#It has so many dialogues that stuck with me
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theladyeclectic79 · 2 days ago
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It’s strange: I played vanilla DA:I back in 2014 and was obsessed with the game, but Solas himself never really stood out to me. When I try to remember back a decade ago, I don’t know if I ever actually finished the game - I remember starting and restarting it because I loved it so much and didn’t want it to end.
I never played any of the DLC as life had moved on for me when it came out. The game was and remains my favorite of all time, but I never really connected with Solas. My love was Cullen and his romance, and I still maintain that it’s the best in the series.
That said however: the CHOKEHOLD this man has over me after playing Veilguard. I am currently replaying Inquisition, and the amount of foreshadowing that game has is… My god. Just regular dialogue option with Solas, knowing now what I do after Veilguard - I understand all you long-time Solavellan lovers (and I haven’t even gotten to the Trespasser DLC content yet).
Solas is one of the best written villains I’ve ever seen in a game. I don’t even know how to put into words just how perfect he is. Everything he’s done, EVERYTHING, came from a place of goodness; he wanted to do the right thing but there were no objectively GOOD options, just the least-bad. Rendering the Titans tranquil, creating the Veil; he did these to keep worse from happening, yet they were still objectively bad outcomes. Even now, wanting to remove the Veil will kill untold numbers, but all he can see is how many terrible things he done and wants to atone.
That he cannot see (or care?) what devastation it will create is because he can’t trust himself anymore. He has allowed himself to be swayed before: Mythal convincing him to become corporeal even knowing the risks for a spirit of Wisdom; letting Mythal set the pace with the Evanuris, and seeing her murdered by them. His entire life, he has been convinced not to pursue what he thought was right and was burned, so now he’s afraid to be swayed again and for something else terrible to happen.
And so he walks his Dinan’shiral alone, knowing his death is at the end. He never wanted to live, not like that. His life is regret upon regret; he just wants it to end, but is desperate to atone for all the things he’s done along the way.
He’s just…so compelling. Millenia of regrets, so many things he wanted that slipped through his fingers. He’s unbearably tragic in a way few characters in media are, a classic case of “live long enough and see yourself become the villain.” And he HATES this about himself, because all he wanted was to help.
So in the end, he’s stuck on the road he created for himself because he cannot trust himself to walk any other direction. Reversing the Veil is the only thing he can do; he cannot bring back those he betrayed, but he can give the future what they lost at least. He’s trying to be heroic, but his vision is so warped by a lifetime of betrayal, pride, and too-hard decisions that he won’t let himself see anything other than the end of the road.
I wonder if BioWare knew all along what they were creating with him. Dunno if there’ll be another villain this good in media for a long time to come.
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bubblingsteam · 2 months ago
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KIM KITSURAGI - I was born here. I grew up here. It's the only home I've ever known. And there's a good chance I'll die in the line of duty here, too.
But -- to most of my countrymen, I will always be some monkey fucker.
DISCO ELYSIUM - CONVERSATION #1201
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arolesbianism · 7 months ago
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Guys why is rain world so good (<- rewatched some scenes and teared up on all of them)
#rat rambles#rain posting#god man. holy shit. fuckkkkkk#rain world may not be one of my token big interests but god does it just hit me so fucking hard whenever I do engage with it#I also think after rewatching some stuff that my general takes on how rain world's world works have shifted a smidge#which is also giving me some more ideas for saint hcs#I feel like the biggest thing Im seeing differently now is the concept that the saint has no beginning or end#one big theme of rain world is the way that all cycles eventually come to an end#societies iterators and even the lives of the animals that wander about#theyre trapped but within these cycles they still move forward and eventually fade just like everything else#but the saint doesnt. they never can. in that way they are a paradox#for when even time itself eventually fades what becomes of the being who will never be allowed to slow in their decent?#overlapping onto themself infinitely until what is and isn't them becomes irrelevant#have they lived many times or were they ever even alive to begin with?#at the end of the day they will never know. its a peace they wont ever find#as they are simply a lil guy who is stuck in a real mind boggling situation#anyways thanks pebbles dialogue for helping me get a better grasp on saint stuff have fun being dead buddy#it also makes me feel even worse for the echos because theyre likely in similar positions#not the exact same given Im sure none of them had the powers to fly and ascend ppl but still#in my minds eye tho theyre more themselves than saint is#for better or for worse#the rest of the echos are stationary. unable to move forwards or back#while the saint continues to spiral onwards and onwards in ways that break the very core of this universe#or smth like that idk. Im just rambling abt nonsense at this point lol#but yeah I imagine the sain to be both trapped and stretched across time#most things exists whinin cycles of cycles but the saint takes that concept to the extreme#most things much more so develop and change as time moves forward but the saint kind of just is#but like. is a lot. like there's a lot of them. but that them is stretched like super thin#they overlap themself and keep stretching to infinity#and with that sort of overlap it makes sense that in what conscious state they do have they simply experience each overlap eternally
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neostellarjpg · 2 months ago
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inner mono-dialogue
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the more time i spend being davepeta with you the more i realize almost every single problem in my life was caused by my obsession with being this unfeeling cool dude
but youre cool already
like in the way that actually matters
youre chill and friendly and just nice and thats all there is to it
youre shamelessly yourself even if everybody around you is a jackass and gives you shit for it
youre similar to jade and john in that way
i really envied that about them
but its different actually being at the control panel and feeling where that earnesty comes from
it makes me wanna match your energy and keep that pawsitivity ball rolling even if it ends up being weird or cringe or whatever
fuck man do you know how exhausting it is building yourself social hoops to leap through all the time and when you trip up even once its suddenly the end of the world
what kinda dumbass does that its like dealing with life in hard mode for no reward
fuck that noise
i like your way better
Nepeta's heart burns and shines inside you.
:33 < thank you :))
:33 < but you know
:33 < i dont think doing things your way is unrewarding
:33 < its like
:33 < a shield!
Dave scrunches up with discomfort.
X33 < i dont mean that in an insulting way!
:33 < the fact is that shields are just purractical sometimes
:33 < it doesnt make you cowardly to hide behind one
:33 < in the same way that it isnt cowardly for a predator to hide in the bushes when stalking prey
:33 < its just a way to make sure you dont get hurt!
:33 < purrsonally i found shields too cumbersome
X33 < im a hunter after all!
:33 < and i guess maybe the same goes for my personality
:33 < its not really that im purrticularly brave for being myself
:33 < i just didnt have a say in the matter in the furst place!
:33 < honestly if i had a choice i would have loved to be more like you dave
:33 < you can befriend people almost effortlessly
:33 < and its beclaws youre also just a nice person
Dave recoils in surprise, but Nepeta passionately pushes forward.
:33 < fur real! i f33l it inside you! theres a really strong sense of empathy there
:33 < its just like mine! just smarter, and a bit more analytical
:33 < whenever we encounter someone mew, its like i f33l you lock onto them, and you gather so many insights into their purrsonality without even trying
:33 < and you can use that to bond with others without giving every part of you away
:33 < which unfortunately
:(( < i never really knew how to do
Nepeta sours with unpleasant feelings. Your brows scrunch together with both pain and sympathy.
Nepeta has a big and complex heart. She tried her best to keep it from spilling over, but it always did in the end. And it was embarrassing. It was embarrassing when your friends dismissed your hobbies or focused in on your strange quirks. It was embarrassing when they revealed they knew about your crush on Karkat that you'd worked so hard to hide. And it hurt whenever he would say mean things about you. He and anyone else.
But you always puffed out your chest and sucked it up. You stuck to your guns no matter what. Because it was fun! The things you liked, the people you liked, were fun, and they made you feel good. Why couldn't anyone else see that? And why did it seem like they never gave a single thought to who you were?
You curl in on yourself. Your chest hurts. You suddenly really miss Equius.
And you miss Rose. You miss Jade. You miss John and Karkat and Aradia and Tavros and Terezi and all the others. You miss all the people you can go outside and see whenever you wish, and you miss all the people that you have no hope of ever seeing again. You feel the choral echo of all the times you've ever felt this need for comfort, this thrumming pain searing hot inside you, like hunger wracking your stomach.
You clench your teeth. You remember being on your bed, curled in blankets, not having eaten a proper meal in days. You remember holding your stomach and sneaking to the kitchen, turning your shoulder at every step to look fearfully behind you, only for your fingers to falter hopelessly on the handle of the refrigerator, knowing there was nothing for you inside.
You shake with anger. You know that feeling. The feeling of being chased by something much bigger than you, a hulking silhouette of menacing strength following your scent through the thicket. You'd clutched a beast carcass to your chest, barely breathing as you stalked clumsily through the trees, performance wavering from exhaustion and hunger.
You'd almost died. You'd almost died often. And then after escaping death so many times, it one day claimed you. Casually. Unflinchingly. And the world beat on without you, leaving you stunned by your own insignificance. You'd looked out onto every preceding moment of your life, wondering if there was anything to truly be proud of in the face of your friends accomplishing all these fantastical things. You'd felt lonely before, but after that, you were truly walled off from every single person you knew.
And now, despite everything, you're alive again. Twofold, together with someone.
A warmth coats the ache inside your body. The two parts of you swirl together, feeling and tasting each other, trying to understand themselves.
It feels like a hug.
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le-poofe · 9 months ago
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Finally~
I wanted to make a little something to say "Thank you for reading" to cap off WYS! Excuse me while I get mushy for a second-
Y’all are the reason this was able to get done. Your enthusiasm for updates and how the story unfolded really means so much to me. It was the little things that kept me motivated, even during the long hiatus. Seeing you guys pick up and point out little details sprinkled throughout the comic always made my day and gave me a sense of validation. Reactions to things like the surprise of Sans’ nightmare or Grillby’s comfort all made me super happy. And you guys gave the finale pages the sweetest reception I could ask for. l'm so grateful that you stuck around for the whole thing!
Overall, I’m very pleased with how this turned out! Interestingly, the main thing I’d want to change if given the chance is how I wrote Sans and Grillby themselves. Especially Sans’ dialogue. My characterization of them has changed quite a bit over the years (hard to tell bc I don’t draw them a lot atm). But that can’t really be helped. Just like the way that my art style changed over time. Hindsight does that stuff all the time. Nitpicking aside, I stand by the creative decisions made by 2019 Me
The funny part is that the original comic was 17 pages and I got them all done before hand so I wouldn't run into the issue of falling into a hiatus between pages!!! If y'all are interested in a bts post, I’ll try to dig up those og pages from my old computer. And maybe I'll show the even rougher epilogue draft I threw together for shits and giggles to see if I could get the page count to 69
Sansby has already been super special to me for a long time, finally getting this done and seeing the response strengthened that. I’ve had so many people find me through WYS over the years, it blows my mind. The messages from people who hold it dear really means the world! Without you guys this comic wouldn’t be what it is now. Thanks for Staying~
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hitomisuzuya · 1 month ago
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hi again, teehee. my request is just reader and scara who are enemies that got forced on a road trip by their mutual friends. the two are sitting at the back of the van, but reader has to sit on his lap cause theres not enough people!! that leads to reader cockwarming scara pretty dejectedly, cause she wanted a peaceful car ride; which ended up with her squirming in discomfort on his cock!! but of course, no one can see them cause they still have their clothes on!! byebyee 🫶
- 🎧
scaramouche x fem!reader. smut. cockwarming. some humor. enemies to lovers. a bit of degrading sexting.
this request was a fun challenge for me to write since the situation doesn't offer room for dialogue😌
scaramouche hates you for a number of reasons. he hates that you smell good all the time. hates how your hair always looks so pullable. hates how soft your skin looks. hates how hard he can feel himself getting when argue back with him, and call him out on being on an asshole when he is in fact being an asshole.
and you hate scaramouche for plenty of very valid reasons. he is selfish, arrogant, and incredibly egotistical. rude and a bit self absorbed. you swore he purposely picked fights with people because he thought it was fun. he legit stuck his tongue out at like child, with this stupid fucking smirk that just wanted to kiss right off his face.
normally, you like being a passenger on road trips at night. there was just something so peaceful about just sitting and looking out the window and listening to music.
unfortunately for you, you got to enjoy none of those things.
sometimes, with road trips more people ended up coming along than there was even room for. which in turn left you sitting in scaramouche's lap. you are sore, there are so many so many ways you could sit in someone's lap. all you wanted to do was get to the hotel, check into your room and fall asleep cuddling your jeff the shark plush.
and to top it all off, scaramouche would not stop texting you. he was impossible to ignore, especially when he could clearly see you were trying to ignore him.
'you know, you can turn the other way if you want. i can brace my arm behind your back or you could rest it on my shoulder." you grit your teeth reading scaramouche's text message.
thing is he wasn't being nice. doing any of that would require you straddling him. this wasn't the first text you'd gotten from him like this. he much preferred this position. he could feel the heat between your legs right on his cock. the bumps in the road were easily felt sitting in the back of the van, shifting you in his lap and causing you inadvertently rub on his cock.
'are you cold?'
you sighed and texted back 'i am good sitting the way i am, thanks. and no, i am not cold.'
'okay, well i am so grab the blanket for me.'
you reached over and yanked the blanket back to you over the seat, and threw it at him. "the hell you are cold," you said your first words in hours outloud. you swore you heard him laughing even though you had ear buds in.
scaramouche maneuvered the blanket around the both of you. he wasn't an idiot, in fact he was very sure of a lot of things. you were undoubtedly sore, especially in your neck and back. and you are most definitely cold. you would have to change positions sooner or later.
you felt your phone vibrate in your hand again. 'look i am not exactly comfortable either.'
'didn't say you were.' you texted back, squirming a little in his lap. your body had been crying for awhile for you to change positions. you sighed heavily and moved so that you are straddling him. for the third time that night.
scaramouche sincerely thanked whatever stars aligned in his favor for the fact that you'd chose to wear a skirt that day, which was no doubt hiked up more than little hidden underneath the blanket. he was positive he could feel your panties up against his jeans, especially when the van went over a bump. especially.
'exactly, what with you grinding on my lap,' came another text.
you rolled your eyes, your hand tightening on your phone. 'oh like i plan every bump in the road,' you were more than aware of him between your legs, and feeling he was hard at times was unavoidable. and top it all off your phone battery was half way drained, being sucked up by scaramouche's texts.
you heard him sigh as a bump shifted you in his lap. 'you sure sound comfortable.' you texted.
'awfully concentrated on me, aren't we? you like this, don't you? or maybe you have thought about this?' you knew his text was a taunt. he knew he was close to stamping on your very last nerve.
'get over yourself.' he could feel how scathing your text was. and it was such a turn on for him.
'you really haven't thought about fucking me? not even once? be honest.' you grit your teeth, and looked up at him to see him raising at you with a smirk on his face. god he is so smug.
'no,' your response was quick and simple. but truth is, you had. you hated how smug he looked just knowing he was right. you had spent some long night thinking about him. shamelessly.
'i don't mind being in this position,' you admitted in a text back, feeling a little bad about how snappy you'd sounded. you thought he felt pretty good between your legs, becoming more than a little away of thick he really is. 'yes, i have thought about it,' your heart pounded realizing you had pressed send.
scaramouche looked up, surprised at your text. you hadn't given him a inch this entire time. you look so fucking adorable looking away from your phone screen shyly, an embarrassed flush on your cheeks.
slowly you looked down at your phone when scaramouche texted you again. 'you wanna cock warm me for awhile? it would be more comfortable for both of us.' it was ideal that a blanket was around the both of you.
'..are you serious?' you texted back, hardly believing how this had happened. your pussy has clenched just reading the text, as infuriating as his text was. scaramouche was making you realize how touch starved you were.
' ...yes.' you texted back. he made you realize just how badly you wanted his cock inside of you. you squirmed knowing it was probably going to be uncomfortable after a few hours, but the thought was making you wet.
scaramouche knew in a few hours you wouldn't care how uncomfortable it felt. you wouldn't feel any discomfort. you would be wet and squirming, soaking on his cock because the van going over bumps would nudge his cock head into your sweet spot at random consistency. he couldn't fucking wait.
no one noticed you shifting into a position to peel your panties aside, the blanket concealing your movement. to everyone else it would look like you were trying to alleviate stiffness in your muscles from sitting in one position to long.
scaramouche freed his now straining cock from his jeans, silently swallowing a groan as he maneuvered his cock inside of you. you lowered yourself back down into his lap. it helped he saw the struggle to not make noise in your eyes as his stretched you apart.
'remember to keep quiet, slut. or everyone will hear how good you feel to finally have my cock inside you,' your pussy clenched reading his degrading text. texts he kept on sending you. the van went over a well placed bump, nudging his cock right into your sweet spot.
your toes curled as you squirmed a little. scaramouche on the other hand was in heaven. his cock was finally inside the girl of his dreams in a very erotic way. he could sit back and enjoy your tight warmth squeezing around his cock, your pussy oozing juices feeling it throb.
he couldn't resist idly playing with your clit underneath the blanket while he scrolled through his phone. you had to thankful to be turned away from everyone. the throbbing in your swollen clit was almost unbearable, making his cock feel twice as good inside of you.
'go ahead, kitten. roll your hips a little, no one will notice. it will make you feel better.' he pinched your clit, wagging his finger on the sensitive nub while he texted you with one hand.
the shock of pleasure made your thighs quake under the blanket. you moaned loud in your head as your hips twitched to roll down onto his cock.
'you slut. fuck that felt good. do that too much and i am gonna cum inside you.' scaramouche texted back.
your breath hitched in your throat reading his text. more wet pooled onto your pussy reading his text. your hand shook as you texted back 'promise?' you could barely even think with his cock buried that deep inside you. you want to rub and grind against him, nuzzling his neck and licking at his mouth submissively while you told him how good his cock felt.
his response was quick. 'when we checked in at the hotel, you are coming to my room and i am fucking you raw.'
'yes, please.' you texted back. he knew you couldn't wait judging from how tight your pussy felt on his cock.
scaramouche gave you break after awhile. he would have to have his cock back in his pants well before arriving at the hotel. he kept you straddling his lap though.
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defmaybe · 2 months ago
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Mistake
NewJeans' Kim Minji (Angst) & NMIXX's Oh Haewon (Smut) x Male Reader
15.4k words
Some discussions of suicide
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A/N: A few things before going in:
This is essentially an unedited, raw first draft. Expect an insane amount of errors and self-indulgent metaphors.
It's also unfinished in parts.
Still, I do genuinely hope that you enjoy this!
Thanks to Tyler and and Summer for putting me on the right track of being a writer!
Big inspirations from Caps' Departure, Nichu's Where Our Blue Is, Ddeun's Our Love Language is Sex, and Challengers
Prologue
Mistake all the time, You’re my mistake all the time, yeah
Mistake all the time, I’m your mistake all the time, yeah
You realized that you’ve never possessed the creative calibre as much as a writer should’ve had. Perhaps it’s appropriate that you’ve never pursued it as your major career. You read all these stories, and you knew that you just can’t come up with these plots. You don’t know how to do character developments, hell, you can barely write dialogues. The way people talk in real life remains a mystery to you. So, it’s probably for the best that you’re in engineering.
Though, it just takes a mistake to change it all. Many stories start with a catastrophe, a turning point, or something that puts the protagonist on their journey. So, here you are, you have a story right in front of you, so should it be transformed into something commendable? award-worthy? a selfish portrayal of what’s supposed to be just a passage of life? The goal of it doesn’t really matter much (though some recognition would be nice); you just had to write it out.
You don’t know how much time you have for this. Everyone has been telling you it should be long enough for the forgiveness to be ready, but you’ve also been wondering whether, if that day comes, it would be too long that the cadence won’t strike you as pristine as before.
Though, it hadn’t stopped you from fantasizing how this encounter would play out. You’d say something witty with a chuckle, and she’d smile back, or even better, a laugh. Both of you would see the separation as some childish actions of the past. The two of you would go back to where you were: grief-stricken, exhausted, scared high school students. 
The sunlight would force you to retreat to some cafe during the afternoon, letting you two trade stories between the gaps. And as the sun sets, you’d sit beside her in some park, laid back a bit, hands on the grass to offer some balance. She’d do the same. Then your hearts would slowly be reconnected with each other, hoping to reclaim solace missing in the separation, as if you are the only two people on earth.
Firstly though, those events would have to be triggered by your words. And despite thousands of days of you trying to perfect every syllable, they just conveniently stuck in your throat. This isn’t what you’ve been readying yourself for. Awestruck and powerless is an understatement, and no tests have ever made you feel so drowned in your gargantuan number of thoughts.
You cannot say a word to her, and there may not be any second chance for this.
You are her mistake, and you’ll always be.
One: About You
There was something ‘bout you that now I can’t remember
It’s the same damn thing that made my heart surrender
And I miss you on a train, I miss you in the morning
I never know what to think about
I like you
What
I like you! Like do you wanna go out on a date?
(Seen)
It isn’t the longest silence you’ll experience with her, let alone with someone else, fourteen years on earth won’t give much of an insight to you, but it’s enough for you to know what she’s going to say next.
I’m sorry
Regret in her words bled through the pixels. 
But I just see you as a friend
Being on text messages takes out the awkwardness a bit, but that doesn’t help transform the dagger, really.
Kim Min-Ji, your entire relationship was based on this encounter, and that three-week phase of some bullet crush upon entering a new school preceding this. You were charmed by a girl’s look, and then no one can compete with that.
You had found her face appealing, then you fantasized your whole life with her. One thing led to another, and you were head over heels for her in just a week. 
Nowhere that you haven’t gone with her in your head: a date at an American diner—drinking milkshakes, a trip to the theater—watching some schlocky romance and cringing when the couple on the screen are kissing each other, and the most ambitious one: marriage, she’s smiling, everyone you’ve ever known is surrounding you, cheering as you are leaning in for a kiss.
