#Line caught rock fish

[diejager]

Saccharine and Monstrosity pt.1

Pairing: Eldritch Horror!König x mermaid!reader

Cw: kidnapping, manipulation, DARK FIC, trap, luring, mention of breeding kink, protective König, mention of partial nudity, hunting, tell me if I missed any. Wc: 4K

I got inspired by @konigsblog ‘s post.

You enjoyed the sun as much as any other betta fish mermaid, laying on the warm rocks and bathing under the bright, yellow sun. You lived in a school of fish that moved near the shores of a tropical island a few generations before, building houses under the coral reef and rocks where newly placed branches would grow and work as a natural shield. The world you lived in - the part of the ocean you called your home - was bright and colourful, the shallow waters clear and gleaming under the warming sun.

You liked all things bright and colourful, either big or small, you decorated your part of the cave with things you found while swimming around your territory. Be it a golden coin shining on the ocean floor, or a shard of coloured glass, you picked it all up and stuck it around your room. Sometimes, you found pretty things near the limits of your home, and other times, you ventured closer to the edge of the darkness when something shiny caught your attention. 

Over the ridge of sand that drew the start of the darkness, that deep and menacing slope down to the deepest part of your ocean, where darker, meaner and cruel beings born of cruelty and madness lived. It was somewhere all mers were warned of, to stay far away from the darkness and never stray from the light that fed and protected you. You thrived in the light, your body absorbing the warmth from the sun that made your scales vibrant and feeding from the fauna and flora that lived beside you: seaweeds and small fishes. 

Your kind grew up with stories of horrifying monsters and cruel creatures that lived in that abyss, lingering near the shallow to catch a pretty, little mer for their hoard. Whatever became of the taken was still unknown, once a mer was taken by One, no one would hear from them from then on. Your parents had warned you about straying too close from the shallow, daring fate when you swam over the ridge to collect those pretty gems you fancied so much.

“Don’t worry,” you’d grin at her, fins flickering behind you. “I’m a fast swimmer, mom!”

You were a fast swimmer, slipping between rocks and corals, hands cradling your little shells while you fled from the dark, twisting over the ridge and vanishing between the corals. That’s what you did most days, picking up people’s trash to make it your treasure, fingers cleaning the sand off the holes and crevasses before sticking them to your walls. You also tinkered with metal creations you found, a silver fork or a rusted-looking instrument. 

Granted, you joined in hunts, catching sardines and herrings, claws digging into its scaled bodies and teeth ripping into its flesh, the only other taste being sea salt, or bathed under the sun, but you preferred scavenging for loot. Although mers hunted alone, most found it easier to do it in groups, swarming shoals of fish and catching in a group of a dozen at a time for your little colony. So when you were fed and rested, you were back out, treading the line between the shallow and the abyss.

You swam slowly, head turning left and right for anything that would catch your attention, for that small glint hidden under a thin veil of sand or a long metallic object sticking out from the ground. You already had a few things in your arms, a few shells, human objects thrown overboard or floated into the sea, and small treasures: white pearls. You picked things up from both sides, mind in a comfortable and pleasant space, prideful of your catch so far that you were oblivious of the eyes following your colourful body. 

His pale eyes wandered over your puffy cheeks and sweet lips, those squinted eyes in mirth as you searched for more. He went down the curve of your shoulders and the swell of your breasts, perky nipples covered by pretty shells, over your soft stomach and that bright, colourful tail of yours that first caught his attention. Every scale glistened under the sun, reflecting the light on the sand while you swam, your fins curving with the twist of your tail. 

You were the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, an angel collecting treasure, just like he did. He saw the batch in your arms, clutched between your breasts when you dove to pick something up on his side. You were as adorable and innocent as you were pretty, your action oblivious of his predatory eyes, dipping into his territory without fear of retribution on his part. He liked that bold and daring attitude of yours, fitting for someone so courageously bright and flashing your bold colours to him. 

If he were to drop something closer to him, would you still swim towards it or ignore it for something closer to the ridge? If he hid until you were close enough, would he be able to wrap his limb around you? To feel your soft skin and coarse scales under his slimy arm. He was glad he decided to hunt today, searching for both prey - mer or fish, he isn’t picky about what he ate - and treasure. Hidden under a couple of tentacles, he dropped a golden coin a few feet away from him, his veil and the darkness helping him hide from your sight. 

His heart soared when he saw your eyes widen, a smile curling at the corners of your lips when you saw his little coin, diving towards him with enthusiasm. You were so close to him, hand stretching to grab the object with small, clawed fingers. When you held it in your hand, appraising it, he felt pride bubble in his chest, rising to his mind as he took this occasion to get his arm around you. You flinched when he wrapped the tip of his tentacle around your tail, squirming around in terror. In a panicked struggle to escape him, you dropped everything you’d collected and fled from him with a cry.

He watched you swim away from him through saddened eyes, hearing the thudding from the things you dropped, even the coin he gifted you. His eyes never left your fleeing body until you jumped over the edge, your tail the last thing he saw in that moment of self-deprivation and sadness. He hoped you’d come back, forgetting the fear of his sudden attention and daring fate once more.

He came the next day and the day after that, but you weren’t there, your precious smile and happy eyes were a memory in his mind, a fleeting moment in his gloomy world. He came back every day, hiding in the darkness, on the line between pitch darkness and light shading. He wished you were there every day, his eyes bleeding with optimism and hope for a single smidgen of bright colours. 

He hadn’t seen you in the following week. His shoulders slumped and caved into himself in sadness every time he came by, his blue eyes dulling bit by bit, that hopeful thinking drowning under realistic thinking and a pessimistic mind. Then he caught a glimpse of colour against the white sand. Before long, he saw arms filled with shiny items, trailing nearer to your side than his, but still chasing for treasures. 

If he wanted to approach you, to touch your soft-looking skin and run his arms over your scaled tail, he’d have to find a way to lure you in. He watched you the first few days, his tentacles curling on itself and burying himself in the sand, the hundreds of suckers searching for buried treasures to leave for you. When you turned your back to him, his unwinding arm left the things he found near the ridge for you to find and take. Little gifts for you, courting gifts he left and gifted you in an attempt to woo you. 

You were skittish and fleeing but took all his gifts with shaky smiles and grateful eyes, you knew he gave them to you. Of course, you did, you were his brave and smart little mermaid, approaching his offerings with apprehension - he felt hurt you feared and got nervous around him, but he understood you, his kind ate yours - and scanned the sand around you for any danger before crossing the line. He felt giddy when you added them to your stack, his mind-blowing with dreams and thoughts of you decorating your little cave with the things he gave you. On the ceiling, against the wall and on the ground or surfaces, you would use the things he gave you for your home. 

It sent him up the walls of his caves with joy and excitement, his limbs curling to rearrange his home to prepare for you, to accommodate your arrival to his big, lonely home.

It took a week or two - or so he thought, his perception of time was and had always been warped in some way - before you became comfortable enough to approach him, to let him curl his slimy tentacle around your tail and up your body. He could finally feel you and it made him ecstatic - he was over the moon every time he got to touch you. Little pokes, fleeting squeezes and feathery bites from his suckers on your flesh, all things he let himself taste before your coupling. A coupling between the prettiest and the cruellest beings in the ocean would unwind the seams that made your worlds, pulling the string that separated the beauty and the beast in this cursed universe.

Granted, you hesitated to cross into the pitch darkness of the abyss, dancing just a few inches from his abode with an armful of trinkets from König. Your slow and steady breath, words you blessed him with when you muttered to him, calling out to know if he was there and your grateful grin were a common, yet welcome sight in his daily swim. While a bit reluctant to join him on the other side, you eventually swam across, your eyes melting into the black before you. You were unseeing as much as you were blind, if not for the guiding palm of the Eldritch creature that you befriended and the shine of treasure you saw around him. 

You wished you could see anything but the gleam of treasure and the black mist of the abyss, your hand wandered over his, searching for his body, to feel the one who’s been gifting you treasures. Your fingers trailed upwards, feeling the tightness of his muscles, the curves and hardness of his arms were sinful. You truly wished you could see him at this moment, but you kept at your advance, clawed fingers moving slowly with unbridled curiosity. When you reached his broad shoulders and well-pronounced chest, it rumbled, a purr coming from König. Its deep sound shook you with need, your tail enthusiastically moving back and forth as you listened to him. 

“Are you happy, Schatz?”

His voice was even better than his soft purrs, in a way that made you want to melt into his arms and never bother moving if he kept talking to you, the sound of the creature that gave you gifts and affection. König’s spine-chilling voice seemed like a mix of many voices, both soft and raspy, and both deep and smooth, but it was something you enjoyed, that you found yourself liking a bit too much. 

“Yes,” you breathed, eyes travelling skyward, towards the source of his voice.

Your breath caught in your throat, choking a gasp at the prettiest blues you’d seen staring down at you. They were majestic, gem-like with a pretty sheen that made them glow like a beacon of light. You wondered why you’d never seen them, seeing how bright his eyes were. They lit up his face, or the veil he wore over his face, showing the pale streak of makeshift tears down the incision he made for his eyes. You shamelessly admired him, unbothered by the lost puppy-like stare you gave him in your glowing beauty. 

You’d crossed a threshold, where a creature of light never dared to cross, stepping into the arms of an Old One and embracing their madness. Although you were oblivious to his intentions, the loud proclamation of his courting rituals and attempts of crying out his love - the Old One’s rituals and cultures were much of a mystery to those who didn’t study them, much of a taboo for anyone outside of delusion and greed - he hadn’t refrained from his deliberate show that would be nearly shameful and embarrassing to others of his kind. 

Some wouldn’t bother with such frivolous acts: confessions from the deepest part of their dark soul, proclamation of love and undying adoration, or having to scavenge for gifts - offerings - to the subject of their attention. His kind took and took, reaching for that small glimmer of hope and beauty and corrupted it, bending it to their liking and building something from the ashes. It wouldn’t - would never - be the same as they were before, but that was how the Old Ones liked it: control, corruption, ruin, madness and power.

König wouldn’t do that, he wanted to cherish you, add to what you were and watch it bloom like those bioluminescent creatures in the abyss; even against his creator’s wishes. He’ll put you on the highest pedestal he has, eternally imprinting the image of you as his most precious treasure into his mind. You’ll be a thing of miracles, a thing of blessings, a thing of new beginnings. He wanted all and everything with you, but he’d have to take it slow, to coax you into this redundant pattern that ensured your trust and comfort and have you follow him of your own volition. 

He doesn’t mind waiting, he’s had hundreds of years of sitting and waiting, patience was a virtue he grew to learn, to hold in his giant palm and clutch like a gift from the ever-growing, chaotic universe. He can wait and plan, so he will, König will lay down his plan and wait until he can bring it to reality.

Wait he did, for you to grow comfortable enough to follow him deeper and let him pull you in from your side. It took you a month of back and forth, squirming around your infatuation with König and exchanging trinkets, words and fleeting kisses with him. He adored your little giggles when he traced your sides with a bolt tentacle, curling under your plush tits and the tip sliding under your strap. He loved the pretty shells you gave him, cleaned from sand and any barnacles, it showed him how much time you spent on it for him. His heart bloomed and swelled to impossible heights when you pecked his lips, giving him shy and gentle kisses that he grew addicted to. 

You were so sweet and so soft, your lips the taste of heaven for a creature of madness. Your hands were gentle like a cool balm over a burn, soothing his wild thoughts. Your little gifts for him - reciprocating his affection - were currently the most important things in his cave, a sign of your love and devotion. It made him wonder what would you let him do once you gave yourself to him. Would you succumb to the everlasting pleasures he could give you, or would you demand to help him take care of his own in a mutual haze? He couldn’t help himself, letting his chaotic mind conjure the most absurd and erotic dreams, his body vibrating with excitement; and now, at the peak of your trust in him, he watched his plan - a well-placed trap - come to fruition. 

“Come, Schatz,” he beckoned you forward, his burly arm stretching to coax you to follow him, holding out his open palm to you. “I have something I want to show you. Pretty things.”

Without a thought, to question his intentions or to ask why he couldn’t have bought them for you like he usually did, you took his hand and let his fingers curl over yours, intertwining your smaller digits to his as he pulled you to his chest. His embrace was as safe and pleasant as the last one - yesterday - and caused a flurry of emotions to erupt in your chest, he was warm in the cool darkness, loving in all the ways you could think. You could close your eyes and imagine a smile rippling across his face with joyfully squinted eyes peering down at you. 

Held against his chest, his other arm wrapped around your waist with a firm squeeze of his hand where your skin turned to scales. He whispered sweet promises, words of encouragement to see the way to his home and excited explanations of what awaited you. Pretty things, he said, you knew what he meant - at least you think you did - you shared much in common, and pretty things were something you both agreed on: shiny metals, interesting trinkets, shimmering shells or finely-minted coins. All things humans valued before throwing away; one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. 

How unfortunate that you couldn’t see in the dark, yet how fortunate you wouldn’t know the way back, it was something he relied on heavily to keep you, if you didn’t know how to navigate in this utter blindness, there were no risks of you trying to escape his caring hand. You were smart, you wouldn’t simply venture off without knowing where to go and how to see, especially with how vast his territory was and how dangerous it was. He shared his home with other simple-minded animals, sharks, fishes, eels and any other abyssal creature that lived and depended on the dark to live. 

Your innocent curiosity about the things he deemed pretty enough to hoard made his heartbeat, that addicting feeling he got from touching you, kissing you and speaking to you. Even if the deeper he went, the colder it became, you never once complained, your wide eyes and grinning face were the only thing you gave him. He was truly relieved to know that you were patient and understanding of his home, not one hiss or pout while you shook and clung to him, depending on him for warmth. He liked that, to see you rely on him so much. 

“We’re here, mein Liebling,” he hushed, cradling your face as he dove down, through the entrance of his cave. He shielded your fragile body with his many arms, protecting you from the rush of water current flowing against him. He chose this one to build his nest, using the strong current as a natural barrier against weaker creatures. 

When the waters calmed to a still, he loosened his hold on you, unravelling his arms to let you explore the many passages and alcoves in his home. To accommodate you, he strung up bioluminescent flora, using them as light to find your way around, with silken algae over a few rocks to mimic the beds mers slept in and a few other things that he thought you’d need: a mirror, a few floating plants to add to its mystical beauty and clusters of soft materials in nearly every room. 

He let you wander, your tail flapping back and forth to lead you down the long hall and explore the many rooms. He used a room to sleep, one as a pantry and storage, and another one to hold his hoard, but he had a lot of empty and unused space, more than enough for you and your children to thrive. He wanted to let you roam at your own pace, but he had something to show you, something he was proud of making. 

He pulled you from your little cloud of joy, wrapping an arm around you, his sticky suckers latching onto you as he coaxed you his way. Only then had you taken the time to admire König under blue light, cheeks warm with a burning flush and doe-like eyes staring at the naked expense of his hard abdomen, stomach sculpted to perfection that had Adonis shying away. His arms were big and round, muscles straining the scarred skin with delicious appeal. 

Downwards, following the sharp dip of his navel, were dozens of dark tentacles lined with round, pulsing suckers. Like an octopus, they were covered in a slimy sheen, every limb flexible and able to move independently. The lower ones were thick and soft, acting as a cover for whatever he hid beneath them, while some were thinner, whose source came from under his veil. Those, however, were a mix of normal and horrific tentacles, some had eyes replacing the usual suckers, tinted in the same colour as his irises, that glowing, pale blue. 

It made your body heat up, fingers tingling with nerves - or was it? When faced with something you found appealing, it’d be natural to feel flustered, no? König thought so, that’s how he spent the first days reacting to you, heating up to a bothersome flush to everything you did. He watched your awed stare, that daydreaming haze in your eyes when you looked him over, his whole body clear under the gentle light in his cave. 

“This way.”

Without making your gaze leave his figure, he drew you in, heading towards his biggest room where he caught and strung everything to fit his pleasure and mood. It was somewhere deeper into the system with walls strong and sturdy, and the round ceiling higher than the other rooms. On one side was a pile of golden objects of all shades, light yellow to a darkish gold, nearly bronze; on the other was a mix of pretty silver things and metallic black objects, rusted by age and the salty ocean; and on another, the smallest of them all, comprised of a few dozens of colourful shells and corals frozen in time that you’d given him. 

He saw your chest expand, your smile growing brighter and brighter at the pile of gifts you gave him, your bubbly laugh as you swam towards it, twirling around it proudly. You looked around the room, admiring his large collection and how it seemed to spill down every pile in an attempt to reach the other one, forming a protective ring around your presents, but always coming back to the bright pink, blue and yellow shells. You were happy and appreciative of the time he spent working and arranging his hoard. If he could, he’d preen and purr to you, to show just how much your proud smile meant to him, watching you appraise his work was satisfying. 

He already felt like things were falling into place perfectly, he could see the life he had envisioned with you coming to life, the little intricacies that popped into his mind seeming too appealing. His dreams were slowly becoming a reality, the things that he could only imagine were now tangible to his hands, and the future he salivated at was so, so close that he could sink his teeth into its flesh. 

He knew it. He knew it when he watched you swim to him with that big, adorable smile on your face, that it was in his hands. He could see it now, how his lonely cave would be filled with life and laughter, children with a mix of your beauty and his madness chasing one another between the many openings and your round, swollen stomach welcoming another of your children to the world. That was all he could think of while he cradled you in his arms, his tentacles latching to your tail and back. 

“You’re happy, ja?”

Next

Taglist: @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @tallmanlover @distracteddragoness @vxnilla-hxrddrugs @konigsblog @candlewitch-cryptic @im-making-an-effort @0alk0msan 

[gyuswhore]

Never Shall We Die (1)

«« Nothing is too outlandish when it’s a life of liberty on the line. »» 

PAIRING: kwon soonyoung x reader

PLAYLIST: right here!

pirate lingo glossary (pls refer!)

SYNOPSIS: Deadliest pirate on the high seas or a damn fool? The stupid King and his men have snatched Hoshi's precious pirate ship with their too clean, too soft hands; grounds to question his own vices. Except, when he and his crew land in the quarters of a navy ship, revenge on their roster, they stumble across a princess in its gallows. Hoshi wonders if he's just struck gold, or if you'd become the final tread to his downfall.

GENRES: pirate!au, enemies to lovers, slowburn, angst, fluff, smut [minor dni], some pirates of the carribean vibes but ? idk

WORD COUNT [full fic]: 48.1k

Part 1: 17.07k | Part 2: 15.2k | Part 3 [final]: 15.8k

@highvern's out of context comment box: new fear unlocked: hoshi with explosives, victorian ankle moment, HATE HIM (need him carnally), hoshi covered in soapy water would distract me enough, strip for me pirate mingyu [hes litrally taking off his jacket], your honor hes a bitch, freaks!, mingyu crushes hoshi's head like a grape, WONWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, massive dick, the way i literally gasped like an old scandalized woman

masterlist

WARNINGS: slowburn, plot heavy, happy ending bc no angsty endings in this household, being taken hostage, knives, bombs, and guns, mentions of blood, mentions of SA (does not happen and it is not explicitly mentioned), alcohol, mentions of death (patricide), hoshi is ✨selectively moral✨but kind of moral nonetheless, side character death, [pls lmk if im missing something its alot] smut tagin following parts

[AN]: thank you so much to @highvern for betaing for me and helping out with the plot so much, this fic would not exist if it weren't for her!!!! and thank you reader!!! for clicking on this and reading it, this one's been about 7 months in the works and I would love to hear what your thoughts are when you're done, plsplspls leave a rb or a reply with your brainrot lol <3 happy reading

HOSHI’S BOOT IS STUCK in the ground. 

No, that’s a branch. 

Or is it a plank? 

He doesn’t try to find out as he yanks his foot out of whatever stopped him from moving. A tree root, he finds as he kicks the remnants of jungle rubbish from the surface of the shrouded root. He kicks it to satisfy himself. 

His crew resides on the beach; where he can see them attempt to build a fire before sundown, the mound of discombobulated twigs making up most of the sad pile of wood. Hoshi trudges up to it and drops another handful of puny branches into the mix. 

Exhaling loudly as Mingyu calls for him, he falls to his bottom and sits cross legged on the sand. Mingyu trudges up next to him to inspect his pile, sighing when he realised this was all he had to work with. He picks up two hefty looking stones and begins to strike them together, putting his faith in the primitive fire. 

Hoshi stares into the horizon, watching the died down waves drift onto the shore, moving closer by the minute. 

Hoshi thinks, which he can’t say is something that he does very often. Perhaps that’s why he was sat on this nature-overrun island as a shipless captain of his shipless crew. He chews on his tongue as he thinks of his Tigress, his beloved hunk of wood and metal; the beloved hunk of wood and metal that he could not see on the shoreline, because she was taken by the royal navy. 

He wonders if Tigress would ever forgive him for letting that happen to her, for letting those clean, soft handed soldiers rip her away from his grasp. 

Hoshi needs to start thinking more often.

Mingyu is frantic over the small flame that erupts in the middle of his leaves, dropping his rocks to blow into the fire, encouraging it to grow. 

“Captain, it’s done! We can rustle up those fish we caught, have supper sorted.” 

“Hm.”

The bustle of the entire crew lasts until night has fallen and they’ve gotten food in their stomachs. Hoshi hasn’t moved from his spot for hours, something the others noticed very quickly, but decided not to mention for fear of waking something dangerous. They understood he was suffering from a broken heart. 

It isn’t until the first of the crew had begun to doze off that Hoshi speaks. Chan is propped up against a tree while Seungkwan laughs at the dangerously low coconut that hangs above his head. Mingyu readjusts his trousers after a full meal. Minghao stretches onto the sand, feet facing the water. 

His voice isn’t loud, nor is it commanding, nor does it have his usual edge of jest—in fact, it sounds nothing like Hoshi at all. 

Or does it?

“Who wants to steal a ship?”

YOU'RE AWOKEN BY THE sound of yelling. Which is never a good sign in any case, but especially not when it’s pitch black outside and you’re on a ship in the middle of the ocean.

The grogginess is quick to fade as you try to understand what’s going on outside your quarters. Your room isn’t a mess, all the trinkets and royal seals remaining in their places on the walls and shelves. Nor is the ship lurching or moving in odd angles to indicate an unexpected spat from the skies. A quick peek outside the window shows you clear, calm water amidst the mostly dark expanse of ocean. 

There is only one other answer in your head that would cause this much commotion—especially on a boat where the admiral resides (and a princess). 

Slipping out of the covers, your feet hit the cool hardwood floors of your quarters, a small shiver going through your spine from the cold, with nothing to cover you but your thin nightgown. You’re in the middle of tying your robe to see what the ruckus was about outside when a particularly loud thud hits outside of your door. You immediately freeze. 

Staring at the doorknob, you attempt to move backwards in the space, heart beating faster as you watch the knob move slightly. The back of your knees hit the bedside table with a thud, the sound has you gasp out loud. Whoever it was outside your door jiggles the knob harder, the force exerted having you scan the room for something you could use as a weapon. 

Spotting the letter opener on your desk, you lurch across the room to grab it, holding it in front of you as you back away from the door. The knob continues to bang against the wood as you refuse to take eyes off of it. There’s sounds of men outside, loud and rambunctious, momentarily halting the grievances. 

Until the knob moves again, slower this time, a light click that could be heard as it unlocks itself, opening into the low light of your quarters. 

You recognise the frazzled looking soldier at your door. 

“Lieutenant,” you voice in recognition. “What’s going on?”

He eyes the letter opener that you hold defiantly in front of you from across the room, and it has you retracting your force slightly. 

“Pirates, your Highness,” he breathes out. “We must get you to lower deck—”

“Where is the Admiral? The Captain?” you ask as you take a couple steps forward. 

“They’re handling the situation, your High–” 

An arm has come up behind the soldier that pulls him into a headlock, a swift pull to have him dragged away from your vision. You would’ve gasped if your voice hadn’t been caught in your throat, refusing to make itself known as fear brews in the pit of your stomach. Your hold on your makeshift weapon is tighter than ever before, yet you doubt how it’s going to help you as the culprit finally steps over something to appear in your doorframe. 

His clothes are in a disarray; slashed, torn and covered in grime. There’s a deadly looking machete in one hand, the blood that coats it has you eyeing the trail that drips onto his hand and on the floor. His forearms are perched up on the doorframe as he inspects you, tongue to cheek as he stares. 

Threatened as you feel, there was less hunger in his gaze as you had expected, more like he was trying to figure out who you were. He eyes your tiny letter opener you hold like a knife and lets out a little exhale you think might be a laugh. It has you gripping the handle impossibly tighter. The man moves his face into the hallway, to where you know the staircase to the main deck is. 

“Hoshi!” he yells loudly. “How’s this for bait?” 

Your back is pressed inexplicably against the wall, wanting to sink into the wooden boards as you attempt to gain your bearings amongst the nauseous bouts of mortification that surge through you. Your only exit is blocked.

No. You have one more option. 

The sound of more men bounding down the hall has you praying there were more soldiers here, but the calm regard the man has for the approaching people has your heart sink to the depths of this very ocean itself. 

More faces peer into the room, men with the same haphazard, grimey clothing complete with  equally sinister weapons in their grasps. One of the men breaks out into the biggest grin as he lays his eyes on you. You nearly throw up. 

For the first time in your life, you wish you’d listened to your father. 

“Jun, you savvy motherfucker,” the grinning man explodes, slapping the man who found you on the back. 

Another voice speaks from behind him, “Ships cleared, captain.” 

“Perfect. Bring a spring upon ‘er. Get as far away from those cleans as you can, let them fend for themselves in a tiny boat for once.” 

Captain. The grinning, stupid looking one is their captain. 

He regards the rest of his crew as he finally steps through the threshold, waving them away as he enters your quarters.

It was taking everything out of you to not buckle your knees as you stood, every step he takes is turning your strength into dust. He keeps his eyes on you, eyes on your sorry excuse of a weapon. He registers the mix of fear and determination in your eyes. 

He stops a few feet away from you, looking directly at you past the makeshift knife you hold. 

He says nothing as he drops the knife in his own hand to the ground with a loud clang. He removes a pistol, a couple more knives, a grenade and a sword. Weapons drop to the floor one after the other, emerging from all over his body and clothes. All in a pile on the wooden floors. He puts his hands in the air.

“No weapons on me. I merely wish to talk.” 

The look on his face is not ordinary, some strange combination of mock innocence and jest. You don’t answer him.

He continues, “You can keep your… scalpel… if you so wish.” 

“What did you do to the soldiers?” you finally rasp out.

“They’re not dead, if that's what you’re asking.”

“Yet?” you ask with a slight tremble to your voice. 

“They’ve been shoved into a boat with a map and a compass to fend for themselves. I’m not entirely ruthless,” he adds with raised brows and a hint of a smile. “Admiral, were they calling him? You must be his wife.”

“W-what?”

“Oh, guess not. Daughter? Captain’s wife, Captain’s daughter?”

Your previously stagnant brain is now running a derby with all the thoughts galloping across your mind. He doesn’t know who you are. Yet, anyway.

He’s scanning the room now, nodding at the trinkets and trophies scattered across the place. “Can’t imagine giving a lieutenant’s anybody quarters like this.” He circles back on you, eyes sharp. “Who are you, darling?”

You don’t think you have anything that should give you away, but the way he starts pacing the room has your anxiety going through the wooden roof.

He has his back turned to you. You’re not sure if he’s confident or careless considering you could drive your weapon into his back and make a run for it. But then what? By the looks of it there’s an entire crew of pirates pacing the deck. Perhaps the soldiers haven’t gotten that far; they know you’re still on board, they know it’s their heads on a pike if they leave you here. 

He’s reached your desk during your thinking, inspecting your stationary, picking at the bejewelled quills and paper weights as he mutters nonsense to himself. 

“Oh!” he announces, a little too enthusiastic. “What’s this?” 

He brandishes the loose leaf of paper, and you recognise the print on the back immediately. It was a letter from your father, the King.

“How on Earth did you read this, the writing is illegible.” He flips the paper over, double taking when he sees the royal seal on the back. He looks into the letter closer now. 

You wait with baited breath. 

“The kingdom needs their princess…your father…ah.” 

Should you plunge the knife into him anyway? You almost do it, but stop when he begins to turn around to face you again. His eyebrows are raised, a slight hint of exasperation on his face when he begins to laugh a loud, loud cackle. 

It’s mortifying, especially when you don’t understand what on earth was so funny to elicit a reaction like that. The man is downright hysterical. He wipes a lone tear from the corner of his eye as he drops the letter back onto the desk.

“W-what’s so funny?” you try to sound brave.

“It seems, miss princess, that we’ve gotten more than we bargained for,” he says, looking straight at you as he sobers up. “You’re the King’s daughter, now, are you? What are the odds the first ship I hop onto with a royal seal slapped on it, held the crown jewel of the kingdom in its gallows.” 

And then he starts walking, towards you, for that matter. Imperative because you know for sure that this is how it all ends. 

You know you still have your one last option, the option that is now pressed against your back as you shimmy to it with miniscule movements. The window is cool on your hand that rests on the glass, you know the lamp will be enough to break it, enough for you to push through and fall into the abyss of the dark, dark sea. He knows who you are now, and you’d rather drown than die at the hands of a pirate—or go through whatever it was that’s curling the minds of all the men on this ship. 

He takes another step forward, hands on his hips. “He’s not going to like this, is he? His dear daughter in the hands of the Kingdom’s favourite degenerate captain.” 

What?

He then adds in a whisper to himself mostly, “Or least favourite with all the wanted posters off the churches and brothels.” 

Hoshi. Hoshi. Hoshi. 

The man who had found you had called him Hoshi. Hoshi the pirate. Hoshi the pirate that’s been giving the Kingdom and its court absolute hell for as long as you can remember. 

The man that you are now trapped alone with on a ship is the most feared pirate the Kingdom has ever seen. 

You don’t doubt your face has gone grey, feeling your breathing turn near erratic. “Oh God.”

He smiles wryly as the life is sucked out of your very soul. 

This was bad. Very bad.

“Now, fear not, you will soon be returned to daddy dearest,” he places a mildly dramatic hand over his heart. “Pirate’s honour.”

He paces back to pluck the letter off the table, pocketing it. “All you need to do is relax and tell me a few things so we can part ways as soon—”

“No.” The word blurts out of your mouth before you can stop it, horrified at the thought of giving information to any pirate, let alone this one. 

“No?” Hoshi looks genuinely shocked, his eyes wide, eyebrows raised. He laughs a little incredulously, “Oh, I see, can’t tell all the delicate details to a scary ol’ pirate.”

He smiles a little bit, “Worry not, miss princess, we shall only need a few minor details. Just enough to have your father sprinting to get you out of here. We all win.”

He stares at you almost expectantly, and you wonder if you look as confused as you feel. 

“Well, I’ll be bidding you goodnight now, I’m sure we’ve interrupted your beauty sleep enough. Rest assured we won’t be bothering you for the rest of the morning.”

Hoshi begins to make his way to the door, picking up his pile of weapons off the floor before wrenching the door open. He’s calm as ever, but your mind is in a disarray.

A ransom, but whatever for? Gold could’ve been retrieved by raiding any ship, and it sounded like he’d chosen to hop on a ship belonging to the navy. Come to think of it, as much of a nuisance this man has proved himself, you don’t remember a case where he’s directly meddled with the Kingdom. All of this can’t just be for gold. 

Steeling yourself, you bet your odds against your voice and asked him, “What do you want from my father?” 

You watch as he halts in his tracks, halfway through the door as he finally looks over his shoulder. The look on his face has you wanting to break open the window immediately and let the water flood in, once and for all as you take these bastards down with you. 

“Your father has something of mine. And I intend to take it back,” he says, before finally slamming the door shut. You hear a shuffle and a thud, and you do not doubt that he’s locked you in. 

Your knees give out almost immediately, dropping to the ground as you breathe in quick, shallow breaths. Trying to look past the dizziness, you try not to think about the last thing he’d said before he left, moreso the look on his face as he did. 

The first rays of morning sun are beginning to shine through the windows, casting the beginnings of a glow in your quarters. You think of the supposed assurance he had given you, that they wouldn’t hurt you, that they intended to return you. 

The thought leads to a faraway memory, yet one that’s tucked itself into a front corner of your mind, you can almost hear your father's voice as he says it; never trust a pirate.

You remain on the floor, and you remain wide awake. 

THE SUN IS HIGH in the sky by the time you put your limbs to work. 

The first hours after the pirate locked you in your quarters were spent trying to reign yourself to earth. You can’t be entirely sure your soul has come back to your body, but whatever little of it that has landed is whispering some very dangerous things. 

The lamp remains, the ornate jewels glinting almost enticingly in the afternoon light. The flame inside it has long died, but you itch to give it another purpose. You don’t note the trembling of your hand as you reach for it, pushing yourself to your feet as you get a feel for the heavy hunk of glass and metal in your hands. 

If there was a level of regard before, it disappears when you set eyes on the bright window and the creases of crystal blue water. With all your strength, you don’t think twice when the lamp makes hard contact, a loud thud erupting as a result, but no damage when you pull away. 

You go again, harder this time, and only vaguely register the glass of the lamp that shatters into your hands. Gripping the metal bit tighter, you swing for the third time, pulling back for the strongest blow yet. 

A hand wraps around your elbow and you’re yanked backwards, landing on the floor. There’s a kick at your hand that’s flown into the air, the one that holds the bludgeoned lamp. It goes flying across the room as you retract your hand into yourself. 

You don’t register a thing as you’re suddenly being pulled back up to your feet. Face to face with the pirate captain, your soul finally clicking back into place. 

“Didn’t think I scared you this bad.” He’s made a joke, but all you can see is his face that’s a mask of rage.

The initial instinct is to move away, pulling your elbow out of his grasp in an attempt to flee. You fail as he tightens his grip to a painful degree, hauling you towards the ajar door of the quarters. 

It’s only then that you realise that there’s more people in the room.You note another big, burly man next to the window you just assaulted, inspecting it with another shorter man. You don’t get to note more as you’re pulled into the narrow hallway, begging the saints he doesn’t take the turn towards the lower decks. Instead you find he leads you upstairs to where the main deck is. 

Walk the plank? Did navy ships have planks to walk on? Not that you’d mind too much, you were trying to drown yourself and this ship in any case. But then there’s a settle of dread in the pit of your stomach, realising death may be the most merciful thing this man could give you. 

The pirate captain pushes you against a mast, one of his other minions rushing in with coils of rope on his shoulder. The sun beats down on the deck, not a gust of reprieve from the wind. 

“Keep the ropes tight, she’s got less wit than I’d thought,” the pirate captain says with a grunt, huffing as he lets go of you. He takes a few steps away, hands at his hips, the image of vexation. 

The person who ties the cords around your hands whispers slowly, “Stop moving.”

But you can’t, not when the panic is near the lip, not when all the possibilities are flashing gore filled images into your vision. It's scary to blink. 

“Why won’t you let me die?” you ask to the back that’s turned.

He turns around, not even bothering hiding the exasperation that paints his face, mouth opening furiously before closing again. “Why won’t—Because you were trying to take us all with you!”

“Kill me!” you all but scream. “They won’t know till you’ve gotten what you want, I’d rather be dead than let you try whatever’s brewing in all your sick heads!” 

He’s silent for a moment, noting your defiant gaze, your pull against the ropes, the heaving of your chest. Taking a few steps forward, Hoshi seems to be attempting to bring the boil in his blood to a low simmer, “Listen, princess. We’re pirates alright, but me and my crew, we keep to ourselves. If your daddy the king hadn’t decided to meddle and steal my fucking ship, you would’ve been home in your pretty palace, asleep in your bed of gold by now.” 

The pirate captain’s face is closer than you’d ever be comfortable with, seething in a way that has you pressing further into the mast. “We may be degenerates but we keep our own morals, as twisted as your people heed them to be.” 

When he finally pulls away, you take a breath and thank the air that simply exists, eyes downcast as you attempt to look braver than you feel. 

“I’m not pushing you overboard. I’ve duped your people once, they’ll be more prepared next time. We need you alive while you’re in our hands.” 

“How are you going to summon a ransom? You sent away your only messengers,” you ask, a sad attempt at a mock, but also because you wanted to know what his plan was. 

“Your useless Admiral’s taken up that job.”

“By lifeboat? You’ve left them all for dead, how do you expect this genius plan to work?” 

“They could’ve swam to shore if it came to it, we were close enough.”

“How are you so sure?” you spit.

“Do I need to gag you too?” he gives you one last irritated look before stalking off towards the lower deck. You’re left alone in the cooling afternoon heat, the sound of the sea keeping your ears company along with your own slowing breaths. 

Everything he said has a good enough chance to be a complete and utter lie. Never trust a pirate. No weapon to cut yourself out of your impossibly tight binds, nothing to protect you or give you reassurance besides a pirate’s word—the worst pirate’s word. 

Your battered thinking leads you straight through the setting of the sun, the orange glow of the sky shrouding the ship in the dreamiest backdrop while you live what you can only sum as a nightmare. Perhaps not, for you doubt your mind could ever conjure up a terror like this. 

This was life, the most terrifying nightmare of all. 

Having managed to wiggle your tied hands downwards, you had seated yourself with your head against the wood of the mast, staring into the translucent skies. So much freedom that taunts you in its illusion of proximity, yet so far still. 

