself that those ideas were Beron’s creation, her anxiety his design. And she calmed, letting all of those feelings flow away until the cycle began again.

“I understand your machinations,” He said, “I know their importance, and I will contribute where I can. But you cannot draw my loved ones into this game. Especially without consulting me.” 

“Loved ones?” Edana asked, meeting his gaze as she took a sip of her tea.

“Aya is my cousin, Edana,” Thesan sighed. 

“Is there a reason you kept her hidden?” 

“She is not hidden. The Dawn Court knows her. But she has always insisted on earning her own living. She wants her success to be her own.” 

“I see,” Edana said, though her expression suggested that she did not see.

“I have a feeling that you elected to ask for forgiveness instead of permission.” He continued. 

Edana tossed her head, but she did not disagree. That was exactly what she had done. Though she had to admit that the fact of Aya and Thesan being related made her decision look much bolder. She had never meant to make a statement. 

“I suggest you do not make a habit of it,” Thesan’s voice rumbled through the balcony. 

Some considered Thesan to be the weakest of the High Lords. Even Tarquin, young and experienced as he may be, could move oceans with his power. But to hear Thesan speak this way painted a different image. Like he possessed some hidden blade within him that was as sharp as he was gentle. Like perhaps, the other courts would be grateful that he stayed close to his palace in this sky. 

Edana finally accepted that perhaps her plans had been rash. Maybe she had underestimated how easily Thesan would forgive her. The clouds floating by the balcony grew dark with the threat of a storm. 

“I cannot break the bargain,” She said, eyes on the table before her. She studied the crumbs of her macaron, pastel purple and flavored with lavender. 

“No,” Said Thesan, a growl full of warning, “But if you misstep, I will have Helion dismantle it.

“I did it for Eris,” Edana choked out, looking up at him. The lovely brown of his eyes was so soft compared to the command in his voice.

“Then he will help protect her. Or he will need more than one healer.” 

“Beron will not touch her.” 

“Do not make promises you cannot keep.” 

They were quiet for a long moment. Then the clouds lightened again, all of the tension gone from the sky. Thesan leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. 

“I did not call you here to scold you,” He said, and Edana thought bitterly that it was a little late for that sentiment. 

“I wish to warn you.” 

She took another sip of her tea and wondered if this was merely a bridge to another lecture about her schemes and manipulations. As if she was a reckless child with no self control, and not a woman trapped in the underground halls of the Autumn Court. They all gave her sympathy, but if they would not help her with their actions then their words meant nothing. She prepared to tell him off. 

“I wish to warn you about Aya,” His eyes narrowed at Edana’s refusal to answer. But he had her attention now. She pursed her lips and locked eyes with him. “There are facets to her power she has not yet discovered. She could rival the best of us one day.” 

“And you have not told her this?” Edana’s brows furrowed, “You do not wish for her to control it?”

“Not all of us fancy ourselves puppet masters,” Thesan said tightly, “I was hoping it would be her own discovery. She’s so unsure of herself.”

Edana stared for a moment longer. It had crossed her mind, the depth of Aya’s power. The ease with which she manipulated Eris’s wounds. Her skill was greater than any other healer Edana had met.

“And I suppose you will not tell me any more about her?” 

“It is not my story to tell.” 

Edana’s nerves were feeling a bit frayed. A scolding, a threat, and now a warning. 

“Are we done here, Thesan?” She sighed and dropped the napkin from her lap onto the table. 

Thesan’s eyes narrowed. No, he had hoped this conversation might last a little longer. He had more to say. But he was as tired of Edana as she was of him. 

“Yes, Edana.” 

Truthfully, she had always been this way. Paranoid, calculating. Even in her days as a young and single courtier, she gambled for scandals and drama, her ante paid in lovers. She had played these games for so long now, her entire world was tinted. Perhaps the right person could have encouraged her to hone that energy. But Beron brought out the worst in everyone. 

Some thought her sons inherited their cunning from their father, but it was all their mother’s. All of their scheming they learned from her. Beron was as dense as he was cruel. 

Thesan watched the Lady leave, her burgundy skirts swishing over the stone floor. Lady of Autumn, Queen of games, mother of foxes.

[hulloitsdani]

*scratches at your writing itch more* c’mon give us more about your writing give us that good ol’ fashioned yapping

LETS FREAKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Ahem.

So if you are a tag reader and have existed on my blog for an extended period of time, then you may recall me mentioning that I really should go on a rant about Loki. Multiple times even. And there is a good reason for that— she is one of the most interesting characters to analyze and write for in feh.

That might seem like an odd claim, but you must remember that your reliable narrator finds immense joy in writing for Kiran fire emblem. Kiran is fun for a few reasons, but the work loop is what really sells it. There is a character beyond the self insert, but it must be found and then extrapolated back. Detective work goes into their analysis and then more free form creativity is employed to inflict that personality back onto the narrative. Loki provides a similar experience. She’s an almost equally blank slate. Harsh comparison considering Kiran is a non entity of a self insert, but true nonetheless. Currently, as of the very start of book 9, Loki is not much of a character. I hope to be proven wrong in the near future, but right now that is the case.