Too bad you didn’t have a backup plan if it failed.
Consequences of the rejection had you decompressing every, single, thing you’ve been admiring about her to your friends, yeah, the same ones. You treated that as if it was the end of the world. 
It was quite a phase, and you inevitably got closer to those people. They were slowly fading away eventually, one by one, but at least, at that moment, you felt like there’s someone listening to you.
While the dagger stuck, you kept eluding her, avoiding eye contact as you were walking past each other. You had to let her know you were hurt. God, that shit looked so damn petty in retrospect.
It was a month later when the heartbreak dissipated, and both of you decided that the next three years cannot be spent evading each other. (To be honest, it’s mostly just for you to stop being weird.) A nod was all it took, and that probably was a lot better than having her as a girlfriend.
She wants you to live on your life, separately
Being on text messages (and having it delivered through a friend) takes out the cruelty a bit, but that doesn’t help transform the dagger, really.
It started with just some petty acts, a crude joke. Then, just over a month later, you deleted every single picture of her, almost five years of them. It wasn’t a hard thing to do when you were so deep in melancholy, just a few minutes after a friend brought the breakup message to you. 
You thought you had to block her everywhere. But with every step taken to create some distance from her, those actions just, somehow, create unending echoes tormenting you.
Why
You really wanted to fix this; you really fucking did. You’ve never wanted it to end, even when you sent some faux, response-seeking farewell messages after days of waiting for her confirmation of how she felt, just to have her come and reply about the exam she was having just a few minutes later.
Are you gonna send something to her again if you know?
But even with her crying emojis, you were relentless with your replies. I fucking hate you still echoes to this day. It shaped how you see yourself: a selfish, yet codependent, self-indulgent, unlovable person. Even with the apology texts you sent a few weeks later (which she never saw), those four words were tattooed on you.
I won’t
You wished you could, but this answer seemed to be the way to satisfy her.
Think about it
Like all those years
What have you done to her
It was supposed to end with your first apology text, when she called herself an asshole over it. Then, you became one yourself. It turned out that reading only the preview message doesn’t give you the full picture, so you paid the price just a month later. You replied to that, then you waited. And with how God made you so insecure, you thought she wanted it to end after a week you took to reply.
You had problems.
It’ll all be okay
Someday
Looking at your friend’s text, you sighed, knowing that you can only let fate and time lead you to it.
You were nothing more than a friend. She sure loved you, just not in the way one would perceive as romantic. There were kind words, there was thoughtful advice, there were chatting deep into a lot of nights. 
Any form of physical contact though, you brought it up in some conversations (which one eventually being the spark that burned it all), were always quickly suppressed by her. So, there you were, having her as a friend, and the bar for where your future girlfriends should be.
hey
need some advice rn
uh huh
there’s this guy
send me his pic
alright wait a sec
[photo]
my god
what
okay yeah I know why he’s a big deal
fuck auto caps on I again
fuck
just turn it off in the settings lol
thanks
[Replied to: okay yeah I know why he’s a big deal] ikr
[Replied to: thanks] no prob
so
how is it with him
As it was flourishing, there were times that you wished for it to be as easy as a kiss and a happily ever after, with how well-gelled you’ve always been together. But the distance between you is just too much. 
You can’t conveniently visit her on every other weekend, while she really didn’t want to close the distance from being a close friend (or as you would think to yourself later: “our love may not coincide at the same time”). So, there you were, you became each other’s advisor for those times you’ve had.
All of what you saw as confidential: all the vibrations of your heart, all the tears running down your cheeks when alone, all the ties you cut and formed, as any teenager would do, was at last, delivered to your parents, at the age you didn’t think it was possible for such change. 
You didn’t expect that your parents would take it well, with how you’ve withheld everything for the last half decade, reducing every answer to their questions into a binary set consisting of yes and no. But as they’ve always been, they didn’t leave you in the dark.
You pleaded guilty to all of it – how you were wretched inside. How she became so much to you, how you took everything she says as an oath, how her jokes lit up a smile on your face every time, and how they still haunt you, to this day, keeps you from initiating any new, proper relationship with someone. 
They kept coming back, even if you thought time would slowly fade them away. The minor details, yes, but the bigger ones are still having free shots on you every now and then.
The first few months were difficult. Bed seemed to be the best place you could’ve been, lying down, your fingers sliding reels after reels for god knows how long. Though, it hits you, years of being alone, walling people out was detrimental to you. It starts with some small repairs: story replies to disconnected peers, dates with your close friends, more exposure to your family. 
You seek connections, desperately, to fill up the hole she once occupied. You took too many side jobs aside from the grueling university classes, and to be honest, you did meet a lot of new people in the next semester, even more than you did in the last two or three years here.
The space though, five years of freestyle carving put it into this twisted, incomprehensible, harrowing state in which all the adjectives in the world aren’t enough to define the shape of its former owner. How every fibre of your existence was tied to her was, as seen from outside, sad. 
Sure, it’s not wrong to let someone into your life, but with this extent – thousands of words to pry out a response - it just reeks codependency in retrospect.
It took some time, and a bunch of people, to cover up the space. You never quite make it like it was; there’s always a hole somewhere, and you can still see the footprints she left on you through it.
How you tell people close to you, most of the time, is that there was a fight - one you started. Then you were being a bitch for too long, and by the time you returned, she put you out of the picture. You added some bits of how you were dependent on her for your heartaches, how you treated her like shit for years, how you sent waves of messages that she didn’t reply because she was busy, how you said you hated her, only to retract and regret it a few days later, then it all ended.
It could be some way of unearthing emotional vulnerability under that “cold” façade - as often pointed out by your friends, which you deflected as crippling social anxiety. You thought people would trust you more if you decided to tell them how you succumbed to those inner demons. It works most of the time.
You told them that you cried to some K-pop song that you can only understand like two lines. 
You told them how you tried to recover the photos with some external program not a week later. 
You told them, with an otherworldly consistency, that it’s your fault, never hers. 
You told them you’d send something a year later, as an apology, to return to where you once were.
You told them that you might crumble again if the response is anything but a warm embrace.
Your taped-up heart remained intact when the day came, having your friends around and such after a year of reconstruction, and you surrendered to the fact that you really can’t do much more than a guilt-ridden text. But it’s not easy at all to watch “Sent just now” become “yesterday”, then “last week”, then “last month” slowly unfold. Then you knew that your strength just cannot handle this; cadence can’t exist with a single note.
It took you back to that day, when the future was just this black, unbounded, silent yet serene space. Times where every knife suddenly became alluring, heights weren't what you were afraid of anymore, the next trip to a pharmacist might be a deathtrap.
This eternal apathy: it was tempting to give in to it – to just leave all of these behind. Yet, you weren’t so sure to give yourself such an ending. People won’t like it, or do they? A lot of stories saw their main characters to their ends, no matter which way it would be. And to be fair, a lot of them became cult classics. You weren’t so sure which would be the right ending for yours.
Two: Now That We Don’t Talk
You grew your hair long, you got new icons
And from the outside, it looks like you’re trying lives on
One advice you took from your therapist is to keep journaling your emotions, each day. And even with the poor self-discipline, whether in a book or a journal, you carved your grimaces, laughters, and tears into words. But perhaps that became too customary. And as time passes, you find the storyteller side of yours magnetized outwards. So, there you were, in front of your old laptop, nibbling on the dagger.
Your plane landed in Tokyo mere hours ago. It was a few days after your sophomore year finals. You were paying for your inability to sleep with the shaking cabin, and it was just nine (Tokyo Standard Time) in the morning. Your eyes went dry, and you can feel the irregular beats of your heart. The sleeping pills from your psychiatrist can’t handle the excitement of getting on a plane, especially if it’s to Tokyo.
It’s cold, spring cold. Snow is nowhere to be seen, but your tropical genes are already shaken with a small breeze. You excused yourself from your family for some minutes outside the airport, to get some air for alertness.
The train would depart in an hour, but with the risk-averse nature of your parents, you had only 20 minutes to snap a few photos around Narita. You quickly pace yourself against the crowd, to the outside. You strode through the arrivals terminal, before reaching the automated door, finally catching the air. And it’s cold, spring cold.
It was cloudy, yet the sun was bright enough to deflect your vision away from the matter of protecting it. You pick up your camera to snap a few photos, testing the recipes you had looked up from home. And god, wasn’t Japan so pretty?
But maybe it’s the wind, maybe it’s the temperature, maybe it’s the sleep deprivation, you’re drawn to her, again. It was just over a month ago since the incident. Yet miles away from your parents’ car, when Minji had her dagger delivered through your phone, and as the distance grew, you realized that it’s poisoned.
Should I check my block-list?
It echoes, even if you had no reason to do it. And you gave in, under that spring air: cold, dry, unrelenting, merciless.
You took a seat by a slanted cream walkway outside. A man was sitting across from you. He looked up, before going back onto his phone, nonchalant to your presence, and it’s like you could complain about it.
And immediately, you take out your phone, so eager to check your blocked accounts.
She changed her profile picture into something that you can’t even make sense of: her. Even under the face of the drawn character, you could feel her radiate through your screen. Locals and tourists are still marching towards their destination, either into the city, or a plane, unbeknownst to your internal collapse. It’s probably the way your face is always the same - concealing the tears so well - cheerful or devastated.
She moved on from you: her old persona shed, bio rewritten, era changed. Yet there you were, at least a sea away, crumbled into pieces.
Perhaps it was time for you to shed a new shell.
“Minji will be here too!” One of your friends said.
It was the first time you had a sleepover at your friends’ apartment. Alcohols were, of course, involved. A bit of drunk chatting with your friends and walking around helped with the university-induced depression, which you, then freshman, naively dismissed as a normal thing. Then, you heard she would come for some lunch before you go back to the mundane routine you got yourself into.
“Heyyyyy.” You shouted into the room as soon as the apartment’s door was closed. She was sitting on the sofa in the middle of your friends’ studio-sized room.
“Hey!” She seemed to look different from her high school days, crimson on her lips, longer eyelashes, paler cheeks. She wears makeup now, and you wouldn’t lie that it took you by surprise - how beautiful she was. It may have been contributed to the fact that you had just six hours of sleep the night before, but she was gorgeous that day, breathtaking even.
“God, I miss you so much.” You said, sitting down beside her on the couch, while looking over the screen of her ancient phone.
“Awww, thanks babe.” Minji blew you a kiss, irony, to which you happily caught. 
“Long trip?” You asked, knowing how far she is from the city.
“Hour and a half.” She murmured.
“Sorry about that.” You chuckled, laying your back on the couch. It’s a display of your insufferable narcissism as usual, a humble smugness.
Your friends were too busy on their phones, waiting for a member to finish his shower before taking a trip into the city.
“No need, I’m here to see you.” Minji beams.
“Thanks, Minji.”
Not that you haven’t seen love blooming in front of you before, it’s just that you can’t grow the petals to display your stern sentiment. It has been, to say the least, difficult for you to express any tinge of compassion.
“ROMEO TAKE ME SOMEWHERE WE CAN BE ALONE, I’LL BE WAITING ALL THERE’S LEFT TO DO IS RUN.”
It’s only the two of you screaming between the other guys in the karaoke room. Even if it’s Taylor fucking Swift, she still seems to be threaded just between you two.
“YOU’LL BE THE PRINCE AND I’LL BE THE PRINCESS, IT’S A LOVE STORY BABY JUST SAY YES.”
You were pointing to each other, with others baffled by how enthusiastic you were.
Both of you kept going like wannabe singers until the end.
“WE WERE BOTH YOUNG, WHEN I FIRST SAWWWWW YOU.”
And the song ends, leaving only you two sharing the only spotlights in the room.
“Minji, fuck, god, that was great,” you panted, trying to catch your breath after screaming Love Story.
“You should thank me for listening to only English songs,” she scoffs, smiling at you.
You attempted to make a cute face, sarcastically. “Thanks, Miss Kim.”
“It’s my job to listen to Taylor Swift for you.” She bowed and smiled.
It’s always the irony-infused conversations, but deep down, you know you could trust her, at least once you do. So many of your problems were solved by her. Just tell them directly, just do this, just do that. And if you didn’t even want to, she’d take your place to show how competent in the field she is, just for you.
As your friends continue with the songs you two can’t capture the lyrics, you slid yourself towards her. “So, how’s the med school?”
She finds the words to answer the completed question for a while. Your other friends are still screaming their lungs out. “It… fucking sucks, yeah, it beat my ass back to high school.” She’d frowned at her script.
“I guess so, I shouldn’t have asked, even. We should talk about light things instead, I’m sor—”
“Don’t be.” Minji cut you off. “It’s fine, I needed a place to vent, anyway.”
The mood, again, swung into glee along with the background. “Oh, so what, Miss Kim, you’re going to use me as your personal venting tool now?”
As if you predicted your future.
“I might, if it doesn’t get better.” She’d snickered at her own comment.
Your expression softens to sympathy. “Well, I’m here. Miss Kim, Go ahead.”
“Really? We can chat about this later, to be fair” She negotiated your offer, not wanting to ruin the mood.
You pondered for a moment, as the song came to an end. “I suppose so, wanna pick the song?”
Minji smiled. “Sure.”
It was these small moments that you kept digging up, even if it is surrounded by smiles and laughs. I wasn’t kind enough to her. I said the wrong things. I was selfish. And it slowly grew into something far more sinister. I am a bad person.
“Okay, I’ll post this and tag you all.”
After the group selfie, it was time for you to go back to your regular depression-inducing activities at university.
“I have to get going now. I have class tomorrow morning.” Slightly annoyed by the time restraint, it’s evening now.
“Don’t forget to tag me~” Minji would speak out, playfully, a façade for the fear of being excluded.
“What if I do?” You pointed a finger to your chin.
“I’ll block you, that’s what I’d do”
“Aww, I’d be so sad.” You sarcastically pouted, before giving a farewell, “Bye, babe. Bye, everyone.”, waving.
“See ya.”
That was the last time you’d see her face.
Upon reelings, you can only recall the words as a vague, half-hearted goodbye. Oh how you felt so secure with her back then you just gave some shitty farewell, unbeknownst to how it would stick with you as her final image of you – the fact that has been gripping you tightly ever since.
Maybe, in a way, it is to broadcast the insides of your heart to the world. It’s always been what you do best. You found yourself sitting down in front of your laptop, pondering on the word choices. You were walking on a minefield of words, avoiding repetitions that would make your readers groan at such occurrences.
It could’ve been easy - the one who left was the villain, and the one who found you is the typical manic pixie dream girl any man would want. You would boast it when you meet her again, saying something along the lines of “I won the breakup.”, or “Guess who’s crying now.”. It’s quippy, snarky, made-ready, and gives some sense of revenge to the readers, and to you.
It’s not hard to give in to the waning under the half-lit moon; the vengeance is too alluring. Still, perhaps it was that single, small spot in the dark sky - the one that keeps on flickering a signal. And it was decrypted into the ending you didn’t want, acceptance, even if the creeping clouds are slowly curtaining the sky. The star keeps on flickering, to guide you.
And you followed it. The piece didn’t get as much recognition as you’d like, as the grudges were, even if partly, let go, and only mentioned as your thorns. Yet, that day, those spikes were shed, for a new shell to form to protect you from your own hatred.
Three: Feels Like
Met you at the right time
This is what it feels like
You were told that it’s going to be some kind of joint committee between universities. And so, as one of the chosen, you are here, in such rare occasions of being in a suit. It’s tiring - you just got off from your senior project, internship is approaching in a week, right after the Christmas holidays. Yet, being given a few activity hours from your university isn’t a bad offer at the time.
Some classical music you’ve never bothered to look their names up were sent through speakers; they probably couldn’t afford a real band. The grandiose, dimly blue-tinted-lit hall was occupied by hundreds of representatives. Waiters were walking back and forth to corporate demands for the food and drinks. The sounds from all kinds of conversations are lighting this ball up. It’s, from a whim, lively for now.
As always, you felt out of place here. You’ve never been the type that would slot into a conversation with ease. Every word you say might be interpreted as an insult, a showboating of your dull wit. So, silence seemed to be the best choice here. You can’t have people see you as some lowly, dense, out-of-place ordinary guy.
You kept checking your watch, anxiously, it should have been eleven when you were to leave, and time gets slower on purpose. Words around you were slowly, but surely on its way to push you to your edge. There were a couple of people from your university too, just that they were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they are in the toilet? Maybe they can talk to strangers? Maybe they don’t want to be around you?
With every second ticked, an uneasy feeling crept up your body with confidence, eager to take control. Your eyes were stuck to your phone, with right thumb swiping short videos after another. Each one elicited a dopamine shot to keep the shadows at bay, but it could do just that. You know this stuff is going to shave off your attention span bit by bit, but not faltering in front of everyone now just matters more.
Until-
“Sorry.” A stark, yet tender voice shook you, despite its message. You expected someone to come take you into their company, but it’s still a long way to go to get rid of this shell.
You turned your head back until she’s in your vision. A short-haired woman stood before you, around your age; her lips formed a weak grin. Her left hand was holding an empty plate, though with a few hints of red velvet’s frosting on it. “Can I have some more cake?”
Her right hand was in her blazer pocket.
You realized you had been standing in front of the cake stand for the last fifteen minutes. Fuck, this is embarrassing. You immediately moved away from the front table. What if I was seen as some fucker guarding all those cakes?
“What’s with that face?” 
“Uh—uh—” Being heavy in your thoughts can sometimes send some erratic, unwanted instructions to your facial features. This Fuck, this is embarrassing ordered the classic eyebrow squints, and a slight mouth frown.
“Are you seriously getting mad because I told you to move a bit?”
Ok, ok, shit, what the fuck is happening now. You were lost, failed to come up with a response. Those doe eyes were sure to be flammable with how you can feel trickles of sweat on your forehead now. First, you were all by yourself in what’s supposed to be a networking opportunity, and then this. This is how you are going to be viewed by these people now, an entitled, selfish asshole. A real chance pulled away from a single mistimed expr—
She pulled you back with her contagious simper. “I’m sorry. I was j—” She broke into another chain of laughter; there’s no reservation in those, like at all. “I was just fucking with you.” She put her right hand to cover her gaping mouth, while swaying her upper half back and forth like it was the funniest shit she has ever pulled. 
You may have just felt the largest absolute emotional slope in your life - it doesn’t really matter in terms of good or bad, just closest to being a straight line. You let out a shaken sigh, then, without knowing, you can’t help but start laughing with her in unison.
“God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t expect you to be s–so anxious about that.” The hilarity subsided, as she was starting to regain her composure.
You replied with some remnants of the previous guffawing. “It’s fi—ha, ha, it’s fine.” Still taking in what’s just happened.
You finally got a proper look at her. And on that exact night you first met, she wore a gray blazer, perfectly compatible with her decent height, just a few inches shorter than you – did she get it tailored? The navy wide-leg pants she had on her really gave her this “young and rising executive” look. Her short hair was a bit messy, probably from all the walking and talking she had while finishing that poor red velvet cake. 
Her nose was supposed to be the part that had you gawked, with how its bridge was flawlessly sculpted while still fitting with every other part on her face. And with the crimson lipstick on her plump lips, those features alone, perhaps, had Aphrodite working overtime. 
Then, just a bit above those, her hazel eyes, the ones that will have you gladly trapped in it for hours. The sunsets you will be sharing is going to be reflected in her eyes, as you bring your face closer to hers, to realize that she’ll be the person you can, and want to spend the rest of your life with.
(We still need to come back to the first night though. You haven’t gotten much more of her personality than that joke.)
“So, aren’t you going out and talking to someone?” She asked, her right hand using the cake server to pick up the lone chocolate one in the center of the table.
“Well, uh, it’s kinda hard to explain” You gestured your hands into an “I don’t know” pose, moving them up and down a little to imitate a weighing scale, as if you know what’s on both sides.
She puts on her curious face, staring straight into your eyes, trying to pry out an answer. “Try me”
You tried to hit back with your straight face, ready to not give in to her request, but to no avail. Her stare was getting even more intimidating. God, that gaze is strong.
“Fine.” You replied, as she giggled with her victory.
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” She furrowed her eyebrows. She really looks like a confused bear with that face.
“Never have the courage to do it.”
“Well, you look like you have enough to talk to me.” She cuts the chocolate cake with her fork, before putting the piece into her mouth.
“That’s because you’re the one initiating.”
“Oka—“ She tried to reply with a stuffed mouth, but the content was still too big. She chewed it a bit more with her right hand covering her mouth, the other putting a stop sign on you. “Okay? And am I wrong for doing that?”
“No! I—“ Her right hand moved to her waist; she was burning you with her eyes, cheeks still moving. It is important that you don’t say the wrong words here. “Thanks?”
“You’re welcome~” She twisted the last syllable into a melody, before letting out a cute giggle. “I’m Haewon by the way. And sorry for fucking with you a little too much.” She offered a handshake, which you reluctantly accepted. 
You suspected that there’s something weird with her then, with how chatty she was with you. Who would be going around, talking like this to other people?
It turned out a few years later that you’re the weird one.
“Aren’t you supposed to have some friends with you?” Haewon continues her pressing on you.
Shrugged, “Yeah, but I lost them like an hour ago, so—", as you fanned your eyes around for the umpteenth time of the night. The crowd rumbled, but still no sight of your peers. “I really have nowhere to go.”
Haewon kept switching her gaze between you and the crowd, as if to make more topics and banters out of it.
“You wanna join?” Haewon finally locked you within her sight; her thumb pointed away, into the uncertainty of the crowd.
