#Internet Marketing Importance

[dallonwrites]

bestie how the fuck do you start writing again when you haven't written in years bc you're so paralyzed with Fear of Writing Badly mixed with How Do I Get Started and also WHAT do I write about HELP

I WANT to write but every part of it is. so. DAUNTING

Ohhh bestie I have BEEN there. Whenever I take breaks from writing I find myself scared that I'll have just….forgotten to write?? I think the fear of "bad writing" is amplified when you don't write for a while, however long, because you have to like hype yourself up to go back to writing and it's like what if I do all that and then I just can't do it? Returning to writing, especially after a long time, for me has taken a lot of mental work, trying to understand what will make writing fun and healthy for me. A lot of it, honestly, is easier said than done, but also it's mental work you'll keep doing after you start writing again and as you write, and for me it's easier to process my relationship with writing when I am actually writing.

A big part of that mental work for me, and something I think is so valuable, is to reconsider what "bad" writing is and give yourself permission to write it. Sometimes you will think your writing sucks, happens to all of us, but that isn't all it has to be. Like yeah, I'll think something I wrote sucks, but I still wrote it. I can revisit it and work on it and maybe I'll turn it into something I'm happy with. And even if I don't, I still wrote it, I learned from it. Writing does not need to be "good" by whatever standard we're holding it up to for it to have value. And you can delete it! Nobody has to see it! Also you can have fun writing something and still think it's not your best. I've written a lot of "bad" scenes that I had fun with because the scene was entertaining to me! I love when writing turns out how I like it, or I write a banger prose line, but equally I found it helpful to give myself permission to not worry about that all the time and just focus on my interest/enjoyment in what I'm writing, regardless of the "quality". Again, easier said than done, but something I've found easier the more I write, because you'll have bad writing days but you'll also have writing days that are so good

I know a lot of people see writing as a skill that they want to improve, and like I agree it feels really good to see your writing grow, but writing is so much more than the skill and the craft and the theory. There is no objective "perfection" to reach with writing like we are not Sims with levelled skills LOL. Writing is art and creativity and it should be fun and fulfilling. And IMO, the more you focus on what makes writing fun, you will grow and "improve" as a writer a lot quicker and in a way that is a lot more enjoyable than if you treat writing like some icy quest for perfection. You also get to decide what "good" writing is for you/your story. Some of my stories are more prose focused and I'll play more with language, imagery etc. Others are more about the plot and just having fun imagining this scene. Sometimes it's a mix of both. What is "good" writing depends on the writer, story, genre, etc. There is no one way to write.

I'm rambling a lot because I'm just really passionate about this and I cannot express enough how easier writing got, including all the difficult and ugly and frustrating parts, when I gave space to prioritise my enjoyment and fun. People love to romanticise the idea of the "struggling" writer. I see stuff on here and I'm like you guys….writing should be fun. Like yeah sometimes it's hard and we should talk about that but like, you Need to make sure you are having fun. Anyway I'm going to try not to ramble and bullet point some things that helped me:

Make Writing Fun: Lol! Literally whatever makes writing fun. Sometimes I just write super indulgent scenes and the fun of that sets me up to work on my projects. When I work on my projects I try to find what in each scene I'm going to enjoy the most, and focus on that to help me write the rest. I make playlists, moodboards, memes, art etc for my story because it's fun, and it helps me be engaged with my story outside of writing it. Just, have fun.

On productivity: some people will benefit from setting clear goals and running towards them. Some people don't. For me it depends on my headspace. I don't think productivity is a bad thing, it can feel good, but productivity should not be the only reason you write. And the most productive writing process is whichever one makes writing enjoyable for you, because that's how you'll get words on the page

On that note, please be wary of anyone online who who treats the writing advice they share as Fact. I'm not saying every writing teacher out there does...but some of them market it that way! And creators do not have an authority on writing just because they have a platform however big. There are some AMAZING content creators out there who talk about writing, and I have found them motivating, but like just let yourself be picky about who you listen to/engage with. I say this because I consumed some very Strict writing advice when I was younger and it literally contributed to my years long slump so like...I'm picky now LOL

About goals: Personally, gentle goals are what help me get back into writing. Maybe just write for 20 minutes, or write every day for a couple days. When I do word count goals, I base them on how I feel that day, and recently I don't make a word count, I'll transfer it to the next session but smaller. So if I try to write 500 words but can't I'll say okay, lets try 250 next time. Goals can be a great motivator and way to feel achieved, and maybe bigger goals will help you, but you're also allowed to adjust them as you go to make it easier

On finding new ideas, having been there before, you don't need a fully fleshed out idea to start writing. My longest break I came back to writing with...one character and a backstory? If you have stories/characters already you can revisit them, either build on what you have or completely change it. Or if you don't have that, if there's a piece of media you like you can take that concept and play around with it in your own way, or you can even just write fanfic until you have your own idea (if you want your own idea, fanfic is cool too!) You can even just find a cool pic on pinterest and play around with describing it, writing about it, seeing if you can get anything from that. Ideas are everywhere and they can be tiny, and I think if you have that want to write you Will find your story eventually. All writers have had the Idea struggle, but I think the more you engage with writing and think about what concepts and stories interest you already, the more you'll like train yourself to get ideas

That was very long and maybe a lot but like, I am very passionate about this! I've been in writing "slumps" where I didn't know if I would write again, I've started writing again with no ideas, and in those times all I had was the fact I knew I wanted to write. There are a lot of reasons why we end up having long breaks from writing and it is totally normal, sometimes beneficial for us, and we should never give ourselves a hard time for not writing for however long. But also remember that you can always come back. Every one of us has the capacity to create, whatever that looks like, and you can make it as self indulgent and self serving as you want.

[birlwrites]

like when i was in 6th grade i started an original novel that i then abandoned mostly-complete, came back to a few years later, and finished it, out of SPITE because i didn't like seeing it in my drafts and knowing it wasn't done.

and was it cool that i'd written a whole novel? sure! do i wish i'd, like... enjoyed it more? ABSOLUTELY YES. but at the time when i began the story, i had no idea how to write something that would feel like me. when i returned to it, proofreading was a massive pain because i was constantly cringing at what seemed like sixth-grade-me's embarrassingly clumsy attempts at writing something Cool™. i didn't see any way to salvage the story. and that was because all it had originated in was that desire to write something Cool™. that goal drove every creative decision. not a shred of it was genuine. there was nothing to salvage. so i just slapped together an ending, out of a sense of obligation, and that was that.

in 8th grade, i wrote a psychological horror short story about someone trapped in a room full of unsynchronized clocks. i think i'd just read the tell-tale heart. it creeped out everyone who read it. it wasn't at all Cool™. it was leagues, LEAGUES better - more sincere, more committed, more impactful - than that novel i'd started a couple of years earlier.

fanfiction isn't Cool™. fandom is still often cringed at in the Mainstream™. but Coolness and the Mainstream are the death of creativity. if all you're doing is imitating whatever's recently achieved commercial success, it will feel empty. a pastiche of booktok buzzwords is just that.

but if you allow yourself to create something ~cringe~, fully and wholeheartedly, then you can connect with your readers. you can figure out how you want to write. and you'll enjoy the writing process, instead of staring at a draft you started years ago, wondering how to finish it with the minimum possible effort so you can cross it off your list.

[braceletofteeth]

Congratulations to Never Let Me Go for being the second drama to get the highest rating from me this year. Currently preparing my mind and body to be insufferable about it forever.

[digitalmojo01]

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[iseou]

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[staff]

This is interesting 🤔

*Record scratch* *Freeze frame* Yep, that’s us. You’re probably wondering how we got here.

The internet is changing, and with it, social media. We partnered with Archrival who asked Gen Z (aka, you) and Millennial folks (also you) what’s important to you in online communities. Some interesting trends emerged from those conversations, and we thought you might like to take a look and see what tracks for you.

The Trends:

Broken Social Scenes. Too much content, too little organic connection. You want something deeper.

Network Effect. You’re creating new networks that nurture belonging through intimacy, exclusivity, and IRL meet-ups. (Communities, anyone?)

The New Rules of Influence. Connections, not followers. Influencers that build trust and real engagement matter more to you than big numbers. 

Community, According to you. Community building must be holistic. Social media must be social. Community is not a marketing strategy.  

Interested? Read the full report here. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[seemyblogs]

The Digital Journey of Sweet Delights: From Bakery to Empire

Discover the inspiring digital transformation of Sweet Delights bakery, from struggling to thriving, through the power of digital marketing.

Read more: https://www.reddit.com/user/RelinaBasu/comments/14d6l55/the_digital_journey_of_sweet_delights_from_bakery/

[jaykumar702388]

https://www.digitalcomputerclasses.com/courses/digital-marketing/

[endless-ineffabilities]

chemical override (4)

Ewan Mitchell x actress!reader

series masterlist ▪︎ main masterlist

Ewan wants to clear things up about the night out and his mystery companion, and the reader gets another surprise in LA. Will the two finally have their first date or will something get in the way once more?

Ewan's publicist Donna has never had any issue with her client before. Always present and accounted for, on time for whatever interview, photoshoot or audition he has booked for the day.

But she hasn't been able to get a hold of him in the past two days, which is worrying her to no end, because he is set to meet with a major casting director in New York some time in the coming week.

Donna may have a clue as to why. It's only been two days as well since the pub incident, when The Sun ran a story speculating on Ewan's lovelife - the exact kind of thing he's always been trying to avoid.

It had taken a life of its own, with fans taking it upon themselves to track down every clue of the girl on the internet. Her instagram. Her relation to the cast - apparently she is a cousin of Luke and Elliott. Even the marketing agency where she works. Louise, a 26-year old graphic designer, admittedly harbours a crush on Ewan, and when she heard that her cousins were hanging out with him at a pub nearby, she almost immediately invited herself and her friends over.

But that's all, according to Ewan. After talking to Luke, memories of the night came rushing back to him.

Stumbling out in the alley to send you that voice message. Rejoining the boys to see that they've got new company. Being introduced to Louise, with Tom joking that he should be careful with the missus. Wouldn't want her - you - to think that he's flirting with anyone else.

Even though that's exactly what happened. Not the flirting, per se. Not from Ewan's side, at least. Louise had been brazen with admiration, barely leaving his side the rest of the night. Asking him a bunch of probing questions he had neither the interest nor the patience to answer.

They had all thought the pub was safe from prying eyes. No one approached them for anything, not even a single look of recognition followed by the question, “Are you that guy from House of the Dragon?” Unfortunately, it only takes one rat for a headline to surface. Ewan Mitchell’s mystery girl has been the talk of the fandom and Donna has been trying hard to quell the rumours. 

Such is the nasty nature of the business, as she knows Ewan has quickly learned.

She dials him again, and to her surprise, the call actually patches through.

Her client's throaty voice is heard on the other line, "Hey, Donna, sorry if I've missed your calls."

"It's alright, it's alright, Ewan," Donna stammers. "Just glad to hear from you. Where are you? I've managed to do some damage control about those rumours and - "

"Oh, I'm in LA. I just landed about an hour ago," Ewan responds casually, not mirroring the stress in Donna's tone. Has he gotten over the fuss so easily?

"LA? You know your meeting is not till next week, right? And it's in New York. It's very, very important that you don't miss it, Ewan."

"And I won't," Ewan affirms, laughing dryly to console his worried publicist. "I just need to see about something over here."

Someone, he thinks. He's got his priorities straight.

"Work-related?" Donna asks, curious.

"Uhhhm," Ewan dithers, but decides against telling her about you. Not just yet. "Just visiting a friend. I'll stay here for a while then fly out to New York, don't worry."

"Okay, just keep in touch, alright? I'll send more details about the meeting soon."

"Sure thing. Thank you, Donna."

"Talk soon, Ewan. Take care of yourself."

Donna feels a huge sense of relief wash over her when the call ends, knowing the whereabouts of one of her biggest clients. But why LA? Perhaps Ewan just needed some time off after the flurry of annoying headlines put out in the UK.

Or maybe he's visiting with a friend? Who is stateside right now? Fabien's filming in Philly. The rest of the boys are still in England. But then...

Her thoughts land on the one thing - the one person - that would make him fly out on such short notice. Without giving thought to anything else, especially after the speculation on his romantic life.

Ewan's never been one to share about personal affairs, not even to his close-knit team, but no matter how reclusive he is, no one can deny the way he looks at you. The way he lights up when you're brought up in conversation. The number of times he had excused himself from their meetings to make a call, standing in the corner with a permanent smile etched on his face.

Oh, Donna knows now just who he is in LA for.

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

Like inevitable spectres haunting someone of his profession, Ewan noticed the papparazzi snapping away as he arrived in LA.

He told no one he would be coming, so it must be an automatic thing in the city. The photogs are always scurrying in the periphery, ready to catch anyone of note, no matter the degree of fame or notoriety.

If you were keeping up with such news, you would know he is in the city.

But according to your assistant Clara, who was kind enough to inform him of your schedule, you are still finishing up on another day of rehearsals for your upcoming rom-com. Ewan checked in the same hotel as you, planning to seek you out as soon as you arrive back from work.

He hasn't spoken to you since the voicemail, and since those false news broke out. Not that he can blame you - wouldn't anyone be suspicious of a drunken confession made by a guy who was allegedly in the company of another girl?

He hates it, being subject to all of this. This nonsense that is keeping you from him, not even worth any consequence.

But he will deal with the blows. As long as he sets things right with you. As long he gets you in the end.

He settles in his suite, getting ready to meet with you once more. He showers, shaves, tousles his hair. He even checks whether he smells decent after all of that - once, twice, and another time. Being nervous to stand in front of a crowd is one thing; it's a whole other conundrum for him finally see you again.

Maybe the crowds are more manageable, and it baffles him to realise so. He can put on a persona, be the actor, and disappear inside himself as the cameras flash bright enough for him to disassociate.

But not with you. He wants to show you everything that he is, who he truly is, and it scares him. There is no team to help him get ready now. It's all him, just Ewan.

Clad in his trusty black jeans and a comfortable hoodie of the same dark colour, he looks in the mirror one last time after receiving a text from Clara that you've arrived at the hotel about half an hour ago.

He contemplates opening the bottle of bourbon from the minibar and taking a shot of liquid courage - something to help him get his explanation ready. Just so he wouldn't stammer in front of you.

Just so you he can make you see, without any error or trace of doubt, that he meant every word in that voicemail, no matter how embarrassing it might have sounded.

He decides against it, imagining the wrinkling of your nose as you catch a whiff of the alcohol. It's cute when you do it, and he adores it so dearly, but he knows that it isn't the right moment.

He rights himself, rolls his shoulders, and he's out the door.

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

Jacob trails you inside your hotel suite, laughing at some shared remark about the scenes you rehearsed for the day.

They were emotionally demanding and even after tossing around ideas for hours, the two of you were unable to achieve a satisfying approach to the scenes.

Which is why he had proposed practicing well into the evening, and you found yourselves heading back to your suite together. He has his own house in LA, but your hotel just happened to be closer to the rehearsal studio.

"Care for a drink?" you asked him.

"Why the hell not?" he immediately assents in that easy, Aussie drawl. "We might need it for this shite."

You laugh in agreement, "Indeed. I've got some canned gin and tonics if that's alright.. or beer... or whiskey... " you trail off as you study the contents of your fridge.

"G and t, please, mate," he settles down on the couch, legs stretching in front of him. "We were so unproductive today. I just could not get that line right."

"Tell me about it." You hand him his drink, and he clinks it with yours with a mumbled cheers. "It was me who can't land the right tone," you say. "I mean, is my character supposed to be confused in that moment? Or angry? Or sad?"

"Or all of 'em." he shrugs. "Tricky, isn't it?"

You hurriedly fetch your script from a table, getting right down to it. "So for the first scene in the third act..."

Moments later, with cans of gin and tonic discarded on the coffee table, you and Jacob sit with legs crossed on the couch facing each other. Scripts in hand, you go through the lines over and over, with only seemingly minor tweaks each time. To an actor though, even just the slightest change of pitch or expression makes all the difference.

"Is that better? I think we almost got it," you say after a read-through.

"Yeah, so much better," he grins, holding his hand up for a high-five. Just as your hands smack in the air, another sound echoes faintly from the door.

"Someone's knocking?" Jacob asks. "You expecting anybody? Room service or anything?"

"No," you shake your head, trying to think of whether your assistant or publicist said anything about dropping by. "Maybe it's just housekeeping?"

"I'll get it," Jacob states, already padding his way to the door.

A beat later, you hear Jacob loudly exclaim, "Ewan, mate! It's good to see you!"

Ewan? A shiver runs up your spine. Craning your neck to get a view of a doorway, you catch sight of him, half-obscured by Jacob's tall frame.

Confused, surprised, and feeling some other emotion you can't pinpoint, you head over to greet him.

"How are you doing?" Jacob greets, shaking Ewan's hand, oblivious to the poorly hidden distaste in his eyes.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" Ewan finds himself asking Jacob, a bit rudely, just as you ask him the same.

"What are you doing here?" you mirror his question at the exact same time.

"Oh!" Jacob breathes out a laugh, "Well, I'll go first. We were just practicing lines."

"In her room? Isn't it a bit late for rehearsal? I thought you're supposed to be off work." Ewan asks, and it sounds like an accusation. He starts to feel all kinds of uneasy - were the twins right about life imitating art?

You narrow your eyes at him. "We decided to continue running lines after rehearsal. There's a scene we can't get right. It's quite tricky - "

"Just the two of you? Alone, here?" Ewan tilts his head, gesturing towards the room like it's some forbidden place.

Jacob shakes his head, smile steady on his lips. If he's caught on to how Ewan must be feeling, he doesn't let it affect him. He gives you a look, as if to check your reaction, and you give him a reassuring shrug.