There’s murmurs below deck, the only semblance of life you’ve heard in the past few hours after the stupid pirate captain stormed off. It seems to be on the stairs, a heated argument. 

“Obviously this wasn’t part of the plan, the chances were supposed to be zero to absolutely none. We landed with that scumbag’s successor, that’s just our piss luck and nothing more.” 

“You wanted a woman for bait, this should work the same.”

“Hao, I wanted a woman for bait to trigger a lukewarm reaction, this princess could either doom us all or make our job a fat punch easier, and I’m not betting on the latter.”

There’s a pause. 

“If only she’d cut it with the random hysterics and creepy-staring-at-the-sky we could actually get something useful out of her.” 

“Pray that window holds up or any chance of a miracle is gone to the wind.”

It’s like you’ve woken up with the way the stupid idea begins to form in your head. You think of your father, the kind of man he is, the kind of ruler he is. All the ‘if’s are guiding you to a conclusion. One that gives you a fighting chance, one that may go beyond this massive navy ship and clear into the rest of your life—if you make it that far anyway. 

Your father and his men would come, give this unhinged pirate what he desires so dearly, you know that for sure. But you also know it wouldn’t be for you, but for the crown that’s destined to fall upon your cursed head. 

If it’s his ship that he wants…

The next time you see one of the pirate captain’s goons on the deck, you ask for an audience. 

“DID YOUR STUPID FATHER drop you on your head as a baby?” 

Hoshi stands before you under the light of the midnight moon, an incredulous expression on his face. You try to keep the scowl off your own but it proves difficult when his voice pierces your skull. 

You ignore him from your position on the floor, “I know my father, and I know he loathes you enough to finally want you and your incompetent crew gone for good.”

He scratches his chin, “Can’t be that incompetent if he hates us so much.”

“I can help you.”

“You were ready to die than to be on the same ship as us a few hours ago. What’s changed?”

“Perspective,” you shrug in an attempt to remain nonchalant. 

“Are you gonna go back to wailing in the morning then?” 

God, this was going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do. 

“You want your ship back and you were hoping for someone less important to exchange it for. But you’re stuck with me and you know it’s not going to end well for you. You need my help.” 

“Why so merciful, miss princess? Are you not on your father’s side?” 

You gulp as discreetly as possible.

“I want something in exchange.”

He raises his eyebrows, staring at you to continue. 

“I want you to kill my father.”

If his eyebrows were raised before, they’ve broken for the skies now. He leans his head back, eyes closing for a moment before reopening, reigning back to you before asking very gracefully, “What?” 

“I want you to kill my father.”

“No, I got that bit,” he snaps. “Your father as in, the King?”

“Yes, as you’ve pointed out far more times than anyone ever has.” You can’t help but roll your eyes despite the weight of the situation and the hammering in your chest. 

He stares at you in an expression you can’t quite read, and it unsettles you deeply. For a moment, you wonder if you’ve gravely miscalculated, watching as he moves around the mast you’re tied to. Out of the corner of your eye you see the metal glint of a dagger, and you nearly short circuit. 

Is he about to cut your hands off?

You feel a distinct tug at your wrists, the sound of slicing, and the voice in your head asking why it didn’t hurt. 

Suddenly your hands are free, intact and free as you achingly bring them in front of you, wincing audibly at the pain of moving them after so long. 

“You can jump into the water if you’d like, I won’t stop you.” He walks back over, sitting cross legged opposite you, at eye level. 

“What?”

“You’ve clearly gone mad, I’ll find another way to get my ship back.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Of course, and I utterly enjoy having a kingdom’s worth of blood on my hands. Shall I take the entirety of the court down while we’re at it? Carry out a fucking waltz with Jack Ketch?”

“Why are you acting like you’re above murder? Another part of your strange moral code?” 

“No, no, not above it at all. But I like my head and rather not have it guillotined. They might skim over the death of some too-nosy soldier but I doubt they’d leave me be after I put a bullet between the King’s eyes.”

“I’ll protect you.”

He looks at you for a moment, “Quite reassuring.” 

You sit up straighter, licking your lips as you prepare yourself. “My father isn’t a good man.”

The pirate captain snorts, “Oh, I’m well aware.”

You try not to stare too hard at the still unsheathed dagger that he digs into the floorboards, knifing out splinters in disregard. 

“My father doesn’t want me home, he wants the crown home. He wants me to be a carbon copy of himself, he wants to be in control long after he’s gone.” You try not to grind your teeth too hard but it’s difficult when your father’s face burns behind your eyelids. “I want control over the throne, full control.”

“And your conclusion is to eliminate him.”

“I don’t have another choice.”

“Then what? You’ll pardon me and my crew after we get our hands dirty for you?” he asks, eyes wide in mock hope. 

“Yes. You can do whatever it is that you sail about doing and no one will be of bother. I might ask you for sparing favours. For a wage of course. But other than that, you can live as lawlessly as you wish.”

“You’re asking me to become your personal lackey?”

“Having a queen’s favour is no small feat I hope you’re aware. Besides, it's a leap better than the hoops you’ve been jumping through during my father’s reign.” 

You realised his face had been shrouded by the dark between your negotiating and the clouds that had veiled the moon. Every moment that was supposed to strengthen your understanding of the man that sat across from you only brought you more confusion. 

“You want your ship and freedom of land and sea,” you continue when it’s silent for a beat too long. “I only ask for a small favour in return.”

“I’d argue the miniscule nature of what you’re asking from me,” he scoffs.

“Nothing is too outlandish when it’s a life of liberty on the line.” 

There crawls in the silence once again, the same one that seems to grab you by the throat for every moment that ticks past undisturbed. 

“We’ll have to see to that,” he says, huffing as he gets back on his boot clad feet. You follow him with your eyes as he walks towards the creaky stairs that lead to the lower deck, utterly confused. 

“Where are you going?” you ask, bewildered at his strange behaviour. 

Turning around, just as he had a mere day ago in your quarters and you feel yourself suppressing a shudder. “I have a crew to consult.”

So he was considering it. 

“But you’re the captain.”

“And?” 

THE SKY IS A lighter sheen of blue, leaning towards the premature hours of the morning. He’d left you untied, and as you gaze into the duned waters in the minimal light, the urge to jump in and create a ripple that goes beyond just the water is less tempting than you’d thought. The prospect of having a dead father, and a dead king, was enough to snap you out of your hysteria despite it being a plot of your own devising. 

You’ve been alone for a while, little indication that there was other life on this ship at all with the lack of human activity. There wasn’t much that you knew of sailing or ship handling, but leaving the deck unmanned for this long gave you the vague impression that you were on a vessel with poor practising pirates. If they’d thought you’d be equipped to handle any hiccups, they’d either find out the hard way, or whenever it was that you could find the wit to bring it up to the pirate captain and his strangely attached crew. 

Something that sounds distinctly like boots are thudding gradually up to the main deck, the unmistakable blond of the pirate captain himself coming into view. You aren’t quite sure what it is, but the low thuds are sending your heart racing, panic overcoming your senses for a brief moment before you recalibrate. It’s only then that you realise it’s been more than 24 hours since the ship was hijacked. Somehow, you could have believed it was a lifetime. 

He’s disturbingly nonchalant, hand at the sheathed hilt of the dagger at his hip, a casual glance around at the empty abyss of ocean and sky. When he reaches the far end of the deck, right above the prow, he stops. 

“Are you going to push me off the rails?” you ask, half genuine, half trying to fill the silence as you face one another. 

“No.” He said it plainly, the single word reply leaving you even more uncomfortable. 

“Have you thought about what I said…with your crew?” you ask, hand coming up to grab the railing for support. 

“I did.” 

“Do I sense an objection?” you ask, swallowing the lump in your throat

“Not exactly,” he says. “We want to hear your master plan for this heist before we agree to anything.” 

He’s asking for a plan, a plan that you do not have.

You aren’t sure how he figured it out, perhaps it was the slight darting of your eyes as you thought of a response, but he seemed to read you like a book. He snorts loudly, “You don’t have a clue, do you?”

“You’ve done this before, you’d know better.”

“And if I led you astray?”

You look at him, this time right into his dark eyes, “Then you lead me astray.” 

“Your contentment with death is wildly unsettling.” There’s a ghost of a sneer at his lip. 

“I’d rather be lounging in the bottom of the ocean than live with a prospective future with my father.” 

“So I’ve heard.”

There’s a huff that leaves you as you steel your voice. “I’m not trying to set you up if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“I doubt you’d have that capability,” he says as he leans his forearms over the railing. You briefly consider pushing him over but think better of it. 

As much as you wanted to be a sneaky link, you simply didn’t have that trait. You blame all the dependency your father’s fostered into you, ensuring that you couldn’t rule without his influence. 

“Are you willing to brew a plan or not? I need to time my dip in the ocean accordingly,” you say, sounding almost disgruntled.

He lets out a big sigh, “Follow me.”

He’s made himself familiar with the ship, you soon realise, as he leads you right downstairs to the lower deck towards the war room. When he opens the door, the room is lit with lamps, casting a golden glow on the reddish interior, warmer than the rest of the ship. 

“Stay here, and don’t do anything stupid,” he tells you as he shuts the door behind him, leaving you alone in the cabin. 

You only exhale in response as you turn away from the door, towards the large table in the centre. It’s slightly cluttered, studying the scrawled notes as you realise they’re all from the Admiral, his directions and plans of course littered across the table. Turning towards the map on the walls, you lift a finger to trace the lifted ridges of snow capped mountains, trailing towards the dipped shallows of the blue water. 

It was an exact replica of the tactile map in the war room back home, and you’re suddenly hit with a pang of nostalgia. Not that you’d been away from home for too long, but the end result of what you're about to do, regardless of the outcome, would change your life forever. 

You feel yourself breathing in the lingering scent of mildew, a strange comfort in the warm quarters.

There’s a creak at the door, and you quickly retract to find the pirate captain back at the door, walking in with a trail of men behind him. You recognise them by their faces, watching as they all take their places in the edges of the room. They look relaxed. You note the pirate captain taking his place behind the main drawing table. 

“Your throne, miss princess.” He gestures exaggeratedly towards the lone cushioned chair across from him. You’re hyper aware of all the eyes that are trailed on you, and you feel almost embarrassed to take the only seat. 

It only lasts for a moment. You walk up to the chair with what you hope exuded confidence and take your place across from the pirate captain. His men circle the edge of the room, and you count five other men. 

He sighs, “I think introductions are in order.”

“Mingyu, Minghao,” he points to the two men that had inspected your window right after you tried breaking it open. 

“Jun,” he gestures to the one who had found you in your quarters the night it all went wrong. 

“Seungkwan and Chan,” you recognize the latter as the one who’d tied you to the mast at his captain’s command. 

“They’ll be helping kill your dear father.” 

It’s silent for a moment as you attempt to moisten your mouth. You’re reminded you haven’t eaten or drank for hours, not since one of them had come up with a tray of whatever they could find for you from the reserves. 

“I know I may not be the most admissible person to trust, or vice versa—” You hear someone snort but choose to ignore it. “But I’m willing to make myself useful to you if it means you would help me too.”

“Would it not be easier to lock him up instead?” someone asks, and you turn to find Seungkwan asking the question from next to the tactile map. 

“He has too many people indebted to him, too many that are too loyal for their own good. I cannot truly rule for as long as he’s alive and well.”

“And how do you expect his loyal court mongers to let you bid favour to the people who killed their king?” the pirate captain asks with a raised brow. 

“Which is why it needs to look like an accident.” 

“How do you reckon we go about that?”

“What message have you given the Admiral?”

“You don’t answer a question with another question—”

“We need to be transparent with each other if either of us wants to make it out relatively unscathed.”

He doesn’t look too happy but he answers anyway, “My ship and five hundred thousand for all our trouble. Two months from now at the Green Islands up north.”

The Green Islands were anything but green, the glaciers being near uninhabitable owed to the ruthless weather. It was smart enough, it’d be near impossible to bring as much violent power that far north, no matter how influential anyone is.  

“Is five hundred thousand all I’m worth?” you feel the beginnings of a sneer rise up your mouth. You aren’t sure what prompted it but you don’t want to fight it either. 

“Didn’t know I was bartering for a fucking princess’ case, did I?” he snaps. “Now tell us how you want us to commit the undetected homicide of a King.”

“We need to blow up his ship.” To your surprise (and maybe even a little horror), the pirate captain breaks into a slight grin. Neither do you miss other bits of his crew releasing a bit of a snicker. 

There’s a flare of defiance within you, “Do you have any better ideas then?” 

“No, no. Go on,” he says with his head hung. You’re surprised he has the character to shield his smile. 

“He doesn’t frequent the seas but I’m almost sure he’d be present at the exchange.”

“Almost?” he questions.

You hesitate. The combined chance of needing the crown home and seeing to the downfall of his enemies would be enough warmth to send him to the greenlands himself. You were confident, but your father could also be unpredictable.

“He’ll be there. I’m sure of it.” 

The pirate captain lifts his head, locking eyes with you. You try not to look as weak as you felt, as unsure as you felt, pooling all the remaining confidence into your face. 

He swallows before looking away, addressing one of the crew members. “How big are we talking?”

Jun looks up like he’s only just begun to pay attention, fumbling over the revolver in his hands as it thuds to the ground like a theatrical mistake, “What?”

His captain sighs before replying, “Explosion. How big does it need to be to blow up a naval ship with a King on it?”

The man brings a hand up to the back of his head, scratching his nape. “If it’s anything like this one, we’re gonna need a lot of ammo.” 

“Just enough to sink it,” you speak before you could decide not to. “Even better if they don’t realise it’s happening.”

He thinks for a moment. “We could plant it in the bilge somehow.”

“But how do we get on that ship? When they’re giving us a tour of the lower decks?” The man you recall as Seungkwan scoffs. 

“Throw a grenade on board somehow?” you hear one of them suggest. 

“Real subtle, Chan,” you hear another mock. 

The war room is in shambles before you know it, loud voices talking over threats to slit throats and to shove people overboard. The room is humid and it feels as though the light from the oil lamps are fading. You close your eyes amidst the utter chaos, rubbing the heel of your palm on your temple in an attempt to soothe the throbbing vein. 

“Enough!” The pirate captain has spoken and you have the urge to ask what took him so long. 

Tranquility once again and you almost thank the man. Before anyone can say another word, nausea begins to build in your stomach. 

It takes you a minute to realise the room was spinning and that you weren’t completely losing your mind. The ship begins to rock harder as the seconds tick by, everybody in the room seemingly still as they perceive the change.

“Batten down the hatches,” the pirate captain says to no one in particular.

Chan is the only one who moves to the door to leave before he’s interrupted. 

“All of you. Those clouds weren’t looking too nice up there, we’ve got a storm on our hands.”

By everyone he surely did not mean you, because as the room rushes out and you hear the thuds of boots clamouring up to the main deck, you’re left alone with the captain. Yet again.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep steady, and you wonder how he’s able to remain balanced while on his feet. It isn’t long before your chair begins to slide as well, the legs croning as they slip on the hardwood. You spring up on instinct, hands coming to the bolted down drawing table to stabilise yourself. 

The pirate captain seems unphased, moving the curtains on the far end to try to get a glimpse at where the water breaks. He steps like he knows exactly where the evermoving floor would be, barely glancing below to gauge his footing. 

“Shouldn’t you be up there?” There’s effort in your voice, your grip on the table as hard as ever as the ship banks to a hard left. He barely grabs the wall in support. 

“Huh? They can figure it out themselves, they’re big boys,” he grunts.

“Your big boys were at each other’s throats a moment ago,” you grunt back, stumbling at a particularly forceful lurch. 

“If you weren’t so ill prepared they wouldn’t need to use their brains, that’s always dangerous,” he shoots back. He’s on the other end of the room, pushing the unbolted cabinet back in its place 

“I gave you a job and it's up to you to see it done, I’m not—ah— I’m not supposed to be planning at all!” 

“Are you?” He’s turned to look at you know, mouth hitched in a snarl as his forehead reflects a light sheen. “Because trying to murder a—”

“Trying to murder a King isn’t a normal task,” you finish for him in a hiss. “Yes, as you’ve reiterated a million times.”

“Great, so you know!” Sarcasm is a deadly look on him, you realise as he walks over from the cabinet to where you were in the middle of the room. The waves have given in, the rocking becoming significantly slower. “Now do you mind telling us about a plan that actually has better odds?”

Your white knuckles have relented, the hands that gripped the table coming loose as you stare back at the pirate in defiance. “I should just hand you over.”

“It’s sweet you think you’re in charge here,” the grit in his voice is evident. “This isn’t your turf anymore, miss princess.”

“You don’t trust me, and you don’t give me reason to trust you—ugh.”

The waves seemed to have decided she hadn’t had enough just yet, this particular lurch sending you hurtling backwards into the wall, back hitting the hardwood as the stable pirate himself loses his footing. You could almost believe you’d landed sideways with the gravity that’s lost its way beneath your feet. 

The chair you were once sitting on is hurtling towards you with a vengeance, gaining momentum as you simply watch it approach like a wooden bullet. A boot clad foot kicks it to the other end and you realise the pirate captain’s gotten hold of his bearings before you have. 

“What happened to being transparent with one another?” he huffs, breathless and wide eyed as he attempts to pull himself to his feet. 

There’s another lurch that sends you both skidding towards the table, just short of grabbing on before you’re hurtled into the cabinet that had moved again, and now slams back into the wall with the weight of the sea and two humans with a bang!

“Fine. You give me your ammo to blow up the bilge, let me on the ship with my dear father and one of you scoops in and saves me before I drown with him,” you yell over the sounds of clanging and banging of everything on this cursed ship, and the whooshing and thunders of the skies, winds and water. “And if I riddled the chances of you letting me drown with my father? Where does that leave me?”

“On the bottom of the seabed,” he deadpans. “But that also leaves me without my freedom.”

You find the opportunity to look at him for a moment, and he’s looking at you too. He looks away towards the door, already making moves to walk out and join his crew above deck. The conversation was over, and it was evident in your lack of reply.

Mother nature, however, sends another one in as a surprise and you're both sent flying to the other end of the ship, yet again. 

There’s a cushion to your blow this time as you find yourself landing right into the pirate captain’s chest, hand above his heart in your instinct to save yourself any more bruises. Between your bickering and the staggering of the ship, his shirt had flown open nearly down to his navel. 

Your eyes barely register the nasty scar across his left pec, instead moving upwards to lock eyes with him. It’s insanity, how you instinctively dart your eyes towards his half open mouth. 

“If you wanted me that bad, miss princess, you could’ve just asked.”

Whatever airborne drug that’d been willy nillying in your noggin seems to spin into a rage as his words register a moment too late. Clenched jaw and a vice grip on his shirt, you spit back. 

“I don’t ask for things. They come to me.”

There’s a crash above you and you realise the oil lamp that was suspended above has shattered, raining glass over your forms. 

Expect you don’t feel it, because he’s ducked over you and suspended his arms in the air to catch the crystalline. 

Before you can decide whether it was instinct or not, you hear a yell at the door.

“Captain! One of the—oh.” 

A barely balancing Mingyu, is staring into the now dimly lit war room, his captain and their supposed prisoner pressed against one another in a dark corner of the room. 

Your instinct forces you to take a slow step backwards. 

“Get back up,” he snarls, already pushing past you to stalk towards the door. He actually makes it this time, shoving Mingyu into the hall towards the stairs. 

Not as much as a glance back before he slams the door shut, leaving you in the tattered war room alone, shards of glass at your feet.

THE STORM SEEMS TO have done its damage as it calmed itself for the rest of the morning and well into the day. 

One of them had come down and escorted you to your quarters, Chan telling you that you could keep it while the rest of them adjusted in the other cots and quarters aboard. Changing out of your ragged, days old clothes felt luxurious, the familiar scent of your quarters putting your tense shoulders at ease; or at least a semblance of such. 

Neither you nor the captain have attempted to speak to each other after the incident in the war room. Having berated yourself for letting your guard down enough, you chalked it up to the lack of food and sleep and put the matter to rest in some deeply buried chest in your head. 

For now you board up the door of your cabin (because you haven’t completely lost it), and burrow under the covers for some much needed shut eye. 

You aren’t sure how long the universe lets you rest, because unless you’ve slept all the way to the Green Islands the banging on the door seems incessant enough to warrant an arrest of its own. The sleep is slow to leave, and it’s hard enough to push an entire drawer against a door, the bleariness paired with whoever the fuck was outside the door isn’t making it easier to push it away from the entrance either. 

By the time you’ve wrenched the door open, you’re thoroughly annoyed, and met with a very alarmed Seungkwan. 

“Oh thank goodness, I was about to try opening it,” he says, looking genuinely relieved. “I thought you might’ve….anyway.”

“You weren’t trying to break in before?” you ask.

He only thrusts a tray of rations and water towards you, “Captain said to give this to you.”

Accepting the tray, you try to balance it in one hand with furrowed brows, “Oh.”

“Um. That’s it, sorry for waking you up.” He makes a move like he’s about to turn around and leave but falters. “If…if you need anything a bunch of us are on the main deck.”

And then he’s gone. 

You take it as your cue to shut the door, kicking one of the heftier pieces of furniture against it before moving back inside. 

When you peer up your tiny window, it’s late afternoon and the beginnings of orange on the surface tell you the sun is beginning to set. You decide it was a good enough amount of sleep. Setting the tray down on the smaller than usual desk, you find that these pirates do not have a knack for subtlety. Many of your letters and papers are haphazardly stacked and shoved into one corner of the table, very obviously sifted through. 

Not that you care too much, there was nothing awfully important that you wouldn't have told them yourself. Ripping off a piece of bread from the tray, you take pleasure in chewing as loudly and as open mouthed as you wished, plucking the parchment at the top of the pile to study. 

It’s another one signed by your father, not a question of your wellbeing in sight as he scrawls ink on paper all the incorrect things you did in the Southerner’s banquet last month. If anything, you were glad the stupid Admiral was away from your presence, his incessant habit of reporting your every breath and turn to your father was becoming too much to handle. 

This was one of his tamer letters, less insults attached to his criticisms but a pain to read anyway. You don’t brush away the crumbs that fall onto the parchment. 

There is not a diplomatic bone in your body. Perhaps move on from drinks and dessert and into more important territories besides the Duke’s son. Our kingdom needs a ruler that’s strong, not one that forgets where she is after a sip of brandy!

If you squint hard enough, it almost reads as a parent scolding a child for a spill, like regardless of what you did, he might just love you the same. 

You wonder how good of a mood he was in when he wrote this. 

Sifting through the rest of the papers you take a mental note of every reason he’s given you to believe that you’d be a hopeless ruler, a few years ago you even questioned why he kept you around before realising his contradicting intentions. As you read, letter by letter, you think of reasons you know are going to make you a better ruler, better than him and better than his stupid court of old men.

These pirates are a blessing, you think, and you aren’t about to let this chance from the universe drown in these waters.

HOSHI ISN'T IN TROUBLE. No, he isn’t. On his butt on the sleek floorboards of the ship, his own golden dagger glinting in the sunlight as it's held in a threatening hold, except it isn’t in his hands. 

It’s pointed right into his jugular vein, held by some grimy sailor who considers himself something akin to a pirate. Perhaps the stench this sorry excuse of a crew carries around may be their idea of a criteria, but as Hoshi remains inches away from death, all he can think about is the atrocious fingers around his dagger, and all the scrubbing he’s going to be doing after this is all over. 

Mingyu had warned him, told him to take down the flag of the navy from the mast, the royal seal in the smack middle of the ginormous thing. He brushed it off. He wasn’t quite sure if he was tipsy, hungry or just plain exhausted when he made that decision, because he’d forgotten just how stupid some of these simpleton sailors could get. 

They were taken by surprise, their only weapons mops and buckets of soapy water as they were ambushed by some overlooked wherry that had suddenly thrown hooks over their railing and climbed up like uninvited sewer rats. 

In the initial confusion, interrupted mid-chorus of some pretty siren and her pirate prince, the first few intruders had simply crumpled over onto the slippery deck, a few slipping overboard completely from the suds and water on the wood. His crew, and Hoshi himself, could only stand and watch as the newcomers sabotaged themselves for a few incredulous moments before they gained their bearings. 

Chan and Seungkwan swang their mops right into the necks of a couple, sending them into the ocean without waiting for a splash. 

Hoshi slips out his dagger with practised ease, swinging the butt of the hilt over the head of another ambushing intruder, right on the head as he crumpled to the floor with a loud thud. He kicks him over for an indication of where he came from. No ink that shows an alliance, no brooch or jewels with a crest. 

New guys, ones that were clearly still learning the ropes. 

Hoshi’s crew had better senses than required for him to yell out orders, and it only took a few more disgruntled minutes to disable the remaining extra men aboard. 

“Where the fuck did these guys come from?” he asks no one in particular, mostly just annoyed that they were disturbed. 

Minghao, who’s peeking over the railing replies, “It’s a tiny thing. They either lost their actual boat or didn’t have one at all.”

He vaguely registers him making a jerking arm movement over the exterior before he hears a wail and a splash. “Disgusting.” Minghao holds his hands away from his body like he didn’t want it anymore. 

Hoshi’s mistake was keeping his guard down, because before anyone could warn him, the dagger that he held loosely against his hip had slipped out his palm. The next thing he knows, his neck is in some grimy sleeve’s grip, and the point of his dagger is lodged into his own throat. He holds his breath, afraid he might pass out completely from the stench alone. 

“Not a move.” He sounds like a boy more than anything, but his grip indicates a harsher life. “Everybody into that fishing boat. I’ll throw this one in when you’re done.” 

He sounds unstable, but that only makes him more dangerous. Hoshi can’t try to wiggle his way out of this one, one wrong move and it’s the end. His crew can’t do anything as they stand with broken mops and empty buckets as their weapons. 

It was stupid of him to even allow himself to be cornered like this, not when he’s weaselled his way out of more dangerous situations with more ease than this. 

His crew looks at him, and he can only close his eyes in encouragement. He watches as Jun steps over one of the defeated bodies to reach the hooks that’ve lodged into the railing. His movements are slow, and he can tell he notices the unhinged nature of this boy that he doubts is barely over 17. 

Chan follows, then Seungkwan as Jun double checks the integrity of the ropes. He’s stalling. 

“Hurry!” It was supposed to come out as a threat, but it sounded more like a plea from the boy. 

And then Jun stops completely, his eyes trained on Hoshi. His eyes are wide, his grip on the rope so tight he can see the whites of his knuckles from the other side of the ship. 

No, he wasn’t looking at him, he was looking behind him. Before he can register, there’s a loud bang of a gunshot, and Hoshi feels the body of his captor slump against his back, his dagger dropping to the ground with an ominous clang. He falls with him, turning over to push the dead weight of the body off of him. 

There’s smoke in the air when Hoshi looks back and it takes him a moment to realise who just basically saved his life. 

You stand in your nightgown, shawl over your shoulders, and a revolver, Jun’s revolver, clenched tightly in both hands. It remains frozen in the air, hovering as he takes in your face. Eyes wide, mouth open slightly, the colour drained from your face. 

Hoshi scrambles to get up as the rest of the crew swarm both him and you. He grabs his dagger before anything else, looking back to see a bullet lodged in the back of his captor’s skull, blood pooling the deck. 

He looks back at you shoving the revolver back into Jun’s hands eagerly, like you didn’t want to feel the warmth of the metal any more than you wanted to make that shot. 

He looks back at the cooling body, and then back at you, an undeniable warmth overcoming his chest. 

You just saved his life.

“Are you alright?” he hears Chan ask you. You nod slowly, and then quickly. 

“Where did you find this?” Jun asks. 

“Uh, in one of the quarters. Downstairs. I went down because I thought it’d be safer, you were handling it and I didn’t want to get in the way. But then…all your weapons were there.” 

Your voice sounds airy, like you were in a daze. Hoshi comes to the stark realisation that this may have been your first time with a weapon, and then even more horrifying, your first kill. 

“I’m sorry, I just thought it was getting out of hand and—” 

“It’s alright,” Seungkwan says. He watches as you let him lead you back down the stairs below decks. 

It was like the shock turned you into a different person, complacent, less defiant. Seungkwan clearly had more of an emotional range, because it certainly took Hoshi too long to realise you might be on the edge of panic. 

Hoshi doesn’t say a word as you disappear, the smell of gunpowder from the singular shot wafting through the deck. He doesn’t realise he’s staring into space until Mingyu interrupts. 

“Should we—”

“Throw them overboard,” Hoshi says, voice flat. 

“But, this one seems like he’ll come around. We could question him and drop him off wherever next—”

“He’s a shit seaman, if even a pirate, he’s got what came for him. Throw. Him. Overboard.” Hoshi is out of breath, yet grits the words out through clenched teeth. “All of them.”

Hoshi slips his dagger back into its sheath at his hip. All he can think about is your blown pupils and you in your nightgown. All he can think about is how they were almost bested by a child. All he can think about is how you had to make that final shot to save his ass, that he couldn’t do it himself. 

Mingyu senses his mood and asks no more questions, simply pushing the remaining bodies out into the water. He vaguely registers Minghao sending the men a prayer into the sea. Mingyu’s already trying to get the stupid naval flag off the mast, stripping off his jacket and disposing of it at the base to start climbing. 

Chan pushes a clean rag into his chest, and he looks down to receive it and notes a tinge of blood at his collar. Right, he was bleeding. 

They go back to cleaning, except it’s a lot more silent. 

Jun walks back up to help, but this time he has both of his clean, black revolvers strapped at his hip.

THERE WERE FEWER PEOPLE in the war room this time around, the captain sits beside Mingyu, Jun and Minghao as they attempt to sketch out a crude rendition of your discussion. The pirate captain does nothing but use his dagger to pick under his nails, barely speaking as he listens in on the conversation. 

Not that you cared, you and the rest of his crew seemed to get along better than you did with the captain anyway. Saving the man’s life seemed to hold no weight to him, not that you expected it but a ‘thank you’ would have sufficed. 

“Keep the grenade til the last minute if it makes you feel better, so you’ll know I’m not trying to sink the wrong ship,” you sigh as you clarify. Minghao doesn’t reply as he scribbles the details. Jun rolls his eyes at his meticulous nature. 

“We need to port in the next couple days if I’m gonna finish this grenade in time,” he says, looking at his captain pointedly. 

“We can stop at Port Ash,” Hoshi says. 

Port Ash was no man’s land, which also meant it was every man’s land. 

Being mostly occupied by pirates and other thieves and criminals it was considered dangerous territory for anyone who didn’t speak in lies, deceit and fists. This crew would fit right in, but you worry for yourself. 

“That’s not gonna be till a week and a half,” Mingyu interjects. 

Jun frowns as he looks at Mingyu and then back at his captain, “I can’t wait that long.”

“We’ll pick up what we can at Hasry when we stop for rations,” Hoshi replies. 

“But—”

“Deal with it. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

Jun looks like he wants to say something, and Mingyu has the good sense to interject again to ask more questions about the plan. 

“How much manpower do you think the king’ll have?” he asks.

You sigh, crossing your arms as you lean back in your chair. “I have no idea. Could be five, could be fifty.”

“Not even an inkling?”

“Considering how he wants the lot of you gone, it’s probably on the larger side. But…” you pause. 

“But?”

“He’s smart. Always seemingly one step ahead. I wouldn’t be surprised if he catches us blind.” 

“I know enough about that,” Hoshi snorts. There’s a glint in his eye that suggests something, but you don’t press.

“I was wondering…we should probably change course even if it takes us longer. My father might intercept—”

“Did that. Didn’t take the obvious alternative route either,” Mingyu replies, and you note that he looks proud of himself. “We can take our time too, the ransom note suggested we took the way past Scarsfield.”

“We should be careful of other boats anyway,” you say, gulping down a lump in your throat before continuing. “Those other sailors could’ve been my father’s men too, for all we know.”

“They were on a smaller boat too,” Hoshi adds, he looks like he’s making connections in his brain. “What’re the odds they were dropped farther back into a smaller boat?”

There’s a pause as you absorb what he’s implying. “Are you saying they’re on our tail?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” he says, exhaling heavily through his nose. “He’s done it before. It was a sorry attempt then and it was a sorry attempt now.”

“How did you shake him off last time?”

The panic in your chest is barely there, but as you register the possibility, you find yourself breathing increasingly heavy. 

“Circling farther out before going the opposite way so we wouldn’t cross paths.” He shakes his head. “But we can’t do that now, not when we can’t afford detouring. The port stops are as late as I’m willing to go.”

“What if we skip Hasry? It’s our more obvious stop, we’ll just stop at Ash later,” Minghao suggests. 

“We’ll starve, we’ve got no food,” Hoshi gruffs.

“Portwater?” 

“Too far.”

It’s silent yet again as everyone racks their brains. You feel very useless all of a sudden, you didn’t know the names of harbours or ports this far out.

“We’ll just port at Hasry and be extra careful, there’s nothing we can do.” Hoshi sighs at his own ultimatum. 

He gets up and walks around the table to the door, “I’ll update the others.”

You glance as he walks past you, his figure leaving a gust of wind in your face. He smelled nice, which was saying something considering the state some pirates are known to be in. As he brushes past, your gaze is met with the other side of the war room, an empty oil lamp bracket on the wall. 

The memory of the storm floods your mind, and suddenly your cheeks are burning. Snapping your head back, you're thankful they’re all absorbed in the papers and plans on the table, oblivious to the memory that’s flashed before your eyes. Mingyu was the one who saw you in your compromising position, and you didn’t know him well enough to decide whether he’d do something as dumb as dish out his captain’s ‘affairs’. 

You file out the room with them. They don’t escort you to your rooms, make sure you stay in one place, restrict your wandering anymore. Perhaps they’d realised you weren’t actively attempting to sink the ship anymore, or that if you jumped off the edge it didn’t matter to them that much, but you appreciated the space anyway. 

Briefly catching Seungkwan filling Mingyu in on the past couple hours they’d been below deck, you turn over to catch his eye. He waves, and you wave back. You don’t realise what you did till it already happened, noting the smile on his face as he did it. You choose to move past it and find the captain. 

There was something you wanted from him. 

There’s no trace of him on the main deck, eyes scanning the area to no avail. A movement from above catches your peripheral attention, eyes squinting as you crane your neck up to look. Hoshi has leaned his back against the railing of the crow’s nest, arms crossed, visible hand occupied with a brass telescope that glints in the sunlight. 

He isn’t using it though, merely gazing at the horizon with furrowed brows. As though he could see better without the device in his hand. In the few minutes that you’re looking at him, you notice the muraled, multicoloured shirt that blows with the wind, a kaleidoscope of beiges, greens and reds. The crop of his blonde hair blends in with the clear blue-white sky. 

Briefly wondering how he’s managing the impossible heat, a hand coming over your own eyes as a visor, you simply look back down. Seungkwan is next to you. You aren’t quite sure how he got there, but he stands next to you, hands on his hips, a pleasant expression on his face. 

“Is there anything you want when we dock? We’re trying to make a list,” he says. Somehow, the prospect of pirates making lists boggled you a little. It was a little jarring, not quite sure why he asked a captive anyway.

But then again, were you a captive anymore?

“I don’t think so, no,” you reply and then juggle whether you should push it with another measly formality. “Thank you for asking.”

“That was your first kill, wasn’t it?”

“What?” You knew what he was talking about, but you weren’t expecting him to bring it up in the moment when he’s asking you about restocking supplies. And especially not with a smile on his face. 

“That day, when you used Jun’s revolver to shoot the lad.” 

A kid. He was a child. 

“I…yeah I’d never done it before.”

“What made you do it?” he asks, remaining as nonchalant as ever. 

“I—I don’t know, it looked like there wasn’t another option,” you say, not quite sure of yourself either. 

Why did you shoot him? You’d never laid hands on a gun before, your father forced you into the category of archery and crossbows, not that you were very good at them either but it was also because you simply wanted to spite your father by being plain bad. It worked, because it only took a year and a half and an arrow straight into his study window to retire from the sport entirely.

Even then, your targets had been apples, barrels and tree trunks. Never a person. 

You’d heard of what people tended to do in pressuring situations, and with the way the aftermath unfolded, it didn’t seem like you made the wrong decision to pick up that revolver anyway. 

But the feeling lingers, the same one that you saw as you gazed into the back of the boy that held the captain of this ship hostage. It felt wrong. Like watching the pirate captain cornered was a picture you couldn’t quite make sense of in your head. 

So you pulled the trigger. 

“In any case, we’re glad you made that decision. We all owe you for it.”

You don’t know what to say to that, so you gulp, inhale and press your lips in a line. “That’s a lot for a pirate to say.”

“I know.”

BY THE TIME YOU manage to corner Hoshi it’s already the next day, and you’re only a couple hours away from docking at Hasry. 

It’s an anxious ordeal, the crow’s nest constantly occupied by someone trying to catch sight of a possible tail. There was no sign, yet anyway. 

“I want to learn to use a knife.”

He was piling coiled ropes when you’d said it, pushing the heap to the side, sweating through his clothes. There was a flash of confusion on his face as he registered you. 

“Why? So you can slit all our throats in our sleep?” he grumbles as he pushes a barrel against the railing. He’s too aggressive, and the force has the splashback soaking his clothes in freshwater, tsk-ing audibly. 

You ignore the way his previously loose shirt now sticks to him, ignore the way the droplets land on your boots when he shakes his sleeve. 