“Uh—" 
It’s one of the few times you picked the right choice, even if it was clear as day.
“Let’s go then”
Joy gleamed her face, “Great, follow me”
Along with Haewon, you walked with her into the crowd. You bumped into some people who are apathetic to your action, and some even give you an understanding look, unbothered by your mistakes. The classical music blaring around seems to calm everyone down.
You’d finally reached a group of similarly-dressed students. “Welcome back Haewon, what took you so long?” One of them muttered out.
“Him.” Haewon replied, while looking at you and beams a smile.
Four: Cutie
Woke up in your orbit
Now where do I start?
Eighth wonder of the world: how the fuck can you secure a date with the royalty, Oh Hae-Won. You were aware – made known by her friends teasing you during a few group dates, knowing how Haewon has been spending a lot of time on her phone lately, too often with a grin on her face. 
“Hey” Haewon appears behind you in a sudden, voices in your head are now scattered.
A little shocked, “Hey”.
White tee, brown, modern crossbody bag on her shoulder, light navy jeans, hair a little shorter from that day, topped wi—
“Haiyah!” Haewon calls out, snapping you out of your trance. “You’re doing that again, aren’t you.”
“Doing what?” You replied, hoping she didn’t notice your pondering, borderline ogling on her choice of garments.
“Thinking.” She taps her head lightly. “Like you were being hypnotized or something.”
Rebuttal, “No, I wasn’t?”, and your eyebrows are marred.
“Yes, you were. And the first time I met you was also like this; you were lost in your head, and staring at me like you were trying to gauge something out of me.” She retorts with an arrogant chuckle.
“Alright, alright, fine, I’m a daydreamer, and what’s the problem with that?” You deflect the guilt. Shit, what the fuck did I say?
“Well—" Haewon nibbles her chin while finding the word. “People don’t really like being stared at, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s a fair point, my bad.” The people pleaser inside you got the better of the debater.
“Hey, look, let me give you some advice.” Determination sparks in her eyes, her hands holding on to the string. “Don’t think, just—do it, or feel it, you know.” You aren’t quite sure how to play along with her words. “The reason I’m here today is because I see something in you, and I’m sure you see something under this pretty face.”
And it’s true, Haewon sparks a sense of an adventurer inside you, even if they’re through internet lines. She brings up quite a number of places in the city you’ve never even heard the name of, and thinking of the list is, to say the least, nauseating. But under the boulder, your determination to match her venturesome nature isn’t crushed after all.
“You’re speaking like one of those life coaches, you know.” You sarcastically reply with a chuckle.
“It’s called encouragement, get used to it.” She nicks your shoulder softly. “Shall we start the walk?”
“Sure.”
You two stride along the road, catching the sight of other sightseers, both local and foreign. Graffitis are etched into the walls by your sides, interspersed with numerous coffee shops aimed to lure gen z customers with their furnishings. And one seems to work on you guys, because you now have an iced thai tea, while Haewon has a matcha latte, also iced.
“So.” You cut the silence, taking a sip of your content. “Are you here often?” It’s one of the more “talky” questions you can think of right now. Your head slightly turns towards her; your eyes during the rest (more than half actually) of the work to catch her in the bullseye of your vision.
“This is just my second time, to be honest.” She replies, drinking her matcha. “And I love how these buildings look; they probably look gorgeous on your camera, don't they?”
“It’s a good substitute for my Tokyo needs.” You scoff, scanning over the old houses around you.
“Oh yeah, those photos did look breathtaking, I can see why.” She brings up the photos from over a year ago, letting out a tiny smile in the process. “I’ve been to Osaka once actually.”
Surprised, “Osaka? How come you haven’t told me this already?”, she has never brought it up during the six months you’ve known each other.
“I can’t describe it as well as you, really.” Haewon looks down, still strolling at the same pace as before. “Plus, it was just for a project. We didn’t have much time for sightseeing.” She mutters out, eyes fixated on the ground.
“I think it would be fun, please?” A chortle escapes you, thinking it would let her know your enthusiasm.
It’s quite a clear day for a rainy season - hints of white clouds here and there, but never enough to rage against your first date. You two remain at a distance, still, leaving a gap between your shadows.
“No, no, you even laughed at the idea of it, I won’t tell you that.” She calls you out, whimpering as the sentence ends.
The next thirty seconds go by in silence, the two of you keep glancing at each other, evading contact at any signals. People pass you by as you walk, widening the distance between the tip of your fingers. Guilt, fear, uncerta–
“I won’t laugh again, I promise.” You give her an assurance, and that’s the best you can do.
“Really?” She looks up at you, catching your honest compassion.
“If it’s funny, I might.” You chuckle. “But I’m sure it was a good experience for you.”
“Thanks.” You lit up a grin on her face, as she’s getting all excited to tell you about her adventure.
“So, this was like three years ago, back when I had just finished my freshman year, it was a subway surveying thing.” Haewon starts her tale, with you two turning left, now walking to the river. “I went with a group of people, and it was mostly lecturing around the tracks, really.” She chuckles. “So we had just the evening for ourselves for like, a week.”
“We went to a firework festival on the first day. God, it was so fucking crowded, but the sparking lights looked spectacular. They did the color work well.” As she tells the story, you can’t help but get immersed in the words. There’s clarity in the way she recounts it, greatly assisted with how often she says “flickering”, “cold”, “bright”, “exhausting”, “overwhelming”, and much, much more.
“The wagyu just melted in my mouth.”
“The system was confusing, to be honest, like a spider’s web, but they helped me with that a lot.”
“Yeah, it was fucking cold, and I brought so many shorts because I underestimated late spring Osaka.”
You two walk past some more old buildings and a few more cafes, with her story as the melody. It sweeps your leg like a damn good movie. How vivid the atmosphere she’s enamoring you in, how she’s so enthusiastic in her reminiscence, and how she grins and narrows her eyes upon any mention of food.
After a while, the river is finally in your view, as she’s getting through her final day at Marble Beach.
“I pulled a friend I made there to see the beach with me, and he said that it changed his life.” She laughs. “It was beautiful, you really should see it.”
A soft smile escapes you. “Well, I kinda get him, really.” You two finally reach the cement barrier, heighting just on your hips. It’s not too short that Haewon would have to throw a life ring to you, yet not too tall to obstruct your river view, enough for you to rest your arms on it as if you’re posing.
“Yeah, the Odaiba Beach, right? I saw the photos, once you mentioned that.”
[More dialogue]
“How far is your stop?”
“Four stations.”
“Wow, I’m on six, then interchange to another four.” She sighs at the daunting route, knowing she’d be alone.
The carriage slightly shakes as it takes a small turn. Sight of people are only a few; both of you are holding onto a pole in the middle. You’re gathering all the willpower to keep your weak hand from falling onto hers.
Haewon is looking out the window in the same direction as you, eyes examining the view outside - nocturne. “Have you ever gotten bored of this?” She asks, turning her sight to face you still looking out along.
You ponder for a moment. “It looks pretty at night.”
“That’s true, but it’s not the question.” She replies. “And the way you talk is strange, you know that? Especially with how you answer questions”
“Probably from watching a lot of movies, I guess.” You deflect.
“See? You did it again!” She points at you, unbeknownst to the inadvertently closing distance between your hands on the pole. “It’s not a peeve or anything, really, but I see that you always answer yes-no questions with a reason, not directly yes or no.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve got this complaint a bit often. I have to say the same thing twice, or even thrice to a lot of people.” You reply.
“They probably expect a yes or no, perhaps?” Haewon ends the playful nudge with a chuckle. “I don’t mind though; I can catch your words.”
You can only smile in response. “Yeah, you’re gonna have to do that for a while.” You laugh, in a volume that wouldn’t make it echo inside the whole train.
“Woah, getting daring just being with me for a day? I’m having a good influence on you~” Haewon playfully takes a jab.
“You’ll have a lot of influ–” You pause. “That’s the same joke, yeah, that’s the same joke, I’m not saying it.”
She laughs, not quite as contained as yours, attracting a few looks onto you. “Yeah, I’ll see my schedule first.” Her laughter would dissolve into a smile. “I think I can sort out a few things for us.”
Us. You can melt right here and now. The way she says it so easily is just too attractive. What does she think of me? Are we a thing now? Should I kiss her?
“U—Us?” You stutter out, mind flayed.
Haewon is locked onto her calendar. “Yeah, I know I’m not that good at planning but—” She meets your eyes. “Oh.”
[You are blushing and there’s going to be a kiss at the end of this chapter.]
Five: Party Police
You don’t have to leave
You can just stay here with me
Forget all the party police
We can find comfort in debauchery
= = =
The sound of the air conditioner fills the room, emulsified with your anticipation, forming a perfect cadence. The air between you is a mixture of both minty breaths you insisted the two of you to take a spearmint candy, the gender-neutral-honey-scented body wash both of you used in separate shower sessions, and the summer breeze air purifier Haewon bought from your first trip to the convenience store together.
You two are inside her room, sitting on the queen-sized bed, hands clutched between the hole your tangled legs make.
Haewon’s lips are slightly parted, as if their owner is about to make out a sound, yet the whirring fan blows any of her half-thought intentions away. And instinctually, to which you realized a few blinks later, yours are also making their own gap, and the whirring fan blows any of your half-thought intentions away.
“I—" Haewon would be the first to stabilize her frequency, ever so mildly fluctuated by your proximity. “I love you.” She can only confirm it in a whisper, barely vibrating the dormant air around you.
Yet, it seeps in, perhaps by the sincere nature in her voice. Haewon has never looked this fragile before, and your next move can actually ignite her neurons with blue flame this time.
“I—I love you t—too.” Flushed, presto heart rhythm, you muttered out these simple words. Resting air now shook with the expressions.
You’ve kissed her many times before, the end of the first date, the middle of the second date, the start of the third date, then a full on make out session during one of The Academy’s International Film nominees, with an unknowing crowd in the theater (it helps that the movie is quite a rare action triumph, so that the wet smooches of your lips are buried under clips after clips being unloaded, and the bullet cases clanking on the floor). Though, never once has it ended with her uncontrollably uttering fucks or shits, or even deity names neither above nor under you.
Haewon starts to lean closer to you, wholeheartedly knowing that this won’t be a normal kiss. Her head tilts so acutely, barely deviated from the axis. The small, deep hum from her throat is unexpected, with her eyelids closed and all. Yet, who are you to say no to her proclamation of love.
The expectations are high, yours, hers, on this kiss to capture much more than your lips. It’s both of your first times after all. And with the contact, you can’t help but match her tone in lovestruck. Hands are still stationed, too afraid to take this further, until they aren’t yours that touches a face first. Haewon fondles your cheeks with both of her hands as the kiss ensues, persuading you to reciprocate, and you do.
Fervor rises along the ticks of all the clocks, Haewon pierces the gap you opened with her tongue, invading your mouth. You gasp in shock, signaling her to break off from the session.
“Shit, are you okay?” Haewon’s eyes enlarged, her breathing still out of rhythm.
Giggling, “No, no, no, just a little shocked, let’s continue”, as you initiate the action this time, hands holding her cheeks, tongue sweeping the insides of her mouth.
Again, fervor rises along the ticks of all the clocks, the sound of the kiss becomes the only thing you can hear now. It’s wet, a little salty, albeit ardent, and rapturous. 
And with an unknown source of bravery, your hand traverses down from her cheeks, grazing her neck. Haewon hums a minim into your throat as your fingers hit the ridge of her chest. And through the fabric, you give her left mound a squeeze, eliciting another two-beat note from her. Tender, addictive are the first few words as your fingers sink into the cloth, and the desire arises.
Your voice, muffled through the kiss, and raspy in hunger, asks such a bold question. “Fuck, God, Haewon, may I suck on them?”
Haewon would hum another note into your mouth, before unlatching from the torrid endeavor. “Make me moan, and don’t use your teeth.” She commands.
It’s all instinctual now, don’t think, just feel echoes. You playfully push Haewon onto the bed, eyes focus on your targets. The rhythm of her ragged breaths now takes over the room.
You run your hands down her luscious curves, feeling every hill and hollow on the fabric, before hitting an edge. ”May I?” As you grab the hem of her shirt, so eager to expose her.
”Of course, babe”
Permission granted, you swiftly pull the edge of her garment up, with her putting her arms up for easy exposure. The stream of the sight of her somewhat toned midriff, perky chest, and collarbones runs through your eyes, and it’s almost too heavy to take it in. “Fuck.” And you can only give a profanity for it.
“I know, right?” She responds, chuckling.
Magnetized, and sudden, your lips latch onto her left, brown peak, coating her breast with your saliva. She complies with your action under you, letting out a symphony whenever your mouth is right at the top of her areola, right before leaving, then swallowing it again. 
The buds, excited, erect under your touch. This seems to go on for minutes. You keep switching between her left and right mounds, one hand kneading the mound that isn’t currently savored, with the other traversing her upper body, marking every square inch as yours. You won’t get bored of this easily, especially with her moaning this loud.
“More, baby, more” Haewon pleads. Her hands start to push your head onto her erect nipples now.
If you’re going to be honest, it tastes just like any other part of a human body: skin, with some honey aroma after the shower. Perhaps it’s desire, perhaps it’s ardor, or perhaps it’s love, maybe all of them together, you were drawn to them. Her writhing cries only fuel the attraction further, and the force you use with your lips.
Until–
“Fuck, fuck–, yeah.” She whines. “That–That’s good, but I want more now, baby.” Haewon mutters in the same pitch as her moans, unable to retain her usual deep tone. “You seem to– love my tits– a lot, don’t you.” Her talking is constantly cut short to make ways for the ragged breaths.
“Twenty-one years of drought, babe” You chuckle, turning your head to face hers, chin hovering above her hard nubs.
“You wanna use your mouth or your dick, huh?” Slightly annoyed, yet excited, and perhaps too lecherous that she comes off as a horny cutie joke bear. “I gotta cum first, or at the same time with you, isn’t it” She seems to be aware of how your body works, and she’s right. You don’t wanna risk being unable to get yourself up again within five minutes, while she waits, unattended.
”Damn, babe, you’ve come prepared.”
”No?, I’m gonna come with you here!” She lets out another laughter, breaking the lustful mood a bit. God, she just can’t go a minute without making a joke. Her pursuit in digging any giggles out just kills you every time, even if that means the problems were hardly addressed, tingling a small part of you on the occurrences.
You sink into the glee with her. “Oh fu— fuck off babe.” But this lustful tryst just drives you into a whirlpool right now. You quickly dispose of your shorts (why the fuck would you guys even wear clothes if you’re just going to fuck after???), freeing your delirious digit.
“God.” Haewon stares at your erect cock in awe, twitching, a glint of concern in her eyes. You wouldn’t say that it’s exactly big, but it’s enough to make her gulp. “Do I have to take all of this?”
“I’ll push slowly.” You replied, panting from the brimming anticipation.
Without a word, Haewon yanks her shorts away. Another stream of her eden, thighs, and the full lower body strikes you. And Haewon is now bare in front of you, glowing, despite her cheap light hanging above. You want to cherish this moment forever, freeze it in time, or at least just slow down a bit. Oh Hae-Won trusts you enough to expose herself, fully, in front of you. And you aren’t sure which gesture can compare to this as her proclamation of love (maybe a marriage proposal, but let’s not get into that yet).
“I thought you’d do it slower”
“All that foreplay got me so fucking turned on, babe, plus, I’m not on the shy side.”
“The nipple sucking?”
“Yeah, that meal you just had. Also, take off that shirt, I wanna feel all of you.”
Ordered, you hastily get rid of the last piece of garment, tossing it into the void, following your shorts. Both of you are now fully naked, only the cold, compressed air is your barrier now.
“Good, now come here” She says with a wink, provocative, commanding, yet so greedy. Haewon is resting on her back, with her elbows lifting her abdomen just a little from the bedsheet, enough to face you without much eye movement, smiling with desire. She bends her left leg a little, and it drives you crazy. 
Fuck, she’s the most beautiful woman in the world, perhaps ranked among the gods: Hera, Artemis, Athena, Hestia, and Haewon’s victory is a certainty. She can even go bar for bar against Aphrodite, her own creator, under this cheap room lamp. And you can’t just wait to be tied to this lady with her deity-defying charm with such an intimate act.
“You want my cock that bad, Miss Oh?” You slowly, to make it a tease, slide your knees against the bedsheet towards Haewon, getting closer to her, inch by inch. Haewon opens her leg, giving you permission and space to be in her proximity. Her eden is now in view, glistened with arousal. 
“There’s just this thing, ma’am, that I wanna take a sample of first.” Playfulness is attached in your message. She’s still on her elbows, heads slightly tilted at your defiance, as if you also have a god-challenging act in your pocket as well. And with some more inspection, it’s apparent that Haewon isn’t a firm believer in having cleanly-shaved hair, and somehow, this kind of nature just drives you into a frenzy.
“And what is it, mister?” Haewon asks, still with seduction, eyes locking on yours.
“You.” And without another word, you dive face first onto her wet, needy sex. Your nose is pressed against her mound, pubic hair brushes against it, but the “distraction” never succeeds in repelling you away. Further, it feeds the ferocity inside you to take in her scent, with a deep breath. With the sight alone, you thought you reached your limit, yet, spellbound under her musk, a hint of sweat, the honey-scented body wash, and her mildly tart aroma from the inside sends you into a literal mind break, like a morning coffee. Haewon is fucking addictive, and you can’t go a single day without her smell.
“She s–smells good, doesn’t s–she?” Her voice starts to quiver again, as your nose tickles her hair.
Meanwhile, your tongue, with a mind of its own, is lapping up her nectar, savoring the salty, tangy taste of her canal. Her sensitive nub, the one you’re sure it’s clitoris, is now stuck in your philtrum. Every swipe just grazes it, eliciting squeals from her.
“F–fuck.” Haewon cries out, starting to get lost in her immediate pleasure, “Ah.”, and your enthusiasm. “Just f-five minutes babe.”
Mouth busy in a sinful act, you hum an affirmative note out. Her vagina is now coated with your saliva, mixed with her lubricant. And with each time you pull yourself out, there’s sometimes a string of the cocktail connecting your lips to her sex - a thread between you and her.
At first, it’s a savoring session of her taste, for you, but as her wailing grows louder, you can only be curious about the limit. And without hesitation, you give her clitoris a brush - the same way you suck her nipple. As your lips contact, delicate, her moans would reach such a forte to the point you’re quite sure that everyone in the dorm would be able to hear.
Conspiring her frustration, “Want a few more, babe?”, you retreat your ministrations to her pale thighs, making a few marks here and there, robbing the pleasure that was once hers.
“Fuck you.” Haewon groans out. “Please, keep eating my pussy, please.”
You bring your fingers into play, caressing her inner trunks. And, with instinct, you slip yourself under her ass. Your eyes are still locking on her wet hole, and she seems to gush out streams of honey now. “Y–You are f–fucking insuf–” She moans out as you relentlessly withholding the release she deserves.
“Can’t hear with my hands under your ass, babe” It’s as if something possessed you into a womanizer, a shot of complacency.
Haewon would be able to muster up her remaining inhibition to define you with an adjective. “I–Insufferable.”
“That’s a little mean.” Your hands give her firm butt a squeeze, feeling the soft flesh. This is probably how Indiana Jones felt when he got his hand on the golden idol: like an ascendant. “Considering how soft your ass is.” You lick just beside the spot, motioning parallel to the pink labia.
Haewon groans in frustration, climax stolen by a thief. “Sh–shut the fuck up and put that tongue to use!” In forte, all the pent up energy can crush you into bits and pieces in minutes, while you are still drawing circles around your supposed target, pushing her to the edge of wrath, right before it turns into destruction. “FUCK!”
You are actually scared of her now, and perhaps the complaints of her neighbors about some tenant bossing a guest around in the nocturne. So, complying, you put your tongue to use, taking another sample of the mixture, tasting her and yourself again.
“Good boy, yeah, like that.” She whimpered out, being put back en route to paradise.
Constant pace, don’t go too fast. You tell yourself an advice you’ve read somewhere years ago, and you do as it says. You try to keep the speed the same, but it’s starting to get harder as Haewon decides that she needs something to hold on to, which is, unfortunately, your head. I once had a guy go too fast when I told him I’m gonna cum, and that was the ride down, my mood died completely. A comment you’ve seen somewhere pops up.
Your jaw can never get tired, if it is to devour her into ecstasy. But the force pressed upon your head is starting to be a double-edged sword to her, a place to hold on to, and the act that might close the golden gate.
The five minutes she gave earlier might come into use.
“B—babe.” You cry out between licks, voice muffled. “I wanna use my cock now.”
Haewon lets go of the grip she has in your hair locks, as she looks down from her lying position. “Really?” Expectations running high, she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Alright.” She thwarts her arm along the bed for a little while, a little lost, until she catches her colorful spot-covered pillow. And without any word, you help Haewon lift her hips up to insert the fluffy object below, bringing her puckered hole into your focus.
Tranced, “Can I taste it?” the words fell out without any restrictions.
“Don’t fucking kiss me again if you do; I don’t wanna taste my asshole.” Haewon commands, trying to regain her composure. “Maybe another day.”
You whine out. “Ugh, fine.” Before getting on your knees for the main event.
You use her spread thighs as a handle while aiming with your eyes. You line up your twitching digit on the center, resting it on her now-swollen clit. And a small whimper from Haewon would reach your ear, fueling your fire.
“You want this inside you, huh?” You tease, sliding your shaft against her core from the outside, glazing yourself with her honey resting on the nub.
“Fuck… yeah, I—I want it inside.” Haewon chokes out at your heavenly connection; her attempt at putting any façade is crumbling.