Ewan does not overlook this exchange. He clenches his jaw, irate from the assumptions popping up in his mind. Before he forgets his manners, he says, "Excuse me, I just... wasn't expecting... I just wanted to speak to you."

"I didn't even know you were in LA," you say, before moving aside to usher him in. "But I'm glad you are, of course. Come join us - "

He nods, making his way to the seating area, where he spies the discarded cans of alcohol and dog-eared scripts. Maybe he should have taken that bloody shot after all.

He laughs joylessly to himself, shaking his head. "Sorry, you guys. I just flew in today, and I must have been exhausted from the flight."

"Hey, no worries, mate," Jacob says. "You know what, I'll be on my way. Give you time to catch up and all." He picks up his own tattered script then gives you a kiss on the cheek, bidding you with a, "I'll see you tomorrow. Have a good night, sweetheart."

If looks could kill, and if his dear mother hadn't raised him right, he would have incinerated Jacob in that moment.

He is snapped out of his thoughts when Jacob claps him on the shoulder, "Great to see you again, mate. Have a good night, eh?"

Ewan knows he's being ridiculous. There's nothing wrong with two friends and co-stars spending some time alone to rehearse. Besides, last he heard, you were adamant that you and Jacob are just friends.

So why is he being so irrational? Why does the idea of you spending more time than necessary with Jacob, possibly falling for him, bother him so much?

Ewan realises that this is what jealousy must feel like.

He's had career envy before. Another actor landing a role he vied for. Someone else getting the praise he deserves.

But nothing like this. It's petty and possessive.

He wants you to just be his.

You stand in front of him once more after you walk Jacob out of the suite.

"Hey," you say, smiling weakly.

"Hi, darling."

Both of you want to do more. Say more. Usually you would greet each other with a hug and a kiss on a cheek, his hands lingering on your forearms even after you pull away, but the air is thick with tension.

You look at him with those bright, expecting eyes of yours, and Ewan just wants to cave in and make a sloppy confession. But not after that voicemail, no. He's determined to do this right. Words not slurred, head clear.

"So I got your voicemail," you finally say, smiling coyly. "That was... something."

"Hmm," he can't help but mirror your smile, as always. "It was, wasn't it?"

"I understand," you continue, taking a step closer, "if you were drunk. We all say things when we're off it that we maybe don't mean - "

"But darling, I meant every word," he says, way too quickly.

You laugh, the sound of it erasing whatever apprehension remained in him. "Do you even remember what you said?"

"I do," he counters, moving even closer to you. Another step and he'd be able to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you to him. "At least, some of - no - most of it."

"Oh yeah?" you ask cheekily, aided by the effect of gin. He still has your heart racing, but a part of you now knows that the feeling is mutual. "What did you say again?"

He sees that glint in your eye, and it causes him to smirk. "Why don't I make it simple for you, darling?" He closes the distance, one hand brushing the hair from your face.

"Okay," you swallow, getting lost in his blues.

"I missed you." He kisses your cheek. "I like you. A lot." He kisses the other. "And I, uh, I would like to take you on a date."

His eyes meet yours. His voice is steady, but you notice some nervousness in his gaze. How the tables have turned. You make Ewan Mitchell's heart go awry.

"Please, darling?" he timidly adds, the sentiment so sweet you want to blurt out yes immediately. Before you can, he's already leaned back, an explanation rushing out of his lips, "And... I'm not sure but you must have seen those headlines? They're not true, I swear. We were out drinking and - "

"I know, Ewan." You cut him off with a hand pressed gently on his chest but he keeps going.

" - some other people joined us. One of them being - "

"Luke and Elliott's cousin. I know. Elliott called and told me everything."

"Oh. He called you?" A huge sense of relief washes over him, better than any comfort he might have found in a shot or three of bourbon.

"Mhmm, he called me yesterday. So, you know, you didn't really have to fly out. I was about to call you eventually."

He smiles bashfully, eyes cast down as a blush spreads across his cheeks. Damn it, Elliott, you brilliant lad. He reminds himself to treat Elliott to a pint the next time he sees him.

"I still wanted to see you," Ewan maintains, pressing a kiss to your forehead and you're immediately enveloped by the familiar comfort of his scent. Surprisingly without the staple hint of cigarette smoke, due to his frantic scrubbing after the flight.

"I'm happy you're here," you say, wrapping your arms around his waist, cheek pressed against his chest. "And no offence to Louise or anything, but she needs to learn some boundaries with my - "

Ewan looks down at you fondly, squeezing your arms to prompt your next words, "Yeah, darling? Your what?"

"My - " you attempt to bury your face in his hoodie, but he keeps your gaze with a hand cupping your jaw. So you end up saving yourself with " - my Aemond."

"Hmm," he hums, lips curling, and it's so very Aemond of him it makes you feel warm all over. "Your Aemond.Your Ewan. I'm all yours, love."

The whole thing couldn't have gone any better, all things considered, and Ewan feels content to have gotten over his first brush with the rumour mill. What matters is right in front of him, and you know the truth.

"Are you staying in this hotel? How did you even know I was here?" You take his hand, guiding him over to the couch.

"Clara," is all Ewan says by way of explanation.

"Well, thank you, Clara," you declare. Ewan shuffles closer to you and rests his arm around your shoulders, planting a kiss on your forehead again. The gesture is already becoming instinctive, providing the both of you with a sense of ease.

"Darling?"

"Yeah?" you respond absentmindedly, fingers toying with the soft fabric of his hoodie.

"Is that a yes?"

You exhale deeply. As if it wasn't clear enough already. "What do you think, handsome?"

"I don't know, angel. You tell me," he counters cheekily, his fingers playing with your hair as you playfully glare at him.

"What if I say no, baby?"

"Then I'll have to work hard to change your mind, princess."

"And how would you do that, honey?"

His gaze darkens, and something flashes across his blue eyes as he whispers intensely, "Use your imagination, bunny."

"Ri-right," you bite your lip, then shake your head to snap out of it. "We'll have to draw the line at bunny."

He laughs at your flustered state, pleased by the effect he has on you. "What's wrong with bunny?"

That elicits a groan out of you, but you smile anyway. "I already said yes, Ewan. Quit it with the bunny."

"Alright, beautiful," he relents, making you lean even closer against him.

The haze of gin after a long work day starts to subside and the rush of emotion is coming back to you. You find yourself gazing at Ewan in mild disbelief, in awe that he just confessed that he wants you.

Feeling antsy, you stand and pace around the room. You start tidying things, putting your scattered knick-knacks back in your handbag. If you sit with him any longer, you just might end up hurrying things through and jump his bones already, kiss him the next time he does that hmm.

"Can I get you anything?" you ask.

"No," he says smoothly. "I just need you." The words make you stop in your tracks. He still sits in the same position, looking at you with that undeniable desire in his eyes.

"Uhhhm," your mouth feels dry all of the sudden. Nothing his tongue past your lips can't fix, your intrusive thoughts barge right in. "So... the... the media rollout's still going on isn't it? Should we check and see?" You take your laptop and plop back down next to him. He doesn't miss a beat and cuddles against you once more, wrapping his arm around your tense frame.

"I think so, darling." The media rollout is how the interviews and promotional material filmed by the cast is being released gradually, on a weekly basis, after each new episode comes out.

A simple search on Youtube confirms it, and the first thing that popped up is the Where is The Lie? video you did for Elle.

It was slated for just Tom, Phia, and Ewan but your Blackwood character became such a fan-favourite that they asked you to join in. Not to mention the frenzy you and Ewan caused online with the initial interviews you did together.

"Shall we watch this?" Ewan offers, solely for the intent of seeing you in the video.

You click on it, and for the next 8 minutes or so, all you can take note of are the signs that had clearly already been there. The fans were on to something when they claimed that you and Ewan are a really good ship.

The video starts with a clip of Phia hitting her head on the overhead lamp when she stands, prompting her to uncontrollably giggle along with you and Tom. Ewan, being the exception, is beside himself with worry, and he appears to instinctively reach for your hand as you sit beside him.

"Huh," Ewan smiles, taking your hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it.

Tom is the first to be put on the hot seat, and he slowly recites the three statements he prepared. "Ewan, pay attention," Tom blurts out when he notices that Ewan kept sneaking glances at you. "Sure, I'm locked in," Ewan says right back, as you and Phia share a look.

"What were you looking at?" you ask playfully, poking him in the side. "You seem plenty distracted there."

He snorts at himself in the video, when he ends up smiling as he caught your eye. "It was your fault. You were distracting me."

"I was not!" you exclaim. "I thought you were just being competitive then."

Phia is next to have a go. She tells you of a Wifi repellent necklace, a wrestling career, and saving a squirrel from a drainpipe. "The Wifi thing sounds like something Ewan would have," Tom jokes. "Oh sure," you concur, "except that he'd actually keep it so he can watch films." Ewan smiles at your acute observation.

"I'd also keep it to stalk your Instagram," Ewan mumbles from beside you. "And you know, just stalk you in general."

"I'm sure you do, Mitchell," you respond casually, but your face warms up anyhow.

It's Ewan's turn, and as he sits on the hot seat, you see Tom and Phia casting a look at each other then at the two of you, a secret message shared between them. "I bet she will know the answer right away," Phia says. "Yeah, how do we know the two of you didn't conspire together?" Tom asks. "Are you kidding me, you guys?" you laugh at them, thinking how silly they were being, not knowing then that they were definitely on to something.

"Darling, you have to know this," Ewan tells you specifically as you all try to guess the answer. "Oh, darling!" Tom mouths to Phia, dramatically flipping nonexistent long hair over his shoulder. Phia laughs at his antics, before nudging you and saying, "Which one is it? Which is the lie? I trust you." You respond, "Why me? You two should know this too!"

"Because I wasn't trying to date them, my love," Ewan says, smiling at the screen.

"Oh, come on now." You crane your neck up to press a soft kiss against his cheek before turning your attention back to the video. So you don't notice the switch in Ewan's breathing. The jumps in his heartbeart. The way he subtly clears his throat to deal with his flustered state.

The video comes to a close after your turn and even at the very end, Ewan can be seen admiring you as you give the closing remarks with Phia.

Admiring you, as he does in the moment.

"You're beautiful, you know that?" he says, when you turn to look at him.

"Thank you," you reply softly, your voice barely audible.

Some time passes with the two of you catching up, talking about your upcoming projects, his big meeting in New York - all the while his fingers trace patterns on your exposed skin, his arm wrapped around you snugly.

"Have you been keeping up with the show?" he asks.

"The last episode I saw fully was... the second one? I got pretty busy after that. How about you?"

"Oh," he looks down in thought, piquing your curiosity, "so you didn't get to see the third episode yet then?"

"No, not yet," you shake your head, "but I've seen some stuff here and there."

He hums again and he wants to ask, have you seen his stuff? There are around a dozen or so potential jokes at play here. He has an inkling to tell you to watch the episode so you can see just what you're in for. So you can see him and all he has to offer. He'd also fumble through a justification, as he had done in some interview, about the new studio they had filmed in being cold as a fridge freezer.

What to say? What to say? He picks at some lint on his jeans, smirking to himself.

"Yeah," you eventually giggle at his obvious hesitation. "I've only seen some of the episode. But what I've seen... is enough to make me jealous of Madame Sylvie."

He stiffens, throat suddenly dry, but one look at your smile does away with his concerns.

He soon finds himself laughing, a muffled, "Oh, darling," whispered lovingly against your hair.

"That was very brave of you, Ewan," you express sincerely.

"Thank you, love."

"So... just how cold was it in there?"

Your shared, unrestrained laughter echo throughout the room.

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

Your first date was meant to happen the following night, but such is the nature of the job that Ewan's schedule gets moved up all of a sudden.

Once the bigshot casting director in New York found out that Ewan is already stateside, he requested that the meeting be held at the earliest possible opportunity.

He calls you while you are in rehearsals, profusely apologizing and promising to fly back to LA in the next two days, right after his meeting is all sorted.

"It's okay, Ewan," you reassure him, genuinely understanding. "I will see you when you come back. Good luck, I know you're going to smash it, whatever opportunity this is!"

"Thank you, darling," he says, already wanting to have you back in his arms already, mentally kicking himself for not kissing you when he had about a hundred chances to do so. "I'm going to miss you."

"I'll miss you too," you respond, blushing silly with the phone pressed to your ear. "But it'll only be two days."

"Hmm, doesn't matter. I need to take you on our bloody date, darling. I've already taken so damn long."

"Don't worry," you say, "I've already seen you way more than I should before the first date."

"Wha - " a protest forms on his lips, but he gets your point right away. "Oh. Clever, darling."

"I know."

"But I'm planning to give you something that's just for you. That the whole world won't ever be privy to."

You swallow hard, your very being heating up at his insinuation. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Mitchell."

"I guess you'll just have to wait and see."

Bonus chapter!

Nocturnal file 🤫

💌 next chapter

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The cast's Where is The Lie? video is an actual thing! I hope yous got the reference!

Notice how the two nerve-wrecked shites didn't have their first proper kiss yet??? Will they ever?? 😩😩😩

Taglist is officially closed for this one. Please bookmark this series or the masterlist (or follow my page) to keep up with updates <3

I can't even overstate how mad all the love for this series has been! I'm always looking forward to hearing from you guys - suggestions, comments, complaints are always welcome!

See you in part five! (preview: something will happen in NY that might cause Ewan to question things!)

[fredsonlinebiz]

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[0scxmlqrd]

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 lovestruck

; in which [name] [surname], a woman with existential crisis, finds the meaning and purpose of her life—for her, player 120.

pairing: player 120 | cho hyun ju x f! reader

warning: slight angst, out of character (?), etc.

author's note: so thirsty for a player 120 | cho hyun ju x reader fanfiction I overcame my writer's block that's been goin' on for years now, lol.

YOU have no purpose in life—you believed. Well, at least that's what you'd made yourself think ever since you could remember.

You frequently would ask yourself why were you even here and what's the use of existing in this world full of nothing else but suffering.

You've tried to search it on the internet once, asked people in different online forums. Other than a hotline or basically the searching app telling you to call a therapist, you received some decent answers, but still, you couldn't get yourself to believe any of the answer they provided.

All you know is that one thing they have in common is that they are—

Subjective.

It depends.

In all honesty, you don't even know why you keep on living. Yet you've never tried ending it. You hate the feeling of pain, you hope that if you're ever going to die, it must be a quick and painless one.

The time you've spent questioning your existence turns much more worse than you had expected as in the process of finding your purpose, you lost your sense of self.

You don't know who you are anymore.

No wonder you ended up as a failure. Too lazy to finish college, jobless sprinkled with no motivation in life, no money but debt that kept piling up as each days pass by—the debt collectors are likely going to collect and sell your organs to the black market as soon as they find you.

But that's not what you fear.

Luckily, you don't have anyone that would be disappointed in you since you're all alone. An orphan, you are.

That's probably why you ended up being slapped by a random stranger on the train station over losing to a game only children would play. And what do you get in exchange? Money, of course. You have dignity of course, but when it comes to money, well... gone.

There's nothing much more important in this world than money. People who loved to claim "love" is only spouting nonsense.

Love wouldn't fill your empty stomach.

You were getting pissed playing the game you kept on losing. Your cheeks were already numb from how cruel each slap the man had been sending you.

Was it worth it? Should you quit?

Maybe just one last game and you'll get that money. Then you'd get yourself something good tonight in compensation to the sore and swollen face you'd have to endure tomorrow.

"Congratulations, you won!"

The man's clap echoed in the station. You nodded, although happy that you won, you couldn't smile as a small cut that you wondered how could it be so painful.

He handed you the money—you didn't thank him, his slap absolutely hurts, no way you're thanking him.

The man then asked you whether you want to play a game. You almost cursed him out loud after he recited your personal information out loud correctly, creep.

But after that, he handed you a card.

And you took it.

You need money to survive for tomorrow.

That's how you ended up in here.

A large, open space with large walls acting as barriers from the outside world. In front of everyone was a gigantic doll, towering everyone even from afar.

You wondered what game it was.

A sound coming from a speaker in an unknown location echoed all over the place, explaining the mechanics of the games—how to win and how you will get eliminated.

You wondered how they were going to sort out everyone who loses when there's literally hundreds of people currently.

Your eyes wandered from around the place onto each of the players your eyes could find, trying to familiarize with everyone—who knows, they might turn out to be your enemy in the future games.

Boring.

You thought to yourself as you scanned their faces. That was until your eyes came to an abrupt stop from a certain player not close behind you. You've heard of people like her, but you've never seen one in person. They must've gone through a lot for having the courage to be what they are in this country.

She seemed to felt your gaze on her and you two made eye contact. She smiled slightly at you slightly nodding her head.

Awkward, you felt. Flustered at the attention you were receiving from him. Then, another thought came through you, 'She's quite the looker,' to which you immediately shrugged off, shifting your eyes away from her to your front once again.

'Focus,' you scolded yourself. Changing your complete attention on your current and only goal—to win this game and spend every single money to yourself until you get sick tired of it.

Your thoughts were then cut short when a crazy uncle suddenly started shouting. He was basically saying that this game kills the people who lose and how everyone must listen to the rules so they could live.

Green Light!

He shouted for everyone to go and you ran as fast as you can.

Red Light!

He shouted to stop and everyone, including you, stopped. This continued smoothly until you heard a woman's scream.

Then, a loud bang echoed.

Then, a thud.

And then everyone around that woman turned chaotic. Everyone was panicking, screaming and running around. But slowly, each scream—both men and women— slowly counted down while loud bang you believed to be coming from guns shot them down each.

Good thing you followed what the crazy uncle said although it was unbelievable at first.

You thought you'd be fine as long as you follow his order. Much to your dismay, there were some factors you forgot to think of.

Green Light.

Some of the people on your side were also panicking, they started running faster. Their adrenaline finally getting through them so much that some people behind you got ahead of you.