“We’ve discussed what we might be up against, I don’t want to be useless when the time comes.”

“Seemed pretty alright with that revolver.”

“Anyone can shoot a gun,” you say, getting the sudden urge to fidget with the front of your shirt. You try to make your voice sound as declarative as possible. “I want to learn to fight. With a knife, with a sword, with my hands if I have to.” 

He doesn’t say anything as you look down, fiddling with the tassels on your shirt. Your excuse was the sun and the way it was beating down on the deck this afternoon, getting tired of squinting to simply look straight. When the silence prolongs you look up to push further, juggling with bringing up the fact that you saved his life and that, as Seungkwan very graciously told you, he owes you. 

The sound your throat makes is unhuman, because when you look up the captain's soaked shirt is now off his back. 

The skin is near white from the glare of the sun, remnants of glazed water that’s somehow made its way to his back as well. The dip in his shoulder blade reflected a dark marking, one that you couldn’t make out. 

He wrings it as you can only watch, mouth gaping like a fish. Hanging it over one of the suspended ropes to dry, he mutters as he walks to the lower decks. 

“Fine,” he says nonchalantly. “We’ll get you a knife at Hasry.”

Hasry. Right. 

The port is quiet, at least as quiet as a port can be. There’s not much to see but fishermen both returning and leaving for another week's worth of fish supply. Minghao manages to pay and convince the harbourmaster that they were merchants on their way back to the Kingdom, stopping for supplies. The naval make of the ship helped, and then the crew pulled lines and ropes secured from masts in ways you couldn’t quite decipher. 

You assumed you would stay on board, yet when Chan knocked and brought you some roughspun clothes from the town, you were informed you’d be joining them. 

Hoshi deemed it safer, keeping the rest of the crew on board while he, along with you and Seungkwan, ventured into the village to get what was needed and leave before the sun fully set. If they really were being followed, the ship was going to be the first thing they seized. 

Pulling the grey shawl further up your head, you attempt to look as blended as you could, Chan pressing down your shoulders to force you into a slouch. 

“Stop walking like you're important,” he had said. 

“I’m a princess,” you snapped back, but he wasn’t listening, only jabbing at you to keep the haughtiness out of your tone before it caught somebody’s attention. 

The town was a quaint little place, something out of what you were read from storybooks, reminiscent of the paintings that you’d run past on the walls of the palace. The streets cleaner than you’d expected, the faint scent of baked goods in the air mixed with, onion soup, was it? In any case you were glad you were past the fish market, the yelling and the stench nearly sending you to the pavement, gagging. 

When Hoshi returns, you and Chan are looking at a jewellery stall that’s selling necklaces, bracelets and anklets that look like rosaries; colours of deep ocean blue and sunset pinks, beautifully vibrant against their grey canvas backdrop. 

You can only observe from afar, instructed to not interact with anyone while he was gone. Hoshi was gone to get food supplies, but returned empty handed. Systems were in place, that the crates would be on their way to the “big naval ship” at the docks for the rest of the crew to receive.

“They said there was a blacksmith up this alley” Hoshi says, eyes also trained on the uncharacteristically colourful jewellery stall, but he does nothing to move towards it. “We can get your knife there.”

“Knife?” Chan asks, confused. 

“Miss princess wants to learn to fight—”

“Don’t!” Chan hisses, eyeing the men in black uniform that patrol the market from the shadows. 

“It’s fine, they’re too far,” Hoshi says. “Let’s get this over with.”

You do find a blacksmith, an older man with a greying beard and bloodshot eyes that presents Hoshi and Chan with an array of knives and daggers. Either they were able to give an excuse, or he gave no mind to the third woman that trailed behind, the blacksmith continued to deal with the two men as they haggle over prices. 

There’s another seller a ways away, and she’s laid out her goods on the floor on what looks like old drapes. It’s a woman, not much older than you were, unravelling a long string of leather cord. She cuts it, strings a charm through and seals the frayed end with a candle flame that burns at her side. 

The curtain she’s laid her accessories on is patterned with bright colours, and you realise you can’t make out any of it from where you stand. 

Glancing behind you, the men are still occupied with their bartering, seemingly forgetting of your presence. Taking a step back, you pretend to skim through the neighbouring stalls, glancing breezily at woven baskets, layers of folded fabric and towers of painted ceramic cups. 

You stop before the laid out array of more necklaces and earrings, scanning the ground. The vendor looks up and gives you a big, crooked toothed smile, urging you to come forward, to take a look at what she has to offer. 

Something does catch your eye, and you immediately crouch down to see it better. Picking up the necklace from the charm, you let the gold and red rest on your fingers as you study the make. 

“That one’s new,” the woman says. “Practical too.”

The small brass letter opener that’s looped through the cord looks like it could do its job just fine despite its miniscule size. 

“It’s quite popular among the busy merchants,” the vendor speaks in a rough tone, almost like she had a perpetual sore throat. “Easier to use this instead of looking for those bulky ones in their neverending drawers and—and in their cabinets.”

She lets out a laugh, “Quite pretty too.”

You stare at it for a moment, “How much?”

“Ten coin.”

You sigh, setting the necklace back down onto the cloth. Standing straight, you turn to walk away before she yells again. 

“I’ll do seven!” 

You consider whether you should speak, but you also doubt you’d be recognized just by the sound of your voice.

"I don’t have coin,” you rasp. 

“How about that pretty thing on your finger then?” she asks. 

The ring on your middle finger is a simple band of silver, a coming of age present from your father’s court a few years ago. You stare at the band, worth boatloads more than what this woman in an alley was offering you.

But you find yourself moments later, middle finger empty, and pocket lined with the long leather necklace with the miniature letter opener charm. 

By the time you return to the blacksmith’s shop front, Chan is handing the man his coin as Hoshi holds an object sheathed in fabric. They turn around just soon enough to make it seem like you never left. 

“Why are you standing so far away?” Chan asks. “Come closer.”

You listen, moving closer to the both of them as they get ready to make the trek back to the docks where the ship waits. 

“The crates have probably been loaded too,” Hoshi says, his hands suddenly empty. You assume he’s pocketed the knife somewhere. “Let’s hurry and leave before—”

“Princess?”

It was your mistake that you turned around to acknowledge the title, something you realise as soon as you register the man that spoke to you. 

Henley was a stout man, dressed even now in the finest suit of a berry colour, hair white as a ghost. There was no reason for a merchant so rich he had ties with the royal family to be wandering in a harbour market, but he also had every reason to be here. 

If it was the recognition in your eyes, or the fact that they were just being smart, you feel one of the pirates wrap their fingers around your upper arm and pull you to walk away from the alley. 

“Princess!” Henley yells and you cringe at his volume. People are looking now, and you briefly wonder why you aren’t running yet. 

Your heart is pounding against your chest so hard it’s deafening any other sound in your ears, you still don’t know which one has a hold of you, but you let them guide you into a speed walk as you exit the narrow alleys of the main market. 

The shawl above your head is pushed further down, shielding your face in a shadow. There’s nothing in your mind other than Clarence Henley and his rich suit, his gold pocket watch, his trimmed, white hair. His face that you only ever saw within palace walls, always accompanied by your father. 

There’s a good chance you’re shaking, because you can feel your body rejecting it with the pain in your palms that you can only consider to be your own nails pressing into your hand. 

The stench of the fish market helps, bringing you back from your daze as you finally register the ground beneath your feet. It’s only a few more minutes till you reach the docks and you’re suddenly being pushed up the ramp that leads to the main deck of the ship.

It’s immediate comfort, the familiar brown of the floorboards, the scent of saltwater and warping sounds of the sails. You’re led to your quarters, where you finally let the makeshift hood and cape fall. 

“Are you alright?” 

Snapping your head up, you’re met with Seungkwan and his concerned gaze. 

“Oh, erm.” Your voice sounds…not like your own. 

“It’s okay, breathe.” It helps, because it really did feel like you’d forgotten to breathe. 

“We’re leaving in just a few, everything’s been loaded. Nobody followed you on board, don’t worry.”

Right. You were on the ship, you were in your quarters with some of the most feared pirates on the seas. 

The way Seungkwan is easing you through your gulps of water suggests legends in the mix, but you appreciate it regardless. 

When you’ve come round, feeling more like yourself, the ship has already left Hasry Harbour, sailing into the deeper waters of the ocean. 

“Captain said they couldn’t run because it just would’ve been more suspicious,” Seungkwan informs you as you nod. “Did you…did you recognise him? The man at the market.” 

The thoughts come flooding back, the colour of his suit, the jarring nature of a man of such wealth standing in a rundown port market. 

“He’s a merchant, one of the wealthiest. A friend of my father’s. If he even has any friends.” 

You pause as you think about the near blackout you’d had, the way the panic more than boiled over, taking over your senses and your rationality. 

“I think…” you trail off. “I think I just felt like it was the end. I finally had an opportunity to get rid of that tyrant and seeing something that was from home, felt…it felt like I was going to end up right back where I started.”

Seungkwan doesn’t say a word as you digest your own words, accepting your own fear that had rendered you useless in the time it probably mattered most. 

“Do you feel better now?”

“A little,” you answer. 

“Maybe a weapon can help.”

At the door stands Hoshi, a stern expression on his face as he looks directly at you on the bed. In his hands, the same fabric covered knife he acquired at the market. 

You know that you asked for this, but the jolt in your stomach still makes itself known. 

“He’s right,” Seungkwan says, lifting from his chair. “Blades have a way of calming you in any case.”

You note the glinting hilt of Seungkwan’s sword sheathed at his hip, remember Hoshi’s own daggers that he seems to be emotionally attached to. 

Lifting your head back to Hoshi, you ask, “Can we start now?”

He smirks. 

ALL NIGHT, THE STUPID pirate captain had you taking swings at the air. 

“Your opponent’s baked a fruit cake by the time you were done with that swing,” he comments, continuously unhelpful. “Swing faster.”

It’s nighttime, nothing but a few oil lamps on the floor of the deck keeping you and Hoshi in the light. Your shoulder burns, your forearms are liquid, and your non-existent opponent remains forever stronger than you. 

“I’m done,” you huff, thoroughly spent. Crumbling to the floor, you bring your non-dominant hand up to your aching shoulder in an attempt to massage it. 

It’s been a while, the moon high up in the sky when you finally decide to quit it for the night. He lets you go without a fight, and you doubt you’d have the energy to if he decided to do it anyway. 

The following day, he’s tweaked his regiment a little, and you find that you’re finally swinging at something tangible; him. 

He leaves himself open, an invitation to strike wherever you want. You feign for his shoulder, but he sees you coming from a mile away, already deflecting your flattened blade that comes for his thigh.

“Don’t look where you want to strike, you’re giving yourself away.”

Furrowing your brows, you dislodge your knife from his own and back away again. He’s immediately cocking a brow, telling you to come at him again. You go for his middle, slashing your knife in an arc as he simply deflects. 

“Come on, find a pace,” he grunts. 

Coming down with your knife again, he blocks you but this time with his forearm, pushing you back by the wrists. It was a battle of strength, as he forces your wrists down. He was stronger than you, and there was no way you could push away, so you dispel your own force. He stumbles from the sudden forward force, and you pull away to take a swing from above. 

He recovers faster than you thought he would, already coming up when you’re ready to swing. He raises a hand to deflect, half a moment too late as your blade slashes across the heel of his hand. 

There’s a brief splash of red against the blue backdrop of the sky, and you gasp on instinct, immediately moving away. 

There’s an apology ready on your lips, mouth gaping as you watch him inspect the wound. You don’t get to say anything because he beats you to it. 

“Deep enough,” he comments, like he was inspecting a painting. “Keep this up and you might actually be good by the end of the week.”

Oh. 

“Alright,” he says again, moving back into position.

“Are you gonna wrap that?” you ask, referring to the bloody hand. 

“It’s fine, I’ve fought with worse,” he says. 

You blink as you reluctantly get back into position, bracing yourself as you continue to look at his hand dripping blood onto the deck. 

“You’re getting the hang of pacing, but you need to start considering your blade as an extension of yourself—JESUS!”

You’ve swung at him faster than you ever have, putting everything into that single tug of your knife. He wasn’t expecting it, still talking over your glances at his palm. He had his guard down, and you took the chance. He ducks on instinct, but it could’ve been another scar for him to remember if you’d made it. 

You stumble as he circles you to the other end, flattening his blade on your back.

“Nice try,” he says. “Really nice try. But you never turn your back to your opponent.”

“I lost my footing,” you defend, but even you knew that wasn’t an excuse. 

“And I just stabbed you in the back. And now I’ll have to present your corpse to your father and hope he’ll accept it and give me my ship. We all lose.” 

The pressure of the blade leaves your back and you're suddenly left looking stupid despite doing something somewhat right. 

“You’d just swindle another poor sailor off his boat and move on,” you say. “You’re a slippery thing.”

He has a smile on his face that borders a smirk yet is innocently mischievous enough. It’s a strange sight, bloody hand, relaxed face. There’s a clean-ish rag on a nearby closed barrel that he uses to wipe the excess blood off his hands. 

“I keep going because I live without regret.”

You can only roll your eyes as a scoff leaves your mouth before you can stop it. You simply turn around, settling to the floor, going back to massaging your still aching shoulder. That last blow only made it worse.

“I don’t regret things, miss princess. Ask me why.”

You remain silent. 

“Come on,” he urges, that silly smile remaining on his face. He’s washing the wound now with freshwater from the barrel.

Sighing, you ask him, “Why?”

“Because I don’t ever do things I’d regret.”

“That insinuates you think before you act.”

“Right-O,” he declares, wrapping another torn cloth on his cleaned wound.

“Funny,” you answer. “Because I dont think I’ve ever seen any hint of light behind your eyes.”

He turns around to you, sheathing his dagger at his hip, a dangerous look in his eye.

“You’ve looked into my eyes?” 

The clench in your jaw must have been visible, or the look of disgust on your face might’ve been apparent just the same, because the pirate captain simply laughs out loud before retreating towards the stairs to go below deck. 

“I’ll send Jun up, practise with him.”

You wanted to send your knife, point first, hurtling into his retreating form. 

Never turn your back to your opponent, my ass. 

But you don’t, mostly because he’d probably manage to deflect that too. So you resort to sitting cross legged on the deck, staring at your dagger while waiting for Jun to meet you upstairs. 

Hoshi said he picked the knife based on a number of things you’d already forgotten, something about carbon steel and having a good grip. It’s quite pretty, you’ll have to admit. It’s plain silver, but the reflection it makes in the sun makes it difficult to look away. You’d gotten used to the handle and how it fit in your palm, Hoshi assured you that the more you used it, the more the hilt would mould into your grip. 

Jun stomps onto the deck, revolver-less and instead equipped with an array of knives that he deposits on the deck. 

“Should’ve picked a plain old gun,” he grumbles as he holds one of the longer blades in his hand. “Job’s done and you don’t need to get within ten feet.”

“Don’t have to reload a knife, do I?” you comment, taking the first swing. 

Jun may have an affinity for guns and explosives, but his handling with a knife was still nothing below an expert level. He pushes your arm off before spending you into a ballroom spin, flatting his blade at your collarbone. 

That could’ve been your throat.

“No, but by now I could’ve shot you, thrown you overboard, and been on my way to a nap,” he says in your ear, before releasing you as you get back into position again. 

That could’ve been your throat.

THE FOLLOWING WEEK PASSES with your days and nights muddled into a strange mixture of swinging knives and taking breaks slumped against the deck of the ship, unmoving. 

It’s a particularly hot day, the giant glowing orb beating down on the deck with no mercy. Not that it stops you, because the sun remains unwavering, high in the sky, and you remain unwavering in your wide legged stances as you lunge for Chan again. 

Chan’s entire being glistens in the afternoon light, the beads of sweat that he wipes off his forehead only seem to reappear every couple minutes. His clothes cling to him like a second skin, taking long breaths through his teeth amidst the difficult, humid air. 

You don’t doubt you look the same, one hand in your hair suggesting you just took a bath in your own sweat. But Chan seems accustomed to the heat, and while you weren’t, you couldn’t deny your growing comfortability with it all. 

It’d been a while since your meal, hence your sluggish movements were slowly turning increasingly sharp, having cornered Chan multiple times in the duration. You’re determined to not be the one to call for a time out, so you find yourself pushing beyond what you’ve been doing for the past week or so. 

There’s a particular punch of heat at your sides, and you can feel yourself slowing. 

One deep breath, a slow exhale.

It’s all clangs and reflections of knives, tiny droplets of blood as evidence of both of your tiny, unintentional nicks and cuts. You’re succeeding, pushing the man further and further back. 

“You’re getting sloppy, aim for the blade not my tendons,” Chan seethes through his teeth. 

“I’m trying,” you grunt through the effort. 

You’re set back for a couple minutes before you go back to pushing. Your lungs burn, your entire side is numb from exertion, but you give more than your body is made for, and you succeed—kind of. 

Chan back is against the railing of the deck before he realises it, and perhaps it was momentum, or sheer exhaustion, because one minute you’ve got eyes on Chan’s hands and his blade, and the next he’s gone. There’s a loud splash, and you suddenly realise what you’ve done. 

You just pushed Chan overboard. 

You scream before you can help it, dropping your knife with a loud, resonating clang. Pushing against the rails, you peer down to find a giant ripple on the surface of the ocean, whipping your head around to the stairs leading below deck to find Mingyu and Hoshi bounding upstairs. 

“What? Where’s Chan, he was supposed to be with you,” Hoshi asks, whipping his head around the deck. 

Your wide eyed, horrified response from near the edge tells them all they need to know. 

By the time Chan’s pulled himself on board, soaked and dripping like a wet poodle, you’ve sat yourself the furthest away from the railing to prevent any more trouble. He drops onto the floor, creating a human sized puddle. 

With the way the two men had merely sighed and threw the ladder over the exterior of the ship, you concluded that this must happen enough for them to be beyond the point of concern. It only adds to it when you see Mingyu nudge Chan’s unmoving but heaving body with the toe of his boot, giggling at his expense. 

You make your way over, crouching beside Chan sheepishly. 

“Sorry about that, got carried away.”

He’s sitting up now, quickly pulling himself back to his feet and you spring back from your crouched position. 

“It’s fine, happens.” He has a small smile on his face as he says it and you conclude that he may find the situation laughable as well. 

“Now, Chan,” Hoshi says, not letting Chan move into the deck any further from the railing. “What’s the first thing you learn about brawling on a ship?” 

Chan looks slightly embarrassed as he answers, “Be aware of your surrounding—ARGH.”

Hoshi pushed him into the water. 

You jump as you run back to the rails, watching as Chan’s head re-emerges at the surface after his second dip in the ocean. 

Just as you’re about to say something to Hoshi, he’s stuck his head over the railings as well, yelling at Chan in some singsong voice. 

“One time was a mistake, twice is a problem!”

To your left, only adding to your horror, is Mingyu doubled over in his fit of laughter, heaving as he giggled uncontrollably. He’s also holding onto the railings for dear life, but clearly, for reasons completely different from yours. 

The situation resolves itself as both you and Chan learn a few lessons of practicality. Deciding you’ve done enough damage to your body, you announce that you’d be retiring for the day. 

“Thank goodness, I was about to confiscate that stupid knife, I’ve been hearing clanging in my sleep,” Mingyu mumbles as he pulls the rope ladder back up to the deck. 

In any case, you have the urge to take a dip in the ocean yourself, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in your drying sweat. 

Grabbing a clean washcloth, you fill a bucket of freshwater from one of the barrels on deck and lug it into your quarters. The soaked washcloth does wonders for your overheated body, feeling enormously better after a change of clothes. 

Your scalp, however, remains itchy and burning, so you decide to go back up to the main deck, hoping to manoeuvre a hair wash situation without needing to mop the floors of your quarters. 

Refilling the bucket of freshwater, you set it down before scanning the empty deck for another spare bucket. You try not to scoff at the unwavering determination of the pirate crew to keep the deck unoccupied for such long increments, that last altercation teaching them absolutely nothing. You wonder how they’ve managed to survive for so long like this. 

Shaking the thought, you use the spare bucket as a way to deposit your waste water as you pour cups of clean water over your aching scalp. The feeling does wonders for you, letting the water wash away weeks worth of grime, sweat and stress. 

You’re almost back home in your quarters when the whiff of your hair salts hits your nose, the ones you’d packed for yourself, closing your eyes for a moment as you rub them into your scalp. You don't expect the clench that seizes your chest, but you falter when it happens anyway.

It’s nostalgic, and you hate it. 

It smells like the palace, like the incense your ladies in waiting always burned, the stench of citrus having made its way into your bones from the years of exposure to the scent. It’s too much as you blink back tears, owing them to the suds that have made their way into your eyes. 

The sting helps bring you back, opening your eyes to an orange glow and the waft of seasalt  hitting your nose. You’re more aggressive when you dunk your cup into the bucket this time, too aggressive as you feel the half full bucket tip over and spill water all over the deck as you cause yet another accident. 

Cursing loudly, you try to blink away the suds from your eyes, soap still in your hair as you try to figure out how to get another bucket of water without ruining your fresh change of clothes, mentally kicking yourself at not thinking this through.

“You realise we have to make do with that freshwater till we make it to Ash?” 

Wet hair still in your hands, you attempt to peer up at the voice, only to find Hoshi standing above you, arms crossed over his chest with a funny expression on his face. Huffing, you grumble out in response, “Can you just get me a fresh bucket?”

“Hm, I don’t know, can I?” He removes his gaze and begins to pretend looking over at the horizon and the setting sun. 

Chiding yourself for even bothering to ask, you reach for the tipped bucket yourself, deciding you’d figure it out yourself if this dumb pirate was choosing to be of no help. But before you could latch your fingers on the handle, the bucket’s snatched away. 

At first you think he’s being funny, taking the bucket away to watch you struggle even further. “You—”

Except you watch him as he dunks the bucket back into the barrel of freshwater, lugging it back to where you could reach. “Try not to paint the deck with it this time, I’ve already mopped twice.”

The thank you freezes on your tongue, and for some reason you can’t say it to him. So you make a scene of splashing into the bucket with vigour, sending spills over the rim and taking mild satisfaction in hearing him sigh at the sight of more mopping. 

He’s already gotten hold of the worn mop by the time you’re done as you remerge with clean hair, wringing your own mop of hair to deposit the excess water. Straightening out your back, you take hold of the spare cloth you brought along with you, patting your hair with it. 

The sun remains in its mission to cast its golden glow, but only illuminates Hoshi’s grumbling form as he mops up all the water you’ve spilled. 

“You know, I should really be making you—” He halts as he makes eye contact with you, your hands still occupied with patting your hair dry, flicking the wet strands. You have a rebuttal already prepared, waiting for him to finish his jab. 

“Make me what? you grind. 

You can’t make out the look on his face, somewhere between constipated and on the edge of a yelp, he keeps staring at you. You note a slight trickle of water making its way down your neck and chest, bleeding into your shirt as yet another water stain. 

“Nothing,” he says, to your surprise. 

And with that uneventful climax, you trudge back down to your quarters, a strange brewing in your chest.

[AN]: congrats you made it to the end of part 1!!!!! reblog ur thots and opinions or send me an ask, id love to hear the turmoil in ur minds lol

[viisator]

Because I loved you. P.Sunghoon.

Pairings: Park Sunghoon X F!Reader

Genre: Phycological thriller, Tragedy, Romance.

Warning: Kidnapping, Stockholm syndrome, Obsession.

Not Proofread

Description: Park Sunghoon has always loved you; for two years, he watched over you by your room's window, in school, in the neighbourhood, in the park, everywhere. Then, one day, you drop your wallet somewhere, and before you lose your mind, he comes to you with a smile, handing your lost wallet to you. Then that's when it all started, you talked, you became somewhat friends, then he invited you to his luxury yacht, then there was a storm, then you were stuck with him.

1st person's and 2nd's pov.

(This is inspired by Lucy Christopher's 'Stolen' novel.)

• • • • •

I remembered how I desperately tried to talk to you when they took me away. How I kept crying asking my mom to let me see you. But they all said the same things over and over again: You manipulated me. It was my survival instinct. I don't actually know what I'm saying. It's Stockholm Syndrome. I'm not thinking straight. I'm crazy. But you know what, Sunghoon? They're wrong. They just don't know. But I don't hate them, they just don't understand. But you know, right? That's not true; you didn't manipulate me, and I'm not crazy because I do love you. They just don't want to accept that.

They said you took me. I know that. You kidnapped me after making me believe a storm flipped your yacht and the waves took us to an island in nowhere. But it was so well prepared, and you didn't seem frightened or shocked we were stuck on an island in nowhere. When I asked you why you're not freaking out, you said it's best to stay calm in situations like this. Of course, it isn't true because you actually constructed that lie to make me trust you, huh? The thing is, I'm glad you did.

Then you taught me how to make a fishing rod, how to catch bait and how to make a fire. I remembered how you held my hand as you guided me to the shore, and we caught fish together. You even laughed when I fell into the water, and I hated how I loved your laugh then. Then I tried to escape and fight you. Do you remember? How did I kick you and punch you as I tried to get away? But the island is a small circle, I only run for a few minutes, and I'm back to you again; I cried so much I fell onto the sand, and you watched me with your sad eyes. You just crouched down in front of me as you watched me cry, whispering it's better this way, just you and me, and you didn't touch me, just muttered how you'd never hurt me.

"I never would've taken you here- never would've risked your life to drown on that storm. But I love you and- and your parents wouldn't approve of me..." You whispered as you drew patterns on the sand, but I knew you weren't looking at your lines on the sand because your eyes were sad watching me cry.

"You don't even accept me, but you will. I know you will. You'll accept this place too."

I just kept crying, crying and crying and crying, until I realized the sky was orange and pink, and you had already made the fire. It wasn't the last time I cried and tried to escape, but you always seemed to catch me, and at the same time, it felt like you were saving me.

I remembered the third time I tried to get away, when I dragged a long fallen tree to the shore while you slept, thinking it would serve me as a boat and take me to a wider land where I could go back and tell you to the police. I dragged the dried tree until it floated and the water reached my chest, I tried to climb the tree then. The tree wasn't thick nor wide, It was almost the size of my legs combined but my legs were still bigger, so when I hopped on it I flipped, I managed to hold my breath when I hit the water, but my head hit a rock too, so there's a momentary pause and I gasped and my lungs hurt and my ears ringing, but you lift me and dragged me to shore, to the sand and muttered how I shouldn't have tried to escape, then you made me puke the waters out with your index and middle fingers touching the inside of my throat and vomited, then you went to the trees and found herbs I cannot name and dressed the wound I didn't know existed on my head. I knew then that you did save me.

The second time I nearly died- minus the storm- was when I decided to die was better than being stuck on that island with my captor. You, Sunghoon.

You were out in the trees, in the woods. I stared blankly at the waves, listening to them splash. Then there was this magnet that pulled me closer to it, so I stood and followed the retreating waves, imagining my mom waiting for me with my new ironed school uniform after I woke up, my breakfast waiting on the dining table. I saw my dad sneaking behind my mom handing me twenty dollars because I aced my precalculus. I heard my sister singing with the karaoke, dedicating the song to her crush as she ranted about how she was stuck in her art class. I feel my brother's hug as he congratulates me on my new award. Then I saw you blur, shining with the sun, your image dancing with the water as I closed my eyes. Right then I thought I just died. But you woke me up again, resurrected me as I liked to call it.

I didn't try to escape after that.

When they took me away from you, I didn't close my eyes, I just cried and watched you the whole time they dragged us both away from each other, then you mouthed: It's okay. You're safe.

But the thing is, Sunghoon, I'm not. I don't think I am safe. You weren't there when they took me to a white room with nothing else. They asked me all these kinds of questions. I didn't know what to answer and just burst out crying, calling your name, then they took me to a different room, left me alone and then I slept. Very. Very long.

It was my mom's face the first thing I saw then I woke up. Not you. I was so used to seeing you first when the sun hit my face and I woke up. So I asked about you.

"Honey, it's okay, don't worry about him; he can't hurt you anymore." My mom was saying as she hiccuped all the words, my dad on her side rubbing his hand on her arm.

But they're wrong. You never hurt me. So I shook my head and told them the truth. They didn't believe me, they said you manipulated me. Which isn't the truth either.

Since then, I realized they already made up the truth they wanted to believe. When I told them my truth, they shook their heads and my parents cried more, saying what did that monster do to their daughter.

Then I realized I was in a hospital bed, my sister sitting by my side, pealing me a tangerine.

"He's not a monster," I said, anger in my shaky voice. She didn't say anything, just pealed more tangerine as she wiped her tears from time to time. Three months after that, I told her everything that happened between us and what you are, and she cried all the time, not saying anything just saying sorry she wasn't a good sister. I still don't know how is her apology connected to us, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

The thing is, they didn't know you saved me, they didn't know you cared for me. They didn't know how you taught me to open a coconut fresh from the tree and how you taught me how to catch a fish with the rod we both made.

You didn't look at me in the courtroom; I was so sad because that's the only moment I'm allowed to see you. Then you said your testimony, and it broke my heart because you're agreeing with them; you said their truth, not our truth. When they asked you if you've been stalking me for two years you said guilty. When they asked if you planned to take me away- kidnapped me, you said guilty. Then, when they asked if you lured me to get into your yacht, you said guilty. The thing is, you never lured me; I went willingly with you because you were supposed to show me something, right?

When it was my turn to speak, I told them our truth, my truth. I told them you're not a monster, you saved me, you didn't hurt me, you never touched me the way I didn't like, you never said anything to hurt me, and I saw everyone make a face; my mother shook her head and cried. When I looked at you, your eyes were pleading, as if to say, 'Please don't, it's for the best.' but how is it the best? We're so far from each other. But still, after all those things I said, they still took you away. I didn't feel like I won the trial because my lawyer kept saying I was in psychological confusion, and the judge believed it too, so they took me away.

Then therapy came, and my psychiatrist kept asking things that I hated answering because I just kept remembering how you let me go and pushed me away, despite you bringing me there on that small island with you.

"I really love music" My voice penetrated the sound of waves hitting the sand and rocks, I'm not looking at the constellation anymore, and I can feel you're not either because I feel your gaze on me, and it encouraged me to continue, knowing you're listening.

"I play the guitar sometimes. My dad bought it for me when I got a really good grade at school. I'm not exceptionally good, I'm not really good at strumming or plucking." I know my voice wasn't that loud because you leaned closer to hear me; I could almost feel your shoulder brush mine, but you still kept your distance; I kind of hoped you'd lean more, touch me, and cage me in your strong arms. But you didn't, so I go on.

"There's nothing to listen to here, unlike home, only the water," I said, looking at the calm sea dance in front of us.

"And insects." You said. I nod.

"And insects," I repeated.

"And you. And me."

"Yes, and us," I repeated again. I didn't have to glance at you to know you were frowning, not in confusion or anything, just looking at me as if you wanted to embrace me and mould me inside you until we were one.

I inhaled sharply, and the smell of the sea and sand entered my nostrils. I don't glance at you, I look at you fully, because somehow, I'm not afraid of you anymore, I'm not scared of the deepness and darkness obscure of your eyes, I feel like I want to drown in them at that moment, and I wished you'd never let me go. I feel my eyes burn somehow, maybe because of the sadness those intense eyes are looking at me with, or because I still really want to go back home, or maybe because I don't want to leave at all, I don't want to escape you. But I said it anyway.

"Would you take me there? At home?" I whispered. But you heard. You always heard. Then I feel my cheeks wet, then I see your hand hesitate to wipe my tears in my peripheral vision, as if afraid to touch me. But how could you? How could you hesitate to touch me when you've taken me, carried me to your little island over the sea, how come you never touched me?

I see the hurt in your eyes; you parted your lips then closed them again, and your frown slowly turned to something else, something trembling, but there's still the ceased in your brows as if you're physically hurting, and your eyes have tears on the corner. Unlike you, I didn't shy away when I reached out and ran my thumb across the edge of your eyes. You didn't flinch; you leaned more, and you looked more in pain as I leaned even closer, close enough to take your lips with my teeth, close enough to wrap all my being to your body. But you didn't lean anymore closer, so I had to do it, right? But why are you pushing me away?

"I can sing to you..." You whispered, your voice strained. You have your hands on my shoulders keeping distance between us, and I cry even more because of that, I don't know if you knew I was crying because you didn't want me close, or because you knew you'd still have to let me go even if I'm locking my arms around you. Why are you pushing me away? I thought you took me here because you want me, because it's only us in the world, that you saved me, that you love me?

"But if you really wanna go..." You said, now your tears are running down your cheeks too, I wipe them again.

"I know a boat- you can go." I didn't know if I let my sob out because I knew you'd never say those words, that you'd never let me leave even if I begged you to let me go, but I was wrong, very wrong, wasn't I? So I didn't say anything, I didn't say that that's not the right answer, that you shouldn't be letting me go, that you should be caging me even more, but I leaned to you, catching your lips with mine. I can still hear the waves muffled in the background, but it's only my sob and the beat of our hearts I can clearly hear.

You pull me closer. At last. You hold my waist very gently, you run your hands on my hair and hold my head as I push myself onto you further, opening my mouth for you to kiss me more, to feel me more so you wouldn't have to send me away, even though I was the one who asked you to.

I don't want to say anymore after that, but of course, I could never forget; it was the most precious memory of us, but I don't want anyone to know it's only for us, and they will be checking my letter before they send it to you. My mom didn't want this to be sent to you, because it's only part of my therapy Dr. Clarington told me to do, but I insisted I want you to read it too, and mom will be checking it first before you can read it. I hope you know I love you, even though right now all the people in here say I'm only manipulated, that it was my survival instinct to be attached to you and I don't know anymore, I just want you to know I always dream of what happened that night, between us, and the other days and night before when I fought like an animal and drowned in the sea only to be resurrected by you. When you told me you took me because you love me. I could never forget it.

[14dayswithyou]

The 14DWY brainrot is real... >_< were ypu planning on sharing koi ren's design here too or is it discord only for now? remember to drink lots n lots of water today 🐸☔️

i don't rmbr if i included this but can you share any koi crumbs too?

✦゜ANSWERED: aaaaa I'm 14 years late to this ask (/silly), but thank you for reminding me!! I'll add the new Mer Ren design to da queue >:3

I'll also put the Koi Ren (I'm rocking with this new name!!) crumbs under the cut!!

"Stop rocking the boat, Ren." Without sparing a glance in his direction, you continue to stare out into the vast, open lake. "You'll scare away all the fish."

Had you turned around, you would've seen the faux-deadpan look on his face as Ren takes in the irony of your words. As if to prove a point, he gently swishes his tail in the water, which causes small ripples to form and (eventually) disturb your bobber. "I don't think the boat is the problem here."

"Okay, how about this... One more fish, then we can go back." You finally look back at your scaley companion — who was still leaning against the edge of your tin boat with a lazy smile — and give him a resolute nod. "Promise."

"Sure," Ren casually reaches into the boat to pick and pluck at some of your live bait. "But you said that about the last three fish."

"This will be the last one. I swear."

"You... swear?" You try to ignore the way Ren swallows up one of your minnows as if you weren't using them for bait as he continues to speak, "Like... curse words? Humans sure are weird creatures."

As if realising his comment, Ren's ocean-blue eyes widen slightly and shift towards your form. "N-Not... Not you, though."

With a laugh, you playfully try to nudge him off of the boat. All it does is cause it to tip slightly, but Ren steadies it when you show signs of losing balance.

"Alright. One more fish, then?"

You nod and cast your attention back to your rod once more. You don't even notice the silence — nor Ren slipping away — until you suddenly feel a tug on your line and call out to your companion in excitement. "That was quick!"

Quickly reeling it in, you wonder what kind of fish you'd just caught — it's definitely stronger than you anticipated, given how the rod drastically bends and snaps at every movement from the fish. And just as you see the shadow from the murky depths get closer, the ripples get bigger and cause a stir underneath your tin boat. Standing up now, you try with all your might to reel it on board...

...Only for a mess of black hair to emerge from below and peer up at you with a smug look.

"Ren!"

"Looks like you got a big one."

"C'moooon." You practically whine, though you allow Ren to haul himself into your tiny boat and rest his head in your lap. You can still feel his body shake from underneath your touch, no doubt still laughing at his poor attempt at a joke. "This doesn't count."

A beat passes before your fishy companion responds. "...Hm? Fine then."

Another moment of silence follows before he slithers back into the water without another word. Half of you worries that you might've said something to offend him (there was still the tiniest hint of a language barrier between you two). Still, it ultimately leads to nothing as Ren soon emerges once more — only this time, he's hauling the biggest largemouth bass you'd ever seen into your boat.

"This good enough?" He looks at you with wide, blue eyes. "If not, I can probably find a sturgeon and—"

"It's bigger than my boat!"

"Is this what your kind calls... exaggeration? Because your boat is big enough even for me to—"

"—Arghh! It's getting water everywhere! Put it back!"

It was almost comical how Ren tossed the fish over his shoulder and back into the water without breaking eye contact with you.

Another wave of silence hits, yet neither of you seems to move or break the awkward staring contest you'd somehow started. It's then when you notice Ren's grin get bigger — most likely at your resignation and embarrassment — which causes you to fall back into your seat in defeat.