Slowly, your rod still above her center, you traverse your hands up her immaculate legs, onto her stomach. Her breaths are now short, out of any earlier rhythm, as your touch starts to overwhelm her senses. “F—fuck.” You’d only move upwards, creeping up her beautiful chest, until they are up for your hands to conquer. She’s yours now.
Now, you have her tits as a grip, ever so carefully fondling them while slowly juggling the movements: your hands squeezing, your hip thrusting, and your upper body leaning in to see her giving in closer and closer. It��s all there, eyes fluttering, lips shaking, loud moaning, and her whole firm frame writhing under you.
You aren’t going in for a kiss, really, but she forces you nonetheless. Hands gripping the sides of your head, Haewon would scream from the overstimulation, all restricted in your mouths, into you, letting out any control she has left.
“Babe.” You mutter out. And even slightly distorted by fervor, she’d break off from the locks under your voice.
Mouth agape, she looks into your eyes, using the final bit of her inhibition to predict your next words. “You can put it in, baby.” And you can only smile.
You guide your rod down to her engine, but neither of you has ever been more ready to ignite the moans. Your left hand has her thigh on the same side as a handle.
Wet, indeed, she welcomes you. The excessive preparation gives easy access, and you become the same groaning lump as she was, swallowed by rapture. In the wake of bliss, you tilt your head down until the sight of your disappearing cock is in the frame, inch by inch. 
The insides of her tighten when you reach halfway, and you can feel your tip grazing a rough patch. “Fuck!” Haewon’s body tenses up, and she lets out a higher note than usual. You also pitch a sound lower than hers, but also noticeably higher than your regular octave.
You slowly bury yourself up to the hilt, now able to let go of your flesh. Haewon stutters a moan out when your patch makes contact with her. 
“S–Seems like you can handle all of me, babe.” Your voice is quivering, without any movement to your body. You keep yourself whole with her.
Haewon can only whimper in response. 
“I-I’ll start fucking you now.” You say as you start to grind your hips back. Haewon nods, giving you the right to control the pace.
Your cock, at an agonizing speed, comes back into view. You can feel the muscles inside gripping you and how the rough patch grazes the top of your digit, evoking staccatos from her. God, anyone would kill to be in your position right now.
And at the halfway point, it’s where you push back in again, still carefully. Haewon surrenders any power she has now, with her g-spot being pleasured by another person for the first time. The suffocating squeeze she has on you persists, sending waves of pleasure around your dick.
It becomes a loop: retreat and thrust, retreat and thrust, and you finally find your rhythm. It’s ecstatic - the way her flesh embraces you. You repay her accommodation with a little angling, aiming for the sensitive patch in the second step. Both of you are lost now, blinded by the passionate endeavor you’re engaging in.
Haewon’s brain can only register euphoria, howling as your tip brushes against the g-spot. And you are no better, bucking hips back and forth, chasing your release while huffing out such notes you could hit before the existence of your Adam’s apple. The only concern now is that your roller coaster would reach its peak before hers.
“Hey, I t–think I’m gonna c–cum now.” Haewon’s words came out tattered, divided by exaltations in her groans. It's a heaven’s message, as you can also feel your climax close by.
Keep your pace; don’t go faster.
You make no attempt to go rougher with your drilling; she’s already a blushing, wailing mess under Allegro Vivace. You can also feel a knot starting to form inside of you, begging to be untangled. “M–Me too, babe.”
Haewon’s moans become even louder than the oral session minutes ago; her orgasm is close by. You can feel the way her vagina contracts around your movements, and you aren’t far from it, either.
Two lost souls search for intimacy, and they eventually find each other. And the mistakes they’ve made don't matter anymore. The people they’ve passed through, either able to find solace or dissonance, have become nothing more than a plot device to drive them forward, for them to meet. And even if the future remains clouded, it’s just them at this exact moment, becoming each other’s sanctuary.
“FUCK!” Haewon cries out. As her hip convulses, bending your digit slightly. She pulls her legs back, feet touching her pale ass before they go up in the air. Haewon cums, violent, ferocious, cathartic. Her whole body tenses up; her tits are shaking. Her walls tighten around you, begging to milk every upcoming drop of you until dry. 
You take in the view but can only register a few words to describe how you feel right now: fuck, and god. She screams from the top of her lungs to accommodate such pleasure. And isn’t it a symphony that’s so pleasing to hear, knowing that they are products of your doings?
Haewon’s breathing starts to slow down, but seeing how she becomes undone beneath, you quicken your thrusts to chase the high you’re anticipating. “Fuck!” Under sensitivity, Haewon squeals.
“Do you want me to slow down, babe? I can still cum no matter the pace.” With care, you ask.
“I–I wanna t–try.” Her syllables come out in stutters, “Keep going.”,  as your length rams into her cunt even faster than before her high.
You keep your fast, lively tempo, and that seems to be the right choice. You can play the melody faster, yet you already fail to register all the fucks and shits, Haewon mutters out while being pounded. You’re guided by your intuition at this point. It builds up inside your stomach, calling to be broken free. You feel your legs wobbling like jello, and your awareness of whether there’s any left, opposite Haewon’s, has left your body already.
And with a single, final thrust, “FUCK!” you bend yourself down to capture her lips, screeching all the satisfaction from your high into her mouth. Spurts of cum released into her welcoming cunt, while you basically buried yourself inside her, twitching under orgasm. Haewon moans into your mouth at each of your vibrations. Lustful, your tongues are swirling inside each other’s mouth, tasting each other as much as you can.
Thick cum is still discharged into her, painting her insides with white. And slowly, you start to slide down from the precipice. Your cock still twitches inside her cunt; the remaining cum only dribbles out from the hardness now. The kiss remains magnetic; you two are too hungry for each other. You can only taste the mint candy from earlier.
Finally, it breaks, a string of saliva connects your lips together, as both of you are bathed in the afterglow. Haewon’s face is drenched from her own sweat, panting, and smiling. “I love you.” She mouths, trying to make sense of her heart rhythm, soft breaths touching your face.
You’re still panting, attempting to take in her words. Even if they’re the same as from the beginning, when the clothes are still barriers between you, it sears you this time. A lock has been solved, yet you are still questioning the contents inside the box.
Then, you realize that it’s your heart, “I love you too, babe.”, and it can explode right here. Love floods, lust flows, binding you two together, in the vast sea of possibilities.
Haewon smiles before pulling you into another kiss. This one is much less passionate than the ones preceding, but it’s, nonetheless, affectionate. The way she captures your lips is too confident for you to be unsure about the attachment she gives you, and that might be the first time in your life that you’re so certain of someone else’s love, and her name is Oh Hae-Won.
Exhausted and spent, you let yourself fall onto her side, looking up. Your left arm is resting on her collarbones. “Fuck.” Your vocabulary seems to shrink under ecstasy as the cadence rings too loud for you to think properly.
“That was fun.” Haewon scoffs, before turning her bare frame towards you, head resting on her hand. “We should do this more often.”
“Should? I’m fucking you everywhere, babe.” You reaffirm with a simper.
“Shit.” Haewon chuckles before seeming to remember something. She quickly gets up from the bed. “I’ll go pissing first. It’s this–”
“UTI. Yeah, I’ve read about it.” You cut her off to show off your knowledge of sex education. “Can we cuddle after?” You plead, attempting to make a cute face.
“Sure.” She laughs, pointing at you. “If you don’t mind having your back getting a bit wet.”, and you can only smile back at her. Haewon would saunter out to her bathroom with a slight limp, managing to sway her reddened cheeks. Fuck. 
And despite the low light, you can see drops of your cum, dribbling a shine down her legs. “Are you going to clean th–”
“No.” She winks before disappearing into the bathroom, leaving a trail of nectar in her path.
You bite your lip in another rise of your arousal.
You hear the sound of tap water running from inside the bathroom before the lock clicks. Haewon appears in front of your eyes again, still naked.
“I kept the promise.” She says.
Immediately, still on her bed, you press your vision down her body. Her pussy remains glistened with your white cum, mixed with her tangy lubricant. Perhaps your saliva is also blended into the liquid.
“God, Haewon.” Again, your mind goes blank. “It has been just five minutes. I really can’t do that.”
Haewon chuckles, swaying her alluring hips closer to you. “I know.” Before she pounces you on the bed, staining the sheets with your fluids. Haewon prints a few kisses here and there, usually in the proximity of your lips and neck. And, in disbelief, you watch over her body to see that the five-minute gap is enough for your cock to be ready again.
“Fuck.”
Haewon’s glance follows yours to your erection.
“Another round, babe?”
Six: Just Another Girl
Now why can’t I sleep at night?
And why don’t the moon look right?
Sunlight peeks through the gap in your curtains, casting on the blanket that’s covering any visual hints of last night’s debauchery. Her arms retain their restrictive nature, an environment you’d enthusiastically enlist for. Her fingers barely interlocking on your heart, feeling the thrumming lullaby she holds on to like the greatest hits.
Her chest is pressed against your back, and the fact that you notice this (and how you savored their peaks last night with such unbeatable hunger) only entices your morning wood to last longer than it should’ve. You snuggle into her embrace further, establishing yourself as hers and pressing yourself into her perky breasts even harder, wanting to feel every inch of them.
“Hmm?” Haewon finally wakes up, fading her tightness wrapped around you.
Slightly panicked, you grab her escaping hand onto your warm skin. “Hey.” And you greeted her.
Haewon chuckles. “Oh, this boy needs a hug, huh?”
You close your eyes and hum in agreement, since her embrace becomes another gesture you’ve grown to love now, even if it was discovered just a few minutes ago.
“How was last night, my baby boy?” She questioned you with a tiny simper.
You can only chuckle along. “Cathartic, babe, but I’m not doing the whole mommy thing right now.”
Haewon laughs. “Okay, fine, I’ll ask you properly later, though.”
The cuddle went on for minutes. You are unwilling to let her go after such intimacy you had. After a while, you notice the scar on your chest. This may be the time you show her, but you need bravery. And you’re not sure if love could muster it up.
[A paragraph demonstrating Haewon’s good influence on you and how you’ve influenced her]
“I wanna tell you something, with us being this bare and such.” You gathered a little courage to speak up, adamantly attempting to show her your so-called scar. 
Haewon would let out a tiny chuckle at your cheap joke. “Unload them to me, babe.” She lets out another tiny chuckle, resting her head on a makeshift stand of her fist. You can’t help but join along with her.
“Oh my god, fuck you.” You said, along with a laugh.
“You just did.” 
“Okay, okay, I’ll start now, don't distract me this ti—" You let out a small giggle, as she’s still soaked in her own hilarity. “It’s like seven years of story; trust me, it’s more fun than you’d think.”
“Seven years? Is it like, a long-term heartbreak or something, and what’s with you making everything into a story, catastrophic or not.” Haewon asks.
“Well—” You contemplate - whether to spoil the ending for her or not, but she can probably guess by the way you purposefully hold out the information in lieu of instantly answering. “Seven years ago, in late April, I just started high school.”
You can see the late morning sunlight reflected in her eyes, single-minded on your tale.
“You want me to close the curtains first?” You direct your thumb toward the gap.
“No need, plus, you look better with the light.” She smiles, sincerity can be felt from it, maybe it’s the way the light drapes on your right half of her face.
“Thanks, babe, okay, where was I— Yeah, seven years ago, late April, high school.”
“And then I met you.”
“You know that you’re the asshole in this one, right?” Haewon hits you with such a question.
Certainty of a weeping eluded, “Fuck, not even a single tear?”
“Wow, this lack of self-awareness is concerning, babe, and this is out of love.” She scoffs. “You’re the bad guy here.”
“Look, I’ve been telling myself about the same statement since that day, so yeah, Haewon, I’m aware that I’m the asshole in this story.”
“Were you hurt by it or something?” Haewon asks with genuine curiosity, she caught the sadness in your tone, yet unable to make sense of it. Her head remains resting on her fist, albeit making a ninety degrees apart from you.
“I— yeah, I know it was my fault, but—“ You avert her gaze, staring at the blanket covering her midriff. “It was five years, almost. And it still hurts sometimes whenever I see something that reminds me of her.”
Haewon would give you a blank expression; her next words are unpredictable.
“I kinda— get the idea? You can’t deal with college life, so she becomes a–no, the source for you to vent shit. And one day, it became too much, with that fight making it wor–no, apparent.” It’s nothing short of incredible that she gets all of it within the first iteration and gives you the much-needed feedback (even if you’ve already considered this possibility). 
“And she wants you to get better. She didn’t think she could be the person you could rely on anymore. This is how I see it.” With ease, Haewon recounts the most plausible explanation, the one you’ve been avoiding accepting.
“Yeah, it’s…” You resist the urge to argue with her point, realizing that such emotional manipulation cannot work. Perhaps the amount of self-awareness poured in just doesn’t work anymore. “You’re right.”
“There’re some points that I… kinda understand you? Like the whole being insecure stuff, but all of this is just a shitshow, babe. You even write a fic about it.” A tiny simper leaves her mouth.
“Spielberg made a film about his parent’s divorce; Taylor Swift has, well…”
“Steven’s was like… sixty years? And I think Taylor can be an asshole, to be honest, aside from All Too Well.” Haewon replied without a delay.
“Agree to disagree.” You can only sigh afterward, and maybe it’s the way your breath taps on her chest more heavily than it should or the way you avert the eye contact you’ve been maintaining.
“Hey, are you okay?” Her doe eyes hints concern, while the fingers lightly caress your cheek.
Destined, your tears well up just a little, but enough for you to detect and hold back. “Kinda.”
Haewon lets out a sigh, the back of her free fingers still fondling your cheek. “I’m sure you’ve changed.”
“It's been more than two years now.” Your lips quiver. “B–But telling you here, it’s just…”
Like the first time with your therapist, like the first time you tell your colleagues, your tears are always on the hinge as the story ends.
“I know I can’t fix it - this whole weird love-hate relationship of yours.” She finally sits up. “But I know you aren’t the person you were.” Your cheeks are suddenly cupped by both of her hands. “And as long as you… try to be better, I’ll be with you.” Haewon ends her speech with a caring look.
Nothing in her deliverance is poetry-worthy; they’re basic quotes you’d find in the self-help books. Though, the words not coming from some self-centered guy melts the cynic inside you, and that’s when tears start to fall.
“I also know that it hurts, even if you’re the one who’s wrong.” She softly cheers up.
Through the sobs, “Y–You’re quite di–direct, babe.” You try to wipe the tears off your watering eyes.
She lets out a sympathetic titter. “I’m not the best at this, sorry.”
“I-It’s fine. Thanks for being here.” You succumb to the lamentation, crying your heart out, as Haewon embraces you. Maybe it’s the way you’re naked on someone else’s bed, maybe it’s the way her chest presses up against your chin, or perhaps it’s the way she puts her leg over yours as if she’s using a side pillow, but you’ve never felt more vulnerable in your life. And you’re probably being engulfed by it under the right person.
Epilogue: Keeping Tabs
I wish I never met you.
You are the worst thing that I’m still
Keeping tabs on for some stupid reason.
“It’s quite a lot of stations, babe. Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah–”
It was your birthday two days ago. How old are you now, twenty-five? Three years after graduation, you rejected a job offer from Japan because you didn't want to leave your girlfriend. Not that it was a wrong choice, since the number of fights, sex, and after-fight, angry, heated sex between you and Haewon sits on the average rate. 
Further, not having to buy a plane ticket every time you want to see your parents, or your friends is definitely a plus. Just a few hours after the plane landed in Narita, you want to break Japan’s immigration law. God, those streets are miles better than what you have at home.
It seems that trying to reach Odaiba Beach from Meguro Sky Garden takes an hour, plus walking. Sure, it’s ninety minutes to sunset, but you can feel doubts in her voice and your own. It’s the few final days, and all of your words hyping this exact place up only make her feral.
“Maybe we can make it if we start walking now, instead of like– arguing over this.”
Haewon shoots you a glare. “This trip would go to waste if we can’t make it before sunset.” And she takes a step towards you, pointing at your chest. The sun still casts a long shadow of her on the ground.
“Waste?” You arch your eyebrows. “Says the one who spent a whole fucking day at Shinjuku to sweep Uniqlo’s stocks.”
The wind blows over the metal fence, assorted colors of leaves swirling around you.
Her eyes remain fixated on you, before giving an apologetic expression. “Yeah that’s fair. It’s a bit of a quickfire for me on that.” 
You snap a photo of her before replying. “Those cardigans are cheaper here anyway, don’t worry.”
She reaches for your camera, X-E4, examining the image of her, and smiles. “Let’s go.” Before leading you, handheld, to the elevator down from the garden.
“God.”
“It seems like we’re here at the right time” You speak, before taking another photo of Haewon, showered under the orange of the setting sun.
Haewon is left speechless at the sight in front of her: Rainbow Bridge, salmon sky from the sunset, tinged with clouds, some purple, red, orange. You think it’s probably from some kind of refraction. People aren’t scarce, but to say that there’s a crowd is an overstatement. It’s pretty much the same as in your memory from five years ago. How are the people in my photos doing now?
Similar to the last time, when the breakup was just over a month, you take in the view. It’s just that you aren’t basked in melancholy anymore. Sure, you’re still keeping tabs on her every few months, but it’s nothing more than a blocklist check. You aren’t ready to face Minji, really, and not seeing each other again would be a kind gesture by the gods. However, the hate etched into your wrists isn’t quite as visible anymore.
Still, you can’t play down her impact on your life. In spite of the indirect nature of the teachings, you learned how to love and what to do with one.
“I’ll be back, babe. I’ll see if I can swim to the bridge from here.” Haewon speaks out, like the first encounter, snapping you out of your trance.
Shook, “I’ll wait here; make sure not to get swept into the sea.”, and you joke, smiling.
“See ya.” Haewon grins back, gesturing a goodbye, before stepping out towards the water.
[A few paragraphs leading up to the encounter with Minji again; yeah, it’s a little anticlimactic for you to see this in your first read, sorry]
You failed to say a word to her, and there may not be any second chance for this.
It’s funny, miles away from where you’ve feared most. No soul in the world would’ve expected this. 
The sun continues on its path, too busy rushing to make its predetermined setting time, ergo apathetic to the colors it casts onto the sky and the way Minji is elegantly bathed by it. Her features are frozen, you alike, mouth slightly ajar. Waves crashing onto the sand keep filling in the silence between you, each encouraging your heart to push out a syllable you’re choking. There’s no battle on who would give in to snapping back into reality first since the argument on the encounter being a dream is too plausible.
Though less often as time goes on, Minji has been your recurring nocturnal figure. Occasionally, she appears as the one who has disregarded your cries during those final days – unresponsive, cold, unaware of your collapse. If not, it’s you and her enamored in what you’ve always wanted her to see, conversing like high school students again. Either way, you usually classify the world surrounding you as nightmares after the alarms are off, almost always with tears welling and ragged breaths, as if her presence alone is enough to give vitality to your nights.
But if this is a lucid dream, both of you would’ve laughed by now, under the Odaiba Beach sunset. Memories are washed away into the sea, making way for you to run along the shoreline, free from any grievances. You wouldn’t go as far as saying that it could’ve been her on the flight here with you, even if the potential of it touches you in more than one way.
The bewilderment of meeting her in where’s supposed to be your sanctuary hasn’t faded one bit. It clouds the fact that she has preserved her high ponytail. She grips her denim jacket ever so tightly while slightly parting aside from the center, revealing a pitch-black turtleneck shirt beneath. The brown string crossing her body is holding her likely expensive handbag resting on the side of her hips. All of these are topped with beige, all-creased pants, undercut with sneakers of the same color, or not, you don’t seem to care anymore.
Voice notes and texts are woven into a tapestry, the one you and she cut as your paths diverged. Yet, your threads, somehow, have been remaining set to interlock with each other again after all this time. The track was divided into a parallel, just with a sea of hatred, sometimes reflecting a spark of care.
It’s still clear as day, the way she left you blind, likely without remorse, any glimmer of hope was eradicated with blocks on social media. The way you tell the version of your story enough times for you to find the median and average spot where people would start to cry. And not that you were left unshaken with each iteration; you just stop before giving in to the sorrow hanging off the edge of your tear ducts. And at one point, it became another tale, a cult classic to you.
Still, this is no place and time to assert your wounds anymore. It’s Tokyo, and five years have passed. Getting one over her shouldn’t matter anymore, you know that. What’s left to achieve in triumph is just plunging the dagger into yourself once more, revisiting how shaken you have been without her for all these years. And three, you’re the one on the wrong side.
Plus, it’s not so awful that she left, even if it casts you in a state of bereft in the first few months. You deleted her photos, and both of you blocked each other. You learned to collect yourself up again, shredding what was once shared while coming to terms with the ones rooted in the essence of you, learning to let them be shared with others. The cadence doesn’t entirely sound like it was, yet it’s what you’ve accepted as days pass.
You still hate her; it’s a known fact. I fucking hate you rings true to this day - a half-thought during a fire burned into your wrists, calling out to be crossed off. Guilt, shame, and self-loathing have been rooting off it, yet you can’t bleed the source out.
In the shadows that the sun cast, you feel a twitch in the corner of your mouth - the determination to conceal any hints of glee at her presence is trying to keep itself afloat. Another gulp in your throat only delays the inevitable; your cheek is trembling from an unknown feeling. It’s teasing the brim. It’s tasting the uncertainty. It’s towering over your hatred. And it brings the nocturnal summer wind that embraced you on the first day at high school, the day she picked up her name tag when everything was in the right place.
“Kim Min-Ji.” Your teacher called as she stood up to pick up her name tag.
“I like you.”
And it flows through you–
“Him? Not really.”