You bit your lower lip, getting ready to sprint, collecting every single ounce of your energy. But suddenly, a woman behind you crashed onto you, causing you to trip and fall down.

'B*tch, you better not make me see you or—'

People started trampling over you. Some tripping on the process. It's painful, incredibly. Your losing more time, you knew. You cursed yourself silently for losing on the first game. Hell, you knew your dead once the timer runs out.

Nothing else could be done but curl yourself, protecting your vulnerable sides. But still, it was still painful.

You thought the pain would never end, the gigantic robotic doll still hadn't said red light and you're losing hope on whether you'd survive these people, and even if you did, you're probably going to arrive late.

To your surprise, you stopped feeling pain—but no signs of people stopping on their run. You frowned, confused as to how this happened. Maybe one of them hit your head, making your sense of pain go off.

But no, you felt someone on your back, their body covering yours.

Who?

A shadow, larger than yours was right above yours. Curious to the identity of the person, you looked up.

Your eyes widen in surprise.

The person stood up, looking right ahead and back down onto you, "Are you alright?"

It was the same pretty woman you met eye contact before, "Can you walk? We need to hurry up before the timer runs out"

You ignored the soreness around your body, "I can walk just fine, but I'm probably slower than before. You can go ahead—"

"No, let's go together. Here," she offered her hand, "C'mon, we don't have much time left!"

Time seems to slow down, your eyes glued at the figure above you, "O-Okay!"

You grabbed her hand, stood up and ran as fast as you can.

Despite the chaotic surroundings, you paid no mind to them. Your eyes were completely glued to the short-haired woman in front of you. Huh? The pretty stranger claimed that the time was running out, it seems different for you right now.

But, the time was not flowing quickly? It's not just slowing down—it stopped.

What? Did you just say you found out your life's purpose, are you serious?!

© 0SCXMLQRD

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[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

OK Guys. I get the skepticism esp after the Knuckles disaster, but we also need to keep in mind "this is a trailer that won't spoil literally everything about the movie." ESPECIALLY in regards to GUN. They're not gonna put in the trailer "the military shot a little girl and that's why Shadow is mad so Sonic is going to never work with them ever." That's a great way to get parents to bring their kids to the theater, especially in America. (/s)

It's WAY more effective as a plot twist halfway through, where Sonic thinks that he's finally being accepted onto Earth via working with the government only to find out that they're exploiting him and Shadow the same. I can't guarantee this is gonna happen obviously but it's like a 90% chance just knowing how, like. writing works.

Esp considering the government has not had a good track record in the last two movies, I dunno if they'd do a heel-face turn into "actually they were always right" in the movie where a little girl needs to get shot by the government.

And I'm not gonna say "trust and form a parasocial relationship with a film director" but we should keep in mind that Jeff Fowler got his start working on Shadow's title game and has stated in interviews that he understands how important Shadow's backstory is to his character. Not to mention how the internet has been exploding the last two years with enthusiasm over this story actually getting shown onscreen, enough that a studio would fucking notice at the very least that this is what the people want. I can't guarantee they'll actually listen, but saying that they're absolutely not because "Sonic was in a GUN helicopter in the trailer" is insane. Especially with the fact that GUN is not with Sonic when he goes to Eggman. We just see Team Sonic alone meeting with Stone, and I will bet you it's because there's no way in hell GUN would let them near him, what with the Robotnik connections to the ARK.

Also the Gerald thing is rather worrying, esp with the lack of shit they gave Pachacamac in the miniseries, but honestly I think that was just a marketing push of "Jim Carrey will be playing TWO characters!!!" Considering he's only seen in one trailer scene AT the ARK (where all of Gerald's technology was and, more importantly, where the Eclipse cannon he needs someone to set off is) AND we know from movie 2's credits scene that there was a fifty-year timeskip, I severely doubt that's the real Gerald who's just completely unaffected by his granddaughter being murdered.

And ofc there's things to be concerned about in the trailer. The lack of Rouge for instance– I obviously keep posting my theory that Krysten Ritter's character will be her undercover but the fact we don't know how much time she'd actually have with Shadow, if at ALL, is worrying. The fact that Rouge might not be here period. The weird pacing of the Knuckles show and the fear that could bleed over into the movie. But there's also stuff to get excited about– the epic fight scene choreography, the brief glimpse we got of Maria and Shadow's bond. Reeves's voice actually fits Shadow and at least from what the trailer showed us it looks like the Green Hills storyline is taking a backseat to the action and mystery of Project Shadow.

tl;dr guys calm down for like five minutes. if the movie sucks in december we can riot then. right now let's just band together against mufasa

[domjaehyun]

the boy is mine (l.dh) — part two

PAIRING. haechan x fem!reader GENRES. smut, angst WORD COUNT. 20.3k CONTENTS. infidelity, alcohol & weed consumption (MC is a non-smoker if that matters to you), explicit smut (dirty talk, fingering, finger sucking, oral (receiving), rimming (receiving), groping/frottage, marking, spit play, (brief) ear play, breast play, creampies/unprotected sex (if you explicitly need me, a stranger on the internet, to tell you not to fuck raw, you are not responsible enough to be reading this. move along now), snowballing, public sex, car sex, riding, bratty dom-leaning switch!haechan, bratty sub-leaning switch!reader, sweet dom!jeno, face riding, handjob, overstimulation (receiving), praise kink (receiving), light degradation kink (giving), mating press, morning sex) NOTES. here’s part two!! important to note: part 2 picks up from the same day as part 1 ends on! i hope you enjoy it!! please leave feedback if you liked it :) i would also greatly appreciate tips if you really liked it :3 THANK YOU LIKE THE HUUUUUGEST THANK YOU TO BRI (@jalitepng) FOR BETA READING THIS BIG OL FIC :D  PLAYLIST. the boy is mine - ariana grande // fantasize - ariana grande (unreleased) // lowkey (feat. erykah badu) - teyana taylor // agora hills - doja cat // pussy is mine - miguel // softest touch - khalid // cut - tori kelly // seatbelt - josh levi // often - doja cat // surrender - nbdy

NEED TO CATCH UP? here’s a link to the fic masterlist :)

The subway’s more packed than usual as you all head back to your and Yunjin’s apartment, the nine of you getting so separated that you can’t even see anyone from your friend group besides Yunjin, who’s standing in front of you with her bag in your lap.

“Be careful with him.” Yunjin’s voice and its underlying warning cuts through your reverie and catches your attention on the moderately packed subway car. 

“With who?” you ask, hoping it’s not who you’re thinking about—but, really, who else could it possibly be about?

She rolls her eyes. “Haechan.” she stresses his name, watching carefully to see your reaction. When you remain neutral in expression, she relaxes slightly, seemingly satisfied. “You two disappeared from the museum group, like, immediately, and when you magically reappear, he’s giving you bedroom eyes and you won’t even meet his gaze.”

”He keeps talking about getting closer to me.” you admit quietly, and she raises her eyebrows.

”Yeah, well, don’t let him get too close. He’s not on the market.”

”It’s not like that—” you start, but stop halfway.

For me. It’s not like that for me.

Which, of course, begs two questions: what is it for you? What does Haechan think it is?

You shift uncomfortably in your seat before sighing loudly and waving her off dismissively.

”Don’t worry,” you assure her, smiling confidently for good measure. “I’ve got my eye on him.”

“Well, he’s definitely got his on you, too, so look out.” she chuckles, and you frown.

“Well, why don’t you talk to him, then?” you ask. “Tell him to stop… exhibiting behaviors and acting in ways.”

She looks at you for a moment, almost like she can’t comprehend what she’s looking at. 

“I am gonna tell him to stop looking at you with heart eyes, especially right in front of his girlfriend. I was on the fence about it because he and I aren’t crazy close, though.” she worries aloud, nibbling her bottom lip.

The train comes to a stop, the doors open, and the man beside you stands and exits the train, Yunjin immediately plopping down in the now empty space.

“That might make it better,” you muse. “If you’re not even that close to him and you come up to him all stern and ‘keep your distance,’ then he might listen!”

“Or he might tell me to mind my business.” she points out with a wry smile, and you pause, thinking it over.

“He might not—well— …Well, all we can do is take it one day at a time and see how it pans out.” you say, the anxious feeling in your chest fading by the minute.

“So true,” Yunjin agrees as she leans back to rest her head on the wall behind her.

As if the universe chose this moment to display its excellent timing, the doors open at the next stop and a small group of men get on, all holding instruments. 

“Oh, no.” you mumble as the doors close and the men get into position. Within seconds, loud mariachi music fills the subway car and Yunjin jolts awake from her almost-slumber, her eyes wide in alarm.

You and Yunjin look at each other, exchanging wordless glances.

“The next stop is walking distance to the house,” Yunjin observes, and you wrinkle your nose at the thought of walking the rest of the way home.

“We can just switch cars in the opposite direction they go in.” you suggest, and she nods in agreement. 

“Good plan.” Yunjin leans back against the wall and puts her headphones in both of her ears, with you following suit moments later.

As you two wait for the next stop, you listen to your music, attempting to drown out the raucous band in the subway car less than fifteen feet from you. As the song ‘Lowkey’ by Teyana Taylor and Erykah Badu starts to play, you find yourself getting lost in the music, immersing yourself in the melody and lyrics. 

got a question for you if i let you, would you make a move? (make a move, make a move) what you're doin' to me, feel like you're feelin' me i think i feel you too

You grimace, the lyrics hitting a bit too close to home, but keep listening anyway.

lowkey want you by my side and i know you're down to ride but you don't belong to i know you're just a friend of mine but i’m wanting more inside and i know it feels so good but it also ain't right—

You finally skip the song with a deep set scowl and, as Megan Thee Stallion comes on shuffle, try not to think about the devilishly handsome male that seems to be hellbent on getting your attention, both consciously and subconsciously.

“What are we ordering, by the way?” Yunjin asks as she sprawls out on your couch. “I’m thinking of that little halal truck nearby; they’ve got all sorts of stuff, but I just want lamb and rice.”

“What about that even better halal place like 20 minutes away?” you offer, and various murmurs of agreement sound out.

“Yeah, but I kind of don’t want to wait for them.” Yunjin frowns, and you mirror her expression. 

“You have to wait anyway; why not wait a little longer for objectively better food?” you suggest.

She looks up thoughtfully. “I mean, yeah…” She turns slightly to address the group, asking, “what do you guys think?”

“I’m down for halal a little further away,” Haechan chimes in immediately, and you bite back a snicker at his readiness to agree with you.

Gradually, everyone makes their divided choices in food and you and Yunjin place the orders for delivery before trying to settle on something to watch.

“If we watch something scary, literally who is going to hold me?” Chenle complains, and you snicker loudly.

“Mark can hold you,” you offer, and he glowers at you before looking over at Mark, who’s already shaking his head.

“So much for that.” Chenle groans.

“Y’know, does the movie we watch tonight have to be scary?” Seulgi pipes up, and you shake your head.

“I don’t think so! It could be a comedy or something; it doesn’t even have to be Halloween themed.” you answer, and she nods in understanding.

“We could watch Hocus Pocus, though…” Jeno suggests, trailing off but still hopeful.

“Hocus Pocus is so good, actually?” you say in slow realization, and Jeno beams, happy to be heard.

“How about we start with Hocus Pocus and watch, like, Twitches next?” Mark suggests, and you all manage to agree, everyone else settling in on the couch and the floor as Yunjin starts loading up the movie. 

“Is there a specific reason why we’re watching Halloween movies in the peak of spring?” Haechan asks curiously.

“Same reason I’m having a Halloween party in the peak of spring,” you explain. “I love dressing up and missed my chance to celebrate with my friends when I was abroad, so I’m doing it now.”

Your phone buzzes, so you check it to see a notification that the halal restaurant has received and is preparing your order. 

“Do we wanna start the movie now or when the food actually gets here?” you question, and there’s a pause as everyone stops to think. 

“Yeah. we should wait,” Chaewon agrees, and you smile.

“In the meantime, I’m going to keep decorating.” you announce, standing up and heading towards the kitchen.

“Need any help?” Jeno asks, and you spot Haechan from the corner of your eye as he turns his head to watch you two intently.

“Mm, no, I should be fine,” you assure him, squeezing his forearm gently (and marveling at how defined and solid his muscles are). 

“Okay,” he says, sounding slightly disappointed, but still shoots you a bright smile. “Let me know if you change your mind?”

“Will do,” you promise with a smile before turning on your heel and continuing your route to the kitchen, doing your best to ignore the way you can practically feel Haechan’s gaze on your retreating back.

You make your way to your kitchen drawer, pulling out the decorative banner you finished making last night and heading to your apartment doorway, starting to attach the letters to the wall so any guests that enter will see it instantly.

You’ve already made decent progress in preparing for the party, various cobwebs decoratively strewn around the living room and black silhouettes of bats tastefully hung on the walls. You’re not big on the decorations, but you do want it to feel like it’s a Halloween party, so here you are.

You have a relatively clear vision for how you want your apartment to look, and you don’t necessarily need anyone’s help making your vision come to life. That’s precisely why you freeze when Haechan’s presence appears from beside you as he observes your handiwork.

“What are you doing, Haechan?” Your words are questioning, but your voice is flat and unamused as he picks up a set of cobweb fluff and starts detangling it.

He grins at you, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. “Getting myself an invite to your Halloween party by helping out.”

Turning your nose up, you sniff in disdain and turn back around to affix the next letters in your “Trick or Treat” sign. “Who says I’m inviting you?”

“We’re friends?” He says it like you’re stupid, and you narrow your eyes even though he can’t see you. 

“Your girlfriend is my friend.” you point out all without turning around. “Remember her?”

He scoffs. “Do you?”

You look back at him indignantly, setting down your letters and turning to face him fully. In the limited space between you two, Haechan leans forward with a little challenging glint in his eye. “What kind of dumbass question is that? I brought her up!”

He steps closer, placing his hands on either side of your frame, a devilishly handsome smirk curling his lips. “But you’re still here.”

“This is my home… that I’m decorating for my party… why would I leave?”

“You know damn well what I mean.”

He’s got you there. You roll your eyes in the hope of masking your defeat. “So?” you huff.

“A good friend would have left me over here by now.” He lifts his eyebrows as if to drive his point home. 

You’re lost for words, opening and closing your mouth to voice a rebuttal that never comes. His eyes glint with mischief and victory, but you can’t find it in you to be annoyed with him. 

“Well,” you sniff, turning your nose up, “a good boyfriend wouldn’t be over here to begin with.”

He chuckles, his head tipping back as his shoulders shake with amusement. Nodding slowly, he leans closer to you as if he isn’t already entirely invading your personal space. “Touché,” he murmurs with a grin, and his plain, bold, unapologetic admission of guilt takes you by surprise as well as intrigues you. 

“Well, we’re both bad,” you reply carefully, nibbling at your bottom lip absentmindedly. 

(You do not miss the way his gaze drops to your mouth and lingers there with an almost palpable longing. Hopefully, he misses the way you almost do the same.)

i want it but this ain’t the right time

“Yeah,” he mumbles in agreement, and you truly don’t think you’ve ever seen someone want to kiss you as badly as he does. He’s looking at you like it’s all he’s ever thought about—looking at you like one kiss could save his life, like your lips have the answer to a question he’s always wondered, and the slow creeping in of the realization has your body warming with desire. 

but damn it, you’re so fine so take me tonight

“What now?” you ask, voice husky with want, and he blinks, gaze flicking up to your eyes and from the way his stare intensifies, you know you’ve been found out. 

now hold me a lot on the line, please don’t play with my mind

“We can at least be bad together,” he supplies unhelpfully, a devious little grin curling his lips as he leans closer to you. 

ooh, i gotta decline

In the distance, someone laughs loudly—you’re willing to bet it’s Mark—and the realization of your surroundings and just how dangerous this is has you pressing a hand to his chest and pushing him back gently. 

He doesn’t move at first, and you watch as the slight pressure of your manicured nails into his chest sends his eyes rolling back into his head. When he refocuses on you, his eyes are heavy-lidded with intensity and you swallow thickly. 

“You’re flirting.” you warn him, barely able to conceal your growing amusement. 

He grins at the sight of you trying to hide your smile and the tension eases, so you use the opportunity to push more firmly and separate the two of you. You turn back around to put up the last two letters of your sign, only for his sudden presence right by your ear to send you jolting. He whispers his message so quickly and quietly you could have almost missed it, but the words linger in your mind, echoing off the walls until it’s all you can think about. 

“You’re letting me.”

As you continue to decorate your apartment, Haechan comes around far more often than you think necessary—either calling himself “assisting” in small ways with lingering touches—

(“Haechan, you’re not slick,” you huff as he brushes up behind you for far too long, allegedly helping you hang a cobweb, “you’re pressing up against me.”

Instead of moving back, his lips find your ear and he murmurs, audibly grinning, “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“If you don’t get—” you scoff, turning to swat at him, but he dances away smoothly, wiggling his eyebrows playfully.)

—or making flirtatious remarks—

(“Hey, do you have gum?” Haechan asks seemingly out of the blue, and you set your decorations down before heading to your cupboard and offering him two cubes of gum from your little stash. “Thanks,” he grins as he pops the gum into his mouth and chews.

“Gum’s gonna ruin your appetite,” you warn him. “The food’s almost here.”

“I don’t want it for long,” he assures you, and you raise your eyebrows as if to say, “Is that so?”

“So you plan on wasting my gum?” you ask with playfully narrowed eyes, and he shakes his head, coming closer and closer to you until he’s got you cornered against the counter. 

“Never that,” he promises. “Just wanted an idea of what it’d taste like to kiss you.”

You gasp, successfully making contact with his chest when you swipe at him this time, pushing him back so he’s resting against your kitchen island about three feet from you. “Haechan!”

“Would you rather I do this, or should I just come a little closer and find out for myself?” he asks with his eyebrows raised, and you balk, swallowing thickly.