"Fine. Enough fishing for today. Let's head back." Busying yourself with the bucket of fish and tacklebox in front of you, you secure your gear and pack everything away. But it seems Ren had other plans, seeing as he took it upon himself to climb back into your boat and rest his arms on your legs. No longer able to move as freely, you have no choice but to indulge in his carefree whims.

"But you caught me. Aren't you going to bring me home too?"

"As much as I want to," Truly, you do. You've always wanted to show Ren the world outside of Lake Bluemoss. "There's no way I'm carrying you all the way down the mountain."

"You never know until you cry."

"Try." You correct him. "Until you try."

"Your kind sure are funny." Ren nuzzles himself closer. "Perhaps another time, then... Stay here tonight."

Your body pricks up at his words, and you spare a glance at the abandoned boathouse near the dock. Despite its rough and rugged exterior, you and Ren actually made it quite comfy. It had some of your old blankets and sheets thrown over one of the boats to make it comfortable to lounge in — alongside a giant empty tank that you and Ren filled with water for him to sit in as well. Despite the lack of human traction, the place still felt homey and well-loved.

"...I guess I could."

"Then what are we waiting shore?"

You had to roll your eyes at his attempt at a pun.

[shouyuus]

chapter two: tell no tales

roronoa zoro; 3,029 words; fluff and angst, enemies to lovers, slowburn, depressed!zoro, ship therapist!nami, dick!zoro bc he cannot process emotions, no "y/n", trauma bonding

summary: in which zoro starts to believe in ghosts

a/n: hi from the new blog friends! yes, i know it's a little confusing, but please bear with me !! this series is indeed moving to here to the new blog, but the masterlist will live on my old blog till i've got all the links up, and i can reblog onto the new one.

< to the table of contents

The following hours are a blur of bodies and color, the setting sun bleeding out over the distant sky, the tiny island retreating in the distance as the Merry jolts along the choppy waves. Nami’s hand, Luffy’s arm, Usopp offering to take his midnight watch, Sanji pressing a bottle of something and a tray of riceballs into his hands.

Zoro drinks. And drinks. And drinks.

He drinks until the earth sways beneath him in ways he’s certain isn’t just the rocking of the ship. He drinks until the sky pivots above him, seeping into the darkness of his little corner room. He drinks, and he sleeps.

And he dreams of you.

In his dreams, you’re vibrant and laughing, your cheeks full of color, your lips brushed in reds or pinks or purples. You offer him a freshly made mochi, your fingertips dusted in rice flour. He reaches out for it but just before he can take it, the tiny little sweet splits open to reveal a raw, bleeding heart.

Blood trickles between your fingertips, slicking down your arm like pomegranate juice.

Zoro looks up to find you smiling, but there’s blood oozing down the sides of your face, collecting in the dip of your collarbones from a massive gunshot wound to the side of your head.

You cock your head, offering him the bloodied mochi.

“C’mon, take it! Everyone else got one!”

He jerks awake to a quiet knock at his door and Sanji’s muffled voice from the other side.

“Breakfast, mosshead. Made your favorites — grilled mackerel and miso soup and rice. I’ll uh — keep it warm for ya, but not for long, okay?”

Zoro swallows passed the dryness in his throat, closing his eyes and pressing a hand to his face, shielding himself from the bright orange light seeping in from the little window in the corner. After a few more minutes, he swings himself out of bed, dragging his swords with him down the hallway into the kitchen.

Everyone is there, gathered around the hanging table, talking in whispered tones. They all go quiet when Zoro rounds the door, and Usopp clears his throat, leaning back with a forced lightness.

“Seems like we’ll be hitting the next island soon!” he says, eyes darting towards Nami, who sighs and nods.

“Yeah, it’s only a few more days till we get to the next island,” she says, glancing back down at her hands, “then it’s straight up into the Grand Line.”

Zoro nods, dropping into one of the empty seats and pulling the only fully set tray of food towards him. He stares at the carefully arranged items — the fish grilled to skin-crisp perfection, the miso soup still hot enough to steam, the rice fluffy and sweet.

He picks up his chopsticks.

“Good,” he says, his voice too soft, “the faster we get there… the better.”

It’s strange, how Zoro’s never before believed in ghosts. But now, he sees the shadow of you in everything he does. In the swift swish of his swords through the air, in the flutter of wind in the Merry’s sails, in the rhythmic creak of the planks of the main deck.

He thinks of you, of the sadness that had flickered in your eyes the second before Crocodile (or Mr. 0 as he’s known in Baroque Works; they’d since figured out his name and his ranking, but not much else) pressed the gun to your head and pulled the trigger.

He finds himself reliving the moment, sinking into the infinitesimal space between the breath and the gunshot; he searches it as if there might have been clues tucked in the way your throat had caught or the specific way your lashes had fluttered. He thinks, at least, you hadn’t looked scared.

And maybe, that in and of itself is the mercy.

— — —

He sees you again in Mag Mell, a tiny jewel box island tucked along the edges of Paradise. It’s an island of dreamers, of poets and painters, musicians and mystics, with wending streets papered in silver dust, and houses painted in dessert-bright colors, with pearl-gilded roofs, and golden-tipped steeples hung with glittering crystal bells that tolled by the passing hours.

People here sang easily and laughed freely, and it’s all Zoro can do not to look for you around the bend of every street corner, to jolt at every single peal of bright, unabashed laughter.

You would’ve been so happy here — at least the you from his childhood memories. Guilt claws at his insides. He should’ve done more — should’ve tried harder to save you —

So when he does catch glimpse of you, the you that’s been haunting all his all sleepless nights, he isn’t sure if he’s actually dreaming. But how could he be? They’d just docked hours ago — with Sanji and Usopp off shopping for groceries, and Luffy plowing through the market for food, Nami doing… whatever Nami does in cities like these.

At first, he thinks its his eyes playing tricks — his subconscious toying with him in this place that seems so cruelly perfect for the you of his memory, as if his dreams hadn’t been ruthless enough. But then, he hears your voice, and he’s sure it’s you.

He follows you down one twisting alley, and then another, the streets folding over one another like tributaries to a mother stream. Around the third bend, he loses you, and for a frantic moment, he finds himself spinning around himself once, twice, until a thin pair of arms slams him up against the far wall, painted a deep mahogany red.

“What part of don’t follow me are you not understanding?” your voice is nothing more than a hissed breath, tight and angry and pleading, but it’s yours.

The next moment, Zoro has you flipped, pinning you to the opposite wall, this time in a blinding turquoise, his teeth bared, a sword poised at your throat.

“Who the fuck are you?” he asks, forcing out the words, his heart a wild, untamed thing beating in his chest, hard enough to sting. His eyes are too wide, searching your face desperately as if looking for a sign, a slip-up that might prove you’re not who you look like you are, and yet —

The wry way your lip twists up has his stomach roiling within him. You stop struggling, tilting your head to look at him in the gather of shadows of the deserted alley.

“What? Forgotten me already? And here I thought dying in front of you would make more of a lasting impression —”

“Exactly,” Zoro bites back, unable to stop his sword from digging into the skin of your neck, a thin line of blood seeping out from beneath your otherwise unmarred skin, “I saw — I watched you —” his throat seizes forcibly over the word die and he struggles for a few seconds before he jerks back, “I watched you get shot.”

You rub at your throat with a ginger hand, drawing it away to stare at the rub of red there, your expression inscrutable.

“Yeah… that you did.”

He whips his sword out to the side before slipping it into its sheath with a dull shink.

You eye it warily, the late afternoon sun creeping into the alley inch by golden inch. It kisses at your toes and creeps up your ankles as you stare at the sword at Zoro’s side.

“That was Kuina’s, wasn’t it?” you ask.

The name slams into Zoro like a gut-punch, and it’s all he can do to keep himself from stumbling.

“So what if it is?” he asks, a quaver to his voice that he almost doesn’t recognize. He turns away from you to stare at the strip of street visible from the darkened alley. A little girl with twin pigtails skips by holding a fistful of multicolored balloons, giggling as a boy races after her, trying to steal one.

“Can’t believe you still have it after all these years.”

“Yeah, well. Call me sentimental,” but his voice is flat, almost sardonic as he turns back to stare at you.

You allow him a helpless grin, “You always were more sentimental than you’d let on. Even when we were kids.”

“You died,” he spits the word out like poison, and you flinch, almost as if struck by it. He takes a deep, steadying breath but makes no move to back down as he asks, “so how the hell are you still here?”

You press your lips, casting your eyes away, your head lowered.

“You’re on a crew with a guy made of rubber — can’t you figure it out?” you ask, rueful and quiet.

Zoro scoffs, “So far as I know, there ain’t no Devil Fruits that can make you immortal.”

You wince again, though when you do speak, there’s a weary humor tacked to the ends of your words.

“You were always smarter than you let on too,” you say, finally looking up, “you’re right. It’s not a Devil Fruit.”

Zoro frowns, unable to keep the intrigue from bubbling up his chest as he watches you.

“Then…” he trails off, waiting.

A golden shaft of sun slants fully into the alley now, finally high enough to hit the side of your face, casting your features into stark relief. Like this, he can see the hollows of your cheeks, the blueness in your lips. But also, the flicker of light that once danced like fireworks behind your eyes.

“It was a deal,” you say, as the sun shifts behind a soft gauzy cloud, tossing the island into a momentary shadow once more, and your face is again shrouded in darkness, “with the Devil himself.”

— — —

“So… you can’t die,” Sanji says, stubbing out what must be his fifth cigarette since the beginning of the conversation.

A half-finished dinner service lays in an array of dishes before you, but even Luffy isn’t reaching out to pick at the remains.

You shake your head, “No, that’s the thing — I can. I just don’t tend to stay dead.”

Nami frowns, “But how does that even work? You get killed, and what — you just… respawn?”

You sigh, letting out a tired laugh, “Something like that. I die, and I wake up the next morning exactly in the last place I went to sleep.”

“Whoa, weird,” says Luffy, finally reaching for the remains of a whole roast chicken, stuffing a drumstick into his mouth.

You nod, “Very.”

Usopp is chewing on his bottom lips, looking concerned, “But… I mean — when you do d-die… does it still hurt?”

You slowly pivot to stare at him, your expression carefully neutral.

Beside you, Zoro shifts slightly, and everyone goes strangely still as they wait for your answer.

“Sometimes,” you say, carefully, “if the person killing me decides to make it hurt.”

Sanji leans back, staring up at the broad canopy of stars above the deck of the Merry.

The silence that stretches over the table is fraught with implication. Eventually, you let out a long breath, leaning back in your chair.

“But you get used to it after a while,” you say, the shadow of a smile quirking your lips.

Zoro narrows his eyes, “You make it sound easy.”

His voice is hard, his gaze fixed on a point just over Luffy’s shoulder. Beneath the low dip of his unbuttoned shirt, you can still see the remains of the scar Mihawk had left him with. No doubt he was remembering his own close tangle with death.

You lilt your head and roll your shoulders.

“What they don’t tell you about dying is that it’s the easiest thing… but easy doesn’t mean painless,” your voice is light and airy and painfully frivolous, “eventually, easy just means that at least… you know it’ll end.”

Across the table, Sanji lets out a breath as Nami gasps. Luffy purses his lips.

“But… as long as you fall asleep in a safe place, then even if you die, you’ll just wake up there again, right?” he asks.

You fix him with a look, before letting out a helpless laugh.

“Yeah, something like that. The only thing is — when you’re working for the big-bads, they tend to make sure you only ever fall asleep somewhere they can get their hands back on you.”

“But you’re with us now!” Luffy grins, puffing out his chest, “so we’ll make sure you stay alive without having to uh — die first. Good?”

Others might only see childish innocence in his words, but you can see the absolute certainty he evokes in the rest of his crew. And that, more than anything else, makes you believe him.

You let out a shaky breath.

“Yeah, okay.”

Zoro grunts as he gets up from the table, stalking off without another word. Nami sighs, watching him go before rolling her eyes and going after him.

Sanji strikes a match and lights up a new cigarette.

“Let him be. He was real beat up after seeing you —” Sanji dips his head, “well, you know. And he’s not what you’d call super in touch with his emotions, I think.”

He shoots you a good-natured wink.

You laugh, a tired, rubbed-raw sound, nodding.

“Yeah. I know.”

Sanji taps off a bit of ash and leans forward, “So — what’s the story?”

“What makes you think there’s a story?”

Sanji blows out a series of smoke rings before reaching over to refill your glass, “Mosshead’s not exactly known for makin’ friends wherever he goes, if you know what I mean,” he slides you smile before continuing, “so if he’s this —” Sanji pauses to cast about for a proper word, “attached… to someone, I figured there’s just gotta be a story, right love?”

You sigh, nodding as you take a long sip of your drink, savoring the coolness as it slides down your throat.

“You’re right… there is a story. But I’m not sure it matters much anymore. We’re both…” you look down at your hands, pale and pink in the fading firelight, “not the kids we used to be.”

Sanji shrugs, “Neither is any of us,” he coaxes, voice gentle, “but that doesn’t mean the kids that we were don’t matter any more.”

You nod, finally allowing the warmth of the fire to wash over you as you sit back in your chair.

“Alright then — it was a long time ago but… we grew up in the same village…”

— — —

“Hey — where’re you going?” Nami catches up with Zoro just beneath the main deck, the hallway scattered with pinpricks of light, seeping in through the cracks in the planks above.

Zoro spins around, his shoulders hunched.

“To be alone.”

Nami sighs, stopping a few steps short of him.

“What’s with you? Aren’t you happy that your — your friend is alive?”

Zoro bears down on Nami, his eyes flashing.

“I don’t trust her — what if it’s not her? What if it’s a —” he waves a hand through the thickening darkness between them, “an imposter?”

Nami’s eyebrows kick up, “What, finally get your hands on a dictionary in Mag Mell?”

“Fuck you.”

Nami laughs, folding her arms as she leans up against the darkened hallway wall.

“Fine, you don’t trust her — but what else can we do? Leave her here for Crocodile and the rest of Baroque Works to catch up to her?”

Zoro tsks, turning around to pace the length of the hallway, every muscle in his body feeling tight and wrung out.

“Wouldn’t matter much — she can’t die remember?”

“Yes, she can,” Nami says, her words harsh enough to stun Zoro still. She stalks up to him, her eyes blazing in the imminent dark. “You’ve almost died once — tell me, was it a pleasant experience?”

A muscle ticks in Zoro’s jaw, but he keeps his mouth clamped shut.

He remembers it in pieces, in fever-break moments and mind-numbing delusions. He remembers the bone-deep ache that had seemed to permeate every inch of his body, of the dull pounding in his head as he tried to piece together what his crewmates were saying to him, sitting by his bedside. He’d known they were there, but he’d couldn’t let them know, couldn’t force him limbs to move the way he wanted.

It had been nothing short of agony.

“Look, I’m not asking you to trust her but at least think — think about the life she would’ve led in Baroque Works. What they might’ve made her do if they knew that every time she died, she’d just wake up in the last place she fell asleep.”

Like this, Nami’s voice is soft, almost silken. A spate of unease slithers down Zoro’s spine.

Zoro stares down at her. It hadn’t been so long ago that he’d regarded Nami with the same kind of vague distrust.

“Think for a second, about the suicide missions they would’ve made her take.”

Those words ring through Zoro like a death knell, and he takes half a step back, his head spinning with the implications. She’s right, he hadn’t thought of the life you’d led; he’d been so caught up on the vast dissonance between the person you were and the person you'd become. He’d been so tangled in his own feelings of shame and anger that he hadn’t paused to think.

Nami sighs and takes a few more steps back.

“I mean. You heard her — just because dying is easy, that doesn’t make it painless.”

“I just —” Zoro closes his eyes, letting a clenched fist thump softly against the wall beside him. A terrible, hot prickling sensation is working its way up the back of his throat, constricting his airways. He swallows hard around it before turning to look at Nami once more.

“I just can’t stand the thought of losing her again.”

Nami lets out a breathy laugh, bobbing her head once. There’s still a steely light to her eyes, but her voice when she finally does speak is soft —

“Then make sure it doesn’t happen again. I mean, what are those three swords for anyway?”

TAGLIST: @brairslair @msheds0519 @yunabelless @lynndt-chocolate @lostonthrillerbark @stunies @tsumu-senpai @phroggii @ssailormoonnn @breathinginyoursmoke @guridoodles @kyllium @naomihatake @itoshiexx @mythicallystupid @mars-mizuko @astroniii @crispynutella @enhastolemyheart @fanficwriter101 @jamesbparker @dira333 @weirdowithaphone @ink-perfect @lodeddiperrodrick @not-a-glad-gladiator @vinskypuff @itsagoodluckkiss @blondethinkpink @ellelowthere @annievrse @m333myselfandiii @tsubaki3192 @grapelover2000 @teewon @keigoskrio @ggyuslovie @manuosorioh @one17 @monkey-d-hoshizora98 — pls comment below if you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series!

[paperultra]

mise en rose.

Pairing: OPLA!Roronoa Zoro x Reader Word Count: 3,806 words Warnings: Swearing, alcohol use

The tune that your father used to whistle now leaves your lips the same way it left his.

Notes skip offkey across the water as your boat rocks gently, waves lapping up against the wooden sides. The moon shines brightly overhead. You shift in place and wait for a tug on your fishing line, the basket at your feet waiting patiently for its first meal.

Archy will be happy if you actually catch something for once. There’s not a lot of fish around here, and you’re not exactly sure why; something about the aquatic plants in the area, or if you were to believe the old man in the village square, a curse that swallows anything with fins that swims too close. The last time you caught something was months ago, and it was tiny and more bone than flesh.

You don’t really care. It’s enough to just sit out here and feel the waves.

Cheeks puffing up with air for another round of music, you let your gaze drift out towards the ocean and abruptly freeze.

There’s something floating in the distance.

A piece of debris. Wood from a hull, a scrap of sail perhaps?

The thought that it may be the remnant of a ship destroyed at sea is enough for you to reel in your line and start rowing towards it, anticipation bubbling up and drowning out any thoughts of a midnight snack.

You get close enough and your anticipation gives way to shock.

“Oh, shit.”

The guy clinging to the chunk of wood stirs and lifts his head, and you almost hit him upside the head with your oar.

“Oh, shit. You��re alive.”

—

“You say you’re going out fishing and you come back with a half-dead man with three swords?” Archy looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm, but this time, you don’t blame him. This is certainly uncharted territory and your older brother is hopeless without a map. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What was I supposed to do, leave him to die?”

“I dunno! Yeah!” he gestures to the waterlogged man lying halfway on the living room couch, one arm and leg hanging off the side. “Look at him. He’s probably a pirate!”

“Damn, you think?” Crouching down, you drag your eyes across Swordsman’s ragged clothing and grin. You might’ve just rescued someone with a bounty on his head. “That’d be so cool.”

“That would not be cool.”

You shrug. “Well, I brought him in already, so you might as well help me unless you want a dead body in our living room.”

“You little –” Taking a deep breath, Archy pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a long, loud groan, and you know that you’ve won once more. “Fine. But as soon as he’s even a little bit better, we’re calling the Marines.”

“Okay,” you agree amicably. “So, what do we do first?”

“We have to undress him and warm him up.”

“Got it.” Your eager fingers go straight for the swords.

The man comes to life without warning. Seizing your wrist, he cracks one eye open and speaks in a low and rasping voice.

“Don’t. Touch. My swords.”

“Uh,” you say.

“We got to get everything off, mate,” Archy grumbles, and your guest turns his glare onto your brother. “I know how to clean swords and scabbards. I’ll dry them off and put them under the couch afterward.”

“I’ll do it myself.”

With a grunt, Swordsman pushes you away and attempts to sit up. He struggles for a full minute, jaw clenched and muscles trembling; his arms, strong and sturdy as they are, look like they’ll buckle at any moment.

Your eyebrows shoot up to the ceiling when he actually manages to prop himself up.

“Well, that’s impressive,” you mutter, making eye contact with Archy. He rolls his eyes. “Can you remove your clothes and wrap yourself up too?”

It takes a few moments before Swordsman has enough breath to respond. “I’m fine,” he says once he can.

“You’re really not,” Archy replies.

“You’re probably really dehydrated,” you say. “How long were you out there?”

The man stares at you, opens his mouth, pauses.

“Three days. Maybe.”

You gape. “You spent three days floating in the East Blue and you’re not dead?” You look at his neck for gills. “Are you a fishman or something?”

“No.”

“Really? I mean, I never met any fishmen before, so …”

His eye twitches. “I’m not a fishman.”

“Well, okay, if you say so.”

What a weird guy. Then again, you’ve heard that all sorts of characters traverse the Blue Sea. Devil fruit users, talking animals, clowns. A person who can survive the ocean for a couple days on a piece of wood is hardly out of the question.

“You’re dehydrated, in any case,” you conclude. “I’ll get you some water.”

—

After gruffly accepting a glass of water and putting on some dry clothes, Swordsman proceeds to “sleep it off” for the next twenty-four hours. When he finally wakes up, it’s in the middle of the night and you’ve just started rereading your favorite book.

“Oh, he’s awake,” you say when he stirs, swinging your feet off the coffee table and leaning forward in your chair to observe.

He grimaces under the dim light of your lamp, lifting an arm to press it over his eyes. “How long was I out,” he grouses.

“’Bout a day.”

“Shit.” He wriggles around in the fuzzy blanket you’ve wrapped around him. Once he’s loosened its hold enough, he sits up slowly and looks around, expression equal parts drowsy and wary. “Where –”

“Archy took your swords and cleaned them. They’re under the couch.”

“I told you not to touch them.”

“I didn’t. My brother did.”

Casting you the most unamused glare, Swordsman bends over to look underneath the couch. He pulls his swords out and places them in his lap, inspecting the white one first with a care that makes you rest your chin in your hand, curious and charmed. His brow furrows and you know that he finds your brother’s work to be satisfactory when he moves on to inspect the other two.

“Our uncle was a bladesmith in Loguetown. He taught Archy a thing or two before he passed.”

“You’re bladesmiths?”

“Coopers. Uncle was the rebel, I guess.” You close your book and stand up. “There’s leftover soup in the fridge. I’ll heat up the broth for you.”

This time, the man does not refuse your help and only nods. As you head to the kitchen and start to reheat the soup, you glance over and catch him sipping from the glass of water you’d topped off while he was asleep. Somehow, even that small action intrigues you. You smile.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Ladling the steaming broth into a small bowl, you stick a spoon in and walk back to where Swordsman is, sitting beside him. “Here you go. Don’t drink it too fast, and all that.”

He takes the soup, blows on a spoonful, tastes it. His eyes close, and something funny happens in your stomach when he opens them again to look at you.

“’S good.”

“Really?” He nods and puts the bowl to his lips to drink directly from it. “Thanks.”

You let him finish the miso broth in silence. It gives you time to stare at him some more; even with the horrible sunburn and petroleum jelly smeared everywhere, he’s a very handsome man, that much you can tell, with broad shoulders and a pretty face and hair as green as forest moss. The three earrings on his left ear gleam gold and sway with every movement he makes.

“Are you gonna keep staring at me, or are you gonna ask me questions?”

“Hm? Oh!” Shaking your head in slight bewilderment, you smile. “Yeah, I guess it would be good to ask some questions … so, what’s your name, anyway?”

“Roronoa Zoro.”

You tilt your head with a frown. “Roronoa Zoro.” You taste the name in your mouth. “That sounds really familiar. Are you a pirate?”

“No. I hunt them.”

“You hunt them?”

“That’s what I said.”

You look at his swords again. His earrings. Three and three.

Shooting up from the couch, you dash to Archy’s room and slam the door open.

“Archimead! Wake up!” You grab your brother’s shoulders and rattle him.

“Shit – what?!” he gargles, pushing your face away with one meaty hand and sitting up. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“It’s Roronoa Zoro!”

“What?”

“The guy in our living room,” you shriek at him, practically shaking, “is the Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro. I fished Roronoa Zoro out of the fucking ocean.”

Archy stops rubbing his eye. “What.”

Soon enough, Zoro faces both you and your brother in the living room once more.

“You’re Roronoa Zoro? For real?” Archy asks him.

Zoro blinks up him. “Yeah.”

“Can you prove it?”

“‘Can you prove it’ – Archy, look at him. He’s got three earrings in his left ear and three fucking swords.”

“He could be some sort of copycat. We have no idea what Roronoa Zoro actually looks like.”

“You’re such a pessimist. Nobody would lug around three swords if they couldn’t use all of them at once.” You turn your attention back onto Zoro. “How the hell did you get stranded out there?”

He looks between the two of you, waiting for a moment before crossing his arms. “I was headed to Mirror Ball Island, but the boat I was on got caught in a whirlpool,” he says, displeased. “Then I got separated from the rest of the crew. Don’t know if they survived or not.”

“Mirror Ball Island?” you repeat. “That’s a three-day journey from here, at least.”

“Where’s here?”

“Dokusha Village.” You open one of the books on the table and point to a tiny strip of coast you’d labeled on the edge of the East Blue map. “Right there. You could buy a boat and sail west, straight to Mirror Ball Island.”

“I don’t have any beri on me right now,” Zoro says.

“Oh, yeah. Of course you don’t.” Archy puts his hands on his hips. “Well, the merchant ship is coming by in two weeks. If you’re all good by then, you can hitch a ride.”

“I’ll be fine by tomorrow night.”

You snort, closing the book and reclining back. “The rate you’re going, I don’t doubt it. Does that mean you want to leave earlier? You’ll still need a boat and supplies. Food, water, towels, sleeping gear. That all costs money. I mean, we could lend you some, but still.”

“I’ll work for it,” Zoro replies. “I don’t take and give nothing in return.”

Both you and Archy give a hum of approval.

—

True to his word, Roronoa Zoro is up and off the couch by the fourth day.

He doesn’t have a clue as to how to make barrels or buckets, which is expected, so he ends up helping with the grunt work of carrying staves into the workshop and stacking finished barrels. Other than that, there’s not much for him to do.

“Sorry if it’s boring,” you apologize during lunch, speaking through a mouthful of sandwich. “You’re kind of just hired muscle.”

Zoro shrugs, chewing on his own sandwich. Two girls walking by – Phoebe and Iris, the blacksmith’s daughters – spot him on the bench and giggle, hurrying past with glances over their shoulders. He appears not to care. “It’s fine.”

“I think you’re even stronger than my brother. Is it because of your training as a swordsman?”

“Probably,” he says.

“When did you start?”

“When I was eight.”

You nod sagely. “Not surprised. I’ve been helping around the workshop since I was a kid, and I only just finished my apprenticeship a few weeks ago. It’s good to start young.”

It seems that Zoro agrees by the way he grunts, stuffing the last piece of crust into his mouth.

When he’s done, you muster the courage to ask, “What’s it like, being a bounty hunter?”

Zoro raises an eyebrow at you. Then he gazes back out at the street. “It’s fine,” he responds. “Makes good money.”

You sigh exasperatedly. “Yeah, but, like, is it fun? Do you spend a lot of time at sea? See a lot of different places? Stuff like that.”

“I don’t do it for fun. My only goal is to become the world’s greatest swordsman.” He leans back and puts his hands behind his head. “It’s a shitton of traveling, both on ships and on land. I’ve been all over the East Blue.”

“Wow.” The word comes out as a sigh. You crunch longingly on a carrot stick. “That sounds amazing. It’s my dream to travel all over the world on a ship.”

“How come you’re here, then?”

You wince, hushing him hastily. Glancing behind you, you clear your throat and lean in to speak softly. “Archy hates the ocean. He worked on a merchant ship for a few months when he was eighteen and got super sick.” Upon reading Zoro’s blank expression, you clarify, “I can’t just leave him. I’m the only family he’s got now, and his younger sibling to boot. So Dokusha Village it is.”

“You’re staying because of your brother.”

“Yeah. I love him, so it’s fine.” There’s a familiar ache in your chest, but you push it down and elbow Zoro’s ribs in jest. (He doesn’t even move a muscle. Geez.) “Makes okay money. I got a bunch of adventure books to live through, anyway.”

It’s a little hard to meet your lunch companion’s eyes after that. You eat the rest of your carrots in silence, pretending to be occupied with finishing them. Zoro doesn’t utter another word.

But as the two of you get back to work, he seems a little warmer, a little less stiff. You make a silly joke and Zoro huffs out something that almost sounds like a laugh while Archy threatens to stick you in a rum barrel and roll you down a hill.

Perhaps you’ve made another friend.

—

“What are you making?”

You blow off the wood dust, closing one eye to cut a fin just right. “Shark. See?”

The bonfire you’d made crackles just a few feet away as you place the half-finished carving into Zoro’s palm. He picks it up with his other hand and twists it around, touching with intention, and you almost feel self-conscious with the way he’s examining it.

“Nice,” he finally says, and the praise makes you giddy. He hands the shark back to you.

“Thanks. I had a lot of practice.”

Zoro rests his elbows on the rock behind him and takes another swig of sake. You resume carving the shark’s fins, bare feet buried in the cool sand.

Archy’s on a date for once, so he left the two of you to your own devices for the night with a distracted wave goodbye and a warning that he’ll be back late. You took that as a chance to break into the alcohol after supper and drag Zoro down to the beach. The swordsman was willing to come along, though you suspect it was mostly for the sake.

“Ain’t that your third bottle?”

“I can hold my liquor.”

You stick your tongue out at him. “No need to brag.”

He wipes his mouth, dark brown eyes black in the firelight. They glint like steel when he looks over at you, but he doesn’t say anything – not that you’re surprised; sometimes Zoro just looks at whatever he wants without any reason. He’s not particularly complicated in that sense.

(You like that. Too many things in life are complicated.)

“Hey, Zoro.”

“Hm.”

Your lips purse. “Do you think my brother will get married one day?”

“How am I supposed to know?” His tone is flat.

“Well, I dunno! It’s just a question.” You frown, slowing in your work. “It’s just that after our parents died, he’s been too busy looking after me and the shop to court someone. He’s turning thirty next year and most people his age have settled down already. I feel kind of bad.”

“It’s not your fault,” Zoro says. “Wouldn’t he have more time now, anyway, since you can take care of yourself?”

“I think he’s been out for so long he doesn’t know how to date anymore.”

Zoro downs the rest of his sake. You know that there’s no advice he can give you regarding Archy’s marriage prospects, which doesn’t surprise you either. You suppose you just need someone to listen. It’s not like you can talk to Archy about it.

“Hell,” you remember, “I’m expected to be married by now, too. I’ve never even been on a date.”

“Really?”

“Nope. Why, are you surprised?”

Stretching his legs out in front of him, Zoro yawns and closes his eyes. “You just seem like the type.”

“What do you mean?”

“You talk a lot,” he says.

You burst out laughing. “Yeah, I do. Would that make me a good date?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“I’m guessing you’ve never been on one, either?”

Zoro shrugs. He doesn’t look too torn up about it. “Waste of time,” he mutters.

Your grin widens. “Figured you’d say that,” you drawl, digging your blade into the shark’s mouth. “Dating doesn’t really help you become the world’s greatest swordsman, does it?”

“Nope.”

“I still think it might be fun, though. If you’re with the right person.” With that, you brush away the last curl of wood from your carving. After admiring it for a few seconds, you offer the shark to Zoro, bumping the nose softly against his cheek. He opens his eyes and turns his head to squint at it. “Here you go. All yours.”

His brow furrows as he takes it.

“It’s a going away gift. Since you’re leaving tomorrow,” you say. Folding your knife and putting it down beside you, you grab your bottle of sake and gulp down half of what remains. “Don’t forget it.”

One of the logs in the bonfire crumbles, falling into the coals. Orange sparks fly up into the smoke and disappear just as quickly. You poke at the fire with a stick, trying not to think about how sad you’re going to be tomorrow morning.

“I won’t forget,” Zoro says.

“I know.”

—

It’s almost dawn, and the family boat is packed up and ready to set sail.

“Got everything?” Archy asks, lowering into a squat to scan over all the supplies.

“Yeah.” The swordsman drags a hand through his hair. “Thanks again for the boat.”

“It’s nothing.” Your brother elbows your arm, and you sway. “Oi. He said thank you.”

“I know,” you mumble. For the first time this morning, you spare Zoro a glance and smile at him, but it’s shaky and fake and you really hate how your voice wobbles when you say, “You don’t have to thank us. Just have a safe – have a safe –” Your voice cracks, and you look down at your feet, eyes burning. “Have a safe trip,” you finish quietly.

You can feel two pairs of eyes on you as your vision goes blurry. Shit. This is so embarrassing.

The fact of the matter is that Roronoa Zoro has been in Dokusha Village for only a week, and you’re already missing him like he’s been in your life for years. You’re going to watch him get into your family’s fishing boat and sail away, the wind at his back, the East Blue before him, and you will remain on the dock with your big brother beside you and your dream in your head.

You’re being selfish, but it’s not … it’s not fair.

Archy puts his hand on your shoulder and says your name.

You wipe your nose. “What?”

“… I’ve been thinking.” He sounds hesitant, taking in a deep breath and letting it go slowly, carefully. “You’ve always wanted to travel the world on a ship.”

It’s like the world tilts on its axis.

Rigidly, you look up at your brother, eyes wide.

“I’m not dumb, you know. You’ve only stayed here because of me,” Archy says. “I’m the one who’s supposed to look after you and protect you. But you’ve been able to do that for yourself for a while, now. Right?”

“Archy.” You swallow. “What are you …?”

“I talked with Zoro last night. He’s willing to take you to Mirror Ball Island, if you want.” His smile is crooked, but it trembles at the corners as he continues. “You know how to sail, how to navigate. We’ll just have to add some extra stuff to the boat.”

You can barely breathe.

“There’s plenty of merchant ships there,” Zoro adds, leaning on his sword. “Your skills are valuable. Just be willing to pull your own weight, and they’ll take you on board. If not, I’ll tell them to.”

“You don’t have to –” Now you’re full-on bawling. You throw your arms around Archy, who wraps you in a bear hug, and then around Zoro, who stiffens. “Thank you so much. Thank you thank you thank you.”

“No problem,” Zoro mumbles, patting you on the back. When you let go to beam at him, he averts his eyes and rubs the back of his neck. “Just hurry up.”

Nodding, you dash back up to your house, Archy following close behind. You grab your bag, throw what you need into it, snatch your hat from your bedpost. Less than twenty minutes pass before you’re all ready to go.

“Got everything?” Archy asks once more at the dock. You nod and look at Zoro, who nods as well. “All right.”

You hug Archy for the last time. Tears spill over and down your cheeks. “Thank you for everything, big bro. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too, kid.” His voice is rough and trembly, muffled against your head. “Come back to visit sometime, okay?”

“Okay.”

Getting into the boat with Zoro, you help him check the rigging and hoist the sail. Archy unties the vessel and pushes the two of you off. As you float away, he waves, and you wave back, staring as he gets smaller and smaller.

“I’m not turning back,” Zoro tells you as you eventually settle in your seat. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

Is it?

You cast one last glance back at Dokusha Village, at the small point of your brother. Then you look out at the broad expanse of the ocean. And you feel many things – joy, sadness, apprehension – but above all that, you feel –

Free.

“Yes,” you say firmly. You push your hat down and smile at Zoro, and this time, it’s genuine. “It is.”

Zoro smiles back. And as the sun begins to warm your face, you whistle your father’s song and think about the journey to come.

[msgexymunson]

Kitten

Description: Eddie can't believe you're still his nice adorable kitten, even when he's buried inside you.

Warnings: NSFW, porn without plot, fingering, unprotected sex, creampie, kinda mean dom Eddie, sub fem reader, degradation, crying, pet names.

A/n: I dont know what to tell you. This is just filth that was floating around in the cesspool that is my brain. Enjoy my dirty girls. If you like it, please comment and reblog!

1k words

Masterlist

"Please please please-" you moan into the empty air, unfeeling ears refusing to absorb the sounds. Sweating and clenching around thick fingers, you wiggle; a fish caught on a line, helpless, unable to break free. Your legs are draped across Eddie's lap, panties pulled to the side, your juices dripping all over his jeans.

Please what? Are you looking for more? Or are you looking to be set free? Its unclear; your pelvic movements are dragging you closer to his sodden cluch; wet, sticky sound of your release echoing everywhere, dampening the edge of your pleated mini skirt.

Disgusting sounds clog your ears; a soaken squelch pervades every sense, filling the room with a dirty, desolate want. A desire to be desiccated.

"Please, Eddie, please-"

"Please, oh please?" He mocks, thick fingers soaked with your release, a milky ring of your slick circling them.

"Please what? What do you want?" His mocking tone cuts through, humiliating you further, "tell me, or I can't give you what you need."

You know you never said, you want him to absorb knowledge at this point. He should know what you need. He does know what you need.

Your moans pierce the air while Eddie fucks you ceaselessly with thick fingers, pushing you towards sticky, squelching release. Again.

"Come on kitten, what do you need? You never said. Come on baby, you can do it." Thick, dastardly fingers continue to invade your cunt and push you to your breaking point. They know exactly what you need, but they want you to say. Your wanton moans are half the fun.

"Eddie, I need you to- please-"

"Please what? You let me bury my fingers in your pussy but you can't say the word fuck? You're fucking cute as hell kitten."

A blush smothers your cheeks, fuelled by his mocking and the heat between your legs.

"I need you inside me Eddie," you pout as his movements slow, still buried deep but his digits are rocking back and forth; so deep its bordering on painful, making you hiss.