“God, you suck at badminton.” You did “outscore” her by quite a margin (twenty-one to six).
–all the words you’ve said–
“I’ll probably be a doctor. You haven’t chosen yours yet?”
–all the words she has said–
“I think she’s the one.” (She wasn’t.)
“These early mornings are killing me.” Her high school project was killing her.
“Yeah, I can’t be bothered with all this studying. I’ll probably make some nice portfolio and pray.”
–all the dreams drawn together–
“If someone wants to enter here, they can just look at these pics and follow the instructions. It might not be for everyone, I guess. I still wish I could help them, though.”
“I really fucked up a lot during quarantine, like my mental state was dwindling.”
“Now I’m going to be a tired doctor all my life.” She scoffs, downplaying her success.
“This place is filled with rich people.”
–all the struggles vented–
“God, I look so pretty in this.” The red lipstick looks good on her; you wish you knew the exact shade.
“We need to recreate this photo; you stand here.”
“See ya.” She said, not knowing it would be the last time you would see each other face to face.
“Really fucking drunk right nowww, just wanna say you’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had, like definitely top five, haha.” It was a drunk text in a bar under the blaring music.
–all the love proclaimed–
“I’ll probably have to study another year. You’re still invited to my graduation, though. We’d be like twenty-six by then, right?” 
“I’m sorry.”
“I shouldn’t have done that, too.”
“I fucking hate you.” The line that became a part of you ever since.
–and the ending.
“Don’t message me anymore; just go live your life separately. Have a pleasant life.”
Are you sure to delete 525 photos permanently?
This action cannot be undone.
Delete Permanently
It’s as if someone made a supercut of you two.
It's excruciating, the way it seeps through your brain, the same one that hung you to be ravaged by the abyss. A wave of serotonin washes over your face, sheathed within the Tokyo Bay’s serenity. And a smile forms, over five years of her name being a crucifixion. It’s you breaking the cadence, and you can only beg her to accept it.
Alas, you have never been in the position to ask for anything. You’ve always been the convict in the sad songs supposed to bury you under their alphabets, robbing the sorrow you meant to drown into. You are her mistake, one that she’s likely so enthusiastic to cross off in her diary.
Yet, under the setting sun, in such a foreign place, and after years of it, maybe she forgets, maybe she forgives, or perhaps she doesn’t care about it. But if even it is written in the sand of Odaiba Beach, it would also be etched on the same wound you see on your pulse, that Kim Min-Ji reciprocates your smile, with a chuckle even, back bent forward the same way you remember to accommodate such elation.
And free from conviction, you are. It’s not the late-night, thumbs-on-keyboard kind of relationship anymore, neither being two free spirits against the world; it’s two people, unshackled from grudges. It’s the closure in the same veins of La La Land, a tapestry of love remains, despite the zeroes and ones translated as blocks, plus the frontal lobe chemicals interpreted as detestations. There has always been a part of you that cares - under the miles of self-loathing from guilt and the despise entrenched in you.
As cued, the setting sun is refracted in the drop of tear grazing your left cheek. She seems fine, even if she’s drowned in her droplets, thirty, forty, or fifty—you aren’t sure anymore—meters away from the idyllic waves. It won’t be the same, and it can never be. Years of walling each other out only dims any remaining glimmer. But here you are, under the Tokyo sun, laughing and crying on such an unfortunate encounter.
You aren’t fourteen again. It doesn’t feel like the first day or the first words of you two. It’s two grief-stricken adults with a shared past. Both cannot hold on to their grudges, though, just you being an asshole for having them.
You aren’t her mistake after all, and she’s not your mistake anymore.
And it’s not witty, but it would suffice.
“Hey.”
“That was her, right?”
“Yeah.”
“How was it? I see that you guys were kinda smiling.”
You ponder for a moment, a little too long before Haewon would ask again.
“It ends well, right?”
“I suppose so.”
I need to get over you.
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homunculus-argument · 1 year ago
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I know it would probably be a logistical nightmare to also make this accessible to the actual people represented, but I think it would be cool to have a game where the whole point is that every character has different limitations, that make it impossible or at least incredibly difficult to get past the whole game without switching them every once in a while, and the way you switch is by going to another character and asking their help with something.
Like you start out the game with one character and go "oh huh, the colour sceme of this game is really cool, really interesting use of such a limited palette", play through the puzzles for a while, and then encounter something where you're supposed to arrange some slightly differently coloured puzzle pieces to the right order by shade or something, and it's goddamn impossible. No matter how many methods you try, it's just not clicking, no matter how logical your solutions seem, no matter how clearly they can't be arranged in any other way that'd make more sense.
And maybe you go online to ask people "hey I'm stuck in the colour puzzle, what the hell am I supposed to do to get past this?" and someone tells you to go find one of the other playable characters and ask for their help. Which sounds patronising and stupid but you're stuck so you might as well give it a try. You go to one of the other characters, choosing the dialogue option to go "hey I need a hand with something, I can't do this on my own", and when they go "sure, let's go", your controls now switch to the other character.
And the colour scheme switches immediately. The aesthetic limited palette has changed to a far wider range, there's details in the environment that you hadn't noticed, like the muted faint flowers on the ground are actually bright red, the greyish shirt that your first character was wearing is actually striped with orange and green. The first POV character is colourblind, this whole time you haven't been able to perceive the difference between green and red. Solving the colour arranging puzzle with the other character is a breeze.
And this is the repeating theme of the game - every character has their own limitations, and while none of the puzzles are easy, you learn to think "maybe I should ask someone to help me with this" whenever you've been stuck for an unreasonable amount of time. You need to grab a buddy along for the quests, or you'll need to go back to get one eventually, and the way the game is structured somehow ensures that you can't just tactically dodge the limitation puzzles beforehand. Deaf character's POV doesn't have the audio clues that different pieces of the same puzzle make a different clicking sound, the puzzle with garbled numbers on it stops being garbled when you're not playing the character with dyscalculia.
You slowly get to know the whole cast, and occasionally help them out with things, too. You know which character could probably help with something you're stuck with, but while they'd be glad to come help, they're unfortunately stuck doing some task that could take you 20 minutes but is going to take them all afternoon, and you can offer help. Sometimes the helping-a-buddy-out minigames don't come with any direct transactional reward, you can just help a friend with something just because you can.
And the game's whole goal isn't to just illustrate how different people have different strengths, and sometimes things that are easy for you are hard for someone else, and vice versa, but to condition the player to think "maybe I should just ask someone to help, instead of wasting time struggling on my own."
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kazumist · 10 months ago
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COULD IF YOU WOULD .ᐟ
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✩ — the two times aventurine referred to you as his "work wife" and the one time he seems to have left out the "work" part.
✩ — includes: aventurine x f!reader. fluff (?), crack. cw: ooc!aventurine probably, very messy and i kinda hate this piece LOL. wc: 820. reblogs are very much appreciated !!
✩ — note: trying to write aventurine as his usual self now and not some delusional hc that i have of him yay! (i went through hell and back writing this just to get the dialogue match his way of speaking.) pretend that the ipc holds company dinners btw 🥹.
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you don’t really know how it started. but maybe it’s because your co-workers tease you both too much about how you and aventurine act like an “old married couple” due to your constant banter, or maybe it’s because of aventurine’s (annoying) flirtatious remarks towards you.
however with the constant jokes and all, even aventurine got infected because there’s times when he would refer to you as his “work wife” as well. the first was when you were out at a company dinner. working in the same department with aventurine didn’t really help your… predicament, but for some reason, it wasn’t so bad.
“so how are you two love birds doing?” a co-worker asked, clearly drunk from the way they slurred their words and how red their face was slowly getting. aventurine just laughs at them—casually swinging an arm and resting it on the back of your chair. “my work wife here seems to be doing well, right?” he glances at you, a whiskey glass in hand, as he rotates it with his wrist. he was simply met with a glare in return. people wouldn’t care if you responded anyway because they’re too drunk to even remember this in the morning.
the second time was when you two got stuck in an elevator ride. and the worst part? aventurine purposely pressed at least four floors below your destination on the panel just so he could chat with you. “wouldn’t it be a nice idea to ditch work for today?” he asks, his eyes focused on both of your reflections from the elevator’s doors.
“you’re insane.”
“my dearest work wife, you wound me! i was simply asking you out.”
“no one would ever agree if you asked them in that way.” you refused to make eye contact with him.
“if i asked normally, then where’s the fun in that?”
when the elevator hit the current floor, you made your exit despite the floor not being your destination yet. 
of course, he had called or referred to you as his “work wife” many more times than this. however, as for the third one, it was when you were assigned to work with aventurine to dig up some information in a bar of sorts. a bar is quite a dangerous place in general, but you both had no choice but to split up so work would be faster.
that is, until you started being pestered by some stranger at the bartender’s counter.
no matter how many times you told him to go away (in reality, you really wanted him to go fuck off already), he was just being too persistent. but you couldn’t do anything because it would most definitely cause a scene—and you don’t want that. it was starting to suffocate you, how the stranger kept getting closer.
“dear, who is this?” you knew that voice from anywhere. you looked over to your side and saw aventurine next to you, already wrapping his arm around your waist as he looked at the stranger from head to toe. after telling him that you had no idea, you swore you could’ve seen his jaw clench for a quick second. playing along was mandatory with how the situation is turning now, even if aventurine had to pretend that he was actually your partner (well, technically, he is your partner for this assignment).
“who knew that there was actually someone indecent enough to hit on someone’s wife?” it was weird. you always felt icked by how aventurine kept calling you his “work wife." but this time, it was weird. and you hate it.
because you had a revelation that you liked the fact aventurine called you his wife at this very moment.
aventurine has a way with words. he always does; he knows what to say to rile up someone—to provoke them. it was no surprise that the stranger became another one of aventurine’s victims when it came to his provocative terms. yet, it was all over in a blink of an eye because the guy retreated. (you weren’t able to understand what aventurine specifically said to him, but does it really matter at this point?)
“are you alright?” he asks. 
“yeah. thank you.”
“how about we hit the hay for tonight? i managed to gather some information anyway.”
“agree, i was able to catch some as well.”
“really now? we make a great team, don’t we?”
“don’t let it get to your head, aventurine.”
he chuckles. “i was serious, though.” you look at him, confused. “about…?” aventurine leans to your ear and whispers low: “we could actually get married if you would let me do the honors of asking for your hand.”
thwack!
“ow! hey! i was only kidding! okay maybe i wasn’t but—hey! that actually hurts a lot now!” he yelps as you slap him by the shoulder repeatedly. “you’re insane, i tell you!”
maybe being called aventurine's work wife had its perks after all.
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rosenclaws · 5 months ago
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rainy days | Leopold Mountbatten x reader
summary: You run a small bookshop and expect a slow day when a storm rages through New York, until a very handsome stranger walks through your doors.
a/n: I watched Kate and Leopold and I am certifiably obsessed and totally normal. I apologize if any of his dialogue sounds off I'm not used to writing the way he talks. Anyways please indulge my new obsession and I hope you all like it!!
part 2
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You sigh as you listen to the rain hit the windows of your little book shop. A hot cup of tea is sitting by your side as you flip through one of your books. You love your bookshop but today is definitely a slow one.
Though you do see people hustle past with their umbrellas, clutching their bags and dressed too nice for the rain. So for now you settle down for a quiet day. That is until the little bell rings, a sign someone has ventured through the storm to your little shop.
"Hello, Welcome in!" You say cheerfully as you look up from your book.
Your eyes widen as you see a man, a very handsome man, standing in the entrance way. His clothes soaked by the rain. Still he looks as put together as ever as he stands tall at your door. You notice the weird clothes he's wearing. It almost looks like a costume. His wet hair sticks to his forehead and you wonder how he got stuck out here without an umbrella.
"Forgive me, I am still unfamiliar with my surroundings and I appear to have gotten lost." You clock his accent immediately, a tourist perhaps? Though he smiled kindly you could tell he was confused.
"It's no problem, here come in." You hurry around the counter.
He silently shivers as he tries to stay away from the many books you have around your store. Fearing that he may ruin them with how much water was dripping off him.
"I have a few towels upstairs if you don't mind waiting." You offer, taking pity on the man.
"Not at all." He bows slightly as you leave the room which you think is a little weird but polite nonetheless. You grab a towel and rummage through your drawers before finding a pair of sweatpants and an old hoodie an ex boyfriend had left a while ago.
"Okay, I have a towel and some clothes that I think will fit you..." You trail off as you look up and see that he has taken off his jacket as well as his shirt.
Your brain short circuits for a moment as he turns around and it takes everything you have not to gawk like a creep. Water drips down his chest as he shakes his head to try and rid some of the water from his hair.
He meets your eyes and you both share a look. You can only hold his gaze for a moment before looking down at the ground, attempting to save yourself from any more embarrassment. You hand him the towel and clothes and gain the courage to look him in the eyes again.
"I apologize profusely, I did not hear you come down." He quickly grabs the clothes and you cough awkwardly, stealing a look at his bare chest.
"Bathroom is down the hall, you can change in there." He thanks you again and leaves you alone.
Oogling strangers isn't exactly polite or great for business but god was he handsome. Handsome and polite and an accent? It's almost too much. You hear a loud rumbling of thunder and watch the sky grow darker. Looks like the storm isn't going away anytime soon. You hear the bathroom door open again and you quickly try to busy yourself, choosing to go back to your book.
"I must apologize again, It was highly inappropriate for me to be," His neck turning a slight shade of red as he scratches the back of his head. The clothes fit him and it's almost a crime how nice he looks in a shirt and sweatpants.
"In such a state of undress."
"It's okay, you were probably freezing in those clothes so.." You smile warmly which he reciprocates.
"I truly appreciate your kindness." He glances around your shop, admiring the collection of books on your shelves.
"So, are you a tourist?"
"Oh, I have yet to introduce myself how rude. My name is Leopold, I grew in England but moved to New York." So that explains the accent, the ridiculously charming accent.
"Well Leopold, it's nice to meet you." You introduce yourself and hold out your hand. Instead of shaking it he takes it and kisses your knuckles. You can't stop the smile that spreads across your face.
"What a beautiful name, Is this your store?"
"Yeah, I bought it a couple years ago and well, I'm still here. All my friends think I'm crazy for opening a bookshop but I love it."
"Books are a wonderful thing, as a child I relied on books to occupy my time. Such intricate and beautiful worlds created from words on a page at the tips of our fingers. I think it's a very noble profession." He speaks so eloquently, his eyes filled with passion.
You rarely meet a man who has such an appreciation for books. He notices the book sitting on the desk.
"May I?" You nod your head and he picks up the book.
"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," He smiles fondly as he flips through the page.
"I picked up a copy myself when it released before I left England. I thought it was one of the most imaginative and fantastic stories I had ever read." He flips through the pages, admiring the colorful drawings that adorn your copy. Gently, he closes the book and sets it down.
"Though I must admit, I have a new found respect for the book myself." There's humor in his voice though you don't quite get the joke.
"When it came out?" You question. The book came out in the 1800's, unless he just means a new release.
"Yes, It was quite difficult to get my hands on one but I managed."
There's something more to this man for sure. Even the way he talks is unlike anything you've heard before. The pieces start to fit themselves together as you take notice of every oddity surrounding this man. The clothes, the way he speaks, claiming to have been 200 years ago.
"You're not from here are you Leopold? Like 21st century here " You ask, he seems surprised at your question. He's surprised that you aren't calling him a lunatic. He admires how quick you are to accept the unknown. It's admirable.
"Quite the perceptive one, smart and beautiful." He flashes a smile and you swear you almost melt on the spot. He doesn't deny your claim and it makes you want to know more.
"I must admit it is a long story but seeing as there appears to be no end to the rain, perhaps I could tell you." You lean on the counter and rest your chin on your hand. He mirrors you, his brown eyes not shying away from yours.
"Tea?" You ask playfully. He stands up and offers you his hand. A spark electrifies your whole body as your hands touch.
"It would be my honor."
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lagomorphique · 6 days ago
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an overlooked curly line from the HFIM DLC which highlights curly's fundamental loneliness as a character.
he feels at home neither in space nor on earth. people who spend a lot of time in space in this universe losing touch with friends and family bc they've been away for so long.
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jimmy is the one constant that he has. he thinks curly is the life of the party, but he strikes me as the kind of guy to have a lot of acquaintances but not so many friends. he knows a lot of people, but none of them really Know Him.
the way curly talks to anya about jimmy, it's clear that he knows jimmy is volatile and lashes out. when jimmy berates him, curly gives up defending himself immediately. i very much associate him with dog imagery - jimmy can do or say anything he wants to him. curly will keep going back for more, craving that dynamic even. although it hurts, it's familiar, and there's comfort in that pain's familiarity
by the time of the crash, curly doesn't even trust his own perception of reality any more. gaslighting gets thrown around a lot these days, but it's what jimmy does to him in the exact textbook sense of the word at several points in the game. 'your recollection of things is wrong. the way you feel is wrong. the way you felt and reacted was different to how you remember them.'
he has to keep this professional distance between himself and the crew. it's one of the things that stops him grabbing on to anya's olive branch of friendship. the end result is that both of them are so fucking lonely
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the only one without a piece on the board... the crew choose to spend their leisure time together, even jimmy, but curly isn't there. is it because he's working? is he being self-sacrificing, because only four people can play the game? either way, he isolates himself from the others.
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curly's hallucination/flashback/prophetic stress dream in ch3 (maybe out of chronological order?). he's alone, with nowhere to go but blindly onward. the broken off ladders that lead nowhere in either direction.. he can neither ascend nor descend, just stuck halfway up with cold, dark water constantly lapping at his heels
in all of curly's dialogue you get this profound sense of unfulfilment, of always trying to run away from something. he wants to be better, to do more, but the prospect of change terrifies him more than anything else.
tldr; curly is lonely as fuck and pretty much no sense of self
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chunghasweetie · 7 months ago
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Hello, I really love your writing. I want to submit a request. I will be really happy if you accept it.
I want a story about Jungkook being a student who is obsessed with his female professor. Who is also 10 years older than him. Smut part and the whole writing is up to you. But I would have liked if you add Jungkook having breeding kink and want to put babies in her so much.
Thank you in advance 💞
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𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 | J.JK
— pairing | professor!oc x college student!jjk
— summary | jungkook decided to take his relationship with his professor a step further
— warning | bad writing (i’m doing my best)
unprotected sex, cursing, praising, adult dialogue, breeding kink, impregnation kink, professor student relationship, divorce, adult dialogue
— word count | 3.3k words
— song suggestion | connection — bangchan skz
Jungkook had originally been sent to college for one thing.
His business degree.

Once he acquired his business degree he would be able to take over his father’s company, which would bring in a large sum of money once he graduated.
Although he was a business major, he still had to take some general classes.
Jungkook was once again waiting until her class ended.
His class with her was at 9am and it was almost 4pm.
He didn’t mind waiting at all. In fact, he enjoyed it.
Admiring how she explained so passionately about the subject she taught and how engaged she was with her students made his attraction even stronger to her.
Didn’t like how enthusiastic the male students were though. The constant gifts and attention they showered her with annoyed the shit out of him.
Ms. Young.
She was his professor in Ethnic Studies for the past semester, and his obsession with her grew with each lesson.
She was divorced. Married for a measly two years.
Her ex husband had cheated on her the second year of their marriage over and over. He had to fess up once his mistress became pregnant.
It hurt her deeply, causing her to move to a whole other country to cope with the separation.
And lucky for her, she happened to land right in Jungkook’s university.
Jungkook had been her healing. When they first began their situation, she hadn’t thought of her divorce a single time.
Made her wonder if she had even loved her ex at all.
It started from Jungkook staying after class and asking for homework help, to having her in his backseat begging for more.
Took a lot of convincing to them her there.
She seen him as so much younger. She was 10 almost 11 years older than him.
But after Jungkook’s irresistible siren like voice, she couldn’t resist him.
Jungkook was more than happy she went along, his endless stalking and time spent on her paying off.
He waited until the classroom was absolutely empty before he made his way inside. He shut the door behind him, a wide smirk on his face.
He noticed his professors head stuck up from her computer, eyes widening when she seen him.
“Hey.” His voice lingered in her ears. “Your last class took forever. So many guys like staying after class to look at you.” He grumbled.
“Don’t start. That’s not true.” She shook her head.
His eyebrow quirks as he chuckles, taking a seat on the edge of her desk, his eyes locked onto hers.
“Oh, it's not? Then, explain why half the guys in the class come in with flowers, or candy, or just looking at you up and down?”
“I’m a good professor?” The faulty expression was written all over her face.
“No, Ms. Young. It has nothing to do with how good you are as a professor. You're just...”
He pauses as he reaches out to brush a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Irresistible.” He breathed out. “So hard to let go of.”
She blushed.
“And I’m assuming they’re trying to do something for a better grade.” He chuckled. “But I already took that opportunity.”
“You didn’t even need me for that.” She rolled her eyes. “You had a perfect grade even before this.”
“Doesn’t that make you more attracted to me?” He smirked.
“Whatever.” She blushed. “They don’t use me for a grade. I think they genuinely need help.”
“You think that's what it is?” He laughs, his fingers trailing along her jawline.
“Those boys want nothing more than to fuck you, Ms. Young.“ He shook his head.
“Are you sure Jungkook beca—“
“Then why do they stare at your ass when you're bent over your desk, marking papers?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.
He continued, “Why do they keep coming up with reasons to talk to you after class, even if it means missing and failing the rest of their classes?”
She swallowed.
She wasn’t able to brain storm a rational response or reasoning to their actions.
“Well I—“ She sighed, giving in. “I don’t know.”
“It’s because they want what’s mine.” Jungkook spat.