“Stay back and chew.” you quip, and he grins, making a loud, obnoxious show of chewing his gum.

“Tastes good,” he compliments, and you roll your eyes. “Really good.”

“Get out before I launch something at you,” you threaten, but both sets of ears can hear the emptiness behind it.

Haechan has the nerve to giggle mischievously before obliging and exiting the kitchen, leaving you to sigh loudly and attempt to calm the heat rising to your cheeks.) 

—or just being an overall flirt.

(“So, what are you gonna be for your Halloween party?” he asks as you bustle around your kitchen tidying up the leftover decoration equipment you’ve left out.

“Haechan, all our friends—and your girlfriend—are in the next room.”

“And?”

“And,” you continue, glowering at him, “you should be in there, too.”

“But you’re in here.” he points out.

“I’m busy.” you explain, and he shrugs.

“Well, then I’m busy, too.” he echoes.

You blink at him. “Doing what?”

“Entertaining you? Keeping you company?” he answers slowly, like you’re dumb, and you can’t help but narrow your eyes.

“I’m not entertained.” you deadpan, and he snorts.

“Then why do you keep looking over here?” He raises an eyebrow challengingly, and you huff.

“You’re distracting me,” you complain, and he frowns, picking up a forkful of food and offering it to you.

“I’m nourishing you,” he insists, offering the food more insistently.

“I have my own food,” you brush him off, and he rolls his eyes.

“Mine is different. And possibly even better.” he sing-songs. “Now try.”

“Haechan—”

“I’m about to spill rice and sauce all over your neat and tidy floor if you don’t put this fork in your mouth in the next three seconds.” he warns, and you growl in mild irritation before leaning forward and wrapping your lips around his fork. “Isn’t that good?” he asks eagerly, fully aware of the answer, and you can’t help but nod in agreement, the flavors of the chicken, rice, and white sauce dancing on your tongue as you chew and swallow. 

“You have a hard time taking no for an answer.” you point out dryly, staring at him blankly. “Does this crop up in other aspects of your life?”

He bursts out laughing. “I definitely have a hard time taking no, but only if the person saying no clearly means yes.”

You scoff incredulously and cross your arms, leaning against the counter as you regard him.

“And how, pray tell, would you know if they mean yes, all-knowing Reader of Minds?”

He steps closer and slowly places his hands on either side of you, meeting your gaze with a soft intensity that you find more unnerving than the more lust-filled gazes he’s sent your way.

“It’s in their body language. For example: you always say you want me to step back and get out of your space, but you let me get into your space virtually every time.” His voice lowers to a soft murmur, and you suddenly can’t meet his gaze. “It’s the way you still haven’t moved either one of us despite me bringing to your attention how close we are.” he observes. “It’s also,” he says, tilting your head up by the chin so you’re looking at each other, “in the eyes.”

Your mouth feels dry. “The eyes?”

He nods, gently brushing a piece of hair from your face and stroking your cheek gently before lowering his hand. “Like the way you look at my lips after I look at yours.”

Fuck.

“I don’t know what you mean.” you lie, and he chuckles.

“It’s okay, baby. I know exactly what I’m talking about.” he assures you with such a level of confidence that it takes you aback. “Y’know, sometimes, I catch you looking before I’ve even looked.”

“Wh— don’t you have someone else you can entertain, or keep company, or—or nourish?” you complain, throwing your hands up in exasperation.

“You want me to go?” he asks, keen eyes bright and studying your reaction.

“Yes.” you reply immediately, and he, contrary to your expectations, grins. 

“I’ll go, I guess. I suppose I could spare those guys a crumb of attention.” he relents, and you nod eagerly.

“Give ‘em the whole loaf of attention.” you say, and he rolls his eyes with a smile.

“I’m going, I’m going. But by the way,” he says before he leans closer, prompting you to lean back suddenly in alarm, “I know you lied.”

He exits the room just a moment after, a second too late to catch the surprise on your face at his catching you in your bluff.

You groan inwardly and finish tidying up your kitchen to head into the living room, all the while wondering if Haechan was sent by the universe to teach you some sort of divine lesson.)

It’s later in the evening and you’re all sitting around the living room when Winter stretches and yawns, sitting up slightly in her seat. 

“All that food made me tired,” she laughs and you can feel Haechan’s body tense slightly beside you, the male sitting up a little straighter as he waits—for what, you don’t know, but he seems to find it inevitable. “I think I’m gonna head home in a bit,” she says with a small frown, and it’s actually upsetting the way Haechan deflates. Looking over at Haechan from across the room, she smiles hopefully. “Will you take me home?”

Haechan nods with a small, tight-lipped smile that you’re surprised his own girlfriend can’t see through. Winter stands, saying something about freshening up, and heads down the hallway, Haechan waiting for her retreating figure to disappear before he sighs deeply.

“Don’t have too much fun without me,” Haechan mumbles, shooting a loaded glance in your direction before standing up as well and stretching before heading to your apartment’s entryway to get his coat and shoes.

You stand and head over to the kitchen to put away your now empty container of food, only slightly aware of Seulgi following after you.

“I feel kind of bad for Haechan,” you say with a frown, and Seulgi hums in acknowledgement.

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?” she asks, and if you’re not mistaken, there’s something more to her tone, something that feels like she’s leading you to understand something, but you’re not entirely sure what she’s hinting at, so you just brush it off.

”I mean, he clearly doesn’t wanna leave yet.” you reply, and she hums again, longer than before. 

“Did he tell you that?” she questions, and you pause, your brows furrowing in confusion.

“He didn’t have to,” you answer slowly. “I could tell just from looking at him.”

“I see,” she replies with a nod, and you slowly resume your task of tidying up until she asks, “do you do that often?”

“Seulgi, please stop speaking in code.” you half-chuckle, half-sigh. “Do I do what?”

“Look at him.”

You tilt your head, taken aback and more confused than before and, suddenly, a bit defensive. “No more than the average person?”

“You sure about that?” she asks carefully and you set the now cleaned out container down a bit harder than you meant to before you turn to look at her.

“Seulgi. What are you hinting at?” you decide to come right out with it, not a fan of dodging the actual topic. 

“Don’t you think it’s kind of… weird… how Haechan keeps paying attention to you and, like, not his girlfriend?” she asks finally, and it takes everything in you not to react visibly.

“I don’t think I know what you’re talking about.” you fib, and she raises her eyebrow skeptically. “You got all this from me saying the guy doesn’t wanna go home?”

“I got all this from him. The way he looks at you, the way he deliberately makes it his mission to sit beside or near you all the time or find any reason to sneak off with you…” she trails off, and you’re silent for a moment before sighing. “I’m just saying to be careful.”

“I just got back, Seulgi—I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers.” you say sincerely, and she nods, seemingly satisfied. 

“I’m more worried about him trying to fly the coop.” she chuckles, albeit a bit worriedly, and you nod.

“I get you,” you reply. “I’ll be careful.”

She puts her hands up in surrender. “Thank you. That’s all I ask.”

But as she leaves the kitchen, you can’t help but wonder if it’s too late. 

“Not to be dramatic,” you start, “but if Mr. Insufferable doesn’t leave soon, things might get violent.” 

“Don’t say that!” your favorite library volunteer says. “He’s definitely leaving soon.”

“Oh, and one more thing—” an all too familiar voice emerges seemingly from the shadows, and your lovely little volunteer flinches before looking around anxiously.

“Save yourself,” you reply glumly. “I’ll talk to him, just reshelve these books for me?”

She obliges, pushing the cart towards the bookshelves, and you spin around in your chair, confirming that your annoying-as-all-hell boss is, in fact, approaching before turning back around and resuming your work.

“When will you be checking these books back in?” he asks with thinly veiled impatience as he gestures at the stack of books still left on the counter.

“Given that I’ve been checking books back in for the past fifteen minutes,” you reply just as bluntly, “in a second.”

“Well, make sure they go back right. You’re not in Oxford anymore—I’m not intimately aware of their filing system, but over here we enjoy the good ol’ Dewey Decimal system.”

You sigh heavily. “They use the Dewey Decimal system.” Your response is flat and thoroughly unamused, even as your boss laughs obnoxiously.

“Do they really?” your boss exclaims, surprised. “Well, let’s hope you remember—”

“I’m not going to magically forget the entirety of how to do my job after spending several months abroad doing… my literal job.” you retort brusquely.

Your boss is silent for a moment and you fear you’ve gone too far before he hums thoughtfully. “I suppose that’s fair. Well, I’m off for the night. I expect every task assigned to you to be completed when I return.”

“Night.” you mutter bitterly, and he bids you a curt goodbye before exiting the library. You wait for the door to shut fully before heaving a large sigh and collapsing against your chair. “‘I’m not intimately aware of their filing system—’ Well, how about you become intimately aware of my foot up your ass—” you grumble to yourself.

While you’re slightly less annoyed in your boss’s absence, you’re now… bored. Your favorite volunteer is the only other one on the clock with you right now, and reshelving those books will take her at least an hour, leaving you alone and understimulated.

Almost as if the universe could hear your pleas for entertainment, the door of the library opens and in walks none other than Jeno and Haechan. Jeno locks eyes with you instantly, offering a bright smile and a wave, while Haechan scans the room until his eyes finally land on you behind the desk and he grins, shooting you a surreptitious wink that has you struggling not to roll your eyes.

They finally approach the desk, Jeno leaning his torso against it while Haechan rests his elbow on the counter and rests his chin in his palm, and you can’t help but smile at their bright dispositions. 

“Hey, guys! What brings you to the library?” you greet them.

“I just finished taking my lunch and thought I’d stop by to say hi before my next class.” Jeno explains, and you hum in understanding.

“What about you?” you ask Haechan curiously, trying to hide your suspicion, and he smiles wider, a glint in his eyes that confirms your hunch that he’s up to no good.

“I don’t start work at the restaurant for another two hours, so I was walking around outside and I ran into Jeno over here, and we got to talking, and he told me he was coming to see you, so I thought, ‘Hey; can’t pass that opportunity up.’” Haechan replies, his nonchalant tone completely contrasting the intent, almost longing way he’s staring at you; he’s so intense, as a matter of fact, that you have no choice but to break eye contact and look back at Jeno, who seems to be none the wiser of what just happened.

“Great,” you say slowly, a hesitant smile making its way to your lips. “Well, welcome to our lovely library.”

“You gonna give us a tour?” Haechan asks with a playful smile, and you snicker as you shake your head.

“No, because that would involve moving from my very comfortable chair.” you reply, and he pouts.

“Come on, I’ll push you around and you direct me!” he offers, and you snort.

“I think if these students saw their librarian being pushed around in a computer chair by some guy, they’d lose all respect for me, and we can’t have that.” you sigh.

“That’s fair, I guess,” Jeno chimes in. “Well, what are you up to?”

“I was reading some astrology hot takes online,” you confess with a sheepish smile. “Nothing too important.”

“I don’t know much about astrology,” Jeno admits with a bashful laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just know I’m a Taurus, but I don’t know what that means.”

“Yeah, you’re definitely a Taurus,” you agree with a nod. “That’s a good thing, by the way—at least, it is to me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jeno asks, and you nod.

“Well, just off the top of my head, Tauruses are often reliable, honest, steadfast, and have a special appreciation for the finer things in life.” you explain. “Basically like the perfect partner, if you ask me.” 

As Jeno’s cheeks redden from the compliment, Haechan scowls deeply and sucks his teeth.

“Boring! Where’s the excitement? What about Geminis?” he asks, and you blink slowly at him before sighing loudly and dramatically.

“Geminis are dynamic social butterflies and have a bad reputation for being two-faced and disloyal.” you say, meeting Haechan’s gaze with a challenge in your eyes. 

“I’m not two-faced!” he protests, and you raise your eyebrows.

“Are we admitting to being disloyal, king?” you tease, and Jeno chuckles as Haechan huffs. “Jeno’s Taurus ass could never,” you point out, and Haechan bristles at yet another comparison to the male beside him.

“Jeno’s Taurus ass wouldn’t know a good time if it smacked him upside the head.” he mutters bitterly, and Jeno frowns.

“Jeno’s Taurus ass can and frequently does have a wonderful time at parties,” you retort, turning to the male in question. “Isn’t that right, Jeno?”

“Yeah, I love a good party,” he says with a wistful smile. 

“Geminis are the life of the party.” Haechan counters smugly, continuing on as if Jeno hadn’t spoken. “We’re fun and spontaneous—”

“Are you spontaneous, or are you just impulsive and reckless?” you ask, feigning curiosity. 

Haechan’s eyes flash with something bright and intense. “My hindsight happens to be 20/20.”

“Isn’t everyone’s?” you drawl, bored. “Well, Jeno’s Taurus ass—”

“Oh, brother,” Haechan groans.

“—can look before he leaps and therefore not wind up busting his ass.”

“Yeah, well, Jeno’s Taurus ass has no ass, so—”

“Hey!” Jeno squawks indignantly.

“Now what did that have to do with anything, you brute?” you round on Haechan, who’s grinning with satisfaction.

“Of course he’s not gonna bust his ass—he has no ass to begin with!” Haechan snickers, and Jeno crosses his arms, brows furrowing.

“If I’d known I was just gonna get ass-shamed, I wouldn’t have brought you here.” Jeno gripes at Haechan, and you turn your attention to him with an apologetic smile.

“Jeno, Haechan’s just jealous.” you say, and Haechan snorts loudly.

“Of what? His long back?”

“Haechan, shut up—” you turn to glare at him and he, unseen by Jeno, shoots you a dazzling grin and a wink that, unfortunately for you, seems to be nothing short of debilitating as you suck in a sharp breath and freeze momentarily in place.

You’ve gotta hand it to him; Haechan really is charming.

You’re pulled out of your momentary daze when Haechan clears his throat pointedly, snapping you out of it enough to realize that you’ve been staring directly at Haechan for the past minute or so. His gaze is teasing, playful—sultry, even—as he lifts his eyebrows expectantly.

“You good?” he asks slowly, and you narrow your eyes at him, huffing slightly and looking towards Jeno.

“‘M fine,” you mumble dismissively, and refocus your attention on the slightly sulking male in front of you. “Jeno?”

“Mm?” he hums distractedly, and you catch as Haechan rolls his eyes from the corner of your eye.

“What you may lack in ass, you make up for with your face,” you reassure him, and he chuckles, the sound a bit shy. 

(Slightly off to the side, Haechan makes a loud gagging noise. He is ignored.)

“Yeah?” he asks, and you nod confidently.

“For sure.” you agree earnestly. “Does that make you feel any better?”

“Loads,” he assures you, and you smile.

“Haechan’s a brat, just ignore him—”

“Hey!” Haechan complains, but you keep talking over him.

“—that’s what I do.” you explain, and Jeno laughs good-naturedly, seemingly back in good spirits, before his eyes drift to the wall behind you and his brows furrow in confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“Is that clock accurate?” he asks, pointing at the analog clock behind you as worry creeps into his voice, and you turn to check before turning back around with a nod.

“I mean, it’s a minute or two slow, but aren’t most clocks?” you reply, confused by the shift in conversation.

Jeno unlocks his phone for a second, confirming the time, and his eyes widen in alarm before he stands up straight and starts speed-walking backwards to the exit.

“Oh, shit—I totally lost track of time,” he admits, frowning apologetically. “I have to go get ready for my next class.”

“No worries, Jeno,” you assure him with a warm smile that he returns. “Thank you for coming to visit me; it really means a lot.”

“Anytime. Enjoy work! I’ll see you later.” he bids you farewell, gives Haechan a small two-finger salute, and exits the library, quickly rounding the corner out of sight.

There’s a moment of silence during which you get the feeling that you probably shouldn’t look at Haechan, but he seems to be one step ahead of you, already clearing his throat obnoxiously loudly to get your attention. When you slide your gaze over to him, he’s walking around the desk to join you behind it with a winning smile.

Pointing at the empty rolling chair beside you, he asks, “Is this seat taken?”

“Would you listen to me if I said yes?” you ask, and he chuckles to himself before pulling the chair out and plopping down in it unceremoniously. 

“Nope.”

“Great,” you huff with amusement before turning your attention back to your computer. However, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to ignore the way Haechan’s gaze practically burns a hole into the side of your face, so you sigh as loudly and dramatically as is socially acceptable in a private school library and look over at him. “What?”

“Why is it that Jeno finally leaves, and you go silent?” he questions, confused.

“‘Finally’ is crazy, actually.” You can’t help but laugh at his bluntness. “That’s your friend!”

“You can’t honestly tell me you’re upset that goober left just now.” he asks, tone bordering on bewildered, and you bark out a laugh at his creative word choice before clapping a hand over your mouth. “See?!”

“He’s not a goober! You’re terrible,” you can’t help but giggle, and he grins widely before he seems to remember something and points at you accusingly.

“You’re the terrible one,” he counters, sniffling dramatically. “You were flirting with him right in front of me!”

“Haechan, that shouldn’t matter to you.” you say with a roll of your eyes. “You have a girlfriend.”

“Well, it does matter to me.” he huffs, crossing his arms stubbornly. “I don’t wanna sit here while you stroke Jeno’s—”

“You’d better finish that sentence with the word ‘ego.’” you warn him, and he raises his eyebrows.

“I was going to.”

“Okay, good.” you reply, blinking at him impassively.

“Great.”

“Wonderful.” 

“Excellent.” Haechan retorts, and you roll your eyes.

“Synonyms.”

Haechan barks out a laugh at that, and it draws a laugh out from you as well, the two of you laughing as quietly as you can manage. When he manages to compose himself, he shoots you a suggestive look, complete with a wiggle of his brows, and turns slightly in his chair so he’s completely facing you. 

“Now that it��s just you and me,” he starts as he rolls his chair closer to yours, hooking his foot around the base of your chair so you can’t roll away, and tilts his head to the side to take in the sight of you. “I just want to say that you look exceptionally good today.”