The issue can most easily be broken down into one core question: what does Loki want? No, seriously, what does she want? She’s the only reoccurring character in which we have no idea about anything that drives her. You might argue that this is supposed to be part of her mystique, but then I’d argue that you don’t understand what builds mystique. You know who also had mystique? Líf and Thrasir, Læraðor and the Healing Hands, Gullvieg, and about every other antagonistic force whose full motives were not initially clear. Just because we did not know the full extent of what drove them, did not mean that we didn’t get a sense of something they wanted. The most common thing these antagonists want is to kill our heroes, which is why conflict arises in the first place.

What does Loki want in comparison? To cause Chaos™️? That is a cop-out in the same way writing Harley Quinn as just a crazy random lady is. It is an excuse to not write a consistent character and just hoping that surface level aesthetics will carry everything on its emancipated shoulders. To what end does Loki want to cause chaos? For what reasons? What could possibly stand in her way? What conflict could arise from that? Every other character has straight forward answers to these basic questions, but even after 8 seasons of this narrative, we still don’t have anything for this lady. And that’s a blatant flaw of FEH. Which is a shame, because as I was digging to find ways to fill the gaps, some genuinely interesting ideas came up.

This starts with the FEH’s pantheon. It is a vital part of the narrative’s themes of loneliness, isolation, and connection. Being the villains 80% of the time, they are often a pure distillation of the long term effects of isolation. Hel is a fascinating introduction to this idea that gains more intrigue in retrospect. Unlike every divine encounter after her, she is the sole god we meet in book 3. It’s an unspoken rule, but they typically arise in contrasting pairs. Askr and Embla, Nifl and Múspell, Freyr and Freya, etc. It is revealed that Hel was not an exception to this rule, but had successfully killed her equal and opposite of Ymir long before she ever set foot in Askr. With no one left to naturally counter her, she’s been fueling her endless need for more power free of natural consequence. Without life, death has gone utterly power mad. Upon her throne of corpses, she is entirely isolated and free to view every breathing being as lesser. To really drive this home, they reveal that her only connection to a living thing, Eir, to be a lie. She is a need for power, left by itself to rot.

Then we have the siblings Freyr and Freya, who were implied to be the weird black sheep of the pantheon and thus only had each other. Freyr is notedly one of the few non antagonistic gods and this correlates with his apparent social life. He talks to people! Regularly! According to Peony, anytime anyone has any issue in the realm of dreams, they go to him. He has taken the time to build a community and make himself the beating heart of it. He’s getting some god damn therapy. Good for him! Freya has unfortunately done no such thing and hasn’t moved on from the harm inflicted upon them in the past. She has power, beauty, and fame, but Freyr is still the only person she has. But now, the reverse is no longer true and he’s pulling further away. This nags at the long standing wound of never being accepted and Freya sees this as rejection from the one person in this horrible cruel world who wasn’t supposed to do that to her. Everything goes to hell from there. This need for acceptance is left by itself to rot.

Now, this was supposed to be a discussion of Loki, no? Why bring this up? Well, it’s because she’s an oddity. Hel, Freya, and Freyr generally define the types of gods we see from this point onwards. We either got isolated and rocking it (Hel, Múspell), isolated and crying in the club (Freya, Gullveig, Nifl), or finally getting some god damn therapy for the isolation but ultimately not being able to fully escape it in time (Freyr, Askr). Loki is not quite any of these things. And as I was trying to rationalize why there was an exception to this theme I found, it dawned on me— it’s not that she isn’t any of these things, it’s that she’s on the verge of becoming one of them. What makes Loki unique among the pantheon is that she’s the only god we see meeting and connecting with people throughout the narrative. That’s the point. Nothing has begun to rot yet. Her powers are shapeshifting and pretending to be a person, because she’s actually on the verge of potentially becoming one.

Let’s use her dynamic with Veronica as an example. Loki genuinely likes Veronica. She finds the girl silly and cute. However, she had alterer motives from the moment they met, as she was still working for Surtr at the time and befriended the young princess so that she could be ultimately sacrificed to the rite of flames. And even outside of that, she needed her help to begin the Tempest. It was a lie from the start, and yet, Loki gives our protagonists an opening to save her. That’s fascinating. She does not value Veronica’s life or wellbeing above her schemes, but she likes her enough to actively go out of her way to give her a chance. If I didn’t know any better, that’s a fascinating set up for a long term character conflict. Loki, the chaotic trickster god plotting to bring change and ruin, vs Loki, a quirky shapeshifter lady teaching Princess Veronica funny little tricks like how to heal paper cuts and not lose her breakfast when quickly dimension hoping to the realm of the dead.

That’s so god damn fun and is a version of the character that would bring so much life to the narrative. But it’s not really what we got and might not be what we ultimately get either. And that’s okay, I’m pretty down for whatever they choose to do. But until then, Your Honor, hit that trickster god with an identity crisis. Hit her with the silly beam. Let the two tacticians hang out and be kinda toxic besties. What could go wrong? Oh, there’s a character named Baldur? Surely this won’t result in a chain of events that culminates in the end of the world.