He leaned in, “But I can’t blame them. Look at you.”
“So annoying.” She mumbled, looking away.
“Mm, I know. And it's just going to get worse from here.” He teased.
“You know, you shouldn't be so cute.” He chuckles softly, “It's really fucking distracting.”
“How?”
He raises an eyebrow, his hands moving up her sides to rest on her shoulders.
“How? Well, you're always rolling your eyes and giggling at me. And it's cute. Too cute for someone who's supposed to be my old professor.”
“Old?!” Her eyes widened.
“Older.” He corrected himself, laughing.
“For someone who’s my student you make such inappropriate comments.” She rolled her eyes.
His smirk turns into a small grin and he shrugs, his hands never leaving her shoulders.
“What can I say? You bring out that sire of me. Not my fault.” He chuckles and leans in, placing a swift kiss on her lips “Tell me you don’t love it.”
“Whatever. And some sending me pictures of your thing when I’m trying to work!” She hit his chest.
He stared down at her with a smug look on his face. “Did you not enjoy them? Did you not send me shit back and tell your students you were going to the restroom?”
She swallowed, not saying anything in response.
“Uh huh. Right.” He pecked her lips.
“You drive me insane.”
He smirks and moves his hands back up to her waist, pulling her closer.
“That's the plan, ma'am.” He grins and leans in for another kiss, his tongue slipping past her lips to dance with hers.
She melted into his mouth, messily making out with him by her desk.
He groans and deepens the kiss, his hands roaming down to grab her ass and lift her up onto the desk.
He breaks the kiss only to tug at her shirt. He growls and starts trailing kisses down her neck and chest.
“J-Jungkook not here.” She shook her head. “I-I have an important meeting with my department in a bit.”
He pauses and looks up at her, his expression disappointed for a moment before he smirks.
She kept shaking her head no but her body kept telling her to go forward. She wanted him so bad.
“Fine, we'll make it quick then.” He continues to kiss down her body, attempting to take her clothes off.
“J-Jungkook!” She whined, “N-No put them back on— I’ll meet you tonight and we can do it I promise.”
He hesitates but then nods and starts getting dressed again. “Alright. But you owe me for this.”
“I know I know. I didn’t notice the time before.” She exhaled. “I’ll do whatever you want tonight. Promise.”
He finishes dressing and leans in for a quick kiss before making his way to the door. “I'll hold you to that promise. Because I have huge plans for you tonight.”
“Mm I’ll definitely be there then.” She chuckled before bidding goodbye to him.
He chuckles as he makes his way across campus, already counting down the hours until he can see her again.
Shortly after Jungkook exited her classroom, members of her department entered her classroom for the meeting.
༊—
After some time, she had finally arrived at his apartment right outside the campus. She used the key under the mat to open the door, shutting it behind her.
She had changed out of her work attire, and now wore something more casual.
She was in shorts and she wore one of Jungkook’s hoodies. Her hair was tucked into the hood and she had sunglasses over her.
It wasn’t the perfect disguise but she hadn’t got caught or noticed once.
Jungkook wasn’t the only student living in the complex, so she had to be careful.
He's in the living room when she enters, a grin spreading across his face as he sees her.
“Hey, Y/n.” He stands up and walks over to her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into a kiss.
“Mm I’m Y/n now?” She chuckled against his lips.
“Had to show my professor my respect on campus.” He smirked.
“Whatever.” She smiled, “What’re you up to?”
He smiles against her lips before pulling back a little. “Just waiting for you.”
He takes her hand and leads her over to the couch, sitting down and pulling her onto his lap. “I ordered a pizza. Didn’t want you to have to cook for me tonight.”
“Awe.” She pouted. “I like cooking for you.”
“You worked so hard today and I wanted you to relax.” He replied.
“How is it that you’re so much younger than me but take care of me better than someone my age?” She laughed.
He grins and kisses her neck. “I just have a way with taking care of women. And you deserve to be cherished, Y/n.” He looks up at her.
“So I’m one of many?” She folded her arms.
His grin falters for a moment before he laughs.
“No, no. You're the only woman I've been with. I swear.” He looks up at her with a genuine expression. “You're the only person who's ever made me want to be better.”
“Really?”
He nods, looking at her with a sincere expression. “Yeah. I've never met anyone like you before, Y/n.”
He runs his hand through her hair. “You're different from any other woman I've ever met. And I mean that in the best way possible.”
“I’m nothing like him.” He continued. “I’m a real man. He was a fucking boy. A man child who couldn’t even hold onto a damn good woman.”
She couldn’t believe how this college kid had her wrapped around his finger.
How she felt on top of the world when she was with him.
“Oh Jungkook.” Her heart swelled at his words.
He smiles and kisses her forehead. “I'm so in love with you Y/n.” He wraps his arms around her waist.
“I never want you to doubt how much you mean to me.” He looks at her with intensity in his eyes. “You're my everything.”
“You’re so amazing Jungkook.” She held eye contact with him.
“I’m so in love with you too.” She pecked his lips.
He grins and wraps his arms around her waist. He leans in and kisses her back hungrily. “All mine.”
He got her right where he wanted her.
“I know I am” she mumbled against his lips.
He chuckles and bites her lip gently. “You're so fucking pretty, Y/n”
He groans and kisses her neck. “I need you now. I thought I could wait but fuck— I can’t.”
He starts to slip his hoodie off her and over her head, tossing it to the side. “I want to see all of you— I need to.”
“Jungkook the pizza—“
He leans in to kiss her again. “But fuck, I want you more than I want food right now. I want you more than anything.”
He trails his kisses down her neck and to her collarbone. “So fucking pretty. Put on more perfume on for me hm?”
She nodded.
He stopped himself. “Fuck— where are my manners? Let’s go to my room.”
“Now you’re a gentleman? What about when we did it in your car, my car, your counter, my classroom, your table, my table— Should I continue?”
“That’s just different.” He smirks and bites her earlobe. “You remember every fuck huh? Lets me know I’m putting it down right.”
He nips at her neck again and lifts her up in his arms. He carries her to the bedroom and lays her down on the bed.
His room was simple. Bed in the corner and gaming chair and set up was in the corner.
His dresser, bed frame, and nightstand all correlated in color and design. Few posters up.
His room was cute. Much more decorated than any other man would have.
Jungkook smirks and starts to undress himself. “You like what you see?” He asks with a playful grin.
“Because I fuckin' love what I see.” He climbs onto the bed and crawls over to her.
She continued to make out with him, letting him speak between kisses.
He groans and deepens the kiss, his hands roaming over her body. “I'm the only one who gets to touch you like this.”
He whispers against her lips. “The only one you should ever want. Ever. I’m all you never need.”
“And I’m going to make sure of that today.” He tugged on her hair.
She made out with him heavily, moaning at the words he spoke with her.
He grinds against her, his hands gripping her hips. “Gonna fill you up.”
He whispers in her ear. “Gonna make you carry my baby, so everyone knows you're mine.”
“Wanted this for so long.” He kisses her neck and shoulder, leaving hickeys behind.
“I-I—“ She could hardly speak, his dirty words making her feel like she was burning.
He smirks against her skin, his hand sliding under her shirt.
“You like that idea, don't you?” He kneads her breast gently. “Hearing me talk about that. Gets you going doesn’t it baby?”
“Gonna do what he didn’t.” He leans down and sucks on her nipple through her bra, his other hand still holding her hip. “I’ll be the perfect man for you Y/n.”
She whined at the sensitivity, panties growing damper with each word.
She was too choked up to say anything, too overwhelmed by pleasure to form a proper response.
He felt her wetness and grinned, pulling back slightly.
“Gonna fuck you good baby.” He whispers in her ear again. “You’re going to take it? Want my baby in you?”
She nodded quickly.
Jungkook shakes his head. “Words.”
“Yes Jungkook.” She nodded, “Please.”
He looks into her eyes, his expression neutral. “I will do whatever it takes to make you mine.”
He leans in and kisses her deeply, his tongue invading her mouth. He reaches for her shorts pulling them off and sliding his fingers inside of her panties.
He felt how wet she was and his cock twitches in his pants.
“Fuck, Y/n.” He rubs her clit, making her moan into their kiss.
He starts to fuck her with his fingers, pumping them in and out of her sopping wet pussy. “So wet for me. My pretty girl.”
She kept repeating pleas and moans into his ears, pathetically begging for more.
He hears her moans and his cock twitches in his pants. He starts to thrust his fingers harder and faster, making her moan even louder.
He kisses her neck, sucking on her skin. “So reactive. I fucking love it.”
“D-Don’t wanna cum yet” She whined, legs trembling. “wanna cum on your cock…”
His cock is throbbing in his pants, pre-cum leaking from the tip. He groans and pulls his fingers out of her pussy, making her whine at the retraction.
He immediately spoke, “I know, baby.” He unbuckles his pants and slipped his cock out. “I’ll fix you in a second Y/n.”
“Please,” She swallowed, “Fill me up with your baby.”
He groans at her words, his cock twitching. Her eagerness made him even more excited.
“Yes ma’am.” He starts to stroke his cock, pre-cum leaking from the tip. “I'm gonna fill you up with my cum and make a baby in that beautiful pussy. Anything for you Y/n.”
“Fuck” She cussed, “Fucking hurry then.”
He grins at her words and quickly positions himself at her entrance. He thrusts in hard, making her moan loudly.
“Shit Y/n.” He starts to pound into her, making the bed shake. “Fucking tight.”
“Y-You’re just too fucking big” she hissed.
She eased up to him, that stretch turning into pure pleasure. “But— so fucking good.”
“Good. We’re gonna do this over and over until you’re pregnant.” He groans and starts to fuck her harder, making the headboard slam against the wall. “No more shitty condoms. I’m filling you up every fucking night.”
He leans down and kisses her neck, sucking on her skin. “I know it feels good, baby.” He reaches down and starts to rub her clit with his thumb. “You’re so pretty like this.”
She was a loud mess. Jungkook knew she would be. With the sounds of her moans, his grunts, and the headboard she knew there would be complaints.
“Jungkook your neighbors!” She hissed.
“Alright.” He smirks and pulls out of her, flipping her over face down ass up. He enters her from behind, making her moan loudly. “Much better hm?”
She nodded into his pillow. He smacks her ass and starts to pound into her again, his balls slapping against her thighs.
“So good! So good Jungkook!” She screamed into the pillow, the sounds of their combined wetness echoing throughout his room.
He grins and starts to fuck her even harder, pulling on her hair as he pounds into her.
“That's right, baby. Take it.” He smacks her ass again and leans down to whisper in her ear. “Whose dick does you better baby?”
“You! You Jungkook!” She moaned. “So much better— you already know.”
He laughs and keeps fucking her, gripping her hips as he slams into her. “Of course it is. You're mine, aren't you? I just fucking love hearing it while I’m fucking on you.”
He leans down and bites her shoulder, making her moan loudly. “Who else can make you scream like this, baby? He never made you really cum huh Y/n?”
She shook her head. “No— Never!”
“He never fucked a baby into you either. Saved all the good shit for me.” He grins and pulls out of her, flipping her over onto her back again.
He spreads her legs and enters her again, making her moan loudly as he starts thrusting into her. “I'm the only man who’ll have you like this.”
“Having you swollen with a baby for the rest of the semester. Gonna marry you and buy you a big ol’ house when I graduate. I’ll be your happily ever after.” He laughs and leans down to kiss her, biting her lip as he pulls back.
“Fuck Jungkook.” She whined. “Please— Want it all so bad.”
“Tell me Ms. Young,” He began. “Does that make me your favorite student now?”
“I-I-“
“Tell me Ms. Young.” He taunted.
“Only one— My favorite student.” She whined. “No one else like you.”
He laughs and leans down to kiss her, biting her lip as he pulls back. “That's what I fucking thought.”
He starts fucking her harder, making the bed creak beneath them.
“You’re gonna fucking break the bed” She bit her lip.
He laughs and grips the headboard, slamming into her harder as he grunts with each thrust.
“I don't give a fuck. Won’t stop fucking you like this until this shits broken.” He groaned.
“Fucking fill me up” Her eyes rolled back. “Want to have your baby so bad.”
He grins at her dirty talk and obeys her command, fucking her harder and faster.
“Fuck, you want my cum so bad?” He reaches down and starts rubbing her clit, making her moan even louder.
“I’ll fucking give that shit to you. I’ll give you everything I got in me.” He breathed out.
Her legs shook, back arching until she came all over his cock, her liquid heat spilling out of her.
“Shit!” He curses and slams into her one last time, releasing his cum deep inside of her.
He overfilled her, his cum spilling out all over. “Fuck Y/n.” He pants as he collapses on top of her.
The two panted on top of one another, trying to catch their breaths from the intense baby making session.
Once he caught his breath, he rolls off her and pulls her into his arms, nuzzling her neck.
He looks at her with a satisfied smirk. That was fucking amazing, ma'am. “I don't think I've ever cum that hard in my life.”
“Me either.” She shook her head. “My legs are still twitching.”
He laughs and kisses her forehead. “You okay, baby?”
“More than okay.” She laughed. “I’m feeling amazing.”
“Good.” He licked his lips. “Because I said we aren’t stopping until I know you’re having that baby.”
498 notes · View notes
jweekgoji · 8 days ago
Note
.Seen your tiny motorcycle cybertronion reader. Can l ask for like the complete opposite. Just a massive hulking reader and the TFO characters reactions, to put it in perspective, reader is like only a few inches smaller then darkwing without a cog. Please?
TFO chars/Reader [hcs]
tw: none. word count: ~1,3k additional tags: cybertronian!reader, massive!reader, gender-neutral!reader, cogless!reader chars included: B-127, Orion Pax, Elita-One, D-16, Sentinel Prime, Darkwing, Airachnid a/n: thank you for your request and your patience~
B-127
He's a magnet for bigger bots. The little 🐝 managed to befriend at least 3 new bots that ended up being taller than him, so it's no surprise he will stick to you like a tiny coala. Oh, imagine how much bigger you can get once you have your t-cog.
If you're stuck with him in the waste management, I can see him preferring to sleep on top of you instead of on the conveyor belt. It doesn't even matter if you let him do that or not; once you two fall into your recharge, the next thing you see when you wake up is his face. right. in front. of you.
And it's not really his fault! Seriously! Even though his attention span is kinda short, he does understand your message, 'stay on your side, and don't get too close'. His only problem is his own behavior when he's unconscious. In the previous headcanons B-127 is very talkative when he dreams about something, so there's a big possibility that 🐝  also moves a lot in his sleep.
↑ So yeah. It doesn't really matter if you mind his clingy behavior or not; by the end of the night, the little yellow mech rolls over, whines and calls out for you, like a kid missing his favorite, big teddy bear.
The other interesting detail I see in TFO is the first fight between Death Trackers and High Guard/Main Four.  🐝 gets on top of Orion while the latter in his vehicle mode, and that gives me an idea how B-127 might act with reader that is much bigger than him.
↑ B-127's affection is not only shown through the quality time. Yes, if you're not already friends with him, he will be so excited to get to know you better. I mean, how many cogless bots this big ever exist? Not to mention, he has never gotten the chance to socialize. Poor thing was stuck for Primus knows how long, so excuse him when he gets so chatty with you at first, even though your dialogue is really one-sided at first.
“How did you get this big?”
“Can you reach for the top of the ceiling??”
“If I consume as much energon as you, will I get this big too??!” — 🐝.
↑ The more comfortable he gets with you and vice versa, the more he will want to be as close as he can get.
↑ When he has troubles reaching for something, he will get sad, until a light bulb appears above his head when he thinks of ‘oh wait, I have my best friend—’, and he's already running off to find you.
Overall, B-127 is really amazed by you, but if you think about it...he's just really enthusiastic about everything and everyone. 🐝 probably jumps and climbs on you whenever he has a chance, just to sit on your shoulder and ask you to carry him around; maybe even throw him into the air and catch up. He's really, really...touch starved.
Orion Pax
You two are some sort of similar, but in a little different way than one might think at first. You're very, very— easy to spot. In Orion's case, he's famous for making his pranks and running to the library, only to get smacked later by the guards or supervisors when he starts a fight with the others. In your case, it's really simple. In the crowd of cogless miners, you tower over any of them, and only supervisors can match you in this one.
Orion is really friendly, and he has no trouble making friends with other bots even if you're not interested. Maybe, like Elita, you're dedicated to your job and want to get to the top of your ranks, but it's really hard when that blue-and-red bot follows you around to throw a joke or two. He's dedicated too, you know!
I feel terrible for both you and D-16, since being around Orion Pax means only one thing. Lots of new, unbelievable experiences. Sometimes, this new unbelievable experience means getting punched for trying to intervene.
↑ But you're more lucky than D-16. If you think about it, D-16 is strong enough to hold Darkwing's punch, and it doesn't look like the supervisor tried to be 'gentle' on any of them (and that's all while D was two times smaller than Darkwing!).
↑ Now imagine Orion running to you every time the troublemaker is pursued by your oh so angry supervisors! Pax hides behind your much bigger frame, and if he had been a little faster, he'd successfully get them off his tail, but unfortunately...they saw him, so once Darkwing marches towards you to yank that annoying miner from behind you, the other big boy only stops half his way.
If only it was one of the other tiny cogless, he'd deal with both of them once and for all for even slightly disrespecting him. But once you cross your servos over your chassis, showing that you're not going to back away, he will step aside. This time, Orion was lucky to have you around, but that doesn't mean you will always be there to help him...
↑ Don't get me wrong, Orion is not that bot who will run away every time the consequences of his actions are getting to him. He understands that you have your own goals, and he doesn't really want to get in your way. 🚚 will apologize profusely if you get in trouble because of him, but he can't promise you that he won't do it again...but that is usual Orion Pax for you.
Elita-One
Realistically, it's hard to impress Elita. Mainly because she's the type who is married to her job, so as long as it's not related to the scores of her team, you will not get anything more than spared glances here and there.
↑ I think it's a big rarity for someone like cogless reader to tower over other cogless bots, so it's natural for her to first act like ‘how the—?’ before she brushes it off, focusing on the more important stuff to do. This is a blessing and a curse at the same time, since you probably hoped to at least impress her in some sort of way. Your co-workers and friends love to hang out with you and lean on you to rest a little, but no— everyone but her loves you! How unfair.
It will take a lot of effort and work to catch her attention. Firstly, don't become trouble. Secondly, be natural (take notes from Orion!).
↑ Elita, like a natural leader, really appreciates traits like determination or inspiration. There are two possible situations when she might grow closer to you: 1) where you are leader of your own group, leading the other bots through dangerous mines. 2) where you're her second in command.
It is important to use your quick thinking and stay cool during dangerous situations, so when the explosive accident in the mines happened, you were the one who saved everyone, not leaving other injured bots behind.
She was scared as hell when she saw that you didn't leave the mines with her when she clearly ordered you to leave. But seeing you walk out with your teammates safe helped her spark to calm down a bit.
Maybe you're not so bad yourself after all.
D-16
↑ there's something similar to this reaction, when he meets you for the first time, hehe.
 D-16 is one of the tallest in the group of cogless bots, or so he thought that, until you show up.
There's something that clicks inside his mind when he sees you, and he just can't take his optics off you until Orion elbows him in his side, making the silver-colored mech hiss and rub the spot with a painful expression. You didn't catch him staring, did you? That would be too awkward.
I think D-16, just like Elita doesn't actually mind your size, but he's more open towards his feelings, and it's even harder to hide when you two get closer.
For him, short or big, you are still someone he wants to protect from any harm. He's kind of selfless in this one, ready to grab you and pull away from any possible dangerous situation. And if he can hide Orion somewhere, it's so much harder to do the same for you, so he will bring his poor negotiation skills and somehow not get you two in the end of the list for promotion.
↑But if you're a peaceful and hardworking bot, just like him, I really hope that it's you who will protect D-16 this time. It's just hard not to get defensive every time he has to be punished for something he didn't even do. Justice for D-16!
He will be surprised at first when someone stands up for him against your supervisors, so he is speechless for a good time. Slowly, he will warm up to that new feeling, which is...actually very nice, being on the receiving side.
You two always look after each other, and it's easy to become good friends with him. D-16, used to the role of protector in his group, still has some habits when he sticks his nose somewhere where he shouldn't be, so you should definitely look after him.
Sentinel Prime
Sentinel takes a good look through your profile when he gets notification about the group of protororms being created. One of them is unusually too big for someone cogless.
His reaction would not be really positive at first, mainly because he has a superiority complex. I hc him as really jealous of Prime's not only because of their status but because they also reminded him that they will always be higher than him, in both senses. He was smaller than them, which makes him feel even less of himself (despite the fact that they never did anything to insult him). Sentinel hates when others look down at him, and thankfully, you're not tall enough to tower over him...
↑but he probably gets paranoid because of you. what if one day another cogless not shows up but this time both stronger and bigger? no,no, such a silly thoughts. there's no way someone can be better than him.
If you somehow get his attention, enough to make him personally approach you, sort of like D-16 and Orion's situation, he will be so pissed off behind the scene! Sentinel would never show it clearly, mainly because he has to maintain that perfect leader image, but it's hard not to notice how the corner of his mouth twitches or how he shakes your servo a little too tight...
But Sentinel would not be Sentinel if he didn't try to use everything for his own business. You're strong, tall, and can do a much better job than your short coworkers! A perfect worker, and that one bot everyone should look up to for inspiration!
Darkwing
Another bot who gets so pissed off just because of the way you were created, even though you had no power over it, but that's just your usual life as cogless on society built by Sentinel...
Darkwing is a pain in the aft for most miners; he will bark orders at them and throw some insults, but for some reason, he's a little more scared to approach you directly.