“Thank you,” you say politely before attempting to turn your chair towards your computer—all to no avail, as Haechan still has you locked in place. “Can I help you?” Something about the ridiculousness of it all has you holding back laughter, which Haechan seems to take as encouragement.

“You’re really cute when you’re annoyed, you know that, right?” he murmurs, tracing circles on the back of your hand. 

“That’s so great to know,” you sigh, dragging out your words for emphasis. “Did you forget I am at my place of work? The very place where I am expected to—and this may come as a shock to you—do work?” 

Haechan’s eyes widen comically in horror. “You’re telling me they make a pretty girl like you do work?”

You bite back a giggle. “Precisely.”

“Oh, the humanity!” he wails, falling back in his chair with the back of his hand to his forehead like he’s fainting, and you can’t hold it back any longer, bursting into a fit of laughter as quiet as you can manage. 

“Will you keep it down? You’re gonna get me in trouble.” you half-whisper, half-scold through your laughter. 

“No, I will not be silenced!” he whispers loudly, and you roll your eyes as your lips tremble to hold back your laugh. “Making pretty girls do work is inhumane. Y’know, I bet there’s a union for that.” he posits, and you snort in amusement.

“Be quiet before I get campus security to kick your butt out.” you warn, looking pointedly at the tall security guard walking by the library’s windows.

“Fine, I’ll lower my voice,” he finally admits defeat, and you sit back in your chair, pleased. “But don’t think I’m done with this.”

“Oh, would you please be done with it, actually?” you ask, batting your lashes coyly for effect. “You’re gonna draw too much attention, and I’m not really supposed to have guests back here.” You frown, bottom lip bordering dangerously on jutting out in a pout, and his gaze visibly softens, a fond smile curling his lips.

“Anything for you,” he relents, raising both hands in surrender, and you snort softly, feeling thoroughly entertained.

“Thanks so much.” you say sincerely, patting his knee and regretting it instantly when his gaze drops to your hand, now tentatively retracting from his leg, and his tongue slowly peeks out to wet his lips. “Haechan, you’re better than this.”

“Am I?” he asks in a murmur, gaze trained on your mouth so unwaveringly that warmth starts to spread throughout your body starting from your center and radiating out. “Are we sure about that?”

“You’d better be,” you warn him, pointing a scolding finger in his direction. “Security will yank you out of here with an old-time cane if you don’t quit being so…”

“So what?” he presses, and you growl under your breath.

“So… unfit for public consumption!” you retort, and he starts to laugh, the surprisingly pleasant sound building from within his chest.

“You’re too cute, seriously.” he chuckles, and you roll your eyes. “I’ll stop. For you.”

“Thanks,” you mutter petulantly, and he waves you off dismissively, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his limbs.

“So—who was that guy you were trying to explode with your mind earlier?” Haechan asks out of the blue, and you turn to him, spluttering defensively.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” you huff, and he raises an eyebrow, leaning closer. 

“Do you often look at people like you want to see them suffer?” he asks skeptically, and you falter.

“That was my supervisor who’s not exactly my supervisor but thinks he’s my supervisor so he breathes down my neck all the time when he’s here.” you sigh, and Haechan winces.

“Making sure you’re doing your job?”

“Making sure he’s intimately aware of all the internal affairs of this hallowed library.” you scoff, rolling your eyes. “I sent an email to a student about their library book almost being due and he wanted to know why he wasn’t CC’ed.” 

“He sounds like he sucks,” Haechan says sympathetically, and you sigh deeply, already starting to feel better about the situation. “Well, hey, did he leave for the day?”

“He did,” you say with a smile. “I’m free for the next few hours.”

“What are you gonna do with your newfound freedom?” he asks playfully, nudging you with his knee, and you can’t help but smile.

“I don’t know… the world is my oyster now,” you gasp dramatically. 

“The possibilities are endless.” Haechan agrees solemnly. “I’m overwhelmed for you, actually.”

You don’t bother to hold back the snicker that escapes you, and Haechan’s eyes light up at the sound, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“You have a cute laugh.” he compliments with a fond smile, and you wrinkle your nose.

“Thanks,” you mutter, slightly skeptical. You think carefully about your interactions today and the words you’ve chosen to say to him. “You know—”

His phone starts to ring out on the table, and he snatches it off the table quickly, frowning.

“Sorry,” he says sincerely as he declines the call. “What were you going to say?” However, the person on the phone doesn’t seem to be done, his phone starting to buzz sporadically as they instead start to text him incessantly. “Jesus Christ—”

“Is it Winter?” you ask worriedly, and his brow furrows at the mention of her name, but he doesn’t comment further.

“No, it’s my coworker,” he answers with a small sigh as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Maybe you should check?” you supply helpfully, and he smiles apologetically at you as he picks up his phone to check his messages, giving you a moment to rethink your idea of telling him he’s starting to grow on you.

After a moment of reading, Haechan frowns deeply and sighs, prompting you to tilt your head to the side in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” you ask curiously.

“Looks like I gotta go.” he says unhappily, and you catch yourself mirroring his expression. His keen eyes catch your look of disappointment before you can wipe it from your face and he smiles teasingly. “Are you gonna miss me?”

You pause, thinking over your words carefully. “I appreciated the company.” you settle for saying, and Haechan rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, clearly unimpressed.

“You appreciated my company.” he corrects you, and you shrug dismissively, looking back down at your files. “You’re gonna miss me.”

“Am I?”

“Yep,” he says, popping his lips on the “p.” “Now say it.”

“No.”

“Say it,” he presses, and something about the shift in his tone intrigues you—it’s not a plaintive, whining request, as is typical of Haechan, but it’s confident, assertive, and… dominant. 

You’re not sure what comes over you, but you oblige, quietly mumbling, “I’m gonna miss you.”

He grins widely and rolls his chair closer to yours, so close that your knees are touching. “Say it again?”

“Haechan,” you complain, feeling heat rise to your cheeks.

“I can’t help it,” he defends himself. “You’re just so cute.” His voice drops lower on the last word, his intonation far too suggestive to brush off as a casual remark.

You blink twice, stunned by his forwardness, before you snap out of it and busy yourself with pretending to search for a file on your computer.

“Watch it, Haechan,” you warn finally, and he chuckles, leaning closer with his eyes carefully trained on you.

“I’d rather watch you.”

“Haechan.”

“It’s true.” he persists, shrugging. “You’re quite the looker.”

“Haechan, be quiet.” You desperately need him to shut up before you say something that could get you in trouble.

“I mean, just absolutely gorgeous,” he continues as if you haven’t spoken, and you let out a strangled yelp of alarm, shaking your head vehemently.

“You are so—”

“So what?” he’s on you before you can even properly abandon the sentence, eyes bright with mischief. “I’m so what? Say it.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” you remind him weakly, but he continues to stare at you expectantly. 

“So what?”

“So dangerous,” you finish lamely, and he grins wider, sitting back in his chair as he radiates satisfaction.

“And you like that,” he says, watching you closely. “Don’t you?”

A beat of silence passes between you two before you sigh heavily. “If I say yes, will you stop tormenting me?”

He wiggles his eyebrows flirtatiously. “Only if you mean it.”

You growl under your breath and pinch the bridge of your nose, closing your eyes tightly before releasing a deep breath and reopening your eyes. “Maybe I like it a little bit.” You bring your index finger and thumb together in a pinching gesture with a minuscule amount of space between them. “This much.”

“Mm, yeah? Only that much?” he teases, and you glower at him.

“Only that much,” you assert, and his eyes scan your frame slowly, his tongue swiping along his lips leisurely as his gaze lingers on your lips, and you suck your teeth, reaching over and pushing his chair away from yours. “You have somewhere to be!” 

“Fine, I’ll go,” he finally relents, standing up from his chair, and you sigh in relief. “I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

“Mm, maybe,” you reply with a nonchalant shrug, attempting to recover some of your composure, and he fixes you in place with a disapproving scowl. “Haechan, get out before I throw this book at you.”

“I’m going,” he insists, heading for the door. He turns back just as he’s about to exit and says with a mischievous grin, “and you’re going to miss me.”

“Haechan, go!”

“I’ll miss you, too, by the way.” he says sincerely, and you act as if you’re reaching for the book to throw it at him, so he ducks out of the doorframe, his delighted laughter slowly fading as he leaves.

You sit there for a moment, desperately trying to calm the warmth in your cheeks and the smile that threatens to take over your whole face.

He really is dangerous.

Far, far, far later in the evening, you’re bored at home, Yunjin has gone to sleep for the night, and you have a gurgling feeling in your stomach that has your mind wandering to food options.

“What’s still open this late, though?” you mumble, scrolling through food delivery apps before a thought comes to you. Getting up from your couch, you excitedly step into your shoes and grab your wallet, keys, and coat before heading downstairs to the local Mexican food truck on your block.

The night air is expectedly brisk at 2:30am, so you pull your coat tighter around you as you purposefully speed-walk to the end of your block towards the bright lights of the truck currently serving guests. For a mobile shop, it’s surprisingly welcoming, with two tables with chairs set up in front of where you take orders, and the smells of meats and spices waft through the air, making your mouth water in anticipation.

You catch the eye of one of the men in the truck, who smiles and waves before beckoning you closer.

“Hey, how are you? Can I get a chicken quesadilla and an order of birria tacos, please?” you place your order, and the man taking your order nods as the other worker in the truck starts preparing your food.

You help yourself to a seat at one of the tables and pull out your phone, taking a picture of the food truck and posting it to your Instagram story with the caption “thank god they’re still open.”

It takes less than three minutes after your post goes live for your phone to buzz with a notification.

haechanahceah liked your story.

haechanahceah: what’d you get 👀

you: it’s a secret 😌

haechanahceah: gatekeeping is no fun :(

you: idk abt that i’m having a great time right now actually 🤔

you: what are you even doing up sir

haechanahceah: can’t sleep :(

haechanahceah: and “sir”….unless you wanna start something i don’t think you can finish, i wouldn’t call me that

you: has anyone ever told you you’re kind of full of yourself?

haechanahceah: nope :) maybe you wanna be full of me instead?

you: …don’t make me lose my appetite.

haechanahceah: speaking of appetite, i could go for something to eat 🤔 any recommendations?

you: hmmmmmmm i might know of a place

haechanahceah: oh yeah?

you: mhm :) it’s a little mexican food truck :) that i may or may not be sitting at right now :)

haechanahceah: the one by your building? on the corner of the block?

you: maybe  🧌

haechanahceah: say less i’m omw right now

you: i’ll see you soon then i suppose

It doesn’t take Haechan long at all to get to where you are; as a matter of fact, the cook hasn’t even finished your birria tacos by the time Haechan arrives. 

“Hey,” Haechan greets you, sitting down beside you at the small table. 

“Hi, stranger,” you reply lightheartedly, offering him a friendly smile.

Haechan rests his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm, studying you for a moment.

You let him look for a while without saying anything, only sparing him a glance once your patience runs out, raising an eyebrow expectantly. “Can I help you with something?”

“Did you miss me?” Haechan asks in a teasing lilt, and you roll your eyes, laughing quietly to yourself.

“Maybe a little bit.” you admit, deciding to indulge him for once, and you don’t regret it—his face lights up as he beams at you, and you’re momentarily dazzled into silence, simply blinking at him in a mild daze.

“Good.” he replies, still smiling from ear to ear as he stands up to order. Leaning down so his mouth is by your ear, he murmurs, “I missed you, too,” before he steps forward to place his order.

A full body shudder travels down your spine from his proximity to your ear, and you shake your head, laughing quietly to yourself at his antics.

“What did you get?” you ask curiously when he returns to his seat.

“I got chicken flautas and a beef burrito.” he answers excitedly, and you can’t help but laugh fondly.

“You sound so eager.”

“I’m hungry,” he stresses, and you snort in amusement.

The cook holds out the bag of your food and you stand up to take it and thank him, noting with mild confusion that Haechan follows suit, following after you to the front of the truck.

As you take your bag of food from the cook’s hand, the man who initially took your order presents the portable card reader for you to pay, and Haechan reaches up and places his phone over the screen before you can even process what he’s doing.

“Did—Haechan.” you stammer in confusion as everything gradually starts to come together.

“Yes?” he sing-songs the response with an air of triumph that has you narrowing your eyes.

“Did you just pay for my food?”

“Sure did.” he confirms, nodding proudly. 

“You didn’t need to do that,” you say with a small frown, and he rolls his eyes before waving you off dismissively.

“I know. I wanted to.” he replies, and you let out a small sigh of defeat.

“Haechan, literally what am I going to do with you?”

“For now? You can sit and eat with me and keep me company.” he proposes hopefully, and a fond smile makes its way to your lips before you sigh dramatically and gingerly place your bag of food down on the table.

“I suppose I can do that.” you say slowly with a feigned air of reluctance, and there goes that knee-buckling smile of his again, your dangerously charming meal companion gesturing for you to sit down.

“Good. Now, how was your day after I left? Worse, right? Dull and boring and uninspiring in my absence, right?” he nods encouragingly at you and you can’t hold back the amused giggle that slips from your lips.

“Actually, yeah,” you sigh, casting a forlorn look at the ground, much to Haechan’s amusement. “My boss-that’s-not-my-real-boss stopped by again.”

“No way? What’s his deal?” Haechan looks genuinely offended on your behalf, and you can’t help but feel a little vindicated by his reaction.

“Literally no idea, Haechan,” you huff, frowning again at the unpleasant memory. When you look over at Haechan, he’s already looking at you, eyes soft and warm with a hint of amusement. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re just so cute when you pout.” he admits, and you roll your eyes.

“I was not pouting.”

“You most definitely were.” he insists, sitting forward with a gleam in his eyes. “Sitting here with that bottom lip all cute and poked out and tempting me like that, and you think you’re not pouting?”

You fix your face. “Tempting you?”

“To just kiss you already.” he says in a low murmur, the words hanging in the air like a confession between the two of you. 

“Don’t say things like that,” you mumble after a brief silence.

“Couldn’t help myself,” he counters with a nonchalant shrug. “Now, what did your boss-that’s-not-really-your-boss want?”

“God, Haechan,” you launch into your complaint eagerly, relieved to have a shift in conversation, “can you believe he ‘forgot his water bottle’ then hovered for ages making sure I was checking the books back in and setting them aside to be reshelved?”

Haechan scoffs. “If he wants it done a certain way or at a certain time, then he should—”

“Do it himself!” you finish the end of Haechan’s sentence with him, feeling more than validated enough from your mini venting session. “Exactly! Ugh, see, you get it.”

“Yeah, I guess we’re just so compatible,” he says with a suggestive, pointed grin, and you stop short, staring blankly at him. “Okay, sorry.”

“Yeah… anyway, how was your day after you left? Was everything alright at work?” you ask, and annoyance flashes across his face as he seems to recall his day.

“Some bigwig food critic came to the restaurant earlier than he was supposed to, and we had to have all hands on deck to make sure everything went smoothly.” he groans as he thinks back, and you rub his back comfortingly, the male leaning into your touch. “It ended well, thankfully, but they were all freaking out when he started asking about wines to pair with his dish and I was nowhere to be found.”

The man preparing the food calls out to Haechan, holding out his order, and Haechan excuses himself briefly, heading over to pay for his meal.

“Well, that’s not your fault!” you say as he returns to your small table. When he sits down again, your knees knock into the other’s awkwardly, but neither of you move away to prevent it, finding the touch a bit comforting. “So you had to start work early?”

“Well, yeah, I had to hurry over to the restaurant so we didn’t get a critique saying we don’t know a merlot from a riesling.” he explains, and you’re silent for a moment, thinking.

“I don’t know a merlot from a riesling,” you confess in a conspiratorial whisper. “I actually don’t know anything about wine.”

“I’ll teach you,” he offers, nudging you with his shoulder. “We can go on a wine tasting date.”

“A what?”

“Did I say ‘date?’ I meant ‘friendly platonic outing that I will definitely not use as an opportunity to hit on you.’” he corrects himself, lips quirking up into a shameless grin, and you roll your eyes. 

“I gotta hand it to you, you’re really determined.” you chuckle, shaking your head as you remember this isn’t even the first time he’s suggested a wine tasting date. “But on another note entirely, can we eat now? I’ve been waiting this whole time until your food was ready, but I’m at the point where my stomach is starting to chime in.”

“Oh, hell yeah,” he agrees, opening his bag and fishing out the container of food as you do the same. 

“God, it smells so good,” you moan as you bring a slice of your quesadilla to your lips for a bite. It’s nothing short of delicious, the meat and cheese bursting with flavor and warmth, and you have to refrain from making another noise of satisfaction in order not to embarrass yourself. 

You’re so engrossed in eating for a couple of minutes that you realize that Haechan hasn’t said anything since taking his first bite, and you look over, concerned, to see that his eyes are shut and a blissful smile is on his lips as he chews his food.

“I take it you like the burrito?” you ask, and he nods eagerly, sitting up slightly and picking up his burrito, bringing it to your lips with a hand cupped under to catch anything that falls. “Oh, I’m okay,” you start to decline, but he shakes his head and wiggles the foil-wrapped food insistently, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

“Try some,” he presses. “Open up,” he sing-songs, and you sigh deeply before obliging and biting into the burrito, making the mistake of looking into Haechan’s eyes as you do. “Good girl,” he breathes distractedly, and you inhale sharply, pulling back from the burrito immediately and starting to cough from the large chunk of food you mistakenly inhaled. “You good?” he asks, alarmed, as he claps you on the back in an attempt to help.

Finally, after what feels like an agonizingly long amount of time, you manage to swallow the obstruction and take your time desperately catching your breath before you glower up at a wary Haechan with a sore throat and watery eyes. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”  he asks, confused.

“You almost killed me!” you exclaim, and he splutters in protest. 

“Me?! How?!”