"I am inside you kitten." He smirks when you huff, letting out a mirthless laugh.

Thighs quivering, you pull yourself nearer to his ear, your shaky breath a whisper.

"Please, I want your cock inside me. Please fuck me Eddie."

Eddie groans, eyes rolling back at your words. He pulls his fingers from you with a wet noise that makes you cringe. A smug smile stretches across his handsome features.

"See? I knew you could do it. That's my kitten."

Laying you gently down, he slowly pulls your sodden underwear off you, throwing them somewhere on the floor. His pants and boxers are next to go, leaving him naked, narrow hips slotting between your glistening thighs.

You reach to the side to unzip your skirt but Eddie bats your hands away. Rough hands flip your skirt up, exposing your slick soaked cunt. He pulls your tank top up to reveal your breasts, nipples hardening in the cooler air.

"You look so fucking hot like this. Such a dirty whore for me. Hmmm." Lust filled eyes drink in your form as he slowly fists his cock.

"Eddie, please." You frown up at him, hands balled into little fists.

"Stop being a brat and take what I give you." His voice is quiet, but hard. A threat dancing on his tongue. Looking up at him with wide eyes, your lip quivers.

"Aw, my little kitten gonna cry? I'll give you something to cry about."

He lines up his throbbing dick and rubs it through your glistening folds, gathering wetness, before pushing himself fully into you.

Tears rush to the corners of your eyes, pushed out by the sheer size of him. You gasp and grip his shoulders.

"Oh my God Eddie!"

"What's wrong kitten? Can't take it?" His lips draw into a condescending pout.

"No! I can Eddie, I can." You nod at him trying to convince him.

"Ok kitten if you're so sure..." as he starts slowly thrusting in and out of you, his hard member dragging against your sticky satin walls. The stretch was intense, leaving you groaning and gasping, a pretty mess just for Eddie.

A particularly deep thrust has you closing your eyes, moaning loudly.

"Yeah? That good baby?" You nod but its not enough.

"Hey, I asked you a question." He slows, making you grab his biceps, eyes widening.

"Yes, so good, please, don't stop!"

Eddie laughs and starts thrusting harder, faster. One hand keeps him upright, the other grasps you firmly by the jaw.

"You gotta look at me kitten. I wanna see you cum hard."

You stare into his dark eyes as you feel your world begin to unravel. The burning deep in your belly is threatening to spill out over your whole being.

"Eddie, oh my-" you're about to warn him when the feeling crashes over you, fluttering through your nerves, leaving you clenching around his length, whimpering your devotion to him.

"Fuck, you're so fucking pretty when you cum, holding me so tight, my dirty little girl, holy shit" his thrusts begin to falter, finally letting your jaw go, gripping so tight to your shoulder you think he'll leave finger print bruises.

"I'm gonna cum, where- fuck, where do you want it?"

"Inside me, please Eddie."

He breaks character for a moment. "Shit really? Are you sure?" As you nod emphatically, nails leaving red crescents in his back.

Features hard once again, he pounds into you even faster, "gonna fill this pussy up, just like you want, Jesus Christ!" Holding you close he releases deep inside of you. You can feel his dick throbbing, whining at the feeling.

Eddie collapses to the side of you, body shining in sweat. You allow your legs to slowly unfold, still quivering at the strength of your release.

"Sorry kitten if that was a bit much." He strokes your thigh, eyes seeking yours.

"Well you were a bit of a-"

"What princess? A douchbag? A prick?"

"A- a meanie."

Eddie's laugh echoes through the room. He scoops you in his arms.

"And you are an adorable little kitten."

Just tagging a couple of people who I know will enjoy this lol

@lunatictardis @munson-blurbs @eddiemunsons-missingnipple @billybluboy @zestychili @eddiesprincess86 @cluz1babe @joejoequinnquinn @onehotgreasymechanic @eddiemunsonfuxks

[christall77]

~❦Caught Feelings❦~

​​

Merman x F!Reader

This is actually my first time writing about falling in love and stuff, so I hope I did good!

The art used doesn't belong to me, but to it's rightful owner @weyowang!

TW: ENTANGLEMENT OF MARINE LIFE, other than that it's pure fluff!

Another fish is wrapped up by a loose fishing line, it was the fifth one today Tullius has come across on his way close to the shore. The lone merman wastes no time and swims over to help the poor puffer fish in need. His long, strong, pale tail pushing him through the water with no effort.

Reaching for the puffed up creature he carefully untangles the thin line from its spikes and removes the hook puncturing it's pectoral fin. Luckily the brown and white spotted fish isn't badly hurt and manages to swim off just fine, deflating in the process. That has become an almost daily routine for the male. Everyday Tullius would swim to the beach located not far away from his shipwreck he calls home and collect various trinkets he found. Helping other sea life on the way if he sees them in trouble.

Tullius himself hasn't been safe from the trash and other gadgets humans have lost, or thrown out to sea. Having the scars and even part of a worn out net wrapped around his tail to prove it. The material dirty and grown with algea and tiny barnacles. It's also one of his reminders why he was shunned and eventually exiled from his previous home. Trying to get it off with the help from others when he couldn't do it alone, only for them to end up chasing him away.

Anything and everything human related is frowned upon in his folk. As more people came to visit the beaches, mermaids and mermen were forbidden to come anywhere close to the surface, by order of their king.

But despite knowing how bad it is for his home which he calls the ocean, he can't help but still be curious and fascinated by humans and their strange knick knacks. There's a whole wooden shelf in the downed ship full of things he's collected. One new strange, or in his eyes, beautiful object found throughout his trips is added daily. The merman doesn't even know where to stock the rest of them he'll find in the future!

Tullius has come to like it out here by himself. It's not like he was well liked before either. Tullius was seen as an outsider already by not having a vibrant color of a tale, or beautiful fins like the others.

Of course he has kept safe distances from the shore to make sure he wouldn't be spotted, but lately he can't stop himself from peeking out of the water every so often. Swimming closer day by day, just to get another glimpse of something. Or more like, someone.

Tullius has seen humans before, but when he first saw you he couldn't take his midnight blue eyes away from your figure walking along the beach. Cradling and comforting a seagull you've rescued from drowning. From this day on he couldn't stop himself from visiting, just to hope to get another glimpse of you from behind a few rocks. His organ in his chest beating faster and a warm giddy feeling spreading throughout Tullius' body. At first he confused the feeling with sickness, or the tiny fish he had for breakfast, swimming around in his belly. But then he remembered, food that's been chewed and eaten can't swim anymore.

The male came to realize, this strange feeling returns whenever he's watching you from the distance, but it's not uncomfortable. No. He likes it. A lot. And it grew as time passed, the longer he watched the more enamored he became.

Tullius desperately wants to get closer to you but, what would you think of him? Would you like him back? Or would you look at him with disgust like his own kind? He sure hopes it's not the latter.

Another dreamy sigh leaves his lips as Tullius rests his head in both of his palms, half of his body leaning on top of the rocky surface on his usual watch spot. White tail lazily swinging back and forth in the blue ocean waters. Admiring your (body type) figure doing small dances while you keep singing to your favorite song that's playing through your earphones. Hardly anyone comes to this part of the beach since it's so secluded and luckily for the merman, you've decided to live in a small hut close by! It just happened recently but he couldn't have been more excited, especially since he gets to see you everyday now.

With a soft smile Tullius listens to your lovely voice, his wine colored ear fins twitching occasionally. No matter how good or terrible your singing is to you, he thinks it's the most beautiful sound in the world. The white haired male would love to sing with you, if he could.

Tullius snaps out from his thoughts when he heard a loud "oof" and thud in the sand. It seems you've stumbled over yourself and landed almost face first into the warm sand, for a second he was worried you might've hurt yourself only to make a quiet noise of relief when you get up unharmed. Immediately ducking behind the rock for cover when you take a look around to make sure no one has seen that clumsy act.

His heart beats against his ripcage hoping you didn't notice him watching, taking a quick peek over again Tullius lets out a small sad grumble when you make your way back into your hut and out of his sight. Yes, he does want to get to know you, but he always just gets too nervous for his own good.

But he told himself to finally approach you, the merman just has no idea how. So he ends up swimming around in circles in deep thought. The sound of panicked splashing suddenly makes him look over to the beach where a poor sea turtle is trying to get into the water. Half of its shell wrapped up tightly in a net which is holding the animal just barely away from the incoming waves. Tullius swims over quickly, looking left and right for any sign of another human around.

The male crawls onto shore and drags himself over, his arms lifting his upper body up from the heated sand, the small ocean waves now just barely reaching his white finned tail. Tullius, like others of his kind can breathe in air just fine, but he still has to hurry before his gills and other fishy half dries out in the hot sun. The animal notices the merman closing in and continues to struggle, sand flying in the air and some landing in his messy locks in the process from its flippers.

As Tullius tries to comfort the turtle his scaled hands grasp onto the net and he tries to pull it away, with no luck. It looks to be wrapped around to tightly, almost suffocatingly for one to just pull it off. And slowly but surely he feels himself get dryer. The tides also seem to go against him as well when he notices the water drawing back and further away from them. His eyes start loosing focus and Tullius can feel himself growing weaker and dizzy, until he collapses onto the sand beside the other sea creature.

In his barely awake state, he notices something approaching in the distance, but he's to weak to react or make a noise that would alert the stranger. They come to a short halt and seem to call out to him, whatever it is they're saying rings through his head in a blur. His lack of response makes them hurry over until they finally reached him. Tullius barely feels his hands being lifted and freed from the net, before being held up and brought to who knows where.

Until he feels himself being submerged into the familiar salty water, he splashes for a short moment before calming down and letting himself float to the surface with relief. Dry skin regaining its needed moisture.

Then his deep blue eyes meet your wide surprised (e/c) ones and he yelps, submerging himself in the shallow water to hide.

“Wait!”, That sweet voice of yours calls out to him and he slowly rises his head to the surface until just the top of his head and eyes are poking out from the water. You try to appear as nonthreatening as possible. Throwing the small knife away which you've used to cut through the seams of the net to free both the sea turtle and merman. With a quick glance down Tullius also discovers the lack of a familiar old net wrapped tightly around him now gone.

Keeping a safe distance and speaking in a calm voice as you show you're empty handed now. “It's OK... I'm not going to harm you. See? I also freed your friend if you're wondering.”

Tullius meanwhile almost can't believe his own eyes, the human girl he's been fawning over for who knows how long has saved him. And she's not afraid of him! He keeps staring at you with big sparkling eyes, ear fins twitching happily. “Can you talk?”, the merman tilts his head once he snaps out of his small daze and shakes his head lightly, small waves rippling around his head. While the male has learned and understands human language, he can't answer. Only communicating with clicks and other noises merfolk would use.

“Ah that would've been cool. I can't believe I'm actually meeting a real mermaid! Uhh merman..?” you let out a small chuckle at the end and look at him with big amazed eyes, not believing that a supposed mythical creature is right in front of you. “My name is (y/n) it's very nice to meet you!”

Tullius let's out a few clicks in return, introducing himself despite knowing you won't understand him either way.

The two of you spend a little more time together, the merman still mostly submerged while you've sat down onto the sand with your feet dipped into the shallow waves. Having what feels like more of a one sided conversation since he can't really talk back. But nonetheless, you still understood the small gestures he would make.

Only when the sun slowly starts to set did both of you notice how late it actually is. Standing up you give the merman a small wave, “It was really nice meeting you, Mr. Merman. I hope we can see each other again some time.”

Tullius perks up at the suggestion that you want to meet him again. Tilting his head slightly to the side he makes a small squeaky sound, wanting to know when that time will be and where you're going. Of course you didn't understand him and assumed he was saying his own goodbye, you give him a sweet smile before returning back to your hut.