↑ Your supervisor might give you this glance as he gossips with his coworker, and whenever you look over your shoulder to find who keeps staring at you, he immediately looks away, as if he didn't do that for like a good hour or so.
It's not hard to notice that his behavior towards you is different. Whenever your friend gets scolded by him, he will turn to you to do the same— and he just mutters a quick “yes, you too, back to work...cogless”.
Darkwing doesn't look like a good fighter, to me. He mostly shows his strength against weak and defenseless bots, and he knows that they have no chances against him. He is easily startled and can be stopped by cogless who dare to go against him. There's a tiny part of him that understands that, so he will bite you with his words instead of hitting.
Airachnid
She's pretty damn tall too, as she is half a head taller than Sentinel, but that is mostly due to her spider legs. Even then, 🕷️ lady has her optics down at you, and her presence is already sending chills down your spine, despite her not mumbling a single word.
There's not too many opportunities for you to meet her; at least I can't find her being interested in miners, unless it is related to her job, like one of the tasks Sentinel gave her.
It can be like, that Sentinel suspects you of being a possible rebel, or you somehow got too close to revealing the truth, so he sends her to spy on you. Maybe she meets you when she accompanies Sentinel during one of those fan-meeting situations.
Anyway, Airachnid is more similar to Elita in this case. Spider lady is hard to read, especially since she always stays quiet, only occasionally giving you a half smirk or laughing at something, making the situation even more awkward than it is.
There's a really tiny possibility that if you prove yourself to be loyal to Sentinel Prime, obedient and hardworking, given the fact that you already received your promotion, she might start thinking about taking you under her wing.
↑ If you get a cog, what kind of alt mode will you get? A tank? A jet? Maybe a ship or train? Only Primus knows, but she's a little excited to find it out if only Sentinel puts down his pride just a little and agrees to that.
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stargirlfics · 10 months ago
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So Much Goddamn Talkin’
Joel Miller x Black F!Reader
Summary: Sometimes Joel has to quiet the noise in your head. Luckily he’s quite good at that.
Warnings: 18+ ONLY, post outbreak—Jackson era, mutual pining, friends to lovers vibe, established relationship, some mentions of anxiety, feelings and fluff, competency kink, soft dom!joel vibes, smut: oral (both receiving), fingering, soft intense PiV, unprotected sex, praise kink, daddy kink, come marking
*reader is written and described as black but anyone is welcome and encouraged to read!
Word Count: 6k
Currently obsessed with the thought of older, domestic Joel in a relationship and couldn’t stop myself from getting carried away! Enjoy!
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It wasn’t like this was the first time you’d ever spoken to Joel.
On the contrary, what had started as a timid friendship became something else entirely with one spontaneous kiss that only the stars bore witness to that night. 
A silly dream of romance had landed right in your lap despite the crumbling of the old world behind you, taking everything with it and yet they took your breath away constantly, like a whirlwind, two grounding anchors were now tethered to your heart and their names were Joel and Ellie. 
So why were you so nervous? 
Sighing softly, you decided to blame it on the watchful glances Joel was giving you from across the yard, distracting you from the book you were reading. Eye contact with him could feel like the most searing heat, spreading like wildfire and at the same time the deepest depths of comfort. 
Not always being a man of many words, the things he could express with a simple look or the weight of a hand fascinated you, made you fall so dangerously hard and with a certainty you’d never felt before. 
Therefore you reasoned it simply couldn’t be your fault for being distracted and wanting him so much right now. Not when he made you feel this way without even having to try very hard. 
You just needed to take a moment to soak it all in, a blooming hope carried in on the breeze now that it was the beginning of spring in Jackson, the wildflowers and planted seeds starting to sprout, and the soil and your own souls teeming with life after so long spent just surviving. Now there was space for healing. 
Space for you to sit in the rocking chair Joel had worked on for months as a birthday present to you, or watch him get around to all the house projects (because once a contractor always a contractor) and strum out the prettiest chords on his guitar late in the evenings out on the porch. 
This felt more like living and you never wasted a moment to covet it. 
“You’re doing an awful lot of staring, Miller.” You looked up from the same page for the fifth time to catch him already looking your way. 
He blinked and put another nail into the wood post he was working on. 
“Hm, well damn right I am when you look the way you do. Now if I told you it’s been at least ten minutes since you’ve turned a page in that book you just might have to admit you’ve been starin’ too.” 
There was that little smirk you knew so well, dancing on his lips as if he knew just how much it would drive you crazy, the confirmation that you hadn’t been subtle in the slightest either. 
“Well, you’re out here giving me a show.” You make a point to turn to the next page then, looking away before he could throw you a look at the sass in your tone. 
He was right of course but what he didn’t know was that reading had started all this to begin with. 
The tattered novel had been a surprise find on a patrol one day and came with an unexpected eroticism, bits of dialogue and tantalizing imagery on the page you were stuck on making your mind wander and wonder. 
It’s why you felt a little nervous, caught off guard, suddenly wishing you were in bed and underneath him. 
He flashes his teeth at you, that smirk widening into a smile at your reply, his attention returning to the tools in his hands but your own continued to linger. Remembering. 
A few nights before in particular, when he was fucking into you so deep you had to bite the sheets to keep your moans down. You could still picture the definition of his arms as they cradled you and kept the headboard from colliding into the wall at the same time. 
Or how good you knew it felt when his broad palms swat across your ass, never failing to make you yield to him with such eagerness. 
You wished you could have your hands on him now, petting, feeling, showing him how much he was desired and cared for, how much you wanted to be filled by him, stretched out and aching with nothing but his name in your mind and on the tip of your tongue for hours.
Those stray thoughts had you turning back a page, leaning into the slow burning fire lit underneath you. 
Still unsure of how to initiate these desires, you didn’t want to distract him from something he’d been trying to get around to doing for awhile and at the same time felt a thrill at the idea of tugging him away, leading him to bed. 
With some hesitation you decided to bide your time for a bit longer, getting caught up in words that made you squirm imagining Joel doing and saying them. 
God, you weren’t sure how much more of this you could keep up, feeling the slick pooling of arousal between your thighs, the way you wanted to grind against nothing already. 
Joel finished repairing the post in no time and moved on to patch up a hole in the wall of the old shed, unaware of your internal dilemma. 
Eventually he gathered up his tools and stored them away, told you he was gonna head in and wash up but that you should keep relaxing out here for as long as you wanted and he’d get started on preparing things for dinner later. 
He left you with a kiss to your temple and the lingering familiarity of his touch. Handsome and sweet, he was going to be the death of you. 
Your mind felt too restless to keep sitting but you took him up on the suggestion just for awhile longer, trying to find the right way to move things in the direction you wanted. Family dinner wasn’t for another four hours and Ellie would be here a bit early but there was still time and you wanted to make the most of it. 
So you finished off another chapter and finally closed the novel, ushered inside with the echo of birdsongs and the steady thumping of your heart in your ribs. 
Joel had been so sure you hadn’t noticed his repeated stares as much as he’d noticed yours, bowing his head under the warm spray of the shower he could only think of how pretty you looked sitting there while he worked, fond of the fact that you liked to be next to him even if he was occupied.  
At first he couldn’t wrap his head around it and was almost too unnerved and bewildered by the fact that you took such an interest. 
Not at all used to someone touching him or looking at him like he was their entire world but that’s the only way you looked at him and as much as he had tried to be measured, tried not to get attached, he had come around to the idea of a relationship again. 
Loving people was frightening, something he felt he’d lost the ability to do properly after all these years, all the blood staining his hands and his conscience.
He had lost so much, seen too much death and feared he would only bring ruin, that he would lose her too, until you came along and turned everything he thought he knew on its head. 
Oh what secrets and stories of loss he had told you in the quiet of night, when old nightmares and new guilts collided and kept him from sleeping though that was much less these days now that you slept by his side every night. 
It had been a long time since he’d shared his bed and now it made him smile thinking of how natural it felt to wake up next to you, how easy it was to be around you, in the quiet moments he could see how the foundations you’d both built together had been made solid and steadfast over time. 
Silly to think how he fretted over ruining his friendship with you all that time ago, the way everyone was sick of him in the days leading up to when he would finally ask if you were interested because they all knew he had nothing to worry about and those worries in his head were swiftly put to rest when you tugged at his shirt to pull him closer and asked what had taken him so long.
He’d never forget that moment. 
Joel thought then that this was the moment he knew but quickly learned there would actually be a collection of moments–several times a day–that would remind him just how hooked on you he really was.
Like the times he showed his age and your sweet giggles and clever retorts always followed soon after, or how much he’s come to love the summertime because your brown skin basked in the sunlight is like art to him and he relishes every chance he gets to see you exactly as you are.
You brought a fullness and meaning to life here, encouraging him to slow down, to breathe. Taking care of one another made him stronger, nourished in ways he didn’t think were possible.  
“Honey.”
He grits the word out like he’s trying to call you up here, reminded of how lucky he felt to have you, to be so connected.
Watching you walk around batting your eyes acting like you don’t know that it’s the pretty, round edges of your nose, the smile lines, the plush of your hips and that glowing thing inside you beating in your chest that drives him crazy. 
Simply put, he was impressed by you. Constantly. You could handle yourself, skilled in your own right, already handy with weapons long before he was in your life and even more proficient now, deadly, with the things he’d taught you since. 
You were resourceful and calm in tricky situations or when quick medical training was needed and yet none of the carnage of infected and worse terrors ever changed the soft way you tended to people, almost like you couldn’t help but give a little extra love. 
And you had certainly spared many an ounce of that love for him; he’d forgotten how good it felt to smile this much over someone, can’t remember the last time he felt this way and definitely can’t remember the last time he’s seen his Ellie look at someone with such admiration either. 
Everything about you captured his attention and he was grateful to be able to live some sort of life again after so much heartache, after believing he could never have these kinds of things for himself. 
Those hands of his could scorch the Earth but you made him understand they could build things too, could show love and give pleasure just as well and just as fiercely. 
Sometimes he wasn’t sure if he was doing a good job of it. 
All he knew was that he never wanted to let you go and that was enough for him. 
When you venture into the bedroom you find him getting dressed, hair tousled from being towel dried, another wave of aching bloomed in your core as you thank yourself for having nudged him into letting it grow out a bit during the colder months. 
He looked so handsome doing nothing at all in particular you were sure you’d implode if you didn’t just come out with it, you just hope he wouldn’t mind doing some undressing again. 
“Hey, honey.” 
His voice was low and gentle, the familiar pet name in his usual smooth rasp made you stride forward, sending you surging into his arms so that you were squished against his chest. He tilted his head at you just slightly in question before you were pressing your lips to his.
Your mouths met so tenderly at first, fingertips bursting with a nervous energy as they reached for his shirt, grasping needily as you lost yourself in the slow ease of the way he kissed you back.
But a little spark of anxiety makes you tense, overthinking the kiss, feeling a little silly for just how turned on you were, how much he could see it written all over you, dripping quite literally in desperation even if you tried to reason with yourself that you knew there wasn’t anything wrong with that. 
“J-Joel…shit,” you whined and huffed through sloppy kisses, slowly finding yourself being walked backwards and held firm against the closest wall, “Oh…we don’t have to do this if-” 
“The hell are you goin’ on about?” Joel grumbled against the column of your neck and all ability to articulate went out the window.
Rationally you knew it was a pretty good indication he wasn’t bothered by the spontaneity from the way those strong hands of his were already underneath your shirt, pinching almost in the haste to grip your flesh but you were already overthinking and it held persistent. 
“Just…if you’re tired, I understand. We can wait till tonight. I don’t want you to feel obligated.” Your words were huffed out in nervous gasps, trying to will your knees not buckle when his scruff teased a swipe across your jaw. 
Joel pulled back then so you’d have to look at him, knowing the anxious flit of your lashes well. 
He knew what to watch for, patient when you needed reassurance that you were free to run wild with your desires, that he was never tired of having you bare and wrapped around him at any hour of the day but this was of no consequence, he’d make sure you knew where he stood.
Shaking his head, he doesn’t give you more than a moment to suck in a breath before his hands leave your waist to hold your face. 
“So much goddamn talkin’, sweetheart,” the words are a heavy growl against your lips in between heavier kisses, “Think I need to remind you of some things and put those thoughts out of your mind, yeah?” 
Your whole body felt hot, flushed with desire and aching for whatever he was going to do to remind you, nodding before your tongue could catch up with your agreeing thoughts. 
“Let me show you.” Joel caged you in against the wall, broad shoulders blocking everything else out. 
The steady rise and fall of his chest became your focal point and new arousal sparked at his attentiveness, so easily able to soothe, to make you unravel for him. 
“Please, I want you so much.” Your softly sighed plea turned into a whine when you were crushed to his chest again and this time there were no reservations to the embrace.
He was so good at this, making you burn for him so often you wondered sometimes how you were able to get anything done.
Hungry fingers pushed the collar of his flannel back, jeans already unbuttoned for your wandering attention to latch onto and he encouraged it with a push of his hips against yours. 
It’s an easy movement, dropping to your knees like you’ve done a hundred times before to see how just a simple kiss already had him stiff and straining against denim, teasing the kind of thickness you so badly wanted to fill your throat with. 
Your mouth watered, fingers outstretched to wrap around hot skin the moment his cock was free, unable to stop yourself now. Joel’s rough sigh following the steady pump of your hands made you glance up, meeting the intensity of his gaze and you held it there for a moment before your tongue was tasting him. 
“Look at you...already have it in your mouth like the quick learner you are,” He hissed through his teeth and you could feel where he throbs against the hollow of your cheek. 
Pride swells in your chest from the praise, knowing the tone of his voice meant the restrained edge of patience from letting you tease him back was slipping.
You could feel it in the flex of muscle underneath your hands where they’re braced on his thighs and you hoped he was proud watching your lips stretch around him, head bobbing nice and easy the way you know he liked it.
You’re unconcerned with being neat about it, slicking him up with your mouth and still trying to take him deeper, trying to take all of him in fact. 
You liked to flirt with dreams of your nose being pressed snug against Joel’s pelvis, wanted to feel him through your entire chest even if burned because there was sweetness in being deprived of oxygen like that. Call it an unwavering trust. 
You gave in to the feeling and kept your eyes focused upwards on him, trying to relax your jaw despite all the anticipation, happy to let him take control. 
“That’s it, that’s my girl. Stay just like that.” 
Listening is hardly even a thought when you’ve hung onto his every word, every movement, not minding the strain in your jaw as he rocked his hips into the wet heat of your mouth. Tongue swirling over his shaft, the thick head of him, desperate to earn it, to make him curse and growl out your name. 
The pressure of his fingers against your jaw and then the back of your head had you moaning, trying to speak while he fucks your mouth. 
“P-please, make me take it.” Your heart lept with each languid thrust of his hips sliding deep so he could feel the softening of your throat.
He’d give you whatever you asked for when you whimpered like that. 
Firm and sweet was his grip, raspy grunts and cursed out praises that flowed from his mouth even sweeter to your ears as your tongue slid over the soft, sensitive head of his cock and back down the length of him. 
You’re insatiable and any anxious thoughts still rattling around in your mind were quickly fading, replaced with his touch, his smell, his taste. The salty smear on your taste buds had you pressing your thighs together, craving relief.
“Good girl, yeah that’s it. Startin’ to understand now, sweetheart?” 
Your head tipped forward and the only response you could give was a heady moan, doing your best to nod knowing how much he’d like seeing that, the tears already welling along your lashes from the effort but you didn’t mind.
Knowing you made him tip his head back, a heavy palm braced against the wall above your head while he grunted out curses and filthier praise made you feel a dozen more times ravenous, encouraging him to keep going with sloppy, wet whimpers that were barely held back from your kiss swollen lips, stretched over every thick inch of him you could take. 
“Love watching you choke on it, honey. Fuck that's good, show me how much you can fit.” 
The sight of him is something you hoped to never forget, searching for and finding the slight snarl of his lips when the tip hits the back of your mouth and the flex of his biceps when you slide your tongue around to lick the underside of him. 
Joel could barely hold himself back, the urge to bury himself in your throat almost overwhelming but he wanted more than that, he wanted to reward you for listening so well, for how much you make him feel.  
It had been building all day and he knew you had to feel it too. He was loath to pull you off his cock, an ache through his chest at your desperate cries from the loss of contact but he was quick to remedy that with a searing kiss.  
You melt and are grateful your knees are already on the floor when your tongue meets his. It was so messy, hungry and neither of you cared. 
“Get on the bed. Go on, darlin’.” Joel’s voice sounded like warm syrup, covering you in adoring instruction, taking you and leading you where he knows is best. 
And god do you love when he was in this mood, nothing but a filthy edge to his affections. 
So you complied, ignoring the twinge in your tummy as you moved to the bed, sprawling out across sheets that smell like the both of you. 
He watches you get comfortable, loosening a few buttons and those jeans finally discarded on the floor before the distance is closed and he’s all over you. 
Every touch and caress was intentional as he undresses like he’s unwrapping a present, greedy for all of you but so passionate, so easily able to steal your breath at the same time, slowing down the tempo now that your legs have fallen open and there’s nothing left covering you. 
“Prettiest fuckin’ pussy…and she’s all mine.” Joel admires you for a moment, firm hands tickling your thighs while his thumbs circled the soft, sensitive junction of your thigh so close to where you wanted him most. 
The praise has you sighing breathlessly, peeking down to see the way he was looking at where you glisten, a sureness to his features that made you feel safe all while the clench of his jaw sent goosebumps across your arms.
You want to echo that he’s right but he doesn’t let you have the chance, a broad palm sliding down over the hair covering your mound, tugging at it gently before two thick fingers are swirling over your folds. 
Muscles jolting, you were rocking up into a touch that is so expert and familiar you are helpless against it.
“Joel, oh! That feels so good,” You’re panting, trying to catch your breath while your body responds to the tight circles he was rubbing against your clit.
“Yeah? ‘Can tell. You’re so slick, honey. Did suckin’ me off get you this worked up?” 
Your nod is pure reflex, hips grinding against his movements needing to chase the pleasure that was slowly oozing its way into your system. 
It’s only something he can do and he’s so steady, so thorough with you even as you squirm, those two fingers now stroking at your entrance eliciting sounds that sparked heat in your cheeks and spread down to your chest. 
You want to be as connected to him as you can, almost pleading for him to sink inside you already just desperate to feel completely surrounded by him. 
And Joel can’t seem to grasp enough of you under his hands, gone for the way you cling to him as he fits his middle finger inside, marveling at the way your walls take him in. 
He would never get over your strangled little cry at being stretched around his knuckles. 
“I asked a question, lemme hear you.” He spoke a little more loosely, his Texan drawl slightly heavier now. 
“Yes, yes,” you’re remembering yourself after a moment, “Fuck, yes I love sucking your dick.” 
The words are shameless, falling from your lips as a promise, a proclamation that you know he feels the weight of when he leans in to kiss you again, muffling your sounds while he slides a second finger in alongside the first that’s filling you so perfectly. 
Any concept of time or day is somewhere in the background muted, far away and suddenly you know you’re right where you should be, right where you belong, no traces of anxious thoughts lurking any longer.   
You could sink into these sensations now, enjoying how his kisses had moved to your neck exploring the sensitive spots and smiling against your skin when a new one is found because he loves feeling you clench around him when he does. 
It’s a gift to Joel, being able to draw out this kind of bliss in you. 
He wanted you to feel good, wanted to be the one to make your world shatter and then piece it back together again when you came down to the ground. 
Your eyes rolled shut when he plunged deeper, the pads of his fingers massaging at your walls in tandem with what his mouth was doing between the valley of your chest and further down to where your stomach fluttered. 
Somewhere in the haze of it all you realize his mouth was at your thighs, the white hot touch of his lips closing around a stretch of supple flesh bringing another wave of heat before he’s licking gently, bruising a mark into your skin that only he will know is there later. 
“I could spend hours like this, you know that? Could have you makin’ such a pretty mess all over my hands, all over our bed…and I know you love when I do this.” Joel husks before he’s finally tasting you properly. 
He starts at your clit, tongue flattened against you in anticipation of the inevitable flex of your legs, determined to keep you right where he wants and you’re already so far gone for him and this moment that your head tilts back against the pillows in a gasp. 
You feel almost weightless as you succumb to the pleasure and how he presses his mouth into your pussy like he wants to devour it. You’re sure you’d let him swallow you whole if it kept feeling like this. 
It’s not even a question really, you know you would, until you’re between sinew and bone and part of him forever. 
The plunge and curl of his fingers combined with the flick of his tongue had you panting, heat skittering across your body while your hips circled on their own accord.
“More! Please, Joel!” It’s a chant and a sob all rolled in one and you don’t care how needy it sounds. 
He keeps going, lapping at your sex greedily until you’re clenching down around his fingers and your toes are curling, crying out for him not to stop as you hurtle towards the cliff’s edge.
Skin dewy and alive, you decide that you don’t want to spare anything, not when he’s watching you as hungrily as he eats. 
You give him all your sounds, all your pleas, handing him your body and your heart at once. 
It’s amazing how it doesn’t take long for him to have you so close, right at the precipice, forgoing his own breaths to keep pace, to give you what your body is singing out for and when you finally let go, when your orgasm is finally coaxed from you he only presses his face into you further, drawing out every bit of pleasure he could in hopes of seeing that soft sweet look in your eyes afterwards.
“Attagirl, doin so well.” The words are a tether. 
He’d take care of you and that’s perhaps what made it so easy to surrender yourself to the passion of the moment knowing it would linger long after you were both spent. 
“Mmm you should see yourself right now,” Joel hummed, licking his lips while you attempted to catch your breath, “I always want you, don’t forget that yeah?” 