“‘Good girl?’ Are you serious?” you huff, realizing your mistake a moment too late as Haechan’s eyes widen in understanding and a devious grin overtakes his features.

“Am I hearing that you liked that?” he teases, and you growl under your breath.

“No,” you say, averting your gaze. “It was just unexpected, that’s all. It caught me off-guard.”

“I think you liked it,” Haechan decides proudly. “And, I think I should say that more often.”

“You’d better not.” you warn him.

He meets your gaze with a mischievous smile and opens his mouth to speak and undoubtedly mess with you once more, only for you to lean forward and stuff one of his flautas in his mouth. 

“Chew.” you order, shushing him when he tries again to speak. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” you scold, and he narrows his eyes at you but dutifully chews his mouthful of food. “Good boy,” you coo mockingly, and he stiffens immediately, eyes zeroing in on you.

“The difference between you and me,” he says slowly as he leans closer and closer, “is that I’m not gonna pretend that didn’t turn me on.”

“...You’re kinda sick, you know.” you announce, watching him in awe. “Not to mention shameless! Just sick and shameless.”

“And you like it,” Haechan marvels, feigning shock and wonder for a moment before dropping the act and wiggling his brows at you. “So what does that make you?”

“I don’t know where you heard that I like it,” you counter, fixing him in place with a confused look, “but you should get more reliable sources of information.”

“I’ve got a pretty good one right now.” he says, smugness creeping into his tone, and you can’t help but snort derisively.

“Oh, yeah? And what’s that, a Magic 8 ball?”

He doesn’t say anything until you look over at him again and momentarily stun yourself into silence from the intense gaze he’s directing towards you.

“Your eyes don’t lie,” Haechan half-murmurs, half-whispers. “You know that, right?”

And now you’re in quite the unique dilemma where you can’t look away because that would prove him right and you can’t look at him because, well, that… would also prove him right.

“Y’know, on that note, I am so hungry,” you stammer, haphazardly stuffing your face with food in an attempt to save yourself from the discussion at hand.

Haechan chuckles quietly but obliges your silent request for mercy, resuming his eating.

The food is delicious, and you end up offering Haechan a bite of one of your birria tacos as a thank you for letting you try some of his food.

The meal together is pleasant, admittedly, but dangerously intimate overall, and you don’t know how to make peace with the fact that you’re really starting to enjoy having Haechan around. When you’ve both finished your food, Haechan calls your name gently, waiting until you turn to face him to swipe some birria sauce off of your chin with his thumb. 

“Oh, thanks,” you start to say, but it cuts off into an alarmed squeak when he licks the very same thumb clean, Haechan grinning triumphantly at you as you gape and splutter. “You really are sick and shameless—I was right.”

“Using a napkin would have been wasteful,” he defends himself, but he’s not even trying to sound convincing. “I’m being sustainable.”

“Wonder how Winter would feel about the way you, uh, saved the planet just now.” you snicker, and he glowers at you.

“It doesn’t matter how she would feel,” Haechan begins, standing up and offering a hand to you to help you to your feet. You take it politely, but he pulls you closer by the very same hand and whispers loudly, “because she’s not here, and she’s not going to find out.” 

“What a good, considerate boyfriend,” you drawl in a bored tone. “And on that note, I’m going home.” You turn around to leave but stop when Haechan mirrors your actions, following after you. “And where exactly are you going?”

“At least let me make sure you get home safe.” Haechan insists, and you assess him for a moment, eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I’ll behave, I promise!”

“...Okay, I guess.” you finally agree, and he beams, falling in step alongside you as you two head to your apartment complex. True to his word, he remains perfectly well-mannered for the entirety of the roughly eight-minute walk to your apartment.

As the elevator opens on your floor and your apartment door comes into sight, you start to come to terms with the fact that Haechan really is pleasant company to keep when he’s not blatantly hitting on you. 

(If you were being fully honest with yourself, you would add that he’s actually still pleasant company—entertaining company, even—when he’s flirting shamelessly.)

Before you know it, you two have reached your front door and you have an idea brewing in your mind and, as you look over at Haechan who smiles sweetly at you, you hope silently that what you’re about to do doesn’t backfire horribly.

“Thanks for walking me home,” you say sincerely. “You didn’t have to do that.” 

Haechan makes a face, waving you off dismissively before saying, “I did, actually. I’ve got to make sure you get home okay.”

“Right,” you say slowly, trailing off as you search for the right words for what you want to say next. “Hey, Haechan?”

“Hm?” He tilts his head to the side curiously as he waits for you to speak, and you avert your gaze, looking instead at your phone screen.

“If, um, you want to…” you start off, surprised by just how nervous you’ve become, “I would like for you to come to my Halloween party.”

Haechan goes still in your peripheral vision and you don’t look up for what feels like ages. Unable to bear not seeing his reaction for any longer, you look up to see a shy smile slowly growing on his face.

“I would love to come.” Haechan accepts the invitation with a small nod, and you beam at him, nodding as well before looking around awkwardly and clearing your throat.

“Well, great! You know when it is, and you know where I live.” You gesture at your front door, and he snickers before nodding in confirmation.

“What time should I come? Should I bring anything?” he asks curiously.

“Party starts officially at 10:30pm, but you can come as early as 9:30pm. And,” you say, pausing to think for a moment, “I don’t think you need to bring anything but a costume.“

“You got it.” he agrees, eagerness creeping into his tone, and his excitement seems to be contagious as your own lips start to curl upwards into a smile.

“Okay, great! Well, on that note, um… good night.” you bid him farewell, and he smiles fondly.

“Good night.” He heads down the hall to the elevator and you wait to enter your apartment until after he enters the elevator and the door shuts behind him.

You’re about to unlock your door to let yourself in when you hear a loud celebratory whooping noise from the elevator shaft, making you burst into giggles before you enter your apartment and lock the door behind you, leaning your back against the door and sighing loudly.

“I really hope I don’t regret this.” you whisper to yourself before pushing off of the door and heading to your room to get ready for bed. 

You’re sitting comfortably on your couch between Yunjin and Seulgi as you discuss what movie to watch when your phone buzzes.

You peek at your phone to check the notification and roll your eyes to yourself, a small smile curling your lips.

haechan [22:37] hi :)

you [22:38] hi?

haechan [22:38] wyd

“I vote for The Incredible Hulk!” you suggest, and Yunjin clutches your arm excitedly, her grip slowly tightening. “Ow.”

“We should definitely watch The Incredible Hulk!”

“Owie—”

“Or Venom…” she gasps eagerly.

“Yeowch—” 

“Oh, sorry,” she mumbles, releasing you. You rub your sore arm and glower at her, and she smiles sheepishly. “You know I love Venom.”

“He’s so… strong.” you mutter dreamily. “I change my vote to Venom.”

“Come on, you see a long tongue and stop thinking entirely.” Chaewon protests, and you frown. 

“I do not! He’s more than his… incredibly long… thick… tongue.” you mumble, subtly fanning yourself to do away with the heat in your cheeks.

“You should get a room. Not even with Venom, just go in the kitchen and sort yourself out.” Seulgi snorts, and you let out a small hmph, curling up on the couch and returning your attention to your phone.

you [22:41] watching a movie with the girls

haechan [22:41] oh fun

haechan [22:41] where’s my invite :/

you [22:42] must have gotten lost in the mail 

haechan [22:42] no worries i’m on my way

“Can we not watch Venom? He’s kind of scary.” Winter asks nervously, and you groan.

“Why are you standing between me and true lust?” you complain, and she giggles.

“Winter, I’ll hold you if he scares you.” Chaewon offers, and you roll your eyes in mild amusement.

“Not Chaewon putting the moves on Winter,” Seulgi remarks in surprise, and Chaewon splutters.

“I am not ‘putting the moves on Winter!’ I’m being a good friend!” she counters defensively.

you [22:45] winter is here

haechan [22:45] on second thought my bed is sooooo cozy

you [22:46] WOW.

you [22:46] that’s sick actually

You snort in amusement, and Yunjin turns to look at you.

“Something to say?”

You blanch. “No, ma’am.”

She narrows her eyes, regarding you suspiciously. “You seem awfully entertained.”

You gesture at your now bickering friends with an amused grin. “Are you not?”

“Hm… fair.” she agrees, and you smile, looking back at your phone.

haechan [22:50] in my defense you’ve never felt my bed

you [22:51] and i never will. god bless 🙏

haechan [22:51] never say never baby

you disliked “never say never baby”

you [22:52] okay justin bieber

haechan [22:52] king

you [22:53] um. sure

you [22:53] :/

“Can we pick already?” you stress, and Winter sighs deeply.

“We can watch Venom, I guess. Chaewon’s holding me.” she relents, and you all cheer as Yunjin selects it to play.

haechan [22:55] not you having beef with the biebs

you [22:55] not you unironically saying “the biebs”

haechan [22:55] you don’t understand his genius

you [22:56] and which part of his genius made him piss in a mop bucket that one time?

haechan [22:58] HE WAS GOING THROUGH SOMETHING

you [22:59] okay now hush boy the movie’s about to start

haechan [22:59] what are you watching?

you [23:00] venom :3

haechan [23:00] no way you got winter to agree to watching it

haechan [23:01] he scares her!

you [23:02] sure did. and he sure does

you [23:04] chaewon’s gonna hold her

haechan [23:04] and who’s gonna hold you?

haechan [23:04] me right

haechan [23:04] great im omw

“You’re not even paying attention!” Seulgi complains at you, and you sit up in your seat, placing your phone more surreptitiously in your lap.

“I am!” you counter, and she narrows her eyes at you before returning her attention to the screen.

you [23:06] firstly you’re sick. you’re supposed to hold your girlfriend not me

haechan [23:06] you just said someone’s already holding her 🙄

you [23:07] secondly i dont need to be held. me personally i want venom carnally

haechan [23:07] good god woman way to make a man insecure

you [23:08] LMAO? you upset you can’t measure up to the super parasitic entity that is venom?

haechan [23:08] he’s more of a man than i’ll ever be 😞

you [23:09] HE’S NOT EVEN HUMAN?

haechan [23:11] so i shouldn’t be worried about him? 😏 because you already like me? 😏

you [23:12] you shouldnt be worried about him because he is, first and foremost, not real

you [23:12] no one said anything about liking you 😒

haechan [23:14] maybe you should

you [23:17] say something? or like you?

haechan [23:17] both 😁

you [23:19] change the topic before i block you

haechan [23:20] fiiiiine

haechan [23:24] what are you wearing?

you disliked “what are you wearing?”

you [23:26] HAECHAN.

haechan [23:26] TO THE HALLOWEEN PARTY??????

you [23:28] 😒 not cute or funny

haechan [23:30] jeeeeez a guy can’t ask a question?

you [23:30] not like that you can’t!!

you [23:32] also you’ll see at the party. it’s a surprise

haechan [23:33] ugh fine 🙁 i’ll behave

you [23:33] i don’t believe you for a minute but fine

you [23:37] also i’m gonna stop texting soon the movie’s about to get good

haechan [23:38] can’t believe you're in love with venom

you [23:39] in lust**

You lock your phone and stuff it under your thigh, watching with rapt attention as Venom fights off several henchmen, and you’re made distantly aware of your phone buzzing under your leg. With an amused sigh and a roll of your eyes, you pull your phone out from under your leg.

haechan [23:42] get a room 🤮

you [23:43] happily. and i’ll daydream about venom all night long 🥰

haechan [23:44] venom is one lucky bastard

you [23:44] mmm why? you wish i was fantasizing about you instead?

haechan [23:45] YES.

you [23:46] awwww

you [23:49] too bad. gtg my man’s on the screen

You lock your phone for good and scan the living room, your gaze settling on Winter wrapped up in Chaewon’s arms, focused intently on the movie, and you relax slightly.

Haechan is really a piece of work, and if the Halloween party goes anything like your text conversation just did, you might be in a bit of trouble.

The day of your party finally comes around, and when people start filtering in and the music starts playing, the vibe starts to feel just like you planned. All of your friends have made an appearance except for Haechan, who’s apparently in the apartment but nowhere near you.

Not that you care at all. Because you definitely don’t. But you just think it’s kind of funny how he practically begged for an invite to your party and cheered when he got one, only to come to said party and not show his face to the hostess? Rude! Disrespectful, really.

But it doesn’t bother you at all, so you push the thoughts from your mind and focus on having a good time at your party.

“Wow,” you remark as some guy you only vaguely recognize walks by you. “That is one impressive Groot costume.”

“It’s so realistic,” Seulgi says, awestruck. You reach over and fix her crooked bunny ears headband, and she smiles gratefully. “Thanks, Lola.”

“You’re welcome, Bugs,” you reply with a smile. 

“Do you think he’d let me touch his wood if I asked nicely?” Chaewon wonders aloud, and you and Seulgi exchange a glance.

“I think if you ask to ‘touch his wood,’ he’s not gonna think you’re talking about the costume.” you explain slowly, and Chaewon balks.

“Oh, ew. No, ew. It was just to find out what material he used!” she gags, and you and Seulgi start to laugh. “Laugh it up! Laugh it up at the clueless lesbian who doesn’t understand double entendres!”

“We are,” Seulgi giggles. “We literally are right now.”

“You two are horrid. No wonder you teamed up for Halloween.” Chaewon mutters bitterly. 

You and Seulgi smile, bumping hips. “Sorry we didn’t join in on the Powerpuff Girls costume idea,” you huff, and Chaewon frowns deeply.

“Don’t remind me,” she grouches. 

“What I want to know,” Seulgi chimes in, “is how you got Chenle to be Professor Utonium.” 

“Well, we asked Mark first because, you know, he’s more agreeable.” Chaewon sighs. “But he was dead set on being Spider-Man, so Chenle got tired of hearing us whine, so he just agreed to shut us up.”

“Well… congratulations. It’s not like your costumes are incomplete, so I don’t know why you were so upset we didn’t join!” you defend yourself and Seulgi.

Chaewon grimaces. “You could have been Mojo Jojo—or the Mayor!” she says with a jabbing point in Seulgi’s direction. “And you! You could have been Ms. Bellum!” she wails at you, putting her face in her hands.

You rub her back comfortingly and hand her a gummy worm from your cup of snacks. She lets out a soft hmph but takes it, chewing it until her expression softens into a small smile.

“Speaking of the Powerpuff Girls, where is Miss Buttercup?” you ask, looking around for Yunjin.

“I think she said something about the bathroom.” Seulgi answers, and you nod in acknowledgement.

“I’d ask where Winter went, but she’s over there talking to Jeno.” you say, pointing at the two of them on the other side of the room.

Chaewon squints into the distance and frowns. “What is Jeno supposed to be?”

“Hmm,” you hum thoughtfully, taking in the elements of his costume. “I think he’s that guy from Popeye? Like, the really buff guy? What’s his name, though?”

“Oh, Bluto?” Seulgi rejoins the conversation, and you nod excitedly.

“That’s him! Also, welcome back, girl,” you snort in amusement.

“Sorry,” she replies sheepishly. “Some girl is here as a fairy and her wings are glittery, and I couldn’t look away. I blame this new strain I tried before I came here; it makes me space out like crazy.”

“Poor thing,” you hum sympathetically. “You’re just a girl.”

“I’m literally just a girl!” she exclaims in agreement.

“You know what I think is odd?” you say curiously. “You can almost never find Winter and Haechan in the same spot unless we’re all hanging out together.”

“Yeah, because Haechan’s always where you are,” Seulgi mutters, and you shoot her a dirty look. “Am I wrong?”

“Yes, actually. He’s nowhere to be found right now, so you’re wrong.”  

“Probably looking for you,” Seulgi sing-songs, and you roll your eyes.

“Is not!” you huff.

“He probably is, girl,” Chaewon says with a sympathetic smile and a pat to your shoulder. You shrug her off with a hmph and stick a peach ring in your mouth.

“Can we change the topic?” you plead. “Let’s talk about… how buff Jeno looks in his costume.” you suggest with a smile, and Seulgi and Chaewon stare at you expressionlessly. “What?”

“I’m a lesbian,” Chaewon says carefully, like you’ve forgotten. “I literally do not care.”

“I’m into guys on rare occasions, but I’m not into Jeno,” Seulgi replies. “So I also do not care.”

“Jeez, tough crowd,” you grouch, snatching your drink off of the table behind you. “I think you both could use a hit.”

“I just hit my pen like twenty minutes ago,” Seulgi says, confused, and you blink at her. 

“No, I meant… you deserve a whack. Like, I should get to hit you.” you say slowly, and she sucks her teeth before throwing a piece of popcorn from her cup at you as you giggle mischievously.

“On that note, I’m leaving!” Chaewon gripes. “I’m gonna talk to the glittery fairy wings girl Seulgi was staring at.”

“Wh—was my staring not a sufficient claim of dibs?” she splutters, and you and Chaewon look at each other.

“No?” you say in unison.

“How about you both hit on her? Either she picks one of you or she could pick both and y’all can have a threesome or something.” you suggest, and they both pause to consider it.

“Sounds like a plan,” Chaewon agrees, and Seulgi nods in agreement with a smile. 

As they head off in the direction of the pretty glittery fairy girl, you smile to yourself. “Good luck!” you call after them. Seulgi shoots you a thumbs up and your smile widens before you decide to hunt down Yunjin.

It doesn’t take you long to locate her, her green Buttercup costume standing out in the throng of people. Unfortunately, when you find her, you still have one main thing on your mind.

“Hey!” she greets you brightly, and you offer a smile that, based on the narrowing of her eyes, must not be very convincing. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, really, just stressed about the party.” you fib, and she frowns sympathetically.

“Look around! People are having a great time.” she assures you, and a cursory glance reveals that virtually everyone is all smiles and laughter.

Given that you weren’t even remotely concerned about the state of your party, you feign immense relief, making Yunjin smile.