The male watching your form getting smaller with his ear fins cast down and a pout forming on his lips. How he wished he could follow after you just to spend more time with you. Oh wait. He can.

~~~

It's around ten at night when all of a sudden you hear something entering your small wooden hut. As if something heavy got knocked over. You left your window open to let the small ocean breeze in, and you never expected someone to actually break in. After all, you're basically alone on this part of the island. You made sure when you rented this hut for your summer holiday. Wanting nothing more but to relax and enjoy the beach without having other people there.

But when you sneaked out of your small kitchen with a frying pan in both hands, just in case, you find that merman you've met earlier today, laying face first on the wooden floor. Lowering your weapon you let out a surprised gasp “You? What are you doing here?”, at the sound of your voice he quickly looks up from the floor with big eyes, a happy purr rumbling through his chest as he sits up to the best of his ability. Seemingly proud that he has found you and entered on his own. Because it was definitely not that easy.

Now that he's out of the water you can finally admire the merman more closely. He seems to be your age, soft looking fair skin with small various shaped scars littering over his entire lean and slender body. Clawed hands littered with wine red fish scales spreading from the back of his hands leading up to his forearms and fading in color until they reach up his elbows, where on each a triangular fin with the same color is situated. Three slits on each side of his neck now visible which you guess are his gills are closed shut to instead breath in the air instead of filtering the oxygen through water.

One long dorsal fin, also colored wine red, travels from the back of his neck down and along his spine to the middle of his white tail where another triangular shaped one connects wandering down right to the end. Two extra pairs on the sides of his hips and the other one further down his tail. They all look like they've either got cut or teared on the edges and you wonder if it's as painful as it looks.

Your (e/c) eyes travel back up to his head where a mop of messy wet white hair just barely covers those beautiful dark blue eyes that seem to glow in the darker corner of your room. The merman crawls closer, making your form stiffen up slightly but you do not dare to make a sudden move.

Once he's just a few feet away from you, Tullius opens his fist he's been kept closed the entire time and reveals a (favorite color) star snail sea shell, holding it towards you. “For me?” The male nods with a chirp avoiding his gaze but glancing back at you to watch your reaction. You carefully take it from him, putting the pan away and look at it with awe exclaiming that you love his gift.

Tullius' tail slaps against the floor in delight, a sharp toothed grin and small blush spreading across his cheeks, seeing that you like his courting gift.

And this is how it would go on for a few weeks. The merman slipping into your home in the middle of the night and bringing you gifts, all the while hanging around with you so long until he has to go into the ocean again. While at day time you'll see him peaking out from the waves waiting for you to come visit him.

You came to know his name after you showed him how to write, being amazed what a quick learner your new merfriend is. The both of you bonded quickly and you would end up spending most of the time with Tullius and getting to learn more about him, as he does about you. Even sharing his collection with you and receiving some as well he's never seen before.

Eventually you come to feel a certain way for the merman, and you were hoping that he would feel the same.

Little did you know, you've already captured his heart way before you even knew him.

But the day where you have to fly back to your home from your vacation came quicker than you could count, and it made you sad about leaving Tullius for who knows how long. You have to tell him how you feel before you're gone from this island. So as per usual the first thing you do this morning, is walking out to the beach looking for the merman. And there he was, waiting for you at his usual spot by the small wooden pier leading to your hut.

Smiling he waves at you and does a few happy flips before climbing up the structure and leaping on top of you for a tight hug making you fall onto the wooden surface. Your clothes getting wet in the process but you don't mind and giggle as he purrs and nuzzles up against you.

Tullius has become more affectionate and clingy the closer you two became, but not in an overbearing or annoying way which you admit you find pretty cute.

As the two of you spend the time together, Tullius still having his arms wrapped around you chin resting on your shoulder while playing with your hair, you reveal to him about your vacation time and you ending up leaving this island. His reaction of course as you imagined makes your chest feel heavy. The merman is now pulling you tightly against him, his ear fins pulled down and whimpering softly, pleading for you to stay with him.

While Tullius understood that you had to go, it was very hard for him to accept it. After all, he just got closer to you and now you have to leave! He's worried you'll leave him forever.

“I know... I'll miss you too... ” Tullius rests his forehead against yours at your words clicking in response. And as a final goodbye he gently cups your cheeks slowly leaning in until his soft wet lips meet yours in a sweet kiss, surprising you but returning it with as much love as he's pouring into the gesture. A promise to him that you will definitely come back and visit him.

He pulls away with reddened cheeks and loving smile, loosening his hold and preparing to go back into the ocean waters. Neither of you wanted to leave but it would make it harder to say goodbye. And before he finally leaves, Tullius gives you one last look back and finally manages to form his usual noises into five simple words that fills your heart with warmth and will stay with you until the time comes that the both of you will meet again.

“I... love... you... forever...(y/n).”

[death---dealer]

someone said they didn't like my writing because it's too descriptive and i said they can get fucked i like my writing and that should be all that matters

It was a quiet evening in the Colony. Nothing more than the chattering and howls from a few Apes as the released exaltations but other than that, hands were signing between lingerances in wicker bowls for food. The usual spread of trout freshly caught that morning from the stream, berries picked from the group of Female Apes you wanted to associate with more closely, but found it difficult at times when you were the only human amongst them. The sun cusped on the horizon that was blistering your sight with the tree line that amplified the rays of light in the right angles, illuminating aspects of your face that to the Chimps in front of you were nothing more than distraughtly ugly to the point of minor distrust.

Not that you could blame them, looks were a two way street and since arriving at the Colony, it was hard to stake out the reservations you had in your mind that they were all evolved and were more suitably placed bi-pedal, expressing more Humanly than yourself at times. The last eight years alone did wonders in conditioning you to think otherwise.

Scooting your eyes to your right, you let a sliver of satisfaction coarse through the forefront of your mind but it was a sensation that did not last and was ultimately eclipsed by a wash of self-deprecation. Sure, you’d only recently found your place here amongst them all, choosing to eat with Lake, River Blue Eyes and Ash during the bustle of the evening meal, never making it early enough to join during the meal that was shared before the Sun made its presence against the horizon at dawn. Mainly Lake as you had been instructed by Caesar that she would be your essential guide to learn the ways of how they lived.

The way that they ate was one of those things that did not come naturally to you. Sharpened canines tumultuously carding themselves out of their gummy enclosures and tearing away at the fish meat and stripping it away from the tiny bones, intricate to watch as if it were ceremonious and it left you feeling less than adequate that you had to tear the meat with your fingers instead. Tentative chews were followed with a shiver of primal fear around the edges of your brain that you needed to run. Forget your meal, forget the safety here that had been so generously offered by the Ape King and take off.

There was nothing stopping them from doing the same to you as the roasted fish, there was nothing stopping them from taking you by the neck and trudging a mouth against the more delicate flesh against your pulsing jugular and taking what they rightfully felt inclined to, blood shading down your neck, tracing around your collarbones as the vein was torn away from your body---

Lake… You tried to pull your mind back into focus. Lake had shown you things that revolved around the daily in-and-outs of Colony life, including and not excelling in… Their choice of language. Your gaze was fluttering between the three sets of hands in front of you, their fingers long, stocky and even in the bustling firelight provided by the communal fire, it was hard to deduce what was being said as you clutched your wickered bowl of fish bones, wiped clean by your hunger, against your stomach which felt bustled with anxiety.

You smiled when they chortled in amusement, you nodded in agreement when they did but conversationally, it was difficult to keep up or contribute and that in and of itself left you feeling more than isolated against the slaten rock that provided the safety shield for the Colony itself. There was always the concept of speaking, you knew that. It was immature to think otherwise when you had been spoken to before but it felt sparsely used amongst the younger Apes who never had any reason to verbalize.

It was easier to sign.

It was an isolating existence you found yourself in regardless, feeling at times like the Colony’s perimeter was nothing more than a gilded cage of protection gifted to you by their leader. By… Caesar. Drawing a deep breath in, you sat your finished bowl to the side and allowed your eyes once again scan the setting sun off in the distance, forgetting for a moment the circumstances of what brought you to the moment you were so blessed to be living in.

The hues of orange that had bustled there at the beginning of your evening meal were tainted now, drawing down into harder pinks and purples as the Sun began its wave goodbye before circling down the skyline. At least you were alive; most of the Humans you had seen in the last eight years were either hostile enough to drive you away or were trying to form radical parties against the Apes.

Either way, you felt like staying with them would get you killed and it was just happenstance that you stumbled, quite literally, onto your knees in front of the Hunting Party that alloted the presence of a crazed and hateful Bonobo who looked at you with one milky stare and one that captivated nothing but despise, two young Chimpanzees which you now knew were Ash and Blue Eyes. And two stockier Chimps - Rocket, fur thinned and skin exposed to the chill of the Pacific air that drifted in and… Their King.

You’d heard stories, sure. Most of the Humans in the area had heard about it like it was nothing more than an everyday occurrence to recall and recollect, you had all seen it on TV during the seemingly Chess game of the Rise and then lived through the aftermath as the Flu wiped out every pleasure that Humanity catered to. It was word of mouth, it felt like it was hard against the shell of your ear, whispered to you in the dead silence by Caesar himself, alone in your hut. The only semblance of verbalization you felt struck by even though it was just your imagination.

As you paced your stare around the Apes, you watched them. Bonobos… Orangutans, Gorillas and Chimpanzees all painted into each other like a fine piece of art, cliqued into families who enjoyed meals together, there was no way to deny your train of thought the simpler pleasures of thinking about him.

Caesar was overpowering in presence alone, a lick of shock radiating and splintering against your spine at the lack of warmth the fire provided you as he came rounding in front of you. Even his gait, strong and powerful, caused your eyes to look elsewhere, focusing again on the distance. The shuffling of the trees with a minor breeze, the crisp sound of water running against the landscape.

‘Cae..sar.’ You butchered a sign out, simple enough as it was but even his name felt incorrect to your fingers as you dropped your hand from your jaw back into your lap to play your fingers against each other.

There was something signed in return, your fingertips urging themselves to follow suit as if you were going to non-verbally answer whatever was said in silence. The way that Caesar held his hands so tightly to his core, the muscles below his fur seemed to rip and the tips of his coat that tapered onto the back of his hands into the darkened skin that seeped against his knuckles was alluring enough to fixate on.

Blinking out of that, you tilted your head and glanced up at him only briefly before you choked a response out, “I-I can’t understand you when you sign that fast.”

Caesar lacked momentum as your words processed in his mind. Brashedly, he asked in a baritone that scratched at the incessant part of your mind that yearned for communication, “You do… Not speak to them.”

“Well…” Swallowing hard, you nodded in agreement there and tried to shove the notion out of your head that you were being watched by him often enough for that detail to come to light. “They talk really fast, and over each other I can’t keep up sometimes---” It was hard to ignore that you felt like an inconvenience to them, especially the way that Caesar huffed at your incantation.

“Has… Lake not been teaching you?”

“She’s a great teacher!” You were quick to compliment, never one to disappoint as you calmed your fluttering heart, forcing your mind into action as you had risen slightly from your chosen seat. Cold rock seared through your tactical pants and into the back of your thighs as you looked down at your own folded hands.. “I just… Haven’t been doing this since birth, y’know…? I can only learn so fast. I feel like talking sometimes bothers them so I stay quiet.”

“Takes time… to learn.”

“I barely even know how to sign your name.”

That was meant as a joke but Caesar remained stagnant and quiet in front of you. If it was funny, your mind running away from itself at the lack of camaraderie you had with anyone, he wasn’t one to show it as he looked off into the distance, mimicking the way that you had been in a bid to avoid eye contact in the first place.

He was not avoiding, his breathing was calmed and relaxed compared to your own which felt smoldering against your ribs as if you were being held under water. In the light that was fading from the Sun, his fur appeared a darkened shade of black though in lighter aspects, it appeared brown and there was a strange admittance in your own self that you had been watching him enough to know such a minute detail. Chalking it up simply to the fact that you didn't speak during meals and barely found any friends due to that, you resulted in admiring them instead.

For all you knew, there was a softened exhale from your mouth at the lack of understanding in yourself as to why you found Caesar so appealing in the first place, the fur detail you knew could have been true for all of them and not just… Caesar…

Attention was hard on your movement as you raised your right hand, forming into a ‘C’ shape near the tip of your jaw, your mouth contorting into an awkward half smile of depreciation as green and golden irises flickered along your expression.. Your fingernails tickled at the skin there and left it feeling aflame as you clarified for him.

“Caesar.” The action was tightened, your fingers unsure of themselves as you finally scraped up enough courage to look up at the large Ape in front of you. Your fingers placed harder against your jawline to the point where it felt like you were able to feel the uncut edges of your bones below the flesh. “Caesar.”

It was a flurried moment- your mouth falling open as the Ape King who superseded any speculations about him from the stories you had heard, raised his arm in a mirrored fashion to yours. The position of Caesar’s bent arm felt strikingly intimidating, his bicep flexing the tearing muscles below that could surely aid in ripping your throat out if he posed you as a threat. Instead though as you pushed aside the primal fear--- You were studious in how his hand curved into a loosened ‘C’ as if it were second nature to him. Not near his protruding jaw like yours had been.

Closer… Closer to… The flames of the torches that surrounded and kept the Colony alight shifted his eye color into capsules of orange, your throat tightening at the way he stared down at you. His positioned fingers, entrancing in their own right as they danced between darkened fur along his thick wrists, lighter colored around his knuckles and darkened along the palms, it appeared like splattered water color, they were against the side of his face, temple being kissed lightly by the backs of his fingers.

Radical fear seemed to leave the split second you made eye contact, breathlessly, you let your mouth open at the lack of imposition or fully wrought scare tactics that you thought his stare would be full of. Instead... They were... Making you uncomfortable with how Human they were. If you were not aware that you were in front of an Ape... A Chimpanzee who was standing strongly on his two feet, stanced hardened against the slick rock of the cliff that dragged adjacently to the kiss of the Suns light, you'd have sworn that he was Human. That he was... Just like you... Full of… Curiosity... Understanding. As if he were aware that everyone starts somewhere and you had only been in the Colony for a month now.

It felt like he stayed in position for hours, peering down at you from beneath the hardened brow line and it was miraculous that you were even able to make out the detailing of his expanding and disappearing irises as they were casted away by the darkness of his pupils.

“Caesar.” Finally! He spoke, the hackles lining his collarbones bristling as you shifted your body to mime him once more, your heart racing itself to the back of your esophagus as the older Chimp maintained the eye contact that he sought for. Something--- Anything for a connection to the Human that he allowed refuge in the Colony.

“Caesar.” The tone you used was breathless, it felt like everything had been rocked right out of you from the intensity of connection just made. Floating your hand near your eye, you tugged a piece of your hair back and smiled slightly, cursing to the Heavens that the fire in front of you was enough of an excuse for the sure reddening of your cheeks at the one-on-one lesson. “Thank you, I was too close to my jaw before.”

“Will get… Maurice to help you learn. Better teacher than… Lake or… Myself.”

There was no argument to be made as Caesar locked stares with you once more; your heart churned from the top of your throat and back down, passed its home in your rib cage and into your stomach at the intimacy it felt cased in.

“T-Thank you!” You managed to utter along with the accompanied sign as the Ape King paced away from you, one more casted glance thrown over his shoulder as you made the sign for his name once more, this time, to yourself.

And without a word to anyone, Caesar narrowed his enviously green and golden speckled eyes on your hand motions, not willing to admit how tantalizingly tempting it felt in the moment to shatter the delicate bones with his own touch. Not out of vicious intent, but out of… Curiosity.

Something that lingered even when he wasn’t around you and something that pestered the inner workings of his mind as if he hadn’t spent the first eight years of his life with Humans to the point where he went through quite a cultural shock when the time came to leave it all behind because there was a deeply ingrained part of himself that wanted to believe he was not Ape, that he was Human… In you, the way that he studied as he climbed to the perch high above the seats of the rest of the Colony, Caesar… Saw himself. And he liked… the way you signed his name.

[halfvalid]

kitten

ABOUT

alternate title: the pet name 'kitten' is gross when used by men but it's cute when a woman nami says it

rating: general audiences

characters: live action!nami | fem!reader | live action!roronoa zoro

pairing: live action!nami x fem!reader

word count: 4.4k

description: nami is aware you've got a crush on one of the straw hats, and she's determined to find out who—but she's completely oblivious to the fact that you actually like her.

tags: strawhat!reader, female reader, fluff, kissing, confessions, no use of “y/n”, pet name "kitten", banter, absolutely tooth rotting amounts of fluff, a little bit of (affectionate) zoro slander

author’s note: i interrupt your regularly scheduled zoro fic posts to provide you with a sapphic nami oneshot instead because she is my wife and i love her dearly.

zoro accidentally popped up a bit too much in this because he's always on my mind. my apologies <3

You’d always liked astronomy. The current-world navigation had nothing to do with the stars, really; at least not when it came to the Grand Line. Unnatural magnetic fields and the odd weather was reason enough for that—but celestial navigation wasn’t even often used in any of the four quadrants. Too finicky, people would say; you know the practice had stopped being in use in the Marines years ago. 

Nami knew it all, though. She was the only one of the Straw Hats who could read the stars, the sky spreading out as a map that only her eyes could read. 

Your interest in it had always been more… artistic. While Nami babbled on about angles and reference points and sextants, you liked to talk about the planets and heavenly bodies blanketing the sky. It was dusk, and the sun was kissing the horizon good night, dull hues of pink and orange spreading alongside the sea with a golden shimmer as it tucked safely away. 

You’d been lying out on the main deck for a good few hours, stretched like a cat along a hammock you’d strung up forever ago, when you heard footsteps. 

“There you are, kitten,” Nami said with a laugh, and you sat up to appraise her. The evening glow cast fire to her orange hair, a blazing halo surrounding her head and painting her skin over in gold dust. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” 

“Hi,” you said with a soft smile. “What for?” 

“Well, for one, you missed supper.” Nami gingerly took a seat on the side of your hammock, the canvas cloth rocking from side to side with the motion. “Avoiding your crush again?” 

You let out a sigh, half-exasperated as your bottom lip sucked in between your teeth. You nibbled at the flesh there, not responding. Nami had figured out a few weeks ago that you had a crush on one of the other Straw Hats, and she brought it up every so often, although all it did was cause a crease in your brow bone and a flicker of annoyance on your face. 

“What, am I not supposed to bring that up?” Nami teased. The light shone in her crystal blue eyes, clear like the sky during midday, not a cloud in sight. “You still haven’t told me who it is.” 

“Because you’ll pull something if I do!” you protested. “Don’t try to deny it, you conniving little witch.” 

Nami gasped in mock-offense, a hand plastered to her chest. “And destroy your dignity like that? I would never.” 

“I don’t trust you,” you answered, and Nami clicked her tongue. “What did Sanji make?” 

“Fish. Soup. Rice.” 

“You’re so undescriptive,” you said with a wrinkle of your nose. Nami just laughed. 

“Not everyone can be as artistic as you, kitten. Come on, everyone left the kitchen already. You don’t have to worry about running into your mystery man.” She winked at the last sentence, and your breath caught. Nami seemed to notice, because she laughed, stepping up from the hammock and grabbing your hand to help you off. “You’re hilarious.” 

“I didn’t say anything!” you protested. Nami just gave you a look, and you rolled your eyes, but let her drag you along the ship until you reached the kitchen. “You’re so mean to me,” you said, slumping into the nearest chair available. 

“Mhm. Here.” Nami started serving up a plate, loading it full of food before passing it over to you. It was quickly joined by a bowl of soup. “Eat. We’re docking tomorrow, so you should get your energy up. We’re going shopping.” 

“Shopping for what?” you asked, bringing the bowl of soup to your lips. Seaweed. “If you say rope and boat parts I’m going to scream.” As much as you liked the pirate life, there was only so much of the technicalities you could take. You weren’t very much a practical soul, lumped in very much with Luffy when it came to your general attitude of your job description. Pirating consisted of adventure and art, in your opinion. 

“Rope and boat parts,” Nami said with a straight face. She’d always been the exact opposite, all focused on maps and making sure everything was running smoothly. “Well, only partly. I’ve been sent to go clothes shopping too. And to pick up a few other supplies.” Her eyes sparkled. “You’re coming with me, right? Well, unless you want to join your…” 

“Shut up,” you said, making a face at her as you set your bowl down. Nami just laughed. 

“Just putting it out there, kitten. I’m sure you might be more interested in going with Usopp to talk to the stevedores. Or Zoro to the local tavern. Or Sanji for the—” 

“Nope, nope, and nope. I’m going with you,” you said firmly. There was a whisper of a smile at your lips, but Nami didn’t seem to notice it. “And I still don’t get why I’m a kitten.” 

“Because,” Nami answered, propping her elbows on the table as she gazed over at you. “I’m the cat burglar. You’re the kitten.”

“Why isn’t Luffy the kitten?” 

“Luffy’s the captain, and I don’t like him as much.” Nami straightened, starting to clean up around the kitchen and load the abandoned dishes from when everyone else had eaten into the sink. You smiled at that. “You don’t like him, do you? I feel like you could do so much better.” 

“My lips are sealed,” you answered. Nami gave you a sidelong look.

“That better not be a yes.” 

You just shrugged, raising the bowl of soup again and finishing the rest of it before turning to the rice and fish. “Let’s not talk about it. What about you? Any romantic prospects—” 

Nami turned so abruptly you almost choked while eating. “I just barely started learning how to make friends. Maybe we wait a few months before we get to that,” she said. You coughed, palm pressed to your lips as you cleared out your airways.

“Okay. Aggressive.”

Nami scowled. “That was not aggressive.” 

You pulled a face. “Kinda sounds like you have something to hide, Nami,” you teased, and although you didn’t actually expect her to react, she did. To your surprise, Nami turned away again, the very edges of her face pinkening. You stared at her, heartbeat slowing to a steady thud in your chest. There was a faint taste of panic at the back of your throat, slightly sour and acidic like blood or rust. “Um, what was that?” 

“What was what?” Nami asked evenly. Too evenly. You gaped at her back, organs wobbling precariously inside of your chest. 

“That—thing.” 

“Kitten, if you want me to understand what you’re talking about, you’re going to have to be a little clearer than that,” Nami said smoothly. “Now it’s getting dark. You should get to bed. Last chance to shove yourself with your crewmate of choice.” 

“I’m still going with you,” you said stubbornly, shoveling the last of your rice in your mouth before slipping off your chair. You moved around the table, setting your bowl and chopsticks into the sink. “You want me to do them?” you asked, nodding at the dirty dishes that’d piled up. Nami shook her head.

“Go sleep,” she said gently. “I’ll get you in the morning.” 

You watched her for a moment, lips twisting before you finally relented. “Night, Nami,” you said, and she turned away. You were safe there for a moment, admiring how the soft backlit glow from the windows etched shadows along her face. She really was beautiful, and your heart thudded fast in your chest. 

Nami was the strongest person you knew. The smartest person you knew. The Straw Hats wouldn’t be the same without her, and sometimes you found it funny how she seemed so convinced you had a crush on one of the other members of the crew when it was so obvious that she was your north star. 

Ah, well. She’d just have to keep on guessing. 

Nami woke you at the crack of dawn, where the hazy rays of the sun just started rising up from the sea shore. You’d traveled to shore while asleep, and everyone was already up and running. 

“Luffy left already,” Nami was saying, tying a bandana around her head as you gathered up the rest of the supplies you needed. “And we’ll probably spend the whole day out, so we can get lunch in the village.” She eyed you. “I packed breakfast. Come on.” 

You followed her off the ship, savoring the early morning wind along the harbor. The dock men were all already hard at work, milling around the dozens of boats with tools and equipment propped on their shoulders. “Where to first?” you asked. 

“Boat parts,” she said, casting you a sympathetic smile. “Some rope, extra sails, some other stuff. After that I’m thinking groceries—I put Sanji in charge of bulk stock this time, so just stuff like soap and necessities—and then clothes.” She grinned. “And some fun stuff.” 

“Sounds good to me,” you said. Nami did most of the talking, but you were content to watch her barter, leaning back on your heels as she argued with sellers and eventually left with a satisfied smirk on your face. She hired some of the dock men to carry the ropes and items to the Going Merry, looking her arm in yours and going off to your next stop. 

“You know, you’re basically stealing from them like this,” you told her, a smile evident in your voice. “Forty-five thousand berry to thirty thousand. That’s actually terrifying.” 

“I said take it or leave it and he took it.” Nami shrugged, but you could see a beam of pride shine through her face. “But enough of that. The market’s up ahead.” 

The entire village seemed to have been brought out, because true to Nami’s words, there was a fair going on. Stalls boasting all kinds of wares lined the streets, and you peeked through all of them, even at Nami’s urges to hurry up and focus only on your shopping list. She watched you with a soft smile on her lips, the expressions interlaced with ones of exasperation. 

“I should’ve just picked a random man and carted you off with him,” she said with a click of her tongue as you spent far too much time glancing through a stand of knick-knacks and jewelry. “Currently either Zoro or Sanji are my top contenders.” 

You barely suppressed a snort, fingers carefully combing through a bowl of baubles. There were various items inside, from earrings missing a sister to pins and little statuettes. “How come?” 

“Usopp has Kaya, so I would hope you don’t like him,” Nami said. You raised an eyebrow, glancing up to meet her gaze. 

“Kaya’s all the way back in Syrup Village, Nami. She can’t do anything, and who knows when we’ll return there?”

Nami gave you a horrified look. “Kitten, that’s a terrible thing to say.” 

You just laughed, dropping your gaze again and picking at the bowl. There was a dull gleam of something at the bottom; it wasn’t gold or brass like anything else there, and was instead a shining, milky white. You dug through the pile, trying to get to it. “You’re such a romantic.” 

“Does that mean it is Usopp?” 

“I do not confirm nor deny a thing,” you said, finally plucking out what had captured your attention. It was a necklace, the pendant a glittering star on a gold chain. “And I want reasoning.”  

“You’re not buying that,” Nami said, gaze flickering down to it before meeting your eyes again. “Zoro because he’s conventionally attractive and Sanji because he can cook.” 

You scoffed, studying the necklace. “Those are terrible reasons.” 

“I can’t think of any good ones,” Nami protested. “The only thing I can think of are reasons you wouldn’t like any of them. Because they’re all kind of losers and you could do much, much better.” She tilted her head imperceptibly upwards, and you saw a little glimmer in her eye, a reaction that bore uncanny similarity to the one she’d worn the day before. You swallowed, throat suddenly dry. 

“You think Zoro’s conventionally attractive?” You turned towards the stand seller, motioning at the necklace. “How much?”

“You’re not buying that,” Nami repeated, shooting you a look. “It’s a waste of perfectly good berry.” 

“It’s five hundred at most,” you scoffed, fishing a wad of bills out from your pocket. Nami sighed, but she didn’t argue. “Barely anything. Do you think Zoro’s conventionally attractive?”

Nami looked distracted. “Hm?” 

“You said Zoro was conventionally attractive,” you repeated, voice firmer this time. You tried to suppress the little tremble in your cadence as you passed the money to the seller. He counted it and gave you a firm nod. Carefully, you dropped the necklace in your pocket. “Do you think he is?” 

“Well—from an objective standpoint—” 

You pushed past the swarm of patrons milling around the stands, Nami having to quicken her pace to keep up with you. “Attraction isn’t objective.” 

“Kitten.” Nami grabbed your wrist, forcing you to slow down, and you flinched. She tugged you in the direction of another stand, probably something off her list. “Why do you care so much? Am I right? Is he the one you like?” 

You wiggled your wrist out of Nami’s grip. “I don’t care, I’m just curious. Because you’ve been blushing for the past half hour and you mentioned Zoro was conventionally attractive. And if you say he’s conventionally attractive that means you think he’s conventionally attractive. So assumedly you are blushing because of—” 

It clearly took Nami a moment to unscramble your honestly entirely nonsensical words. “Kitten, I’m trying to figure out whether or not you have a crush on Zoro. You’re not supposed to be trying to figure out if I do. And I have not been blushing.” 

You relented, but still couldn’t suppress the pout that threatened your mouth. Your teeth pressed against the flesh of your lower lip, running alongside the skin but not fully biting. “You said Zoro was conven—” 

“If I have to hear you say the words conventionally attractive one more time, I swear I will lock you in the hold,” Nami said sharply, and you had to choke back your laugh. “And the reason I said that is because every single time we go out, at least five people turn to stare at his stupid face. Do you not remember that time on Mirror Ball Island? We practically had to fight women off of him.”

“Okay, fine,” you said, a glimpse at her features seemed to support her words. She was as guarded as ever, and clearly irritated, though her vexation didn’t seem as bad as the annoyances she’d hold over the rest of the crew. They never did, really; Luffy always liked to say that you were Nami’s favorite. “I’m hungry. Can we eat?” 

“You didn’t answer my question.” 

“I neither confirm nor deny anything,” you repeated for what seemed like the thousandth time in the past week. “Restaurant. Please.” 

Nami didn’t look away from you, but relented, and the two of you went to the nearest restaurant to have lunch. You were mainly silent during the meal, replaying the conversation from before over and over again in your head. There was a buzz of uncertainty in the pit of your stomach, one that you entirely disliked. 

Before you’d been fine with keeping quiet about your crush—you never felt too threatened or upset, under the impression that your feelings wouldn’t be reciprocated and that Nami wouldn’t fall for anyone in the near future anyway. And you didn’t mind her guessing between your four male comrades to find the one who’d stolen your heart. 

But the reactions and the blushes were a development. And you were starting to think that Nami herself had a mystery beau. 

Nami talked about work during the meal, going down her grocery list and checking off the things she’d gotten. You watched her as she glared down at her notebook, pencil caught between two fingers as she scribbled down notes to herself. “You’re not eating,” you said gently. 

“Sorry. Distracted,” Nami answered. She shot you a smile, but it quickly fell as she turned back to her notebook. “What about Sanji?” 

You suppressed a sigh. “Are you still on about this?” 

“Yes,” Nami insisted. She finally shut her notebook, slipping it into the bag hanging off her waist and picking up her chopsticks to return to her soup noodles. “You’d never go hungry with him around, at least.” 

“I think you need to raise your standards. I already don’t go hungry with him around, I don’t need to date him for that.” 

Nami clicked her tongue, but it was good-natured. “You’re making this so hard for me.” 

“I don’t want to talk about myself anymore,” you insisted, setting down your chopsticks. You’d basically finished your bowl already; there were only the final remnants of broth and rice noodles at the bottom, the soup seasoning darker in color; more pungent. 

You fiddled with your hands, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in your stomach that persisted even as you thought back to what Nami had said about Zoro. Her reasoning had been sound enough, but you still felt vaguely sick, that bitter taste of sour iron at the back of your throat again. 

“Are you okay?” Nami’s eyes met yours, and you flinched away. “You’re acting weird.” 

“I’m fine,” you muttered. “I think I’m going to head back to the ship and take a nap. I’m kind of tired.” Before Nami could say anything, you got up, chair scraping along the restaurant floor. “See you later?” 

“What? Kitten, wait—” Nami called, but you just swallowed, glancing over your shoulder to shoot her an apologetic look. 

The Going Merry was a breath of fresh air as you stepped foot back onto her deck. There were some dockmen milling about, setting material along the deck as Usopp directed them as to where everything went. 

You brushed past them to veer towards your hammock, slipping onto it and kicking your legs up along the cloth without pause. Your eyes closed, and you let the sun melt down on your face, the tension in your chest easing as you embraced the beam of the sky. 

You stayed there for a while, knowing you were safe as Nami wouldn’t come find you until she’d finished with all her actual tasks. Although this was occasionally irritating if you were in real desire for attention, you appreciated the responsible side of her now. You didn’t have to confront her for a few hours yet, so you spent the time on your hammock, watching the clouds drifting in the sky and picking out the dull stars that shimmered as the sky got darker. 

It was just before suppertime when you remembered the necklace you’d bought. Stars were just beginning to materialize, dark blues and purples replacing the cerulean hues that previously blanketed the Earth. You fished the star necklace out of your pocket, peering at the pendant again. It was made of some sort of shimmering stone you didn’t recognize—perhaps opal—that made it glow like an actual star, iridescent when light hit it. 

“Hey, kitten.” 

You looked up, watching as Nami made her way across the ship deck to where you lay. She looked tired, but still bore a soft smile on her face as she met your gaze. “Hi,” you said, tucking the necklace back into your pocket. Behind her you could see the last of the hired work carrying barrels down to the hold. “Get everything done?” 

“Mhm,” Nami said. “Wanna talk about earlier?” 

“Not really,” you muttered, the sharp tang of rust dancing at the back of your tongue again. “Sorry about storming out. I felt unwell.” 

Nami studied you carefully, arms folding unconsciously over her chest. “I can stop bothering you about your crush, if you want,” she said finally, a gust of a sigh leaving her lips. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” 

“No, it’s okay,” you said, getting up and climbing your legs over the edge so you were sitting on the hammock. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable, Nami, I swear.” 

“You walked out in the middle of a meal, kitten,” Nami said, and you could hear her voice starting to get upset, even as she tried to level her tone. “Clearly I did. Was it because I kept trying to figure it out? Was I right with Zoro? What—”

“It’s not because of that,” you interrupted, trying to keep your voice gentle even as your chest squeezed inward. You were powerless to your muscles; to your heart as it did a pathetic little thump-thump thing inside of you. 

“Then why?” Nami leaned forward on her heels, and the setting sun caught her eyes, kaleidoscope blue glittering a thousand different shades like the opal of your necklace. “Just tell me, kitten. So I won’t do it again.” 

“It was because of you,” you mumbled, shying away from her gaze. Nami sighed.��

“Yes, we established that I did something to upset you already. I’m trying to find out what—”

“You called Zoro attractive and I was jealous,” you blurted, before you could even think to stop the words from falling out of your mouth. Nami froze, and you lifted your eyes up hesitantly to see her reaction. 

Her shoulders were all tense, face guarded, eyes blank from their usual expression. “Oh,” she said evenly. There was an ugly purse tightening at her lips, and she fought to keep them in an even line. “So it is Zoro, then. Thank you for telling me.”  

She turned away then, her movements abrupt as she started walking. A pulse of panic captured your heart, and you called desperately out to her, volume far too loud in the late hour. You didn’t find yourself caring. “I wasn’t jealous of you!” you cried, and Nami’s entire body went still. 

She turned back towards you, so slowly that you found yourself capturing your breath in your throat waiting for her. 

“I wasn’t jealous of you,” you repeated once her eyes met yours. “I was jealous of Zoro. Of you thinking he was attractive.” Your fingers fumbled together, trying to find something to occupy themselves with as you choked out the final sentence. “My mystery man is you, Nami. I like you.” 

It took a long while for Nami to respond, and the Going Merry rocked as you waited, a soft sway of delay and building panic. There was a shimmer of something in Nami’s eyes, and her lips tugged downwards. 

Her voice was hollow when she spoke. “What?” 

“I don’t like Zoro or Usopp or Sanji or Luffy, Nami,” you said, hands tightening around each other with every word spilt out from between your lips. “I like you. I like you when you call me kitten. I like you when you complain about me buying things but let me do it anyway. I like you even when you’re teasing me about my crush.” Your voice dropped to a low mumble. “And I was jealous because you thought Zoro was attractive.” 

“Oh, kitten,” Nami said, and you glanced up to see her right in front of you, bent over to meet your level sitting down. She reached for your hands, and you let her take them, exhaling as her tender grasp clasped around your palms.

“Nami,” you whispered, horrified to hear how wet your voice sounded. You blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Nami, you may be the ship’s navigator, but you’re my north star. I like you.” 

Kitten, I do not think Zoro is attractive,” Nami said, and you had to choke back startled laughter at that being what she was focusing on. “That is the least of your worries.” 

“But—you seemed so annoyed when you thought it was Zoro—don’t you like—” 

“You’ve got it all wrong,” Nami said, a soft laugh leaving her lips. They were trembling. Her entire body was trembling, even her hands as she cocooned yours in them. “I was annoyed because I thought you liked Zoro. Because—I like you too.” 

You swallowed, surprise forcing your jaw to fall slack as you met her gaze. “Really?” you whispered. Nami nodded; she coaxed soft circles into the skin of your hands, a supportive smile edging up her lips. 

“I really thought you liked someone else, kitten, I would’ve said something before if—” Nami let out another gentle laugh. “If I knew. It wasn’t until you told me about the crush did I realize. I got a little… too overprotective, and then… well, it wasn’t very platonic at that point.” She ducked her head, hiding her smile, but you slipped one of your hands out of her grasp to push it back up. “God, you’re too good for any of them.” 

“I don’t want to talk about how the rest of them suck,” you murmured. “I want to talk about how amazing you are. Oh—and—” You dug your hand in your pocket, pulling out the necklace. “This reminded me of you. I got it for you.” 

“Kitten,” Nami breathed, as you unclasped the necklace and carefully put it on her. It swung around her neck before you adjusted it, golden yellow bright against the white of her pale skin. The opal glittered, catching the moonlight that’d steadily glowed brighter from behind you. “Thank you. It’s still a waste of money though.” 

“Not for you,” you said, grabbing her hands to squeeze her fingers. “Never for you.” You took in a nervous breath, your chest tightening inside—but it wasn’t all bitter and sour, nothing like the taste of panic. 

Nami met you in the middle when you finally leaned up to kiss her, your hand slipping up the side of her face, fingers curling in her orange hair. She smiled when she kissed, soft and carefree for once, that serious facade she always took on melting away in the moment. She kissed softly; tenderly; like the moon shining gentle waves on the East Blue below or the sun in the hazy morning sky casting light across the world. 

There were footsteps approaching from behind Nami. You opened your eyes, tilting your gaze up to see Zoro staring down at you both. Nami broke apart from you, glancing over her shoulder. None of you said anything. 

“Okay,” Zoro decided, and then walked off. You barely managed to stifle your giggles until he was out of earshot. 

“God, he’s such a loser,” Nami said, and then kissed you again. 

© halfvalid 2023

[hannie-dul-set]

줄다리기 / JULDARIGI — one.

SYNOPSIS. the moment you step foot into the neighborhood you’d sought to forget, you find yourself caught in a seven sided tug-of-war with the longings of the past, and the restraints of the present.

FEATURING. seventeen’s yoon jeonghan, nct’s na jaemin, txt’s choi soobin and choi beomgyu, enhypen’s park sunghoon, zb1’s shen quanrui, bnd’s han dongmin. GENRES. drama, suggestive, psychological, yandere reverse harem (yeehaw!!!), college! au, richkid! au. CHAPTER WARNINGS. swearing, arson, child abandonment, obsessive and possessive behavior, ominous vibes overall, but things are still pretty mellow at this point BWAHAHAH.

WORD COUNT. 13.6k TAGLIST. open.

NOTE. my insanity begins. this reads like a very bad soap opera-ish kdrama with all the cliches you can think of, including terrible male leads HAHHAHAHAHAHA. nothing major happens in the chapter, but a lot of teensy tiny hints are being dropped. would love to hear everyone's dissections of my collection of messed up characters. enjoy!!!

MASTERLIST | NEXT >

THERE IS AN AQUARIUM IN THE KIM HOUSEHOLD.

A large, rectangular box in the space where the hallway and living room meet, filled with rocks, driftwood, plants and a multitude of colorful fish, large and small, all drenched in a glaze of cerulean blue. One of the angelfish swims right in front of you, following the direction of your eyes as you scan it from left to right, almost knowing that you’re looking at it by how it slows down the moment it enters your field of vision— watching you in return with its blank stare.

Seeing this reminds you that your home used to have three. One in the foyer. One in the dining room. One on the second floor landing where you used to play house with your friends. You also remember that you had a koi pond in the garden, of which you’d visit every morning and had once nearly fallen into after leaning over the bridge railing too far after trying (and failing) to count the number of fishes swimming and swirling around.

But that was ten years ago. Maybe nine. Now, the only fish you count is the supply of dried pollock you keep in the store for the bugeoguk on the menu.

“Hey, it’s time to bring the deserts in. Quit spacing out.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you grunt, spinning your heels back into the direction of the kitchen. You pull the towel loosely hanging from your right shoulder, following the footsteps of your co-worker into the hallway. It’s funny how things can just suddenly go wrong— how you can have three aquariums and a koi pond and have it all disintegrate into thin air right before your very eyes.

You walk into the large kitchen, a cart full of sweets and cakes and pastries waiting for you to push out into the backyard dining area of the house. The warm lights lining the wraparound porch are reminding you of what you used to have. The sounds of champagne glasses and cutlery clicking and clattering feel like distant but familiar reveries that leave a bitter taste on your throat.

“Oh, I’ve been dying for something sweet.”

Wordlessly, you set the dishes from your cart onto the table, careful to not brush against the handful of people dining on the table. You’re careful. You’re so, so careful yet you can still feel the stares drilling into your skull while you keep your head down, the hushed yet audible whispers that assault your ears the moment you finish serving one person before moving onto the next. It’s more annoying than anything, really. But you can’t let that expression show through your face.

You make the mistake of locking eyes with one of the members of the dinner, however. It’s brief— no longer than three seconds. Yet three seconds was enough for him to recognize you, and for you to detect his recognition. 

There’s nothing but shock and surprise in those eyes of his.

All the deserts have been served. You retreat back into the kitchen with the now empty cart and thank the heavens that you don’t have to come back out there tonight.

“Whew. Rich people chatter way too much.” 

You laugh, looking over at Soonyoung who lets out a tired sigh the moment the kitchen doors close. “Work’s not over. Time to clean up.”

Soonyoung and you met just earlier, yet you’re already trying to trip each other over while carrying stacks of dishes to the washing station. He’s a pretty easy going guy. You two would be good friends, but your shift is nearly done. You don’t have anyone to serve here in the kitchen so you two can mess around as much as you want. “Good work today,” says your catering manager after handing you your salary. “I was unsure when I saw you walk into the kitchen today, but you seem pretty experienced with this line of work.”

You smile, blindly counting the number of bills in your hands. “I’ve been waitressing for a long time.” A hundred-fifty thousand. Right on the dot.

He mirrors your expression. “How about working with us permanently?”

“Ah, sorry. I don’t think my schedule can manage. Call me if ever you need another pair of hands to cover for you, though.”

That was the end of today’s job. One of your friends, Seungkwan, called you earlier saying that he had a part-time opportunity for you— working as a server for a catered private family dinner in Pyeongchang-dong, Westwind Crossings. It’s bound to pay well, and you weren’t wrong after earning much more than your daily wage at the diner.

You pack up your things, leaving your apron behind before sneaking off to one of the servant hallways that the head maid showed you earlier. The Kim’s don’t want to see their workers in the same space as they regularly cross, apparently. You grunt and pick up your pace, only to get caught in the mess of corners and turns. Wait, did you have to go left this time or right? Gosh, big houses are so confusing. This is just making you appreciate your cramped home in downtown Seoul even more.

Biting the bullet, you turn left, and what emerges from the other end of the hall isn’t the exit at the side of their house, but what appears to be a lounge area. It had been roughly thirty minutes since the dinner ended. A knot begins to form in your temples the moment three pairs of eyes land on yours.

Shit. This is gonna get annoying. You quickly snap your head back and start to book it, but your feet stutter at the first step.

Your name is called out. God damn it, you really didn’t want to deal with this.

“I knew it!” one of them exclaims. Kim Haera. The eldest daughter of the household and, well, an acquaintance of yours. Former acquaintance really, since the last time you’ve seen here was eight fucking years ago. “Holy shit, the rumors are true! I didn’t want to believe it, but here you are!”

You bite your tongue. You ignore her and start walking again, but you hear a pair of footsteps quickly catching up to your direction and you’re pulled back by the arm, eyes widening, now face-to-face with Kim Haera’s bright and curious eyes. There’s a smile on her face. A big one, like she can’t contain it. “Hey, don’t just run off. We haven’t seen each other in years. C’mon, let’s talk and catch up. I’m dying to know what happened to you.”

From what you can remember, Kim Haera has always been a bit of a bitch. Looks like the years failed to fix her nasty personality.

Haera tugs you out of the tunnel, inside the lounge with three people you’d prefer not be around. “Guys! Do you remember her? Stupid question, of fucking course you do, we used to be over at their place all the time.” Then she abruptly stops, causing you to stumble a little. She turns to you, a snide expression of her face, and the knot in your head tightens. “Well. That was until things went to shit with your family eight years ago, right?”

Your jaw clenches. You manage your breaths. You remember her being awful, but it was never directed to you because she always used to follow you around. To talk shit about everyone in your circle with you listening to make herself seem better than everyone else. Because it was your home that everyone used to frequent. Because it was your family that used to host these dinners, these gatherings, these whatevers.

No, you don’t envy the house you’re standing in right now. You’re just mad that you can’t say anything back because you still want the fucking catering company to give you a call in the future.

“Well, say something.”

“Noona,” a voice interrupts. You look and see it’s Kim Donghyun, Haera’s younger brother. The other kid, Lee Sanghyeok, looks like he isn’t even listening to what’s going on— which you’d have preferred over whatever the fuck Haera is doing.  “I think that’s enough.”

Haera ignores him. “Seriously, what happened to you?” she presses on, and you stifle a sigh.

“Mrs Kim disallowed any of the catering staff to enter unauthorized areas and to talk to any of the guests and members of the household,” you finally say with a tight-lipped smile. “I apologize for the intrusion. If you’d excuse me—”

“I’m not done talking to you.” 

You’re yanked back, a strain in your shoulder socket as you stifle down a swear. She looks down on the sleeve she wrinkled— the server uniform you’d been wearing all afternoon to evening, stained-white in color. She breathes out a snicker. 

“You might’ve been used to looking down on me when we were kids, but it looks like things are different now.” Your head hurts. It’s like maturity never befriended her these past ten years. “Now, tell me. Did you just choose to move after your house burnt down? Or did the Choi’s really screw you guys over?”

“Noona!”