The last part catches your attention through the curtain of bliss, a serious shift in his tone telling you that he meant every word; you had no reason to second guess yourself over your desires and he was making sure of that. 
You nodded and sat up to reach for him, nevermind how you still trembled, your desire to be close to him was stronger than ever now. 
“I need you, Joel! Please, I’ve been so good…” Your words tug at him, you can tell they do by the way he ruts his hips against the edge of the bed. 
He crushed his mouth to yours before you could finish speaking, a much welcome relief, the burning flame inside you quelled for a moment. 
“Sure have been, honey and I think good girls should be rewarded.” He nipped at your ear, stealing your breath with his words. 
And even further when his flannel joined his jeans on the floor, climbing back onto the bed to follow the path of your body with his own, framing your limbs and wrapping you up in his embrace like you were made to fit against his chest. 
Your legs fall open again to wrap around his waist as he settles some of his weight down against your hips, just giving you a taste, calling back memories and reminding you, funnily enough, of that novel you were reading earlier. 
It felt like you were suddenly amongst the pages, chest heaving, your core tender and dripping as the man of your dreams was about to show you how much you’re his in every way.
Fairytales didn’t exist in this world but you felt like you were in one right now.
A giddy and timid smile spread across your face when Joel trailed warm hands down your body, catching on the bend of your elbow, wrapping around your ribcage to settle on the crest of your ass as he puts more of his weight down and uses his shoulders to nudge your legs apart and back towards your chest. 
The air felt thicker but your breathing seemed to even out, everything in your body thrumming with energy and an intensity neither of you could ignore any longer. 
Reaching down between your bodies you wrap a hand around where he’s thick and throbbing, guiding him closer with a soft smile, feeling how heavy he hangs in your hand, fingers pinching his skin when he rocks against your folds, the dirty sounds of his cock gliding through your stickiness. 
Joel groans against your forehead, holding himself steady as your hips buck into his touch, the tip pressing against your entrance and finally, slowly, sinking inside. 
Your moans are twined together in the quiet room. The stretch makes you keen, hands fumbling and grasping at strong shoulders, grateful he lets you have a moment to adjust. 
But it’s not long before you’re squirming again, whining for him to go deeper, to fill you to the hilt and he made good on his promises to do exactly that. 
He keeps your hips tilted up with the press of his palm underneath you, meeting little resistance the more he splits you open and it does something to him to see how much of a mess you are and he’s barely fucked you yet. 
“You can do it, know you can…there you go.” Joel pulls back to give a shallow thrust, lips brushing your temple and a hand coming up to cradle your cheek. 
The drag of his cock against your walls was everything, steady thrusts building up the tension coiling in your belly, fantasies from your novel melding with reality.
You felt like you were floating, your toes pointing when he changed the angle, brushing against a spot that had you crying out, ankles trying to lock around his torso.
Pressing heavier and faster with his hips however, your legs stay spread, the beginnings of a tremble rippling through your muscles now that he’s caught on. 
His pace remained measured and deep, just the way you were begging for it, and he’s content to watch your brows pinch, your jaw slacken, content to hear every gasp of air and pretty sobs  mixed in with your moans driving him crazy every time they slip from clenched teeth. 
“Shit, I love watching you take me like this.” He cooed. 
You can feel the heavy slap of his balls colliding with your ass when he pounds into you again and soon your hands slip from sweaty skin, scratching down his chest to pull at the sheets, so overwhelmed with feeling but never wanting it to stop.
“Daddy...Please, please keep going.”
You’re so caught up in the moment you don’t realize you’ve said it out loud, glassy eyes moving up from where you were trying to peek between your bodies to meet Joel’s careful gaze, only half registering how they widen for a moment. 
He’s taken aback for just a second, almost questioning whether he heard it correctly but something’s been knocked loose within him now, his cock twitching from the reverence and adoration in your tone, bestowing him with a title he suddenly wanted to earn. 
Joel was a grown man and had lived through many hells to be able to have you bare and underneath him like this, he reasoned he deserved to have a little fun in the bedroom especially when he hadn’t expected to be so affected.
“Ah so that’s what you’ve been reading in that book of yours. Just wanted Daddy to fuck you all day is that it, sweetheart? Yeah, I gotcha now.” He rasped low against the crook of your neck and started to fuck you harder. 
His grip on you was less gentle but still just as passionate, the force of his thrusts stealing your ability to think properly. He wanted to make you say it again. 
The burning in your cheeks only subsided a little at his acceptance, more heat flooding you from head to toe at being called out, wondering how he knew it was something you read in your novel, if it had been that obvious. 
It didn’t matter now, you see where his dark eyes have narrowed, ready to make you come again with this newfound discovery. 
So you try and be good for him while you moan and clench down on his length, your pussy swollen and aching but tingling for everything he could give you, “Yes, daddy! Just…oh! I couldn’t help it. Thank you, daddy!” 
He knows you’re close, a familiar frenzy to your breathing, the slick wet sounds between your legs, it’s everything he dreams of and more, torn between watching your face as you come or watching the way his cock shines with your release. 
With a few more strokes and the soft rubbing of his thumb against your clit you shatter, face pressing against the meat of his shoulder while you ride it out, feeling weightless in his embrace. 
It makes you giggle when you can’t keep your head up any longer, neck lolling back against the pillow where he cradles your head in his hands, keeping you in place as he finds his own release swiftly after yours, pulling out to cover your puffy folds in hot ropes of his come. 
You would never tire of being made a mess, even if you knew you’d be sore tomorrow, nothing quite ever beat the feeling of being fucked out like the way Joel could have you.
“Baby…” you’re breathless and bursting with emotion, “Thank you for that. Think I really needed it,” You laugh against his chest and sigh.
You’re almost too nervous still to look at him after your slip of the tongue but you know deep down there’s nothing you have to be worried about. 
“Of course, honey. Anytime, and I mean that.” 
You’re not sure how much time has passed, drifting in and out of a dreamy slumber still cradled against Joel, only now you realize you’ve been cleaned up and tucked under the covers but you don’t mind, you know you can simply lay here and soak it all in, he would take care of you. 
Racing thoughts no longer buzz around in your head, all you can feel and see is Joel and you smile to yourself knowing the intimacy you just shared still lingered in your body, love etched in your fingertips where they’re laced in his hand against his stomach. 
His lips press against your temple and you close your eyes again letting yourself be swept away with the sweet drawl of an “I love you.” in your ears and the gentle evening sun warming you both.
A/N: This was actually lowkey inspired by that scene where Joel is leading Ellie, Henry and Sam down the street after they come out of the tunnels and Joel just shakes his head and goes “so much goddamn talkin’.’ while looking like an annoyed father because they’re all being too loud…got very hung up on that bit of dialogue and could not let it go so here we are!
Also hope I added the daddy kink bit here in tastefully, it’s a fave of mine and I struggled a bit to think of how to incorporate it in a way that felt real for Joel so I only just dipped my toe in with it here but I hope you liked it! 👀
Thank you for reading <3
some no pressure tags! 💫 @eupheme @ozarkthedog @moreofem @tinydramatist @black-fairy3 @federalchickensoup @fluffyprettykitty @persona-enthusiast @moonstruksandco @ghotifishreads @communism-bitches
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nathaslosthershit · 9 months ago
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Long Distance (LN4)
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Summary: Long distance relationships are hard, especially when they both have very time consuming careers
Warnings; Angst (a whole lot), no happy ending in this part (will happen in pt 2)
Request: hi!! requesting a lando norris x female uni!reader if possible reader being a medical student or a one of the engineers on the paddock 🧍🏻‍♀️
Lando wasn’t known for being the smartest on the grid. He, like many other drivers, had only a few years of school to his name. But that still hadn’t stopped him from being able to somehow ‘woo’ a woman quite the opposite. 
His girlfriend was currently in her last year of medical school. While he was unbelievably proud of how far she had come, the difficulties of long distance have gotten to both of them, and there wasn’t much hope once she graduated and was off to a medical training program. With her studying for finals and Lando being off to a new country every two weeks for Grand Prixs, their relationship has been rocky to say the least.
Constant lack of communication and missing each other's calls had led them to have tons of unspoken dialogue. Each unanswered call created the smallest bit of resentment that just continued to grow and grow. 
No more sweet ‘goodmorning’ or ‘goodnight’ texts, no more wishing her well before a big test, no more sending ‘good luck baby!’ before qualifying. Just a few ‘how are you doing?’ and other bland messages you’d send to a coworker, not your significant other. 
After weeks of little communication, they had finally scheduled a ‘zoom date’. Not particularly the most romantic date they had been on, but it's the best they could do with their schedules. Lando called in late at night for him while his girlfriend had a lunch break in between labs. Time zones be damned.
Lando was 25 minutes late leaving only 35 minutes to actually talk to one another.
Her wifi was spotty so it kept freezing.
Finally, with only 5 minutes left, Lando decided to make a joke that there is no reason for her to continue going to labs, as he would be happy to be her ‘sugar daddy’. This was not very well received by his girlfriend, who responded with a quick “fuck you” and hung up early.
Lando was joking, a bit. He loved his girlfriend and saw a future with her, he just couldn’t stand long distance and any job in the medical field was bound to take up most of your time. He wanted her, but he also wanted someone who could be by his side on race day. That just wasn’t something that was possibly currently. 
He supported her. He loved to brag about how smart she was and how she was so dedicated to helping people. But that came with setbacks.
After a quick message from Lando (‘I was kidding darling. You know how proud I am of you. Lighten up a little, yeah?’), which she ignored, she was off to her labs in a worse mood than before. Things couldn’t go on like this. 
He hadn’t heard from her in three days. His “how are you, love?” and “Miss you lots. Hope your class is going better than my neck training :(“ went unanswered. She knew she was being petty, but maybe a relationship was just too hard for her life currently. 
After three long and stressful days of silence, she called him. With no message asking what she needed to speak about, Lando feared he already knew.
“We can’t keep doing this” She said after they quickly exchanged a ‘hi, how are you?’ ‘I'm good, how are you?’. 
“Baby, I told you it was just a-”
“I know that Lando! It's just that this isn’t the first time you have mentioned me quitting my career to be your housewife or whatever unrealistic idea you have stuck in your head.”
“I don’t need you to be a housewife! I don’t want that for you. I just try to let you know that you don’t need to worry about your future as much because I will always be there to help you.”
“But I want a career! I want to work hard so I can have a good future. You need to get it into your head that your career isn’t the only important one.”
“I don’t think that! Me wanting to let you know that I support you no matter what isn't diminishing your career plans! It would be nice if you started to show a little more support. I am so sick and tired of all our conversations revolving around you and how your day was. If classes are rough, or you are stressed, you don’t respond to me. I never know where I land with you. But god forbid I try to mention how hard my day was. I am just as sick of it.”
She didn’t know how to respond. It seems that all the times she has been more focused on how she was feeling she completely forgot to check on how he was doing. Before she can even muster out an apology, Lando jumps back in.
“Maybe you are right. I don’t think I can do this either. Not anymore.” He feels his stomach dropping as he says the words, not fully meaning them.
There is a long silence, moments where she wants to apologize, to try and reconcile. In that moment all of the good memories of their relationship come flashing back to her, as if her mind is begging her to do something. But she doesn’t. 
“Then I guess this is it.” She finally says. 
“I guess so.”
Part 2 out now!
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thankskenpenders · 1 year ago
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Amy's fortune cards
The Sonic fandom has long been the kind of fandom that takes minor details very seriously, for better or worse. On the one hand, this means fans will really dig for the diamonds in the rough, latching onto fun character interactions, animations, bits of background worldbuilding, and more in pieces of Sonic media that many would write off as "the bad ones." But it also feels like every week another needlessly hostile debate over Sonic minutia erupts on Twitter, whether it's over individual lines of dialogue, fanart that makes Tails' shoes blue, or the ideal length and volume for Sonic's quills.
So it was probably inevitable that a fandom-wide debate would erupt upon seeing Amy's new gameplay style in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, which takes the once-obscure fact that she enjoys reading tarot and shines a spotlight on it like never before.
I mean:
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The thing is, while I basically always try to tune out Sonic fandom bickering... for once, I kind of sympathize with the detractors? Don't get me wrong, I like Amy's tarot stuff, and people on all sides of the discussion are being overly nasty about their opinions, as usual. (Sonic Twitter remains my personal hell.) But when I set aside the hyperbole and zoom out, I do think I understand why some fans are put off by the sudden shift in focus for the character, even if I think it's cool.
It's complicated. Let me attempt to present the cases for and against Amy's fortune cards
For years, I was always one of those fans who thought it could be fun if they played with Amy's tarot reading, or even leaned into some kind of magic with her. Part of that is my own biases showing, but there's just something that makes sense there, especially when you look at Sonic, Tails, and Amy as a trio. (I would argue that's the real "Team Sonic" these days, especially in the comics where Knuckles is more likely to be stuck on Angel Island or otherwise doing his own thing.)
You could argue that Tails is all about logic, relying on science and technology and deductive reasoning to solve problems. But Amy is all about emotion. She wears her heart on her sleeve, is extremely empathetic, and is very prone to magical thinking - both figuratively and sometimes literally. Her origin story has always been that her tarot cards told her it was her destiny to meet Sonic on Little Planet. She's claimed to be able to "sense" peoples' presences - particularly Sonic's. She's the type to believe that The Power of Love is a literal magical force. So, on some level, it makes sense to mirror Tails's science by having Sonic's other best friend believe in magic. And then Sonic is somewhere in the middle, primarily following his own gut instincts but taking advice from both of them as needed. This isn't totally accurate to how their dynamics actually function in canon stories, but I think it's a mode that could work for them.
Going off of that, it's fun to lean all the way into Amy being a magical girl, or even a witch, using her fortune telling as a foundation. Take, for example, this version of Amy from Diana Skelly's old Sonic cast redesigns from before she freelanced for Archie and IDW. This is one of MANY such redesigns for Amy.
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Fast forward to the 2020s, and Amy's tarot cards are, in fact, finally getting brought up again in canon. Which is fun! I like seeing that. I like all of the individual stories involving Amy's fortune cards. This is a fun character trait for Amy, a fun nod to old lore, AND a fun storytelling device, all in one. It's really cool that the Sonic universe has its own thematically appropriate arcana, and that the cards are getting made as physical merch. And sure enough, the official card backs and borders were designed by none other than Diana Skelly, in yet another cool example of an ascendant fan leaving their mark on the series.
BUT... when you step back and look at the big picture, I get why some fans find this shift in focus jarring. At the moment, it's starting to feel like every new story about Amy involves her fortune cards to some degree.
The most recent mainline comic arc to feature Amy as the lead character, 2021's Trial by Fire arc, prominently features a sequence where she reads fortunes while camping with the girls. The Origins version of Sonic CD now bookends the game with scenes of Amy and her tarot cards. Sonic randomly mentioned it in a scene in Frontiers. And now, just this week, we got the (very cute, gorgeously illustrated) Amy's 30th Anniversary comic with a story revolving around Amy's tarot cards, followed the very next day by the Frontiers DLC in which she gets a brand new tarot-based moveset. Even her base melee attack now has her throwing tarot cards instead of swinging her hammer. Again, I like all of these individual things, but after years of it almost never coming up at all, it's VERY noticeable that Amy's tarot cards are suddenly everywhere.
To be fair, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a superfan who's actively following ALL Sonic media. Casual fans - especially kids - aren't necessarily going to be reading the comics every month, buying the thousandth rerelease of the Genesis games, or playing the ultra-hard new alternate ending DLC for a game that came out last year. Each of these stories is going to be someone's introduction to the idea that Amy can read tarot, and that's probably part of the idea behind this unified push.
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But to play devil's advocate, for my fellow superfans, I understand why it feels like a very minor footnote of Amy's character is suddenly becoming the entire focus of her personality. While Amy has always been said to enjoy fortune telling, that wasn't really a character trait in and of itself, but rather an example of her being a typical girl who hopes she'll be able to find true love one day. It's less that Amy can literally predict the future and more like her using a cootie catcher or going "he loves me, he loves me not" while picking the petals off of a flower. So I get not vibing with this stuff, or feeling like it's being pushed very hard out of nowhere.
What I don't agree with are comparisons like "it's like if they made Knuckles' moveset revolve around him liking grapes." Like, I get it. Ian Flynn loves shoehorning in his little winking references for us nerds, and mentions of Amy's tarot cards were previously on the same level as other random bullet points from old Japanese manuals. But a multifaceted hobby like fortune telling that opens up so many narrative and aesthetic possibilities is obviously very different from having a favorite food. It's ALWAYS been a part of her story, not just a random fact, and there's no reason why the fortune telling can't be elevated to something more.
And, hell, even if it wasn't an established character trait, there's nothing inherently wrong with injecting new ideas into a character. One of the best Amy stories in recent years, the Free Comic Book Day special "Amy's New Hobby" written by Gale Galligan, came up with the idea that Amy's secretly been drawing little comics about her and her friends. Is this based on Lore? No. But it's cute, and helps tell the story of a younger Amy who's still coming out of her shell as both a hero and a friend.
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Certain fans are also looking at Amy's Frontiers moveset and using it as evidence that once again the Vile American Contributors like Ian are CORRUPTING Sonic Team's perfect vision of Sonic with their misinterpretations. And like. Come on. Ian does not control the gameplay. He's a freelance writer. The tarot stuff is clearly something that Sonic Team likes if they made it the basis of Amy's new moveset - and, you know, if they keep approving comics and animations about Amy's fortune telling. None of this gets made without their blessing, and lord knows how much they can micromanage shit and shoot down ideas over the most minor of details.
Like, yeah, Amy's fortune telling was probably conceived less as a sign that she Knows Magic and more as a pretty mundane hobby for a lovesick young Japanese girl to have. But you're gonna sit there and tell me that using Amy's tarot cards for more than that could only be the result of a cultural misunderstanding? That nobody in Japan uses tarot card theming and aesthetics (or the general idea of magical cards) for the cool factor? Stardust Crusaders? Persona? The Astrologian class in FFXIV? Cardcaptor Sakura?? Hello??? Do you think Capcom put Gambit in Marvel vs. Capcom ironically because they thought using magic to throw cards at people was stupid? There's tons of precedent for this! It's nothing like Knuckles throwing grapes at people, be for real.
Giving Amy a very magical girl-esque moveset also just makes a lot of sense. For decades her hammer attacks have literally made sparkly heart shapes appear around her. Leaning into both that and her tarot cards in her new moveset makes a lot of sense to me.
But, admittedly... I do think it's very odd that her hammer is treated as a secondary element here, rather than having her primarily use her hammer and adding the cards for extra flair. If hitting the attack button made her swing her hammer instead of throwing cards, I'm not sure we'd even be having this discussion right now.
But the tarot-cycle and Amy riding her hammer like a witch's broom are fucking SICK and I will not concede on this point
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The thing is, this whole fortune card discourse is but a small piece of a bigger problem. Amy's been a character who needed some work for ages, but there's basically nothing you can do with her without pissing SOMEONE off.
Years of stories where Amy's crush was her primary motivator and Sonic went "Ew, cooties!" have lead many casual fans to believe that being Sonic's obsessive fangirl is Amy's entire personality. At best people might call her Sonic's Minnie Mouse. This isn't just a matter of Amy having haters within the fandom - venture outside of that bubble and you'll realize that this is how MOST video game playing people seem to see her to this day. I don't feel like this is a fair assessment of the character, but this idea didn't come from nowhere. No matter how much good deeply entrenched Sonic fans may see in their old dynamic where Amy perpetually chases Sonic, this is a very real problem that Sonic Team has to contend with for their leading girl. Of course all those games where the way-past-cool protagonist thought Amy was annoyingly clingy and tried to get away from her made people think less of her.
If new stories were to go back to emphasizing Amy's crush on Sonic a little more, they'd probably be taken as confirmation that Amy's just the girl with a crush on Sonic and that this is her entire personality. Conversely, when the crush is played down, you piss off the hardcore SonAmy fans who don't seem to understand that they're Charlie Brown and Sega is Lucy holding the football. You can't win.
And so here we are. In the absence of what was once her defining trait, now reduced to an occasional blush or wink in Sonic's direction, new stories are trying to mine Amy's past for additional material to work with. Having been a thing fans wanted to see for years, right now we're getting a lot of tarot, but we're also getting reminders of her compassionate nature and her desire to go out of her way to help the little guy. This is an ongoing process. I continue to hope that her bubbly, exuberant demeanor can shine more in future stories. Now, I also hope that the tarot stuff gets balanced out a little better with other traits of hers. But I don't want it to go away. I think it's fun.
This course correcting is far from exclusive to Amy. Knuckles is getting stories that remind us that he's a competent fighter, an experienced treasure hunter, and even a self-taught archaeologist after years of him being perceived as either the dumb one or just the guy who stands in front of the Master Emerald all day. And Tails has been getting some stories reminding folks that he's a capable hero in his own right and not just Sonic's timid kid sidekick.
But no supporting character will ever compete with the sheer number of new ideas Sega has tried with Sonic himself. Like Amy, his Frontiers moveset has also given him half a dozen new superpowers that he never had before, from the Cyloop to air-slicing projectile attacks to his own take on Shadow Clone Jutsu and beyond. He's also been a hoverboarder, a swordsman, a time traveler, an Olympic athlete, a racecar driver, cursed with a Flame of Judgment, imbued with alien power, a fucking Werehog with stretchy powers, and on and on and on.
If Sonic can do all that, Amy can try out using a tarot-cycle.
Anyway TL;DR the REAL problem with Amy's current characterization... is where the FUCK is Amy's bestie, Honey the Cat???????
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