“You’re right,” you say with a content smile, and she beams wider, wrapping you in a hug. As she releases you, you hope and pray to make the delivery of your next line as convincingly casual as possible. “By the way—have you seen Haechan anywhere?”

She screws her face up thoughtfully. “I did! I let him in the apartment,” she recalls proudly, and you smile encouragingly.

“That’s great—do you happen to know where he might be?” you ask as nonchalantly as you can, and Yunjin shakes her head.

“No, I don’t. That was, like, an hour ago? An hour and a half?” she wonders aloud, and you nod, patting her hand gently.

“Thanks, girl.”

“Why? You looking for him?” she asks curiously, and you hope she misses the way you hesitate. 

“Not really,” you lie. “I just figured since I finally invited him, he’d… y’know… find me to thank me.”

“Oh, true.” she agrees. “Well, he’s definitely around. You can’t really miss him.” 

You cock your head to the side in confusion. “What do you mean by that?”

“He’s dressed like… I don’t know… Godzilla?” Yunjin wonders, and you snicker.

“Copy Godzilla.” you laugh, squeezing her hand gently. “He’s so weird—”

“Hey!” Mark joins your conversation with a bright smile. 

“Hey, Spider-Man.” you greet. “Nice costume!”

“Thanks, dude.” he says with a bashful smile. “I fucked up the mask though; that’s why I’m not wearing it.”

“What do you mean?” you ask in confusion, and Mark shamefully pulls out his mask and puts it on to reveal— “Oh—”

“Why are the holes like that?” Yunjin giggles, and Mark’s frown is visible even through the misplaced mouth hole.

“Well, for starters, I don’t think Spider-Man has a mouth hole, Mark. Want me to fix it?” you offer, and he yanks the mask off his head with an eager nod.

“Would you?” he pleads, and you nod with your hand out to take the mask.

“I’ll sew the mouth hole closed and… try to fix the eye holes.” you explain.

Mark beams at you. “You’re a lifesaver.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” you wave him off, and Yunjin squeezes your hand to get your attention.

“I’m gonna go on the balcony and take a hit,” she murmurs. “You wanna come?”

“You know I don’t,” you laugh, and she shrugs.

“I always invite you so you don’t think you’re not welcome,” she explains, and you smile fondly. “I’ll be back soon. Mark, you want some?”

“Hell, yeah, dude.” Mark agrees excitedly, following after Yunjin before stopping in his tracks and doubling back to say one final thing to you. “Hey, have you seen Haechan yet?”

“No,” you reply a bit more bitterly than you intended. “Why?”

“He’s been looking for you since you got here.” Mark explains, confused, and, to your embarrassment, you feel your heart speed up ever so slightly.

“Really?” you hum nonchalantly. “Well, I’ll probably run into him sooner or later.”

“True, true. Okay, let me go catch Yunjin. Thanks again for fixing my mask!” he says in a rush, and you laugh, waving him off.

“Just go, Mark, it’s okay.” you laugh, and he turns on his heel before nimbly navigating through the crowd of people to get to Yunjin’s retreating figure.

You head to your room to fix Mark’s mask with your sewing kit and try your best to push all thoughts of Haechan from your mind.

“I mean, it’s just weird that he wanted to come to this party so bad, but can't even thank the hostess for the invite?” you huff to a sympathetic Chaewon and Seulgi. They share a look and you falter, looking between the two of them with growing concern. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Seulgi lies, and your concern morphs to panic.

“What? Tell me!” 

“It’s not important, actually. It was a… sapphic moment.” Chaewon chimes in, and you narrow your eyes skeptically.

“Sure, it was.” you huff, leaning back against the wall. “Speaking of sapphic—”

“I’m scared.” Seulgi says immediately, already looking suspicious.

“Did you guys ever get to talk to the pretty fairy girl?” you ask, and they share another look. “That was a sapphic moment. That first look was a ‘we’re keeping secrets from you’ moment.”

“She’s super sweet,” Chaewon answers, completely and conveniently ignoring the latter half of your sentence. “She’s got really nice boobs, too.” she sighs dreamily.

“You’re no better than a man,” you sigh in disappointment, and she gasps.

“I have an appreciation for nice breasts that a man would never be able to fully understand.” she defends herself, and you raise your hands in surrender. 

“Sure, Chae.”

“Listen, about Haechan—why do you care so much?” Seulgi asks curiously, and you splutter indignantly.

“I don’t care, it’s just—it’s just rude!” you huff.

“Would it be less rude if we told you Haechan was just over here before you came and he was very much looking for you?” Seulgi answers, and you freeze.

“Why didn’t you tell me?! Which way did he go?” you ask, turning to look. When you look back at your friends, you catch the tail end of yet another look shared between the two of them before they look at you with a knowing expression. “First of all, mind your business.” 

“Your complaining about it to us made it our business.” Chaewon points out. “Now go find that weird little alligator-crocodile man while we continue attempting to romance the pretty fairy girl with a heavenly rack.”

“I’m sorry… what?” you ask slowly.

Chaewon blinks at you. “We’re trying to romance the pretty fairy girl with massive mommy milkers?”

“Okay, well, that’s not what I was asking about. And it got worse somehow. Did you just refer to Godzilla a ‘weird little alligator-crocodile?’” you ask, baffled, and Chaewon has the nerve to look at you like you’re stupid.

“He came as that alligator or crocodile from Princess and the Frog,” Chaewon explains slowly. “The one that plays the trumpet? Louis?”

“You’re kidding. Yunjin said he was Godzilla.” you snort, and can’t help but notice that Seulgi has gone awfully quiet. “You good, Seulgi?”

“I thought he was a Komodo dragon,” she mutters shamefully, and you and Chaewon share a look. 

“Now why would he—?”

“I didn’t think to question it.” she complains. “It’s not like I can tell all reptiles apart, you know.”

“I would think the main ones could be stored away for future reference, though.” you supply helpfully, and Seulgi glowers at you. “Listen—if you guys do end up romancing that girl, you can hook up in my room, just please stay on top of the covers so I have less to wash.”

“You got it, boss.” Chaewon agrees eagerly, taking Seulgi’s hand and pulling her away without another word.

As you turn to continue your party rounds, you bump directly into Jeno’s solid chest, his hands immediately steadying you as you practically bounce off of him. 

“Shit, sorry!” you gasp, starting to fuss over him slightly. “Did I hurt you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” Jeno assures you with a warm smile. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine, too,” you assure him back, and he relaxes slightly. “I like your costume,” you say, sounding surprisingly shy.

“I like yours, too,” Jeno replies with a lingering glance at your body that has your insides tingling with excitement. “You look stunning,” he adds with an appreciative grin.

“I like your muscles,” you admit plainly, reaching out to touch before pulling back and looking for confirmation. “Sorry, can I—?”

“Please—” he blurts out, offering you his arm eagerly. You take it with a giggle and let out a low whistle as you feel the firm muscles moving under his skin. “I spent every day this week in the gym for this.”

“It paid off,” you confirm, nodding with an impressed grin. “That’s actually amazing, Jeno. I hope you were taking care of yourself and not just working out like a madman.”

He grins sheepishly. “I ate lots of meat? And carbs? I was trying to bulk up and define, not lose weight.”

“Oh. Good.” you remark, pleasantly surprised. “Well, add vegetables and fruits in there, too… or I’ll get you.”

Jeno snorts loudly before bursting into laughter. “You’ll get me?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why you’re laughing, actually.” you sniffle, turning your nose up. “I can be a formidable opponent.”

“I bet.” Jeno agrees with a nod, and your lips quirk up into a teasing smile.

“You know, we should fight.” you muse, and his eyes bulge. “Like a sparring match!”

Jeno’s face passes through several emotions rapidly—shock, understanding, confusion, understanding (again), excitement, realization, then finally a tampered down excitement. “You want to wrestle me?”

“Yeah,” you hum with a little smile. “Why, you don’t wanna?”

“Oh, I wanna,” Jeno confirms immediately. “I really, really… really wanna.” he mutters as his gaze drops to your outfit again.

“You wanna pin me down, Jeno?” you gasp, surprised, and he looks scandalized for a moment before you finish, “I’m kidding, Jeno, relax!”

“God, you scared me.” he exhales loudly, and you laugh, pulling him in for an apologetic hug. “I mean, like, I would love to pin you down.” he confesses, and you freeze, staring at him in pleasant surprise. 

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” He nods, not releasing you when you pull back from the hug. At this angle, your lower halves are pressed together and you’re trying your best not to be intimately aware of the way you can feel heat radiating off of him everywhere you two are touching. 

“What if I don’t give up easily?”

“I don’t have a problem with a little struggling.”

“Who says it’d be little? I’m stronger than I look, you know,” you say with a small hmph.

Jeno shamelessly flexes one bicep. “So am I.”

You’re not gonna lie… that did a little something to you just now. “Well, let’s figure something out so we can see once and for all.” you suggest with a coy bat of your lashes, and he grins wolfishly.

“You’re on.”

“Sorry!” Winter chirps, appearing out of literally nowhere with two drinks in her hands. “Sorry, I can tell I’m interrupting, but—have either of you seen Haechan?”

You and Jeno look at each other in confusion before slowly detangling yourselves. “I haven’t seen him literally all night.” you remark, trying to hide the residual bitterness from your voice.

“I saw him, like, twenty minutes ago, but he was with you.” Jeno answers, and Winter frowns before perking up hopefully.

“Can you guys text him? My phone is in my back pocket, and I don’t have any free hands.” she pouts slightly, and you nod, pulling your phone from your pocket to help without thinking. 

you [23:17] wya

To your surprise, his response is instant and it takes everything in you not to visibly react to the appearance of the new message bubbles, leaving you to subtly angle your phone towards yourself.

haechan [23:17] by the bathroom

haechan [23:19] where are YOU? i’ve been looking for you all night

“Nothing yet,” you lie. “I’ll bring him to you if I find him, okay?”

“Okay,” Winter sighs before leaning against the wall in defeat. 

As subtly as possible, you text him back.

you [23:22] heading to kitchen

haechan [23:23] wait for me there

“I hope you find him! I’m gonna check on Yunjin and Mark; they haven’t gotten off of the balcony in a while.” you lie, and they nod, bidding you goodbye.

When you’re sure you’re out of sight, you make a beeline for the kitchen, trying your best to ignore the building feeling of anticipation the closer you get.

You’ve finally managed to escape to the kitchen to meet Haechan (or for some snacks, depending on who’s asking) and you’re admittedly eager to get away from the party going on in the rest of your apartment for a moment of peace and quiet. You’re fixing yourself a small plate of snacks complete with Cheetos puffs and Lays chips when you’re subconsciously made aware of a new presence behind you. 

“Hi, Miss Lola Bunny.” A familiar voice sounds out from behind you, and you freeze in place before slowly turning to face a grinning Haechan as he scans your (admittedly scantily clad) frame with eyes that linger longingly on your every dip and curve.

“Hi, Mister Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.” you reply casually, popping a Cheetos puff into your mouth and chewing. “You know, the girls thought you were Godzilla, Louis—the alligator from Princess and the Frog—and a Komodo dragon, respectively.”

“That’s kind of sad,” he remarks with a chuckle. “They should reopen the schools.”

“It’s too late for them, I fear,” you reply solemnly, and Haechan snorts loudly in amusement.

“I’ll pray for them.” he says just as solemnly, and you can’t help but giggle. At the sound, Haechan draws closer to you with his eyes low. “You look good as hell,” he remarks casually, and you roll your eyes before appraising him carefully. 

“You look… green.” you decide on saying, and he narrows his eyes.

“That’s all you’re gonna give me?” he says with a pout, and you shrug nonchalantly.

“You’re wearing a turtle costume… with artificial padding… be lucky that’s all I said.”

“Well, guess what, sunshine?” he asks. “I bet you’d like what’s underneath this costume much better.”

“You’re talking like a crazy person.” you dismiss him. “Maybe you’re developing heat stroke or something; aren’t you hot in all that?”

“Why? Want me to take it off?” he teases, and you groan in frustration as he laughs. “I’m kidding. Kinda.”

“Whatever,” you sigh. “Which one are you, anyway?” you ask, desperate to change the subject, and he grins widely, wiggling his eyebrows and gesturing to his costume.

“Guess.”

“Hm… Michelangelo?” you try, and his eyes widen in shock before he nods excitedly. “Hm. Fitting. Funny guy, never really takes anything seriously.”

“You know, you’re the first person to guess correctly.” he tells you, smoothly ignoring the small jab you sent his way, and you make a small noise of surprise and confusion. 

“Aren’t the eye masks color coded?” you point out, gesturing to his orange eye mask, and he nods even more eagerly than before.

“Yes, they are!” he exclaims before sighing and regarding you with a dreamy look in his eyes.  “God, where have you been all my life?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” you remark sarcastically. “Recently I’ve been hanging out with your girlfriend,” you say slowly, stressing the syllables of the last word. “Remember her? In the next room, all dolled up in her cute little Bubbles costume? Looking for you, as a matter of fact.”

“Yes, I recall.” he replies simply, and you scoff, shaking your head in disapproval.

“I told her I’d bring you to her if I found you, you know,” you sigh, and he shakes his head vehemently. 

“Don’t do that.” he half-pleads, half-huffs. “Stay here with me for a bit.”

“Give me one good reason not to.”

“I’ve been looking for you literally all night,” he says, slightly exasperated, “and I finally find you, and you don’t even want to talk to me?”

You shift your weight to your other foot. “For starters, it’s not like you found me. I texted you, which you could have done if you were looking for me that hard.”

“I wanted to surprise you,” he says with a frown that actually kind of hurts your heart a little. It’s sincere, and earnest, and it’s hurt all at once.

You soften slightly. “I thought you weren’t gonna say anything to me tonight, actually.” you admit softly.

“I was dead set on finding you as soon as I got up to come here,” he promises, and you’re surprised to find that you believe him. “I had to reasonably find a way to ditch Winter so I could see you.” he says gently, his hands moving to rest on your hips.

You feel beyond conflicted right now; there’s victory and triumph and a sick satisfaction that you found him and gained the knowledge that he was looking for you, then there’s guilt and shame about the fact that not only is his girlfriend looking for him, but also the fact that you’re supposed to be helping.

Haechan must sense the happier end of your conflict, because his eyes widen slightly in surprise. “Did you want to see me, too?” At your following hesitation, his eyes brighten and he smiles at you. “You did, didn’t you?”

“Shut up,” you huff, looking away, but he continues, moving his body so he’s back in your line of sight. 

“You missed me, huh? Were you walking around, hoping you’d spot me somewhere? Were you asking about me?” he teases lightly, his lips quirked into a fond but playful smile.

“Oh, my God, can we stay on topic?” you complain, and he shrugs before gesturing for you to speak. “Why are you hiding from Winter?”

“I don’t particularly want or need to see her right now.” he huffs, crossing his arms, and you want to laugh at the way his costume looks all petulant and huffy, but you refrain.

“You’re a bad boyfriend, Haechan.” you scold, and he shrugs dismissively before jerking his chin in your direction. 

“Well, you’re a bad friend!” he counters. “Seducing me with those eyes of yours.”

You snort derisively and place your hand on your hip, eying him disapprovingly. “And what exactly am I doing with my eyes, Haechan? Quickly.”

“You’re giving me bedroom eyes!”

“That’s literally just my natural expression!”

“Fine,” he says, standing up straighter. “What would Winter think about your natural expression, hm?” At your stubborn silence, he nods resolutely and continues, “I think we should go ask her.”

“No!” you stop him before he can walk off, grabbing his arm and tugging him back to you. “Let’s not.”

“See?” he answers smugly, making you roll your eyes and avert your gaze with a faint air of shame. He steps closer, his hands slowly moving to rest on the counter on either side of you, and lowers his voice to murmur, “You don’t want her to know because you have just as much skin in the game as I do.” When you continue to avoid eye contact, he sucks his teeth under his breath and takes your chin in his thumb and index finger, tilting your head up to face him. He clears his throat expectantly when you keep your eyes stubbornly fixed on a spot behind him, and you find yourself giving in, reluctantly looking up to meet his unwavering gaze. “You want this just as bad as I do.”

You don’t even have a solid rebuttal, your brows furrowing as you think of something to say that can clear your name. “Do not,” you mutter bitterly, and he raises an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“Fine,” he agrees, “I’ll give you the fact that maybe I want it more. But you?” he tugs your chin closer to him with a sudden movement that brings your lips about an inch from his, continuing over your soft gasp of surprise with, “You definitely want it, too.”

Your features contort into a conflicted expression, eyes turning shifty as they look past him and over his shoulder to assess the risk of someone coming in and catching you two in your incredibly compromising position. 

“Can you move before someone sees us?” you mumble, slightly embarrassed, and he chuckles, making you frown. “I’m serious!”

“I know somewhere quiet we can go where we probably won’t get interrupted.” he proposes in a sing-song voice.

You take a deep breath, closing your eyes for several moments before reopening them and meeting his gaze once more. “Not that I’m interested… but where exactly did you have in mind?”

The smile that takes over his face is more than a little worrisome; he’s smiling like he’s caught you and, more importantly, like he doesn’t plan on letting you go any time soon.

“Come,” he urges you quietly, lacing his fingers with yours and starting to lead you out of the kitchen. 

“My snacks!” you complain as he pulls you away, and he pauses with a small sigh of disbelief and amusement to let you reach back and grab your plate before continuing to guide you to wherever he has in mind. 

Haechan peeks into the hallway, looking both ways twice before pulling you after him quickly, rushing up the stairs, and finally pulling you into the bathroom on your top floor and locking the door behind you.

When you’ve finally got your wits about you and caught your breath from the sudden run upstairs, you take in your surroundings; you know your bathroom, obviously, and Haechan’s right—given that it’s the second bathroom in your apartment and that it’s located on the second floor away from the action, your chances of being interrupted or found are significantly lower.