“You just disappeared into thin air after that happened,” she remarks. “The least that you could’ve done was give me a heads up that you’re coming back to work here. I could’ve handed you a pretty handsome tip while you were serving the table.”

There’s only so much shit you can take. One more jab, and your patience might just run out. But at that moment, you hear the door to the lounge slide open. Your heart races in panic, fearing it might be one of their parents, but it isn’t.

You’re not sure if the person that just walked it would make this situation better or worse.

“Haera.”

It’s the second time you’ve made eye contact with Na Jaemin tonight. The first two times after ten years and seeing him all grown up is still a huge slap in the face. His hair is bleached, almost white, which is a surprise knowing how uptight his parents are. He called out Haera’s name, but you can tell he’s looking at you. He’s looking at you with the same expression that he wore at the dining room table earlier— shock, surprise— pleasant or otherwise and you can’t really tell, but he quickly brushes it off to the side when Haera lets out a gasp and runs up to him.

“Oppa!” she exclaims. “What are you doing here? Did you come to see me?”

Na Jaemin simply smiles. “Mr and Mrs Heo are about to make their leave. Your parents want you to see them out.” 

Seeing the disappointment in her face is almost funny. Haera lets out a groan. “Donghyun, let’s go.” And her brother scuttles along with her too, giving you a single hesitant glance before turning away. This is your cue to leave. You quickly turn again, facing the open mouth of the servant hallway just as you hear Na Jaemin’s voice echo in the room again.

“Sanghyeok, you too. Jiyeon refuses to leave until she gets to see you.”

Huh. You don’t remember seeing Heo Jiyeon at the dinner table. You want to push forward, yet again you feel a familiar stare drilling into the back of your skull, so you take a peek over your shoulder. You see Lee Sanghyeok let out a tired grunt and forces himself off the couch, muttering a thank you to Jaemin before leaving the room as well, but the latter stays. 

He’s looking at you again. You can practically see the cloud of words floating above his head as tries to come up with an appropriate thing to say. It’s not like he can ignore you at this point. He’s been looking at you too much for it to slither under your notice.

Then, after much thought, he finally comes up with something to say.

“Do you know the way out?”

You pause. That’s interesting. No re-introductions. No musings of how he didn’t expect to ever see you again. No gripe about how low you’ve plummeted since he last saw you.

“No,” you reply. He makes his first steps towards you— past you, leading you through the intricacies of the servant tunnels, and before you know it, you’re outside just in the time for the sun to set, and Na Jaemin is looking at you again like he has so many things to say, but decides to say just one thing instead.

“I’ll walk you out the subdivision.”

Once more, you pause and think. What does he want? Is he stretching his time with you to get you to say something? To dig into why you left this neighborhood and how you ended up back here ten years later as a different person, just like Kim Haera? You can’t get a read on him. You never could, not ever since you were kids and first introduced to each other. As someone you should get close to. As someone who’d be a good match for you.

He’s still the same as ever. His face is still pretty. And he still stands an arms length away from you— never too close, and never too far.

“Na Jaemin,” you start. “I can still remember the directions and streets and twists and turns of Westwind. You don’t have to. It’s fine.” You finish it off with a smile on your face, albeit somewhat forced. 

“It’s getting late,” he responds, practiced and polite, and you almost laugh. “I should at least make sure you make it your ride home.”

“Well. Alright,” you finally say, and like earlier he brushes past you, a little ahead of you, and you start walking in rhythm down the familiar streets of the neighborhood. Much to your surprise, he’s quiet. It’s been a few minutes since the Kim’s house has gone out of sight, but he hasn’t started prying yet. Then again, you don’t remember him being as much of a snob as Haera. In your memories, Na Jaemin has always been quiet and polite— smiling when he needs to, talking when he needs to. He never does anything more than necessary. 

At least to you. He’s a little different when he’s around his friends. With the Lees, who live just a block away. He smiles more with them than when he does with you. Then again, you two aren’t exactly friends nor strangers, but it isn’t fair to just call him an acquaintance.

Na Jaemin notices you drilling holes into the side of his face and stops walking. It’s payback from earlier. He’s waiting for you to talk. So you do. 

“Aren’t you gonna ask?” 

This catches him off guard. Your mouth twitches. It’s barely a smile.

“Like, oh my god, what the hell happened to you, you used to be the most privileged rich kid in the neighborhood— why are you serving tables and letting Kim Haera spit on your face?” you rattle on, taking one step and more and this time it’s you taking the lead ahead. You spin your heels, walking backwards with your hands tucked behind your back. Na Jaemin looks like he’d been exposed. You laugh and turn back to face the right side of the road. “I know you’re curious. You’ve been looking at me like you want to pick apart my brain since I first intruded into your dinner.”

“Would you answer?” he says gruffly, trying to match your pace, but he can’t quite keep up with the bounce in your step as you near the exit of the subdivision.

“If you ask nicely,” you hum. “Considering our history, I think you deserve to know. More than Kim Haera at the very least.” 

This prompts a huff from him, close to a laugh. You smile. “I remember the fire that occurred, and you and your family left the neighborhood not long after,” Na Jaemin finally starts. “I thought you’d just left while waiting for your house to get repaired, but a few weeks passed and your home was still in the same state.”

You’ve reached the outside of the neighborhood, past the toll gate, and much to your surprise, Na Jaemin is still walking with you. He’s managed to overtake your lead, headed towards the bus stop. 

“When I asked my parents about what happened, the only thing they said is that you had a stroke of bad luck and I shouldn’t concern myself with you again.” Na Jaemin turns around, stopping underneath the waiting shed outside the premises of Westwind. You remember being in this same spot with him a few times before, but the shed is smaller than you remember. Or maybe you two just grew taller. 

He’s still bad at asking for what he wants though. He’s looking at you patiently to answer his unasked question. You relent, looking up at the slowly darkening sky. 

“A stroke of bad luck seems just about right.”

Your mother comes from old money, and your father not quite. He was upper-middle class at most, and her family didn’t approve of him. They were already pressuring her to break up while they were still dating, and eloping with him didn’t elicit a great reaction. She got cut off. At the very least she kept the house you, your parents, and grandfather had formerly lived in under her name, as well as a trust fund that still ensured her a more than comfortable rest of her life. Your father didn’t slack either. He managed to build himself up with two of his friends by investing and starting a finance firm.

It didn’t take long for your family’s wealth to grow, and by the time you were born, you were already handed a silver spoon.

But things go wrong just as quickly as they go right.

Your grandfather had a gambling addiction. The only reason why you found out about it is the yelling you’d overheard from your dad’s study every week. That enough wouldn’t be enough to squander off all your wealth, but it was the first domino that caused everything to collapse. Not long after, your father got betrayed by his business partners. You didn’t know the details since you were only fourteen when it happened, but you knew well enough to understand that your picture perfect life had started to crumple.

The dinners your family hosts every week suddenly stopped. Your household had to retrench, downsizing the number of workers, maids, gardeners, cooks, drivers and you started catching the bus to and from school. 

Perhaps some of the employees that got laid off grew resentful. Their resentment came in the form of being woken up in the middle of the night by your mother. You still vividly remember every beat of the scene— the warm and arid air, the smell of something suffocating, and the unusual bursts of light pouring from the outside. From the garden. And then your mother practically dragged your small frame out of the room, down the stairs, until you finally reached outside where you saw black smoke replacing the clouds in the sky, and the sound of sirens quickly growing louder and louder by the second.

“I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this.” You and Na Jaemin are now sitting on the bench under the shed, waiting for your bus to arrive. “I guess coming back to this neighborhood again reminded me that I’m still bitter.”

You flit your eyes up, trying to gauge Jaemin’s expression, but of course he’s still impossible to read. Is it sympathy? Pity? Derision? You have no idea.

“Haera was dying to find out how my life got royally screwed over,” you let out with a stretch. The aftermath of working for five hours is starting to hit. You’re gonna have a cold shower once you get home. “Feel free to spread the news like wildfire because I’m pretty sure the other kids want to know, too. Might as well make a novel out of it.”

The headlights of a bus come into sight. It stops briefly on the side of the road before you. Then it passes by with the hum of the engine.

“What makes you think I’m the type to gossip?” he asks. You don’t even catch a single ounce of offense from his tone.

“I don’t know,” you reply. “We never really talked much.”

Jaemin releases something short of a laugh. “That’s true.” Then a pause. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“Why would you be? It’s not like it’s your or your family’s fault,” you say. “I’m pretty happy with my life right now. Got into uni with a full-ride scholarship and I just made a hundred thousand in one day. I’m pretty sure a nice and warm meal is waiting for me when I get home too.”

He hums. “Where do you study?”

“KSU,” you reply. “You? I remember you’ve been preparing for med school since elementary, so I’m guessing NCIT?”

“You seem to know your universities well,” he quips. “And I’m surprised you even know of that.”

“Of course. You were practically my de facto fiancee from when I was nine to twelve. My parents make it a habit to advertise you over dinner without fail. Everything I know about you is against my will, Jaemin.” You joke, laughing. The corners of Na Jaemin’s mouth twitches upwards too, a little flustered when his head turns down a little, and you can see the length of his eyelashes hovering above his cheeks. “To be honest, I really thought we’d end up getting married with how much our families kept pushing us together. But I guess it’s another funny swing of fate that my circumstances made sure that neither of us would fall into an arranged marriage.”

It’s official. You simply aren’t equipped to understand the makings of Na Jaemin’s head based solely on his expressions. He’s stopped looking down, eyes directed at you with a gravity that nearly overwhelms and you want to ask what? Why are you looking at me like that? What exactly do you want to know and why can’t you just say it?

Still, you keep those questions locked in your throat because another bus approaches, and the sky is now more black than orange. Maybe you shouldn’t let this one pass by.

“Anyway, thanks for walking me out and waiting with me, Jaemin,” you say as you ready to stand up, dusting your trousers and your already stained white shirt. “And thanks for, you know, being a decent fucking person.”

The bus comes closer. You take this as a signal to leave and bid this neighborhood goodbye— maybe for good this time— but right before the bus makes a screeching halt before the waiting shed, your steps stagger from the sound of Na Jaemin’s voice behind you.

“Do you miss it?” 

You pause. You look over your shoulder and see Jaemin standing underneath the shade. The streetlight nearby flickers on. It illuminates the right side of his face.

“The life you had before,” he says. “Do you want to get it back?”

Regardless, it’s still impossible to decipher his expression, to figure out what he wants and what he means.

You hear the bus pull over, the sound of the door exhausting open. You give Na Jaemin one last smile before turning around, getting on the vehicle without a reply, and he doesn’t stop you to hear one.

*

“Shhh! Your footsteps are too loud, you’re gonna wake her up!”

“Isn’t that what we’re here for? To wake her up?”

“Yeah, but that’s no fun. Let’s scare her awake.”

“Uh, no thanks? I don’t want to get punched in the face.”

“Just let her sleep, she must be tired.”

“Booo, you’re two are so lame.”

For a second, you thought your friends had managed to pry themselves into your dreams, disturbing your sleep in the most inelegant way possible. Then you realize that their voices sound a lot more vivid, a lot closer than you thought. Like they’re in the room with you right now. So when you groan and peel your eyes open— indeed, lo and behold, here they are: Jay Park, Jake Shim, and Park Sunghoon in the flesh.

Jake is frozen and hovering above you like he’d just been caught committing theft. Sunghoon is trying to pull him away from your mattress. Jay is by the doorstep, pretending like he has nothing to do with this and immediately spinning his body one-eighty the moment you meet eyes.

You squint at Jake. He flinches back. “O—oh, you’re awake, haha.” 

Sunghoon successfully shovels Jake away. “Did we wake you?” he asks, replacing the latter’s spot on the left side of your mattress. 

There’s a guilty look on his face. You make it worse when you respond with, “What do you think?” propping yourself up with your elbows because you don’t particularly enjoy being looked down on. 

“Hey, your mom gave us permission to drag you out of bed,” interjects Jake. “Get up and get ready. Today’s the opening festival. You promised you’d attend this year!”

“I promised to watch Hee perform,” you correct. “He’s not gonna be on stage until the afternoon. Let me enjoy my morning off, you home invaders.” That was your ending statement before burying yourself into your pillow again, turning your back to the boys and then you hear Jay’s footsteps finally joining in the party.

“It is the afternoon,” he informs.

You jolt. Jay is now squatting at the foot of your mattress. “Shit, really?” 

He snorts. “Go check.”

Your hands scramble for your phone that you remember you left charging on the floor nearby somewhere. Sunghoon finds it before you. He pulls it out of the socket and hands it to you, and you confirm that it is in fact the afternoon. One-thirty, to be exact. You mutter a swear. “Fuck.” You nearly trip over your blanket when you stumble out of bed, promptly banishing the three of them to the downstairs diner while you get ready.

“Mom, you should make these idiots pay for their meals.” 

That’s the first thing you announce while running down the stairs, knowing full well that those three are already helping themselves to some gukbap and kimchi, and they don’t disappoint. Jake pops his head up from the table, cheeks puffed up and beckoning you over like this isn’t your family’s own restaurant. “Come get yours, dear,” your mother calls out from the kitchen, emerging with your own bowl of rice soup, and you quickly pad over to take it from her. 

“Seriously,” you start, moving over to the table, slotting yourself into the empty seat next to Sunghoon and in front of Jay. “We can open up a new branch if you total the amount they’ve been leeching for the past two years.”

You set your meal down with a clatter. Park Sunghoon stops eating at your declaration. His spoon hovers five centimeters away from his open mouth.

“Hoon, I’m joking.” Your hand lands on his wrist. You lead the spoon into his mouth and shut his jaw. “Eat up. You look like you’ve lost weight recently.”

“I only eat well when I’m eating auntie’s food,” he retorts, muffled, and takes another spoonful for himself. Sneaky guy probably noticed that your mom was coming over to earn a few points from her. Which works, because your mom looks extra happy when she presses her hands on the edge of the table, watching the four of you eat with eyes glazed in satisfaction. Your eyes flit down to her hands— rough and calloused with a band aid and a wedding ring wrapped on the fourth finger. 

“You know, you kids are welcome here any time, right?”

It’s been three weeks since your last visit to Westwind. At the Kim’s. But Na Jaemin’s parting question seems to find its way into your mind whenever you let your thoughts drift for too long.

Do you miss it?

This bite is suddenly hard to swallow. You set your chopsticks down with a clang.

“Where’s dad?” 

Your mom looks over to you, cutting her conversation short with Jay. “Making a delivery,” she replies. A huff escapes your throat. 

“Don’t you think it’s about time we hire part-timers?”

Jake sees this as an opportunity. You can literally see his eyes sparkle. “Auntie, hire me!” The table shakes. “Ow!” You snap your head to Sunghoon, who’s feigning innocence with his meal while Jake gives him the what gives? face. 

“We can still manage the store by ourselves,” your mother argues. “And Jungwoo and Jeonghan come by sometimes to help when you’re not around.”

“You should call us if you need any extra hand, auntie,” Sunghoon says. “Our schedule is pretty lenient this semester.”

“What do you mean lenient, we have four major—”

Sunghoon also cuts Jay off with an under the table kick and a smile. You mom laughs. “I appreciate the sentiments, but you kids should focus on your studies.”

You open your mouth to retort, but she ultimately shushes you and says she needs to organize some things in the kitchen. “Hey, finish your food,” Jay scolds, pushing your bowl closer to you. You stick your tongue out and pick up your spoon again. “I think we need to head out in fifteen minutes. Jungwon texted that the field is already getting crowded.”

The four of you finish your meals. Gukbap has been your diner’s specialty ever since your mom mastered how to cook it after countless trial and errors. It wasn’t easy adjusting from having ready to eat meals the moment you sit on the dinner table to having to curate your own menu just to make a living. After the losses your family incurred, you had to scrape up whatever you had left and moved to an affordable place in downtown Seoul. Both your parents had to start working, and it was your grandfather that always greeted you the moment  you returned home from school. 

However, when he passed away, the three of you moved to a new place that’s smaller and bigger at the same time— a two-storey building that you rented out to serve as a diner downstairs and a home at the top. You exit through the fogged doors with the sound of a jingle, stopping to turn around and follow the building’s height. It’s not too tall, wedged between two other rental spaces. A hair salon on the right. A computer shop on the left.

The life you had before.

Once again, Na Jaemin’s voice echoes in your ears. 

Do you want to get it back?

You see the blur of Sunghoon’s mouth move, but you don’t hear anything. You blink. A car zooms by. A flock of birds flutter away. You clear your throat, refocusing your gaze on your friend. “Sorry, what was that?”

His eyes are fixed on you, brows slightly knitted. “Nothing.” he mumbles. “You have something on your face.”

You flinch a little when Sunghoon suddenly brings a hand to your cheekbone, eyelids blinking rapidly in surprise as his thumb and index finger brush lightly against your skin, revealing a barely visible eyelash strand when he pulls his hand away. There’s a subtle smile on his face when his gaze lingers on the stray lash before glancing at you.

“Make a wish,” he jokes. You scoff, rolling your eyes with a grin.

“Hey, put the PDA on hold. We have a bus to catch,” Jay interrupts. Sunghoon clicks his tongue in response. He flicks the lash away and stuffs his free hand into a jacket pocket, extending his other arm behind you to hook around your shoulders, and your feet skid against the ground as you bump into him.

It’s nothing that catches you off guard nor surprised. The four of you are walking to the bus stop, yet it isn’t just the four of you occupying the neighborhood. It’s early afternoon. The sidewalks and streets are busy. Park Sunghoon has the habit of pulling you as close to him as physically possible. A middle-aged man in a suit approaches from the opposite direction, you in his line of collision, and Sunghoon quickly steps to the side and pulls you closer to evade the fast approaching businessman, who was way too caught up in his call over the phone to pay you any mind. 

The gesture is impossible not to notice— Jake and Jay included, but they never say anything about it. Neither do you. Neither does Sunghoon.

Your bus arrives. All seats are taken. Any space you once had to breathe diminishes to nonexistence as you try and balance yourself amidst the standing crowd. “You okay?” Sunghoon’s voice is a mere whisper reserved for you to hear. You’re standing in front of him, arms glued to your body because you lost the opportunity to grab the handgrip before you got squeezed stuck by the rush of passengers flooding in.

“Never better,” you let out a strained laugh. Sunghoon frowns a little. The bus rattles. He presses a firm hold against your back before you could even stumble. You notice his gaze flicker into a glare, jaw clenched and pointed at the stranger near you who’s unintentionally digging his elbow into your shoulder blade. You clear your throat, catching his and the other two’s attention. “Park Jongseong, what’s the purpose of your car if you don’t even use it? We would’ve been sitting comfortably and moving faster by now. What a waste of an investment.”

That was half a joke, half not really. Your commutes to campus are always a grueling one-hour experience. Jay narrows his eyes at you, unamused. “You guys keep abusing my vehicle rights. Don’t you know how exhausting it is to drive all of you home all the time?”

“With great power comes great responsibility,” Jake jives in. You nod solemnly. Jay’s mouth hangs open. He looks at Sunghoon for backup but the poor guy is simply ignored.

“Imagine all the time and money we’d save if you were more charitable,” you continue. “Hoon, don’t you agree?”

Park Sunghoon doesn’t give you the answer you’re looking for. “Should I get a license?” he instead asks. You blink at him. He blinks back. 

“Will you drive me to campus every day?” you hum, smiling in jest. 

“I’ll take you anywhere you want,” is his answer. His gaze has softened. You hear Jake cough from next to you. Jay gives up his retaliation. The bus halts. Everyone leans to the back and you’re reminded by Sunghoon’s firm hold. He presses you into him closer if it’s even possible, if there’s even any space left between you to swallow— and if there is, you don’t see nor feel it. The only thing you feel is the heat emanating from his skin that’s seeping into yours.

A few bodies finally get down from the vehicle. You breathe. You take a step away and grab onto the now vacant handgrip closest to you. Sunghoon’s hold loosens, but his fingers still linger on the curve of your spine. It stays there until you arrive at your stop right across the street from the campus gates. From the bus windows alone, you can already see the staggering amount of people flooding inside. 

It gets worse the moment you actually step foot on campus. The first person you lock eyes with— Kim Taerae, welcoming committee since last year— hits you in the face with his business-smile, wide and tight and brimming with sweetness. “Hey, traitor. How dare you show your face here?”

The student council also asked you to be part of the committee. Of course you fucking said no. “Aren’t you gonna welcome me in?” you jab. Taerae’s smile twitches, but a group of actual freshmen walk in and he’s forced to start his welcoming protocol.

Even after getting off the bus, Park Sunghoon is no less closer. You say goodbye to Taerae and greet Seok Matthew, who’s wearing the university fox mascot (which arguably looks like a fursuit, but you digress), with a wave and a camera pointed at him, and Sunghoon maintains a steady hold on your arm as you navigate further into campus grounds.

“Later, Matthew!”

“See you around!”

Yet your path towards the field next to the courtyard keeps getting interrupted. 

Every now and again, you’re stopped by a familiar face to exchange greetings. This is why you don’t usually attend university events and festivals. On normal days, people usually stick to their class and extracurricular schedules. But on days like these, everyone is out and about. Meaning, your chances of bumping into someone you know is one in twenty. Renjun from the astronomy club passes by with a hello. Chaewon from one of your electives stops you and tells you to visit their department booth later in the evening.

“Let’s catch a meal sometime!”

Honestly, you’re used to it. Ever since you were a kid, you’ve been conditioned to deal with people and manage your web of relationships in order to seamlessly fit into the ‘elite’ social scene. Every party, every dinner, every event, you’re introduced to a new acquaintance, new same-faced adult, new person to the point where you had to dedicate an entire space inside your brain just dedicated to the faces and names you needed to keep track of.

The space was made up of rows and rows of filing cabinets, sorted according to the people most important to you, the people you may or may not meet again in the future, the people you resent. The son of the neighbors across the block. The daughter of the lawyer that you used to sit in silence with. The kid you met over vacation who always seemed to be crying. The countless adults who’d compliment you for being so well-mannered, so pleasant, so sociable even as a child. 

But at some point it gets overwhelming. And when your life turned upside down, you stopped seeing a point in maintaining all these relationships. The cabinets were left unopened, catching dust and cobwebs in that one corner in your brain. That was until a senior of yours back in high school gave you some advice. Something you’d held onto until today.

This is why you shouldn't push people away, he had once told you. Don’t you think it'd be better if you let your thoughts out instead of getting drowned by them?

And that was when the filing cabinets started to get filled again. The classmate you surprisingly shared a lot of interests with. The teacher who helped you with your college applications back in high school. The junior from high school who always kept picking fights with everyone. And the four current friends you have from your year and major, who had somehow wiggled themselves into the near barren drawer saved for the people that mean the most to you, in spite of all the space available underneath.

“Hee texted,” you announce, holding up your phone. Sunghoon nudges his face closer over your shoulder to take a peek. “There’s a delay in the program. They won’t be up for another thirty, forty minutes.” The three expectedly groan in annoyance. You are also annoyed. You could’ve slept in a bit more had you known about the delay, but you quickly swallow down any displeasure from your expression because you spot yet another familiar face amidst the crowd. One of your classmates from a general education. It’d be rude not to say hi. “Hyeju!” you call out. 

She spins around, annoyed surprise brightening into a more pleasant expression upon recognizing you. “Oh, hey! How was your break?”

“Nonexistent,” is your very eloquent reply, smiling. Hyeju laughs in sympathy. “Did you see who our prof for the semester will be? Jesus, I’m already predicting dread for the next five months of— whoa!” Suddenly, you’re nabbed and spun around and all you can see is a whir. Click, you hear while your vision is still wobbly, and when your gaze refocuses, you recognize the culprit with the camera in hand, and your forehead wrinkles. “Seonbae, what the fuck?”

Kim Mingyu lowers down his camera to reveal a widely grinning face. “Smile. I need a pretty face for the news update.”

Hyeju taps your arm to inform you she’s leaving. You look at Mingyu, arms crossed and unamused. “Where’s my appearance fee?”

“I’ll buy you coffee,” he responds, signaling to your other three friends (that you momentarily forgot about) to join in the picture as well. You relent with a sigh, beckoning them to come over. Jake hops over and asks if he’s getting coffee as well. Jay wordlessly strides over and puts up a peace sign behind your head. Sunghoon wedges himself between you and Jake and throws an arm over your shoulder. These guys are so overbearing. Mingyu counts from three with his fingers. The camera clicks. He shoots you a grin with a thumbs up. “Thanks. Love you!”

That guy is also a handful. Your sigh is heard by the three of them. “Is this why you hate attending festivals?” muses Jay.

“The woes of being a wanted woman,” you lament. Jake snorts at your woes. You elbow him in the rib.

“You’re so full of yourself.” Jay rolls his eyes, and that’s when he sees something from his peripheral. “Looks like you’ve got another friend, Miss Wanted.”

You follow his eyes and your gaze stops at an approaching Park Gunwook. His jog slows to a walk once he’s within your earshot. “Oh my god, just the person I wanted to see,” your junior starts. Well, that’s never a good conversation starter. “Seonbae, are you busy? Do you mind lending us a hand?”

Exactly as you feared. “What for?” you ask with preemptive exhaustion.

“Our booth sign,” he explains. “Kwan-hyung disappeared. He was supposed to be the one to— ack. Nevermind. Can you help? You’ve done calligraphy before, right?”

The time you take to think about Gunwook’s request coincides with the amount of time Gunwook is sweating in nervous, hopeful anticipation. He’s giving you puppy eyes, respectfulll offering up the marker with both palms open like he’s offering it up for the heavens. You sigh again and take the marker from him. “You three go look for a spot. Call me when Hee’s about to perform.”

Jake simply laughs at your misery. Jay is the only decent one enough to give you a response. “Sure, no problem.” The two already start walking, but Sunghoon is lagging behind. You give him a smile and wave off. “Sunghoon, let’s go,” Jay nudges him. He relents with a grunt and tells you not to go off on your own for too long.

Now, with three men gone, you thought you’d finally get some breathing room.

Unfortunately for you, doing a favor for one cute junior also means doing favors for all of your cute juniors. And you’ve collected many cute juniors in the three years you’ve wasted away in this university. You thought Gunwook’s sign was the end of it. “Noona!” you hear from your left, and it’s Jungwon and Sunoo trailing behind him. “Can you write ours too? Sunoo-hyung’s handwriting is so bad.”

“It’s not! What I made wasn’t even half bad!”

Why exactly are you peers making the second years and freshmen take care of the booth shit? These kids are supposed to be the ones enjoying the festival right now, for fuck’s sake. You’re in the middle of angrily scribbling onto a piece of chipboard when a classmate of yours enters your line of sight. These useless seniors. If they don’t want to work, might as well not show up, like what you’ve been doing for the past semesters.

“Noona!”

“Hold on.”

“Seonbae—”

“Your sign is on the chair over there, Gunwook.”

“Thank you, I love you, you’re the best.”

“Noona, ours too!”

“Sure, give me a second—”

“Noona.” 

“Yes?” Admittedly, you’re getting quite annoyed, but you don’t want to misdirect your attitude towards these poor kids who just got work tossed to them. “What is it?” you ask without looking up from the current sign post you’re working on— a free hugs sign for the physical education majors— hunched over on a low stool. You assume it’s just another one of the dozens of kids asking you to write a sign, but you’re surprised to feel a tug on your shirt.

You sit straight and turn around. You’re met by a face that you don’t remember seeing before. Sharp features. Dark hair. A little lengthy to the point that the framing strands touch his lashes. A mole under his eye— and the irises seem glassy. Your brows furrow. Who’s this? Is he a freshman? He doesn’t seem familiar at all.

“Noona,” he repeats. But the way he pronounces the honorific is. The soft cadence, the gentle pitch. The way the syllables roll off his tongue triggers a fuzzy sense of familiarity in you. Yet your attempt at reminiscence is ruined when you feel him grab your shoulders and jerk you forward, dropping the sign you’d been working on in the process and nearly stumbling off your seat. But you don’t. Because you’re suddenly caught in a suffocating embrace by someone you can’t quite tell if he’s a stranger or not. Your eyes widen. His frame is swallowing you whole. “It’s really you. I thought I was seeing things. It’s you. I missed you.”

“Excuse me? What are you—”

A familiar scent hits you. The ocean. The sea. A breeze on the shoreline brushing your hair off of your cheeks, and the wind of nostalgia disappears the moment the strange guy’s trembling grip starts to loosen as he pulls away, taking the scent of the sea away with him. His eyes are frantic— almost like he’s looking for something in the confused wrinkle of your expression. “Don’t you remember me?” he says. He looks like he’s about to cry. And that’s when it hits you.

“Oh— oh!” 

A distant summer when you were twelve. Before everything in your life got washed up by the waves.

On vacation you found a boy underneath a coconut tree on the far side of the rocky shore— a far too dangerous place for two children, yet you were interrupted from your seashell hunting by the sound of someone crying amidst the crashing waves. 

“Ricky! Ricky Shen! Oh my god, is it you?”

He was the boy you found that day, sobbing because he got separated from his parents during a vacation abroad. When he looked up at you with big eyes stained red by countless tears, you immediately took his hand and traversed the rocky path to take him back to your father for some help. 

It took you a while to understand his situation. You didn’t speak the same language. However, throughout his stay with you while waiting for his parents to return, you were able to teach him a few words and phrases.

“Noona.” That was one of them— spoken in the same tone he’d always used even when he was a kid. “I thought I’d never see you again.” That phrase wasn’t any of what you taught him. He’s gotten better, but isn’t…this sentiment a bit much? You’re happy to see him well and alive, but if you remember correctly, he only stayed with your family for around a week, and that doesn’t warrant such an intense reunion, so you’re a bit taken aback.

Yet you also consider that he was a kid back then— a kid who got lost in a foreign country who thought he’d never come home again. To you, it was just another week. To him, that another week stuck with him more than you could even begin to understand.

You want to ask him a bit more, like how did he end up here again, why is at your uni, how long until he has to go back—

“Seonbae!” 

—but you lose the chance when you’re interrupted by another one of your juniors. Kim Gyuvin runs up to you in a hurry. You duck down and pick up the chip board you dropped earlier. “Here’s your sign, you knucklehead,” you say, handing it over to him. Gyuvin happily takes it from you and stretches out his arms to read it.

“Oh, thank you!” he says. “But, ah, wait. Right. Someone’s looking for you. I told him to wait by our booth over there.”

“My god, who is it this time?” you grunt. No matter how life fucks you over and turns itself upside down, the amount of people that require your attention just can’t seem to decrease. The filing cabinets in your head can only take so many names. You hop off the stool, ready to leave, before remembering. “Ricky, can you wait for me here? I’ll be back in a sec.”

You start moving but your arm lags behind. You turn to see Ricky still holding onto the sleeve of your shirt, and really— he’s never changed. He might’ve gotten taller, might’ve gotten prettier, but he’s still as cute and clingy as you remember. The one week he spent at yours, the kid would tail you around like a lost kitten all the time.

“Let’s talk more later.” Smiling, you place a hand over his knuckles, and let his loose grip fall completely. He looks like he wants to say something, but he resigns by just nodding instead. “Gyub, where did you say they were?”

“At our booth! Come buy something from us while you’re at it.”

This kid thinks he can extort you. You head off to their booth and check your phone along the way, and you find a missed call and a text from Sunghoon asking where you are. HRM majors booth. Is Heeseung about to go up yet? you reply. Pocketing your phone, you hurry to your destination, squeezing through the barrage of bodies because if Hee is indeed about to perform soon, then you better hurry your ass up, else he’d get mad at you for being ‘such an unsupportive friend.’ His words. You’d rather not have anything that could be used against you.

When you reach the booth, you realize that you have no idea who exactly you’re supposed to be looking for and should’ve asked Gyuvin for a name or description or something. You look around, trying to find someone you know, but in the middle of your search, you feel something…soft drop on your head, falling over your eyes and obscuring your vision. 

The hell? You whip your head around blindly, annoyed. Then you hear a laugh. And you quickly remove the object obscuring your face to make sure that you’d just heard that correctly.

Your annoyance quickly disappears into pleasant surprise the moment you’re able to see the culprit’s face. He’s smiling pretty generously, you notice— not the held-back half smiles that he’d very also rarely display, but the kind you once called pretty and he told you to shut the fuck up with a prostesting grunt. It’s just one familiar face after another. These reunions never seem to end.

“Taesannie!” 

“Seonbae.”

You want to tease him for the rare occasion that he’s in a good mood, that he isn’t all grumpy and moody, but you want to savor this rare sight of him smiling as much as you can. You pull him in for a hug— which causes him to stiffen a little. He’s uncomfortable and you know it, and you laugh. “I haven’t seen you in ages,” you say with a wide grin, pulling back a bit. “How have you been, idiot? Have you been causing trouble again?”

“I messaged you on IG,” he says, wiggling out of your prison just enough for him to be able to hold your arms above your elbows. “Three months ago. When I got accepted to KSU. You never responded.”

Now, it’s your turn to freeze up. “Oops.” Since graduating high school, you realized you’ve never given him your number. “That’s—that’s my bad. But you know I don’t use social media.”

“I know,” Taesan huffs with a smile. He pulls down your left arm, fingers tracing down your skin until they reach your hand— the hand that removed his cap earlier and he snatches it off from you, fixing it on the top of your head again, gentler this time when he tugs down the visor, just enough for you to keep seeing his face. “That’s why I figured to just look for you myself.”

You feel a bump in your throat.

He’s so tenacious. He’s always been.

You simply laugh and shake your head. “Thanks for being so considerate to your unreliable, unthoughtful, and forgetful senior, Dongmin-ah. I’m glad you didn’t report me to Principal Lee for ghosting you.”

“He retired last year.“ Your face stiffens again. He laughs out loud. He’s been enjoying your mistakes a lot. What a handful. “Anyway, I at the very least hope you haven’t forgotten your promise, seonbae.”

“Promise?” you raise a brow. Crap, did you forget something again? Taesan’s smile disappears the moment you express your lack of remembrance. Your brows furrow, trying your best to recall, but you really don’t remember promising him anything because that’s just not something you would do often just to forget. 

“I got accepted to your university. I’m gonna start going to school with you again from now on,” he says, as if that’s enough to jog your missing memories. “Two years was a long time to wait, seonbae. I really don’t want to wait any longer.”

Your confused eyes try to trace hints from his expression. He did get accepted to KSU. He is going to uni with you now. The ID and lanyard he’s wearing is a proof of that— but so what?

So what, you try and tell yourself. But you know exactly what he’s talking about.

“Seonbae.”

Taesan looks at you expectantly. It’s difficult to meet his gaze. It’s difficult to get yourself out of this all by yourself. So when you feel the presence of someone approaching you from behind, you take the opportunity to whip your head back and see who it is. Yet rather than finding an opening, what greets you is another closed door. It’s Ricky. “Noona,” he calls out. “You said you won’t take long.”

Somehow, you’ve found yourself caught in a troublesome situation. Your balance stumbles a little. It’s Taesan tugging you back by the shoulder, fixing you closer to the ground right in front of him. “Who the hell are you?” He’s not looking at you— he’s looking right past you, straight at Ricky, who isn’t looking at him at all because the weight of the latter’s stare focused right on you is making you feel like you’re being sunk into the ground.

“Noona,” he repeats, ignoring Taesan altogether. “Let’s go look around the festival together.”

This is...very troublesome indeed. You can feel a throb on the right side of your head. The festival. Right. Has Heeseung’s performance started yet? That’s the only reason why you showed up today, anyway. 

Your attempt to pull your phone out of your pocket is blown off by a blunt pressure on your shoulder blade. You look behind to see the hostility in Taesan’s expression scrunching up even further. It’s like you're a mouse caught in between two starving cats. Good god. The only thing you can hope for right now is for someone to swoop in and get you out of here.

And that’s when you hear the sound of your name being called out.

You snap your head to the left to identify your savior. It’s Park Sunghoon with a bitter look on his face. You let out a quiet sigh of relief— but not silent enough to slip past Taesan’s notice.

His gaze flickers down at you. What? What are you going to do? Leave? the glint in his eyes seem to say. He doesn’t look very happy. Neither do the other two men within your premises, and Sunghoon calls out to you again. “Heeseung hyung is about to perform.” A hand around your wrist. Sunghoon pulls you away from Taesan with a firm tug. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, Sunghoon, give me a sec—” You pry yourself out of his hold, patting around your trousers for the marker you used earlier, and calling out Gyuvin from their booth just a few steps away for a piece of scrap paper, on which you scribble down your number. When you look up, it’s fortunate that Ricky and Taesan are still there, albeit not looking too happy. You’re pretty sure the one waiting behind you isn’t amused either with your stalling. “Hey, it was nice seeing you two kids again, but I need to go. Let’s catch up some other time, okay? Here’s my—”

You’re pulled back, the sheet with your number on it slipping past your fingers and brushing through the wind before you could finish your sentence or hand it over to either of them. 

Surprised, your head turns to Sunghoon, who’s dragging you off at an impatient pace. “Hoon,” you try calling out. He leads you into a tight crown. Your shoulders and elbows bump into people you don't know. “Hoonie, you’re grabbing me too tight, hey!”

You tear yourself away from him. You’re in the midst of a crowd in the middle of the courtyard— all jamming to the music from the front, stage lights flashing and flickering and flitting around as it starts to get dark. You look at him, brows knitted together, but bite your tongue from saying anything too rough upon seeing the expression he’s wearing.

The only way you can describe it is that he looks like he’s about to die. 

“Park Sunghoon,” you start, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

Sunghoon doesn’t answer. His eyes leave you when a group of students suddenly come rushing over in the heat of the party, and he closes the space you put in between the both of you by pulling you out of the way of the incoming mob. “Who were they?” he asks. “I know you’re friends with a lot of people, but I’ve never seen those two before. Who were those two?”

Your open palms are pressed against his chest. “One of them, I picked up from the beach when I was a kid.” You use them to push yourself back once the noise from the group has already passed. “The other was a junior in high school. I think they’re both incoming freshmen this year. More importantly, where’s Heeseung? I thought he was about to perform?”

Attempting to look through the large crowd ahead of you, you stretch yourself up with the tips of your toes. “Are you close?” Sunghoon asks again, finding a spot on the small of your back to keep you balanced while you look over his shoulder.  “They acted like they were close with you.”

“I don’t know,” is your only reply. “Hey, Jake and Jay are over there! Heeseung, too! Hoon, let’s go!”

Sunghoon does not pry further. He lets himself get tugged along by you as you fight through the crowd, making it just in time to where Jay and Jake are standing before they could call either of you as Heeseung walks up the stage with a huge smile. Right. This is the only reason why you came here today. Everything else is just secondary— stored up in the back of your mind, behind all of your current priorities.

Which is why the moment Heeseung finishes, you immediately excuse yourself from the other three.

“Already?” Jake whines. “C’mon! We were planning on grabbing drinks after this.”

“You still have your shift at the laundromat, right?” Jay asks. “At least say goodbye to Hee first before leaving.”

“Tell him I’ll send him a long sappy message later!” you shout through the noise. “See you guys tomorrow!”

Before you go, you glance at Sunghoon. He wants to say something, you can tell that much. Your lungs grow heavy. All you want to do is just unload washing machines and wipe the floors and windows clean at Suds right now with your music at full volume. Sunghoon finally settles with a simple, “text us when you get to work.” This elicits a look of surprise from Jake.

“Whoa. You aren’t gonna offer to take her there?”

Sunghoon only grunt. You smile and bid them farewell, and for once, you aren’t stopped or interrupted by anyone, and your walk towards the exit gate off the campus runs smoothly along with the setting of the sun. When you take your first step on the pavement right outside university premises, your phone buzzes to a text. [seonbae. it’s taesan]. Followed by another. [what time do your classes end tomorrow? wanna grab dinner together?]

At least you know they got your note. You balance yourself on the bus ride to your part-time job as you think of a response. Tomorrow. What’s on your schedule, again? You have classes from ten to four, and your lunch break is most likely gonna be spent with the four idiots. Tomorrow’s dinner is already booked, too, and your dinner date might get sulky if you cancel on him again this time.

[Will Friday work? Sorry, I’m booked today, Taesan. But we can have a mini-celebration at the end of the week for your KSU acceptance :) what do you say?].

*

The next morning, when you come down for breakfast, you see your dad wearing a suit.

For a second, you almost completely gloss over it, greeting them a good morning as you walk over the counter for a glass of water. Then you notice he’s not wearing his bike helmet. And when you sniff your nose, you can smell the scent of musky perfume. That’s when you notice.

“Whoa,” you remark, setting your glass down onto the counter. Your mom is helping him fix up his tie. You quickly twirl open your phone to snap this gem of a photo. “What’s the occasion? I don’t recall you having any friends’ whose weddings you can attend.” 

You receive a scolding from your mom and a hearty laugh from your dad. 

“How do you know I don’t have any friends?” he responds with a smile. “C’mon, kiddo. Let’s grab a taxi, I’ll drop you off at your school.”

Even though that doesn’t answer your questions about his plans for today, you neither pry nor push because you know their standard protocol for these things. If they get a catering offer for a big event, you’re the first one they tell. If the electricity bills go up or if a debtor showed up while you’re outside, you wouldn’t even know unless you dig into it, unless you ask a neighbor or a friend or find some evidence they left behind somewhere in the restaurant. 

The entire taxi ride is uncomfortable. Not in any way because of the conversation your father is attempting to strike. But because the car’s air conditioning is making your head spin and nauseous. “Why didn’t your friends come by today, by the way?”

“They were too late in fixing their schedules, so they have a 7 a.m. class today,” you snort, laughing. You sometimes wonder why they even bother coming around so often, considering your place is an hour-long commute to and from campus, and Jay never brings his fucking car around. 

Your dad makes a comment about which one of them is more your type. You hack out a cough and cover your ears to block his amused laughter out.

“Hey, I’m just asking! My only dream is to see you happily married before I die, you know.”

“Change your dream. I don’t want to be the reason if you live an unfulfilled life,” you groan, face burning up. “Hold on. I’m getting a text from Jeonghan-seonbae.”

“He’s a pretty good candidate too.”

“Stop it! Oh my god, you’re the worst.”

You quickly unlock your phone to read the message. [hey, busy bee. just texting to make you’re not canceling our plans again later 🥰🥰]. You’re pretty sure that this is a threat. How many coffees, lunches, drinks, and dinners have you ruined with him because you had a sudden deadline that day, a work opportunity that same evening. He’d always been understanding, but you never fail to feel guilty after all he’s helped you, and you can’t even give him a few hours of your time. [I’m not!!! I’ll see you at Eojetbam, promise 😞].

“You’re seeing him later, right?” your dad asks.

“Yup. He’s treating me to dinner at this fancy restaurant downtown.”

Unlike usual, your father doesn’t make a comment at your subtle bragging. There’s a look on his face that you can’t pinpoint. “That’s nice,” is all he says after a momentary pause. “Ask him to drive you home tonight.”

“There’s no way I’m doing that,” you disagree. “I still have a bit of shame left, you know.”

You reach campus, and attempt to pay half of the taxi meter but your father simply shoo’s you away. With heavy steps and defeated shoulders, you make your way inside the gate and are greeted by Yeojin, your classmate for the first class you have on your schedule, who just happens to arrive at the same time as you after grabbing a coffee from Drip across the street.

“First day of the semester and I’m already tired,” she tells you with a dejected sigh. “On more exciting news— we got new eye candy on campus. My friends from the fashion and design department told me that two cute new freshmen caught everyone’s attention during the orientation. Their building is right next to ours. God, I hope we bump into one of them today. Just the energizer I’d need.”

All you do is laugh at her news while entertaining the faintest idea that you might know who one of those two is. Last night, you’d called Taesan upon getting home to compensate for turning him down. You caught up a bit, exchanged schedules and he told you his major— fashion merchandising, which caught you by surprise. Well, considering it still falls under business, you could believe it a little better.

Anyhow, if he finds out that he’s been crowned as his department’s cute new eye candy as a title, you’re sure he’d be pretty fucking annoyed. And you intend to capitalize on that. More teasing fuel for you.

“Good morning, everyone. Let’s not waste time on introductions and head straight to our course outline.”

What a way to start the semester. You hold back a million yawns while taking some notes of Prof Yang’s overview of the syllabus. Yeojin asks if you want to hit the cafeteria for a snack in between classes. You shoot her a thumbs up and the moment Prof Yang dimisses, you’re both out the door and into the hallway.

“Hey, hurry up!” you call out to her when she stumbles over her undone shoelaces. “The guys from the phys ed department usually flood the canteen at this time, you know. They’re gonna sweep up all our portions.”

“Not on my watch, they won’t.”

You laugh as you walk ahead, your line of sight lagging behind your body because you want to watch more of her struggling to re-tie her laces as quickly as you can. This causes you to not look at where you’re going— and where you’re going is straight into the body of another person, bumping your nose in the process. “Ow!” you exclaim. “Sorry about that!”

“Noona.”

Oh. You pause, looking up to take a good look at your victim of negligence, and it is indeed Ricky Shen. “Ricky!” you greet. “Did you get home safe after the festival last night? How did you know I was here?”

He smiles as a response. You hold back the urge to squish his face between your palms, reminding yourself that he’s not a kid anymore. “I asked around. Turns out our buildings are next to each other, noona.”

That urge isn’t easily suppressed. “Wow!” you exclaim. Your hand somehow finds itself reaching for the fluff of his hair, and Ricky tips his head down in response, allowing you to press light pats on the crown of his head. “Good job. Now you won’t have to worry about getting lost anywhere anymore.” It hits you as an afterthought though— he could’ve just texted you to ask. Why bother asking someone when he could’ve asked you directly. Taesan got your number even amidst the rush, after all. Ricky must’ve too.

“Noona,” Ricky’s voice interrupts your thoughts. “My back is starting to ache a bit.” 

You flinch and snap out of it. “Oh, sorry.” You retract your hand, pulling it close to your chest. “Force of habit, I guess.” If your recollection serves you right, Ricky was very much shorter than you. He’s two years younger, and in the brief week he’d spent with you in your household, you’d been used to him looking up, trying to communicate with you the best that he can with the help of those big, sparkly eyes of his repeating, ‘Noona. Noona! Can we see the pond again? The koi pond?’

Now, you’re the one looking up at him. And a memory begins to surface.

‘Noona.’ It begins with the usual gentle timbre of his voice. ‘Can’t I just stay here with you forever?”

A laugh from Ricky stirs you back into the present. “I was just joking, I don’t really mind,” he hums, smiling. “You can touch me anywhere you want, noona.” 

Whoa, whoa, whoa— hold on. You manage a stiff smile. Whoever was his vocabulary teacher needs to get a demotion. This kid can be a bit much can he? You brush his comment off. Ricky’s gaze is as patient yet expectant as ever. “Anyhow, I’m off to the canteen with a friend of mine. Yeojin.” You point your thumb back at her. Said friend has been trying to sneak in the opportunity to insert herself into the conversation, but never got the opportunity. “Do you want to join us?”