“Haechan, what exactly are we doing in here?” you ask slowly as the realization of your situation sets in, and he smiles deceptively innocently. 

“Just… spending some time together,” he murmurs, reaching out for your hands. You place your plate of snacks on the shelving unit by the toilet and tentatively oblige, letting him link your hands and pull you in closer until you’re practically chest to chest. 

You two linger in the shared space together, the music from downstairs filtering up through the walls and providing a faint soundtrack for the two of you.

Haechan moves before you do, placing his hands on your hips and urging you to sit up onto the sink counter.

“Isn’t that better?” he coos sweetly, hands sliding down from your hips to rest on your knees. Looking at you for a silent confirmation, he gingerly spreads your legs and moves closer to stand between them. 

He is hot, you note, heat radiating off of him through his Halloween costume, and you find yourself moving without realizing, your hands rising to carefully untie the orange eye mask around his eyes. When you pull the garment away from his head and toss it on top of the toilet seat, he smiles at you, warmth and adoration reflected in his eyes. 

“Hi there,” he greets softly, voice lilting playfully, and you can’t help but snicker quietly.

“Hi, Haechan.” 

“You smell good,” he notes off-handedly.

“Thanks?” you chuckle, admittedly a bit caught off-guard. He leans in slowly, your body gradually starting to tense as you brace yourself for whatever it is he plans to do, and brings his nose to your neck, breathing in deeply before humming contently.

His breath fans over your skin, strands of his hair tickling your collarbone as he lowers his face until he’s level with your chest. 

“Haechan,” you protest weakly, and he looks up at you, studying your expression before leaning forward and pressing one daring kiss to just above your cleavage. “You know we shouldn’t.”

“You know you want to,” is his only reply before he lifts his head so you’re face to face again. “Aren’t you just at least a little bit curious? Hm?”

After what feels like ages, your internal battle comes to an end and your head moves before you can stop it, offering only the smallest of nods.

The smile he gives you in response is nothing short of radiant and he slides his arm around the small of your back, pulling you closer to him.

“That’s it,” he encourages you in a soft whisper as you let him guide you further into his embrace. 

“What do we say if they catch us?” you ask quietly, scared to break the intensity of the gaze Haechan has on you. 

“They’re not gonna catch us,” Haechan breathes, inching closer to you. At your silence, he nudges his nose past your hair and presses his lips against the heated skin of your neck.

The silence hangs in the air between you two, a heavy emptiness as you think about what you’re about to do.

In the quiet, Haechan’s fingers trail along your hips, soothing circles massaged into your skin almost convincing you that what you’re contemplating is okay.

“Okay,” you say softly, finally, and you can feel a weight leave Haechan’s shoulders as you gently rest your hands on them. “Okay. But we can’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”

“We already have our little secrets,” he reminds you with a small grin, wiggling his eyebrows. “What’s one more?” Haechan’s voice softens, almost indecipherable, before he gently presses his lips to yours. 

You’re frozen at first, your mind still on the fence. It’s when he pulls you closer and a small, desperate grunt leaves his mouth, the tiniest “please,” that you crack, your lips slowly moving with his.

He kisses you like he’s been waiting for the opportunity his whole life. Practically yanking you off of the counter, he clutches you to his chest and squeezes you to him so tightly that you fall short of breath, your knees buckling as a plaintive whimper slips from you. 

“Fuck, I need you—” He drops to his knees, eager fingers clumsily digging into your skin as he drags your shorts down your legs, eyes wide with an almost feral excitement and unbridled desire that leaves you floored. “Such a tease, showing off your body in this costume,” he grunts, and you can feel the air shifting—the closer he gets to having you, the more brazen he becomes; talking so smooth it’s damn near slippery, dangerously bold and cocky— 

You suck in a loud breath as the cool air hits your newly exposed core, glistening folds catching the almost nonexistent breeze of Haechan’s ragged breathing. He stares at where your thighs meet with a slowly building hunger in his eyes before he’s pushing you back against the sink and urging your ass up onto the counter.

“Gonna let me eat your pretty pussy, right, baby?” he mutters urgently, spreading your legs as wide as they’ll go. He shifts his weight to his knees and moves between your thighs to block them from closing and when he looks up at you for a response to his question, the sheer desperation in his eyes and the greedy way his hands knead your inner thighs has you stunned into momentary silence, simply nodding in a daze. An almost crippling wave of relief visibly washes over him for a moment and he presses his face between your legs and groans in delight, slurring slightly when he mumbles, “Thank you, fuck, thank you so much.”

You don’t even get to unpack how stunned his words of reverence and gratitude leave you before his tongue drags up your folds, pink muscle fat and heavy and unceremoniously slurping at your arousal. You moan weakly, only to wince at the realization that people can probably hear you two from outside the bathroom between the wet noises and grunts of satisfaction Haechan is letting out as he sucks and licks at your core and your own poorly stifled moans as you grip at his hair. 

“Taste so fucking good,” he moans, hiking your leg up to drape it over his shoulder. He brings himself closer and focuses his attention on your swollen clit, suckling on the sensitive bundle of nerves before flicking it back and forth with the tip of his tongue. “All for me, yeah?”

“Mhm,” you whimper, trying to compose yourself in spite of his almost ravenous devouring of your core. You can feel wetness accumulating between your thighs, some of it even slowly dripping down your legs, and when you look down at Haechan, he looks up at you with bright eyes, pupils wide with desire, and he lolls his tongue out in an almost teasing gesture, leaving you to marvel at the clear beads of saliva dripping from the tip of his tongue to the floor. 

“Such a pretty girl,” he mumbles, lips glossy with spit before he surges forward again, burying his face in between your legs with such sudden force it has you stumbling backwards. “Pretty girl likes it when I drool all over her perfect fucking pussy, yeah?”

“Fuck—” you hiss in surprise. You knew Haechan could talk slick, but the way he’s egging you on, maintaining his smug demeanor as he skilfully brings you closer to the edge, has lust swimming in your mind.

“Could eat your pussy all night, baby,” he grunts in a throaty voice, pausing to let his tongue flick over your entrance tauntingly. When your breath catches, his eyes are quick to dart up to yours curiously before he shoots you a dazzling grin, understanding written all over his handsome features. “So damn good for me—I can’t believe this is really happening.”

“Haechan,” you whine plaintively, the tightening feeling in your abdomen growing as he presses the tip of his tongue into you slightly. “Don’t tease me—”

“You tease me all the time,” he counters, brows furrowed almost petulantly as he stares up at you. “Hell, you teased me tonight—walking around in this sexy little costume of yours,” he grunts, pushing your shirt up in jerky motions to reveal your bra and your cleavage, “like I wasn’t gonna spend all night thinking about you.”

You open your mouth to protest that you didn’t wear it for him, that he was really just collateral damage, but the rebuttal dies on your tongue as he pushes his tongue into you as far as it’ll go. You jolt in surprise, the sensation pleasurable but foreign, and let out a shuddered sigh of his name as he starts moving his tongue inside of you, swirling and flicking and pulling out to slurp greedily before starting all over again.

When he reaches up to massage circles around your clit and resumes teasing your entrance with his tongue, you promptly lose it, climaxing with a muffled cry bordering on a dry sob of his name and various curses as your legs shake around him. 

To your surprise, he doesn’t let up, only intensifying the pressure he’s applying to your clit and dipping his tongue into your entrance repeatedly, the pleasure quickly becoming overwhelming.

“Haechan—” you hiss, your body starting to curl in on itself protectively. “Fuck—too much—”

“You can take it, baby,” he assures you sweetly. “You’re doing so well.” He slows down the circles around your clit and you think for a moment that he might let up, but he just brings his lips to the overstimulated bud and sucks on it hard, massaging it with his tongue as you clap a hand over your mouth to keep from crying out. “That’s my good girl,” he purrs with his mouth sloppily moving against your clit, and the vibrations as well as his messy, wet kisses send you tipping over the edge once more.

This climax is quieter than the rest, your eyes rolling back as your lids flutter shut and your mouth drops open to let out shaky gasps and exhales as ecstasy overtakes you.

Haechan watches you climax in awe, eyes laced with hunger and desire before he moves, unable to take it any longer.

“God, you’re so good,” Haechan mumbles in a daze, fingers digging into your thighs. “So fucking good—turn around—”

”Turn around?” you slur, lost in the aftermath of your climax, only to cry out in surprise and sudden realization when he flips you around so you’re facing the sink, bends you over and starts leaving wet kisses on your asscheeks that come dangerously closer and closer to where they meet. “Haechan—fuck, oh, my God—”

“Relax, baby,” he assures you, words dragging into the next, “I’m gonna make you feel so good.” True to his word, he parts your asscheeks and drags his tongue up from your entrance to your asshole before swirling his tongue around the rim slowly.

”Holy shit,” you exhale breathlessly, fingers gripping the sink counter so hard your knuckles pale. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,” he groans in ecstasy, burying his face in your ass as he laps at your hole eagerly. “Want you to make a fucking mess for me—cover me in your cum, I want it all—don’t care who sees—”

You can only let out a broken wail as his tongue breaches the tight ring and his slick fingers find their way to your hypersensitive clit, tweaking the bundle of nerves and rubbing quick circles around it as your legs tremble and knees come dangerously close to buckling.

Tears start to build in your eyes as he delivers wet lash after wet lash to your rim with his tongue, swirling and dipping and flicking with almost alarming expertise and an overwhelming desire to make you come undone. 

Trembling whimpers fall freely from your lips, now uncaring about who might hear you through the door as Haechan’s mouth brings you close to yet another peak. 

“You gonna cum for me, baby? Hm? Gonna cum all over my fingers—want you to cum so bad, please—”

You’re not entirely sure if it’s the way he’s stimulating you and your clit or if it’s the entirely desperate pleading for you to cum, but you do just that, climaxing around his fingers with a poorly restrained moan of his name. A tremor of pleasure travels through your body as your legs shake and you bite down on your bottom lip so hard it hurts.

After one final long drag of his tongue up your slit and crack of your ass, he presses a sloppy wet kiss to your ass cheek before he stands up and starts to fumble with his costume, struggling slightly to find the small zipper at the back of his neck.

You giggle fondly, watching him in the mirror, and turn to face him, reaching behind him and finding the zipper with ease before pulling it down as far as you can reach. 

“Better?” you ask softly, and he nods, swallowing visibly. 

“Better,” he confirms with a small shy grin before shrugging out of the costume and pushing it down to his ankles, stepping out of the pool of fabric and towards you. He’s clad now in a gray short sleeved shirt and gray boxers that hug his length as it strains against the fabric. When you manage to stop staring at his imprint, you look up at him to see him watching you with a smug grin and an eyebrow raised, the shyness from earlier nowhere to be found.

“See something you like?” he asks teasingly, and you narrow your eyes before laughing and pushing his chest. 

“Shut up.” you mutter with a smile, and he catches your hand before it leaves his chest, linking his fingers with yours and kissing the inside of your wrist. Your eyes widen in mild surprise but he keeps kissing up your arm, lingering in the crook of your arm when you giggle, and up your shoulder and neck to connect with your lips in a heated, desperate kiss that makes you feel deliciously filthy when you taste your arousal on his tongue.

“Need to be inside of you,” he grunts, reaching between your bodies to palm at his length roughly. He pulls himself out of his boxers with a groan of relief before pushing you back against the sink counter none too gently and spreading your legs a bit wider.

“Gonna let me fuck your pretty pussy, baby?” he murmurs against your lips, bringing the head of his cock to your core, dragging it up and down along your folds and collecting the arousal to smear over the tip as lubrication.

“Yeah,” you half-whisper, half-groan, and he beams against your lips before pushing the tip of his length past your entrance, taking in a sharp breath as your walls wrap around him welcomingly, practically sucking him further in.

“God, this pussy just loves my cock, doesn’t it?” he teases you, and you whimper in protest, pushing on his chest to get him to stop. Undeterred, he continues on, “I know it does, baby, it’s okay.” All the while, he’s resisting your pushing and leaning closer still to connect his lips with yours over and over again, the only sounds in the room being his grunts of satisfaction when your mouths meet and lewd wet noises as you two kiss, your every breath and cry of pleasure muffled by his relentless kissing.

He starts to fuck into you slowly, gradually building to a pace that has your head tipping back and your lips parting as you desperately pant for air.

His hands roam your body greedily, grabbing at and groping your breasts, squeezing your hips and sliding back to grab at your ass before moving back up to tease at your nipples, pinching them, tweaking, flicking and tugging on them until you let out a pleasure-filled gasp.

Sensing your rapidly declining composure, he brings his lips to your jaw, sucking and licking his way down your neck and past your collarbones before he presses your breasts together and buries his face between them, his mouth leaving sinful trails of saliva as he makes his way to your nipples and sucks on them eagerly, swirling his tongue around the bud and flicking it up and down teasingly before switching to shower the other breast in attention.

Overwhelmed by all the pleasure and the practically static intensity in the air, you can only run your fingers through his hair as he licks and kisses all over your breasts. To your surprise, Haechan doesn’t let up on anything—the strokes into you, the attention given to your breasts, and the greedy caresses and grabs of the fleshier parts of your body like your hips, waist, ass—and his all-encompassing stimulation has you hurtling towards your next climax eagerly. 

Not a moment too soon, that deliciously familiar tugging sensation begins to manifest in the pit of your stomach, and your cries grow all the more plaintive as your orgasm starts to build.

“Hae—chan—” you gasp, nails digging none too gently into his shoulders, and Haechan winces in both pain and pleasure. “Gonna cum—wanna cum so bad—let me cum, please—”

“That’s it, baby, go on,” he urges you in a throaty murmur that only serves to send you hurtling towards the edge even faster. “Cum for me, baby, I know you can.”

With a broken, pleading whimper, you reach your peak, now very thankful for Haechan’s tight, damn near possessive grip on you as your legs start to buckle from the overwhelming sensations of pleasure flowing through you. 

He dips his head down, kissing down your cheek and finally mouthing languidly at the flesh of your neck, his tongue and teeth both making surprise appearances.

“One day, I’m gonna mark this pretty neck all over.” he slurs, practically drunk with lust as he pounds into you, his thrusts growing more erratic as his desperation to reach his climax increases.

“Haechan,” you moan, moving one hand from his shoulder to cup the back of his neck. “Haechan, are you gonna cum?” 

“Fuck—yes, baby, I’m about to cum,” he replies with gritted teeth, and you hum encouragingly, repeatedly flexing your walls around him. “Baby, please tell me I can cum in you—wanna fill you up—”

“Yes,” you agree immediately, and he cries out in relief, the sound of pleasure a bit choked off as he gives one final, deep thrust into you and stays there, burying himself to the hilt as he releases into you, your walls reflexively milking his cock for every last drop.

“You’re amazing,” Haechan whispers adoringly, kissing up your neck and stopping at your lips, pulling you impossibly closer for a slow yet deep kiss that leaves your mind reeling. “Literally like a dream come true.”

He pulls out of you carefully, using a makeshift wad of toilet paper to gingerly clean between your legs and tossing it in the toilet, following it shortly after with another wad he’s used to clean himself up. 

“You’d better not clog my toilet, sir,” you joke casually as you touch up your appearance in the mirror over the sink, not noticing until several beats later that Haechan hasn’t responded. When you look over at him curiously, you’re not expecting him to be eyeing you up like a predator about to pounce.

“I think you should avoid calling me things like ‘sir’ if you want to leave this bathroom and go back to that party any time soon.” Haechan warns you in a surprisingly serious voice, dark eyes staring directly into yours as a silent challenge.

You don’t know what’s come over you—possibly the post-nut dopamine rush making you more friendly—but you look over your shoulder at him with your eyebrows raised and a playful smile curling your lips.

“How about things like ‘Daddy’ instead?” you ask curiously, shifting your gaze to watch him in the mirror, and you watch in amusement as he tenses, his jaw clenching handsomely before he looks directly into the mirror and meets your gaze with such a “fuck around and find out” level of intensity that you look away immediately, eyes wide in surprise. 

“Keep playing if you want to.” he offers, and you shake your head.

“I’m done being difficult,” you inform him. “I’m busy grappling with the fact that not only did I let my friend’s boyfriend hit just now, but I let my friend’s boyfriend hit while he was dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.”

Haechan laughs at that, the tension between you two dissipating in an instant, before picking up his orange eye mask and attempting to tie it around his face again.

You step in after his second failed attempt, gently taking the garment and placing it over his eyes, making sure the holes are aligned correctly before tying it securely behind his head.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, suddenly sounding a lot more bashful than you’re used to. 

You nod, placing your hands on his shoulders and squeezing gently. “You’re welcome.” you reply, but he doesn’t move, still looking into your eyes like he’s committing the sight of you like this to memory. “Haechan, this is the part where you move.” you inform him, and he blinks hard several times before breaking eye contact to look somewhere else.

“Sorry,” he grunts, stepping back so you can move from against the counter. “Wait!” he calls before you open the door, his hand curling around your forearm to pull you into what you assume is one last kiss.

You have to hand it to him; his kisses are nothing short of intense, and each one leaves you a little more mentally disheveled than the one before, which is the exact reason why you have to go quickly.

“Don’t be a stranger,” he calls after you as you step out of the bathroom into the darkened hallway, making sure to look both ways for any surprise witnesses.

As you make your way downstairs to rejoin the party, you flash through a myriad of emotions as you process everything that just took place, but you can’t help but notice that guilt has yet to show itself.

It does dawn on you about an hour later, however, as you catch Haechan watching you for the third time in the past fifteen minutes as you dance and joke with your friends, that you may have started something you can’t just stop on your own, cold turkey style. 

TA DA!!!!! i hope you enjoyed your read! the third part will be up in exactly one week! reminder that (only if you’re able) tips are very much appreciated, as is positive feedback! if you’d like to be added to the taglist, just shoot me an ask and please make sure your privacy settings are updated accordingly!

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