He nods firmly. You laugh. His over the top-ness aside, Ricky can be painstakingly cute, and it’s taking everything in your power to prevent yourself from treating him the same way that you’d done before.

The cafeteria run only lasted briefly, considering you two still have a class to catch in less than fifteen minutes. After getting a vegetable wrap and Yeojin’s rice bowl, you had to bid Ricky farewell and return to your department building. On the way, right at the moment that you’d left Ricky’s earshot, Yeojin starts freaking the fuck out. “Whoa, what the fuck?! Dude, that was fashion department cutie number two! The one I mentioned earlier!” she shrieks into your ear, shaking you by the arm. “I hear he’s the son of SQR Fashion’s Chairwoman. What the hell? Why is a rich heir like him bowing his head down for your headpats and paying for our snacks?”

“Listen, I’m just as taken aback as you are.” You’ve known about Ricky’s background when his parents came back for him after his one-week missing period. “I met him once when I was like, twelve, and only bumped into him again yesterday. I’m surprised he still remembers me. He’s barely even an acquaintance.”

You’re not lying. You’re happy to see him, but it still puzzles you why Ricky is acting like this.

“How in the world would you have gotten acquainted with someone like him?!”

All you could do is smile and thank the heavens for the interruption in the form of your phone buzzing to an incoming text. It’s from your dad, asking if you’ve eaten yet, and reminding you to go home straight after your dinner with Jeonghan. Yet another display of weird behavior from a man in your life. He never usually texts you, not to mention what had happened earlier this morning. You might get some information from your mother later. You should pack some leftovers to bring home.

You receive another text. It’s a photo from Jay of Sunghoon, arms crossed and falling asleep in class. There’s drool on his face. You cackle and press save. Yeojin tugs you into the classroom. “We’re not late aren’t we?”

“No, not yet.

“Oh, hey!”

“Wow, you’re taking this class, too?”

The rest if your classes end in a flash, considering it’s only syllabus week, so you manage to get off earlier than you’d initially planned. Yeojin had already split up with you since she has other friends to meet. The four idiots are stuck here at uni until six in the evening because they screwed up their schedules for the semester, and you took a day off from your shift at 7-Eleven today because of the dinner you have scheduled.

That means, for the first time in a while, you’re all alone right now. All alone with nothing to do.

Should you pick up some hobbies? you think to yourself as you aimlessly walk through the streets of downtown to kill time. You’ve never really pondered on these things— not that you’ve ever had the privilege to. Picking up something like crocheting would only be a waste of money. It’s not like you have the time to get into a sport, either.

Your feet stop moving right in front of a bookstore. Open, the sign says. You look at the books on display through the glass. The owner smiles at you from inside. You turn your head, and your feet start moving again.

These books can be downloaded online. There’s no need to spend money on physical copies.

“Ah, my life is so boring,” you lament, continuing your mindless stroll. There’s a taiyaki cart in the corner. You buy a few pieces before making a turn, and that’s when you notice something that’s been bugging you since earlier.

When you make a turn around the block, you notice the same black car you’d been seeing since earlier make a turn as well. It’s only a hunch, but you proceed to move forward further into the street, before spinning your heels and going back into the same direction you came.

The car stops in its tracks. It attempts to make a u-turn at the intersection. 

Your hunch is correct. What the hell. You should have never made that remark about your boring life. Quickly, your eyes scan around for an alley you could disappear into, and there you find a narrow opening wedged in between a study cafe and a pharmacy. You push yourself forward before the car could finish its turn— yet the moment your soles stomp into the concealment of brick walls and dusty pavement, you hear the abrupt ringing of your name being called out.

The sound of the voice stirs a rush of nausea from the pits of your stomach. It’s familiar— yet unlike the fondness of seashores that Ricky brought with his, this voice carries the crowbar hitting the latch of all of your pent up emotions for the past decade. 

You’re greeted by the face of the man you’d used to see at every dinner, every gala. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday emerging from your fathers now burnt down study. Every weekend when you’d come over to visit, asking how was your week with a kind, smiling expression.

“Mr Choi.”

How much more forceful reminiscing do you have to undergo this week? Quite frankly, you’re getting so fucking sick of it.

He repeats your name. The car is left on the road beside the sidewalk. He’d up and left just to talk to you in the middle of this dingy street. “Do you…have a few minutes to spare for a chat?” You bite your tongue. You turn around and ignore him, yet he knows exactly what to do to snag your attention. “I met your father earlier.”

And it clicks. It clicks so well that you can hear the sound echoing in the chambers of your brain. Your dad wore a suit for the first time in forever. His out of character texts to check on you. And here you have the person who ruined his life suddenly showing up for god knows what reason— and you know that if you ask your father, he wouldn’t tell you a single damn thing. You don’t think you can stomach it if your life gets fucked and flipped around again, right under your nose without your knowledge.

“For what?” you ask, voice firm. Mr Choi looks around first, eyes scanning the area before drawling out a hesitant response.

“Let’s…let’s talk in private.”

The next thing you know, you’re sitting in front of this bastard in the private booth of a restaurant your eyes failed to register the name of. There’s a full course meal sitting in front of you— sushi, salad, and a clear broth soup. The ice cubes are melting inside the juice. You feel sick to your stomach and a single bite might cause you to vomit on the spot.

Mr Choi has not touched his meal either. He’s finding his footing to start the conversation. “You should…you should try the soup. I’ve eaten here with my sons before. Do you remember them?” You don’t intend on making it easy for him. He clears his throat when you don’t grace him with a response. “I came looking for you and your father today because I’d like to sincerely apologize for what I’d done to you and your family, sweetheart.”

You hold back a scoff. This is ten years overdue, isn’t it?

“I was—I was blinded by my greed back then. I’m so sorry. Sihyuk had been giving me ideas that your father would eventually buy all of the company’s shares for himself and kick me out of the business, and that we needed to beat him to it before he could.” Mr Choi starts explaining, but to your ears, it’s nothing but listless prattles. “I know your father would never do that, but I was paranoid. And I assumed he’d have the capability to bring himself back on his feet anyway, but I didn’t expect things to turn for the worst when your house employees also turned their backs on you and started a fire on your property.”

“It’s all in the past, sir,” you hum, peeling off a piece of salmon from the platter, lifting it into the air before sending it straight to your tongue. It’s a hard swallow. “Besides, you wouldn’t have been able to treat me with this expensive meal if you didn’t do what you had to, right?”

You stare at him dead in the eye as he shifts uncomfortably. It’s unfortunate that you can’t snap a photo of his discomfort. Mr Choi clears his throat once more, his food still untouched, and tries to grab rein on the conversation yet again.

“I’m—I’m really sorry, sweetheart. I know nothing I could say here right now could grant my forgiveness. But I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make amends,” he starts. “I talked to your father earlier. I offered him a position at S&B, but he declined. Understandably so after what I’d done to him. Which is why I turned to you, instead. I thought I could maybe right my wrongs in a different way.”

“What? Are you dying soon, or something?” you scoff. “Are you trying to clean your resume for heaven before your time is up?” You catch Mr Choi’s jaw clench at your remark. What can you say? Your father is barely home from making deliveries around the clock at every house. You see your mother’s callouses every single day when she sets down the tray for your breakfast, even though you insist you can just buy something from the cafeteria on campus. And there’s this piece of shit thinking he can fix or undo everything with a sorry, with the throwing of his scraps— for the sake of his own guilty conscience.

It’s revolting. It’s pissing you the fuck off.

And yet here you are, in spite of your disgust and anger, you’re swayed by the temptation of a piece of juicy meat being dangled right in front of you.

“Can you get to the point, Mr Choi?” you say. “Do you want me to convince my father to take the offer?”

He releases a smile and a laugh. “I don’t think even you could get through to him, sweetheart.” As much as you hate to admit it, he’s right. You inherited your stubbornness from somewhere, after all. “But I don’t want to give up yet. I’m truly sorry for the consequences my actions had made. I have been made aware of your current living situation, and how you’ve been juggling multiple jobs just to ease the burden from your parents in paying the bills and your tuition.”

Your bones stiffen. You lock your attention on Mr Choi.

“You were correct when you said I just want to clear my conscience, even just a little,” he continues. “Let me pay for your tuition and offer you a place near your school to stay until you graduate.”

There’s a pulse in the air. You can hear it. You hear it clearly.

Mr Choi pulls something out of the inner pocket of his coat. He slides it down the table for you to see and receive.

“You don’t have to give an answer now.” It’s a business card. His number is on it. “But my line is always open once you’ve made up your mind, sweetheart. Please take the time to consider.”

줄다리기 / JULDARIGI. © hannie-dul-set, 2024.

[marvelwitchergilmore]

Off Limits

Summary: Colter Shaw x Fe!Reader -> Four times Colter told people (mainly his brother) you were off limits, and the one time he proved why.

Disclaimer: Mostly fluff, a little hint of angst towards the end but happy ending. Not Proof Read.

It was safe to say yourself and Colter Shaw had known each other for a long time. 

You had both met on a fishing trip. Well, he had been on a fishing trip. You had been looking for your idiot brother who had decided to just disappear. 

Colter helped you across the rocks to the creek and watched as you tried to find…something. That day he helped you and the rest was history. 

You kept in contact over the years, which meant it wouldn’t be totally uncommon if you ended up speaking to some of his other friends. Even maybe meeting some of them. 

However, it was a few years before you met his family. 

And it started with his brother, Russell. 

You were helping Colter on a case in South Dakota. 

A friend of a friend that you went to college with had gone missing. And, you knew just the man for the job. That man also happened to be lugging around another one of him who was just a little more…rough around the edges. 

“Do you just happen to be friends with all of the beautiful women, Colt?”

Colter got a little awkward. “Meet my brother, Russell.”

“Nice to finally meet you. Colter’s mentioned you a couple of times. Nice to put a face to the name.”

“I’d say the same but…Colter didn’t mention anything about you.”

As the day went on, you could feel Russell’s gaze drop to you often before he’d throw out a flirty line and a dashing smile. 

And Colter caught the whole lot of it. 

“Okay, so what about you and her?” Russell finally got to ask his brother when they were sat down eating and you had headed off to the bathroom. 

“What about me and her?” 

“Are you…is there something? Or do I have a shot?”

Colter sighed with a small smile. “No, we’re just friends.”

“Great.”

Russell went to stand but Colter grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back down. “But she’s off limits.”

“Okay, okay. Mind letting go?”

“Sorry.”

Colter let go quickly and moved back into his seat. “We’ve been friends for years. I’m doing her a service.”

“Colt, I’m your brother. Shouldn’t you be doing me the service?”

Colter just dead-eyed him. “I’m doing her a service.” And then he took a bite of his pie. 

Russell accepted it, but that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy rustling his brother’s feathers every now and then by turning the flirting scale up a tad every now and again. 

The second time Colter said you were off limits was at a charity auction. 

You had been invited per a family friend’s invitation and needed a date. And when you lightly threatened to call his brother instead, Colter agreed. He was already in the area, but at least it stopped him from leaving town so quickly. 

Whilst there, Colter was questioned three times by three different men; all asking if you were with Colter, or with Colter. To which, he answered truthfully, but also made sure that they knew you were off limits when it came to him and that night. 

“Tomorrow, you can ask her what you want, and she will give you an answer, but for tonight gentlemen, I am her date. Excuse me.”

Colter couldn’t help but hold you just a little tighter when on the dance floor, after the constant questions. 

The third time Colter told someone you were off limits was to his brother, again. 

It had been a birthday party for you, thrown together by one of your work colleagues and Reenie. Russell just so happened to be also looking for his brother. And he knew exactly where to find him. 

Like normal, Russell flirted with you. A little more so when Colter was within direct eye-line of you both. 

And you couldn’t help but smile. 

However, once the cake had been cut, Russell came back to his brother. They talked for a moment but when you came back into view, Russell put his cake down. 

“I think I’m gonna go and wish the birthday girl a happy birthday.”

However, Colter forced a small laugh and grabbed his brother by the back of his collar. 

“Okay, just because you’re as tall as me now, doesn’t mean I’m not stronger.”

“She’s off limits.”

“Still?”

“Russell.”

“Colter.”

“Boys.”

From behind them both, Reenie appeared. 

It was the first time in a long time they’d both had the feeling of being caught doing something they shouldn’t. 

The fourth time Colter told someone you were off limits was, once again, to his brother. 

Teddi and Velma were throwing a small dinner party, and had invited you, Colter, Reenie and Bobby to join them. And, since Russell was close by, he was invited to. 

“My god, as I live and breathe.” 

You turned around, balancing the cake you brought on the flat of your palm. 

“Russell,” you smiled, softly. 

“You know, I’m starting to think it’s fate. The birthday party, now this?”

You hummed. “Oh, I’m sure. I’m also sure one of the fates is inside the house plotting your death.”

“Still off limits?”

You nodded. “Colter’s a man of his word.”

“So…you…made yourself off limits?”

“Relax, I like you, Russell. You’re a good man. You’re just not…my man.”

“Ah,” Russell nodded. 

He had an idea about what you meant when you said ‘my man’, but until he saw proof, he couldn’t be certain. 

So he still flirted. Maybe a little less, but he was a big brother after all. Wasn’t it his job to annoy his little brother?

However, the final time Colter told someone (Russell) you were off limits…he didn’t have to say it. Because the fearsome look in his eyes said it for him.

It wasn’t often he managed to get back to the States to see his brother, but when he did, he always made sure to stay close until Colter had left the state he saw him in. 

Only, he didn’t seem to leave as quickly as he had come. 

So, when he went to visit him one morning, he was also there to witness a call that changed everything. 

Reenie had also come to visit and was going to grab lunch with you, except you got called away for a meeting and suddenly everything shut down. Including the backup generators. And then the fire alarm went off. 

There was a fire and Reenie couldn’t get a hold of you. 

So, in a fit of panic after asking thirty different staff members if they had seen you, she called Colter. 

Russell watched as his brother’s heart seemed to stop. Tears of panic and fear grew behind the front he tried to put on. 

“What’s going on?”

“Y/n’s missing and there’s a fire at the school. Reenie’s still trying to find out what’s going on. I need to find her.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Colter might have broken four different road laws, but he couldn’t care. You were worth it. You were worth everything to him. 

By the time he pulled up outside of the school, he was pushing through waves of students and teachers to find Reenie. 

“Colter!”

“Reenie, have you seen her?”

“No, not yet. But she’s still not answering her phone.”

“Why wasn’t she with you?”

“She got called away to a meeting. I was waiting for an hour or so in her office when everything shut down. They’re still trying to get the power back on, but…Colter, I don’t know where she is.”

“We’ll find her. She can’t have gone far, right? She knows these buildings like the back of her hand.”

Reenie nodded. “Only thing is, we don’t.”

“Call Bobby, maybe he can send us something. Anything.”

Russell nodded, pulling out his phone. “I’ll call him.”

“She’ll be okay, right? She’s okay.”

Reenie nodded. “She’s smart. And tough. Hopefully she’s just stuck on the other side of campus and can’t get reception.”

The longer time passed, the more worried Colter became. 

Bobby sent through the blueprints but without knowing where the meeting was, they had no idea where to start. 

“Did she mention what the meeting was about?”

Reenie shook her head. “No. Nothing.”

“What about her desk?” Russell asked. “A post-it, a diary, anything.”

“Reenie?”

“I-Maybe, I don’t know. Something about Kindred or Kinder or…something like that. I can’t really read her handwriting.”

“Kindrich.” Colter said out loud. 

“Maybe? Again, I don’t know.”

“If anyone pulled her in for an emergency meeting it would have been Kindrich. He runs the Life Sciences building. This way.”

Reenie and Russell hurried after Colter, almost losing him in the sea of students along the way. 

However, the closer they got to the life sciences building, the closer the smoke from the fire seemed to get. 

And when it came into clear sight, Colter started running. 

He was calling out your name.

“Reenie! Call her again!”

She was doing so just as Colter thought he heard someone call his name. 

He called out for you again. 

And then there you were. 

“Colter.”

“Y/n.” 

You ran towards him before crashing into him as you lifted your arms to hug him, and he did the same. 

“Are you okay? You’re not hurt, are you? You’re warm. What- were you in the fire?”

“I’m okay. Everyone’s okay.”

Then he kissed you. 

Deeply. Passionately. Desperately. 

And then he hugged you again. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

You closed your eyes for a moment, breathing him in before you remembered;

“Reenie.”

“She’s okay. She’s with Russell.”

Looking around, you finally spotted her and ran towards her, too. 

“Are you okay?” you both asked as you hugged. 

“I was trying to call you but-”

“There’s no reception on this side of campus. And if there is, it’s spotty at best.”

“Next time I’m coming with you. What even happened? The power went down and then there were just fire alarms everywhere.”

“There was a fault with one of the machines in the building. Funnily enough, that was what the meeting was about. Finding something to replace the machines. And when the power went down, something in the labs went up in smoke.”

“But-but you’re okay? You’re not hurt?”

You shook your head. “The medics checked me over. I’m fine.”

“Medics?” Russell asked. 

You looked around nervously. “I might have ran back inside a couple of times to help get students out.”

“You’re not supposed to-”

“I know, I know, I know but they’re just kids. The important thing is no-one got hurt.”

“But you could have.”

“But I didn’t. Colter, look at me.” You took his face in your hands. “I’m okay. I promise.”

“Okay,” Colter finally accepted what you were saying, kissed you quickly before he hugged you again. 

Then Russell cleared his throat. “So, um, how long has this been going on?”

“Russ,”

“No, no. I’m your big brother. I’ve got to look out for you. Did mom ever give you the talk?”

“Okay,” Reenie said, trying to move on. “How about we get some lunch, and maybe some wine?”

You nodded, walking towards her, allowing her to link her arm with yours as you left Colter to fend for himself with his brother. 

“Russell, please don’t.”

“You see, when two people love each other very much…”

[rungssparemodelpieces]

Enrichment

Takes place in @tinydefector Merformers AU either as a side story or separate continuity! Thank you for the inspiration!

The scent of salty brine filled the air as it was just another quiet day at the marine centre. With few eyes to observe the Oceanides at the center, be it for research or recreationally, a pair of blue eyes decided to take up the mantel as Rung observed the few humans that were wandering around, finding their interactions quite assuming as he liked to compare how similar their behaviors were to Oceanides. He liked watching people and would sometimes try to mimic some of their mannerisms such as a hand wave or a grin though these have been met with mixed results or confusion from the caretakers feeding or observing him. He knew from experience furrowed brows weren’t a good sign but he was still trying to learn how to at least communicate back in a way they could understand.

With Rung being an older Mer, he would stay back more at the center, balancing the solace he got in his alcove with hunting and interacting with his pod. Though he didn’t seem like the most active member, he did show a habit of decorating his area with an odd array of trinkets, some assumed to be from previous hunts such as large and unknown bones or manmade items like used car parts or toys that were either lost or dumped into the ocean. The marine centre has tried to remove or replace the pollutants but Rung has been rather shown to have an attachment towards these items. To counteract this, you were instructed to work on finding other items for him to collect and display that were found in his natural environment.

It was enrichment, or so that’s what Dr. Quin called it and for an Oceanides so old, it was a good way to keep his skills sharp and to give him exercise while staying around the area. When Rung went out hunting with his pod, you would dive in and scatter these trinkets for him to find. You’ve even buried or hid a few to see if he could find them and problem solving how to get them out. Rung seems excited to find new treasures for his trove, chirping and showing you when he found one before going back for more.

This arrangement has been your personal project for months as others focused more on the lone baby and the next generation of Oceanides. So far you’ve found success with shells, bones, coral, and oddly shaped rocks but it seemed as of recent, he was struggling to find items that were near him or even in plain sight, feeling around until he eventually found the object in question. In light of this new problem, you’ve been taking the day to observe him, wondering what you could do to help his decline in his quality of life here.

It seemed the answer was closer than you speculated as while adjusting some rocks around Rung’s sleeping area, a small splash caught his attention as he saw a strange piece of plastic flutter down, swimming over cautiously as the object hit the sandy floor with a poof. Once the sand settled, he noticed the item was an odd contraption he noticed some humans wore on their faces, perhaps to assist with their vision or to distinguish one from another.

Carefully, Rung picked up the glasses and out of curiosity, placed them on his face. It took a few tries as the sides of the frame poked at his gills but eventually, he was able to place them comfortably on his face. Looking through the clear glass, it became very apparent to him that the theory this device helped with vision was correct as he looked around, seeming the lagoon around him in better detail.

The stones and shells that lined the sand became more defined and he was able to notice more of the colorful details the small fish that fluttered in and out displayed. With this realization, Rung started to happily swim around and look around the lagoon with a new, clearer perspective.

~~

Meanwhile, you were helping an intern at the marine centre pick up some papers as she bumped into you, barely able to see over their own papers. The fledgling intern, Donna, squinted hard as she tried to find all the notes that had scattered in the collision.

“Is something wrong?” You asked as she seemed to be panicked, scrambling to find something more important than her notes.

“I- I can’t find my glasses,” Donna muttered as she tried her best to find them, her searching more erratic before she turned towards the open water, fear clear on her face, “I think- I think they might have fallen in when I bumped into you.”

You gave her a pat on the shoulder in an attempt to reassure her there was nothing to worry about. “It’ll be fine, we can get them back, Shrimp’s easy going and won’t mind if we pop in to retrieve them.”

With that, you leaned over the railing briefly, trying to get a hint of where Shrimp was before noting the flash of orange and white darting the water below, deciding to call out to him to see if he would respond or if he was in distress.

“Shrimp!” With the call of his name, Rung poked his head out of the water, his blue eyes appearing much larger due to the glasses he was wearing. A small chuckle escaped your lips as you called him over, finding the image quite humorous.

“It seems Shrimp decided to try on your glasses,” you commented to Donna before leaning down closer to Rung’e eye level, a bittersweet smile on their face as you held out your hand. “I’m sorry I have to ask but I need those glasses back.”

Rung dipped his head mostly in the water at this request, not wanting to lose this tool that he was just starting to enjoy. A rumble of his gills caused the water to ripple out around him as he pouted in disapproval.

“Look, I’ll ask Quin if we can find you another pair but Donna needs those back so she can see,” you asked him, the Mer still not relenting as a burb of bubbles left his mouth as if sighing.

“I promise I’ll get you another pair, you have my word.” A few moments later, he conceded, handing the glasses back before retreating under the water before you could thank him, obviously sad about returning the glasses but seemingly understood that Donna needed them back.

Returning the glasses, Donna thanked you before scurrying away, your focus returning to the lagoon for a brief moment before returning back to the facility proper.

~~

“You’re requesting glasses, is that correct?” Dr. Quin attempted to clarify as she looked at your request for numerous pairs of waterproof glasses. The request was odd, to say the least, but she wanted to hear you out first before making her decision.

“Yes,” you stated before explaining yourself, “Earlier today, Donna’s glasses ended up near Shrimp in the lagoon and looking the video feed from that time, it seemed he not only enjoy playing with them but benefited from wearing them. He was swimming around excitedly and interacting like he could fully see his environment! I think giving him the option to choose and wear some would help him greatly… and I did promise him I would give him another pair to wear.”

You rubbed your arm nervously, knowing it was a long shot, but seeing at least one Mer so happy, especially with priorities being with the future generations of Oceanides, it made you feel like you could at least help one in the long run, a minor victory on the road ahead.

“Then we better find him a pair that works,” Dr. Quin stated as she signed her name for approval, a hum in her voice before being cut off by a hug and thank you from you, a pat on the back signaling you to lighten up on the embrace, “And besides, I don’t want you to break a promise.”

Excited, you thanked her once more before starting the process of finding glasses that might fit an Oceanides more comfortably.

~~

Rung poked at the sand that lined the floor of the lagoon, prodding under the dark blur he assumed was a rock or perhaps an clam before he heard you call him by the nickname you gave him, curious as it wasn’t feeding time yet. Perhaps it was another medical check, especially given his age.

Either way, he swam to the surface to find you kneeling down by the shore, a strange box in hand and an excited look on your face. “Hey, Shrimp, remember that promise I made about the glasses? Well, I kept it,” you mused before handing him a pair, “I hope these work for you.”

Upon realizing what you had, Rung excitedly took the glasses, putting them on and… frowning it seemed these frames made his vision worse, taking them off as the blurriness hurt his head.

“Oh, it seems those don’t work for you,” he mused, offering a different pair to him, “I have a few pairs until we find the right ones for you.” Through some trial and error, it seemed he found the perfect pair, big blue orbs staring at you as he swished his tail happily, the air being filled with a few melodic hums of excitement.

Though through your eyes, Shrimp was excited to see clearly again, Rung was ecstatic that the first thing he saw clearly again was your face. The way that your hair clung around your face, the light crisp from the sea water, the smile on your lips, slightly chapped from working outside and in the water, it was all so incredible to him. You were incredible to him and it made him feel something, something deep and primal that stirred inside him as he trilled in thanks before diving back down to the depths. He was searching for something, something that would interest you, something that would show he had interest in you, and maybe, just maybe, be able to communicate what you mean to him.

[narcissisticmf]

swim | benedict bridgerton x fem!reader

description: on your honeymoon, you and benedict decide to have a picnic beside a lake, which leads to his desire for a swim.

trigger warnings: nudity, seductive behavior, fluff, suggestive/implied smut, etc. please do not proceed in reading if you are under the age of 18. thank you.

word count: <1k

The sun was setting as you and Benedict were laying against a blanket, against the soft grass. You gently ran your fingers across the greenery amongst the ground, letting it tickle your fingertips. Your eyes grew weary as you gazed at the thin clouds in the orangey, pink sky.

In front of a babbling river stream, you listened to the soft movements in the water. Fish popping up here and there and water running across a line of rocks. You were wearing a long, floral sun dress.

"If I had the choice to stay here forever, I think I would," You admitted in a sigh.

Benedict's lips curved into his famous lopsided grin, you could hear it without even looking in his direction. "Me too," He agreed. He was sitting up with his hands folded, arms around his bent legs. "I don't suppose you'd wanna go for a swim?" Benedict grinned cheekily and poked your side, making you chuckle softly.

You turned to look up to him with blown out pupils. He was mesmerized by your beauty as you laid there so comfortably.

"I would hate to ruin your moment of peace and tranquility.." Benedict started and moved so he could hover over you, his free hand holding himself up on the other side of you. You were trapped beneath him now as he lowered his head to gently kiss your jawline. "But.." He breathed out, "I'd like to go for a swim with you."

"I must admit," You smiled. "You are very persistent, it is hard to say no."

"So is that a yes?" Benedict smiled, pulling his head back to stare at you lovingly. His other hand cupped your face, caressing the apple of your cheek with the pad of his thumb.

You nodded softly as he smiled like a school boy, rising to his feet as he begun to remove his clothing. You laughed as he was acting so frantic to get out of his attire, as though the water would dry out if the two of you hadn't been quick enough.

"Ben!" You laughed as he struggled to get his shoes off. "You can slow down, the water isn't going anywhere!"

Benedict smiled as soon as he became fully undraped, scurrying across the soft grass to leap into the cool water. You watched him with so much glee in your eyes. You took your time removing your dress, corset and stockings, as well as your boots. You laid all your clothes onto the blanket once you were completely uncladded.

"Come on, Mrs. Bridgerton!" Benedict smiled as his head was aboved the water, waving his hands so you would follow him.

"Is it cold?" You asked on your way toward the water.

"Refreshing," He grinned as he watched you jump in, splashing his face with the water lightly. He was laughing.

You kicked your feet to the surface of the water and smiled widely, so much so that your cheeks begun to sore. The water was cool against your skin, utterly perfect and — as Benedict described — refreshing.

His arms snuck around your waist as yours fell, resting across his shoulders and upper back. You let your nose brush against his cheek as your faces were centimeters apart.

"I never noticed.." He whispered, dreamily.

"What?" You smiled.

Once he noticed you were caught off guard, he smiled mischievously and lifted your waist tossing you further back into the water. He was cackling loudly as you yelped as soon as you hit the water again.

"You idiot!" You scolded once you resurfaced.

"Aww.. what're you to do, darling? Gonna tell my mother?" Benedict pulled his lips into a forced frown.

"I very well just might!" You grumbled.

Benedict couldn't take you serious as he swam towards you, smiling brightly.

"No, stay over there," You pushed the water to splash his face. He was laughing as he wiped his eyes with one hand and snuck the other around your waist lowly. He moved his hand from his face and held you tightly with both arms.

"You're absolutely adorable when you're frustrated," Benedict whispered into your ear as his hands moved down to your bum, gripping your cheeks softly. You sucked in a sharp breath, eyes wide.

"Benedict," You whispered, squeezing his shoulders.

"What? I'm just appreciating your body," He snickered, with that most beautiful crooked smile.

You returned a smile and cupped his face, putting your lips to his softly. A rumble of thunder was heard in the distant skies, but that didn't stop either of you from pulling away. Out of nowhere, grey clouds darkened the sky and rain began to pour, hitting the tops of your heads with high pressure.

Pulling back from Benedict's kiss, you looked up at the sky with parted lips. He did as well, but his gaze at the dark clouds didn't last very long. He looked back to you and pressed warm kisses to your exposed neck, making you smile dreamily. Your fingers tangled in his wet hair, breathing softly.

"We should probably go back to the house," You muttered in a whisper.

Benedict smiled against your skin and you knew there was no stopping him now; and you were comfortable with that.

.

a/n: this is the cutest thing i think i've ever written 🥺 i love it so much!! i hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i had fun writing it! if you'd like more bridgerton content, PLEASE let me know! i'd love to write more for this fandom! thank you so much for reading, i hope you enjoyed! be safe, my darlings. <33 — angelina.

[semisgroupie]

ALWAYS YOURS, ALWAYS MINE

toxic ex!semi eita x fem. reader

wc: 4.7 (I don’t know what got into me)

warnings: yandere, stalking, VERY toxic behavior, unprotected sex, creampie, dubcon, manipulation, biting, noncon recording, noncon filming, possessiveness, multiple orgasms (f!receiving), drugging, aphrodisiac use, fingering (f!receiving), semi is very delusional (but so hot), snowballing, cum eating

synopsis: you just need to get it through your head, you’ll never get rid of him

Dating Semi might have been the biggest mistake of your life. You can only say that now because when you first got together, everything seemed perfect.

It really was the perfect relationship by your definition. He paid attention to every single thing you liked, remembered important dates that you told him, showered you with more than enough love and affection. Maybe all of that was what made you blind to what his true nature was. Maybe you were mystified by the idea of dating a famous rock star. He took you to his private studio sessions and let you in on the secret process of making his music. Even dedicated and wrote a few lines in a song that were for you. That was what really reeled you in.

But like a fish caught on a hook, you were roughly yanked to the surface. Forced to face the reality of the situation you were in.

After six months of dating it was like a flip was switched. The sweet and kind man you knew was no longer there. Everything felt cold whenever he was around, like he was a walking snowstorm blowing in your direction. Whenever you planned out dates with him, he somehow always ‘forgot’ or something always came up last minute that pulled him away. His kisses weren’t a frequent occurrence and the pet names he gave you were never used. Whenever you spoke about your day or just wanted to make small conversation, he just brushed it off and seemed completely uninterested in whatever you wanted to talk about. It hurt you but somehow you found the strength to continue to push through it.

You finally reached your last straw on your one year anniversary. You had called the restaurant two months in advance to make a reservation and Semi was aware of your plan. He even gave you the name of the restaurant and was even in the same room as you when you made the call. When the night finally came, you waited in the restaurant alone for an hour and a half. Every call you made to him went straight to voicemail, every text was left unread and you were frustrated and completely embarrassed. After a few more minutes passed, you went back to the apartment you shared with him, then about thirty minutes later, he came home and reeked of alcohol. Seeing him in that state made you extremely furious.

“Baby,” he slurred as he wobbled towards you, “what’s the matter? Why do you look so upset?” He opened his arms to pull you in and you pushed him away, the anger and frustration from everything that has happened in the last few months boiled to the surface. “What do you think? I bet you don’t even know what day it is.” You were met with a confused look on his face. “It’s our fucking anniversary. I was at the restaurant alone for almost two hours, do you know how humiliating that was? And now you’re here, completely drunk. I’m done, I’m done with this, I’m done with the coldness from you, if I’m going to be alone in this relationship then I might as well be single. It’s over.”

Your words quickly sobered him up and as you moved away from him he reached over to grab your wrist. “You can’t leave, I love you, we love each other. Just give me another chance and I’ll make it up to you.” You pulled your hand from his grip and shook your head, “I gave you chance after chance and all you did was fuck up again and again. I can’t keep doing this. I’m going to pack a bag and then later on in the week I’ll pick up the rest of my things. Maybe you can be useful for once and move whatever I leave behind in some bags or boxes.”

He followed you to your shared bedroom and watched you pack your things in shock. He definitely wouldn’t win the award for boyfriend of the year but he didn’t treat you that badly, or so he thought. He tried to convince you to not leave, making more empty promises to try to make you stay but you didn’t bother to listen to any of it. As you shoved whatever else could fit in the duffel bag, he made his way over to you and placed his hand over one of yours. “You’ll change your mind about this. You’ll realize that no one could treat you and love you the way I do. You’ll see it for yourself soon enough.” You looked into his eyes as he spoke and you saw something dark swirling in them. You pulled your hand away from him and adjusted the bag over your shoulder. “Have a good life, Eita.”

It had been three months since you ended things with Semi. The first month was difficult to get through but after a lot of tears and snacks, you were able to push through everything. You blocked his number and blocked him on all social media you had him on and he became a thought of the past. There were still moments where you thought about him and the good moments but you didn’t dwell on those thoughts for too long. It would just sink you back into the abyss you worked so hard to climb out of.

Other things in your life got better. You got a promotion and a raise at work, it gave you more responsibilities but you were thankful that it was able to keep your mind busy. You were able to go out and have some more girls nights with your friends. But most importantly, you started to gain more confidence in yourself and after a lot of convincing from your closest friend, you started to put yourself out there. You recently made a dating profile and spent the first night scrolling through and swiping through the profiles.

You got a lot of creeps and weirdos but then you met someone interesting. After a few days of talking to him, you decided to set up a date for some drinks and dinner. You were looking forward to it but you were also extremely nervous. It was the first date you’ve been on since ending things with Semi.

Only if you knew that he’d make a surprise appearance.

You planned to meet at a local restaurant and you slipped on a dress that hugged your curves and put on some heels. You walked through the front door and made your way over to the hostess. “Hello, I have a reservation for two under the name ‘Tobio Kageyama’.” She looked through the names and nodded, “I’ll lead you to your table now, I have to say, he is very handsome.” You smoothed out your dress and followed behind her, looking around as your heels clicked and clacked along the floor. Your nerves started shooting through the roof as you got closer to the table and saw a mess of ashy blonde hair.

From all the pictures you saw, Tobio had jet black hair. But as you got closer you recognized who it was. You approached the table and the mystery man stood, “you look absolutely beautiful, come sit.” You were in complete shock to see Semi there in Tobio’s place. How the hell could he have known that you were going to be here with another man? He placed a gentle hand on your wrist and helped move you along to the empty seat and helped you sit down. Your mind was racing as he sat back down and the hostess left. “I already ordered some drinks, I got your favorite.”

You grabbed the glass of water that was already placed there and downed its contents. You couldn’t believe he was here. You didn’t even tell any of your friends about this date, it was just between you and Tobio. “You look nervous, my love. What’s wrong? Aren’t you surprised to see me? I would’ve expected at least a smile or something different than just a look of fear.” You shook your head and set the glass down, “how did you find out about my date tonight, Eita? What happened to Tobio?”

Your questions just received laughter in response. You started to grow more irritated by the second. “Eita. Answer my questions.” He combed his fingers through his hair and leaned back against his chair. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you since you walked out on me, my love. I just had to take some extra measures to make sure you’d be safe and I mean come on, who else would do something like this for you? Do you know how much money I had to pay someone to give me access to your phone and all your social media profiles? And do you know how nervous I was when I saw you made a dating profile? You can’t just go out and meet strangers you’ve spoken to online, what if you met some creep?”

You were taken aback by his words and scoffed, “the only creep I’ve seen lately is you. I didn’t walk out on you, I broke up with you. You’re insane.” You put your hands on the table to stand and he quickly moved one hand over the table to grip one of your wrists, you looked at him and saw the darkness swirling in his eyes. “What you’re going to do is sit back down and listen to what I have to say. We don’t want to make a scene in this quiet little restaurant now, right?” You chewed on your bottom lip and sat back down, pulling your wrist from his grip once you were seated. “Then speak.”

He chuckled at your harsh tone and looked over as the waiter brought over your drinks then waved them off. “What’s with the harsh tone? I would understand if I cheated on you, all I did was miss one little anniversary dinner and you want to throw everything away.” He spoke so lightly as if you were the one that was overreacting. You took a sip of your drink and narrowed your eyes at him. “It was more than just the anniversary. We didn’t go on any dates anymore, we didn’t spend time with each other, I couldn’t even talk to you about my day.” He sighed and shook his head, “enough of living in the past. Those were all mistakes I made, what do you want? Want me to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness? I can do that if you’d like.”

You scoffed and shook your head, you couldn’t believe him. How could he become so inconsiderate of your feelings? You stood up again and moved your hand away when he tried to reach for it, “I’m going to the restroom, maybe that’ll give you some time to become less of an ass.” He leaned back against his seat and watched as you turned the corner to where the restrooms were located. He didn’t expect you to be like that, he genuinely thought you would be happy or at least show a different emotion on your face. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a little baggy, inside were two small pills and he reached in to take one of them out. “I hate that I have to do this to you but at desperate times.” He mumbled to himself and dropped the pill in your drink, he watched it fizz for a few seconds before it settled. Thankfully for him, it settled just in time because you were walking back.

Once you sat down he combed his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry, we got off on the wrong foot,” your expression told him all he needed to know and he continued, “I’m really sorry for how I treated you when we were together. You were the best thing that I had and I fucked it up. I tried to reach out to you for a second chance but you blocked me and that messed with my head. I just want to take this time to try to repair things, what do you say?” He looked into your eyes as you grabbed your drink and brought it to your lips to take a few sips. You set the glass down and shrugged, “fine. I don’t even know why I’m agreeing to this but I’ll give you this one chance. But get this through your head now, this isn’t a date and this doesn’t make me forget about what you put me through. Got it?” He smiled and took a sip of his drink, “yes ma’am.”

Everything was going according to his plan.

As time passed you continued to sip at your drink but the more alcohol that filled your system, the weirder you felt. You couldn’t put your finger on it but it felt like you were put in a heater. But you continued to try to push past it, trying to ignore it as you and Semi spoke. As time passed, the feeling in your body continued to intensify, it came to the point that you could no longer ignore it. To add onto the burning there was also an ache between your thighs that was screaming to be relieved. You shifted in your seat uncomfortably and Semi raised an eyebrow, “is everything okay? You don’t look so well.”

You shook your head and took a big gulp of your water in hopes it’ll cool you off but it didn’t help. He got up and pressed his hand against your shoulder, leaning in by your ear. “Are you okay? I think we should leave.” His breath by your ear made you feel even hotter and you nodded. “Let’s go.” He helped you up and held you close to him as he laid some cash on the table then started to lead you out. “You’re in no shape to drive, I’ll drive you back.” You just nodded along as he walked, your mind could only focus on one thing and that was how good his body felt against yours.

He led you to his car and helped you into the passenger's seat and then got in the driver's seat before he started the car and started driving. You rested against the seat and couldn’t help but start to press your thighs together to try to relieve the ache that was building by the second. You were more focused on the pain that was starting to develop and you didn’t realize that he was watching you. Watching how you writhed and whimpered as you pathetically tried to relieve yourself. At the red light he turned his full attention to you and placed a hand on your knee. “You know, I can help you if you’d like. You look like you’re in so much pain, I just want to help.”

Every nerve in your body tried to scream at you, tried to get you to realize that he was the one to put you in your current predicament but lust clouded everything. You spread your legs and looked at him with such a pitiful look, “please Eita. It hurts so much.” He moved his hand up your thigh and pressed two fingers against your panty-clad pussy. You arched your back and started to grind against his fingers, it felt good but it wasn’t enough, you needed more. “Needy girl, let me move your panties to the side at least.” He laughed and hooked a finger under the soaked fabric before moving it to the side. You whined as the cold air hit your wet folds and you opened your mouth to complain about his slow movements but the complaints died in your throat as he pushed two slender fingers inside of you. The pads of his fingers were slightly calloused from his years of playing the guitar but they felt perfect against your sensitive bits. He pumped them with ease and the slick sounds of your pussy filled the car, your chest rose and fell with each heavy breath and a light sheen of sweat coated your forehead. He scissored his fingers and curled them up slightly to press against your g spot, the motion alone made your toes curl in your shoes and a sultry moan of his name left your lips. You felt wrapped in the warm embrace of bliss and you were completely caught up in it, you didn’t even realize the car had stopped until he pulled his fingers out of you.

“W-Why did you stop?” A pout was on your face and it looked like you were on the verge of tears as you turned to face him. You watched as he brought his fingers to his mouth to clean them off, watching how he moved his tongue along his slick digits before wrapping his lips around them. Watching how he groaned as your juices fell along his taste buds like the sweetest ambrosia before he pulled his fingers out of his mouth. “We’re here. You don’t expect me to fuck you in the car right? Your a classy woman and classy women don’t get fucked in the backseat like cheap whores. Now, let's go.” His tone was light but his words hit like daggers into your stomach, at this point you would’ve let him fuck you right on the filthy sidewalk if he wanted to. He got out of the car and you fixed yourself as best as you could before he opened the door and helped you out. Your legs trembled slightly as you walked through the lobby of your building to the elevator. You were practically shaking with need and he didn’t even mention a word to you. He pulled you into the elevator once the doors opened and pinned you against the wall before pressing the button to your floor.

Your mind was so clouded with lust, you didn’t even pay mind to how he knew what floor you lived on.

As the doors shut he leaned in close and kissed you roughly, his teeth and tongue mangled and fought with yours and his hands groped your body bruisingly. You moaned wantonly against his lips and moved your hands up to lightly tug on his hair. You wanted more, you needed more from him. But the elevator doors opened. He pulled away from you with an agitated huff and gripped your hand to pull you along with him. The throbbing between your legs was unbearable at this point. You felt your juices run down your thighs and you tried your best not to whine or whimper as he led you to your door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the key and quickly unlocked the door.

If you were in the right state of mind then you would’ve asked how he got a spare key to your apartment. Then he would’ve had to come up with a lie and try not to tell you that he had been keeping an eye on you since the breakup and was able to bribe your landlord into giving him an extra set of keys to your apartment. And he would have to conceal the details of the amount of times he entered your apartment while you were asleep or while you were at work. He would also have to hide the lie of how he was able to sneak in some cameras into places you never checked and how he watched you while you thought you were alone. Oftentimes with his hand wrapped around his cock and a pair of your panties pressed to his nose. But the aphrodisiac was working perfectly, if he had known it was that strong then he would’ve only slipped half into your drink (at least that would be the lie he’d tell himself to make himself feel better).

He pulled you inside with him and kicked the door shut before pinning you against it to go back to ravaging you. He bit and sucked along your lips and then moved down to your jaw and neck, nipping and sucking at the skin while you moaned and whined. His hands moved along your body, gripping whatever he could latch onto before he pulled away. “Fuck, look at you. Did you plan on doing this with Tobio? Hm? Is that why you wore such a slutty dress? Look at those fucking nipples, you didn’t even wear a bra and those soaked panties are so skimpy. I bet you wanted to get fucked by him tonight, but that’s too fucking bad, there’s only one person that gets to fuck you and that person, is me. No one gets to see you, let alone touch you like this, got it? You’re mine and mine alone. I’ll fucking kill anyone that tries to get in our way.” He spoke purely out of possessiveness and jealousy, to think that you got all dressed up for a man that wasn’t him made his blood boil. How dare you think that you could go out and date another man?

He bent down slightly and hooked his hands behind your knees before lifting you up, his cock was throbbing in his pants and he could feel the heat from your pussy pressed up against him. He walked to your bedroom in quick strides and dropped you onto your bed. He spread your legs and ripped your panties off of you and practically ripped your dress off in a hurried rush. He quickly shed his clothes and pressed his cock against your soaked pussy. “I should just deny you the pleasure from my cock. Since you think you could get fucked as good by anyone else, you don’t deserve it. But since I can see where you were so misguided, I’ll give it to you. Maybe once and for all, I’ll put it in your head that no one could make you feel like I do, no one could fuck you like I can, and most importantly, no one could love you like I do.”

He placed his hands on your inner thighs to keep your legs spread and shoved his cock into you in one fluid motion. A loud cry of his name left your lips as you trembled underneath him, your first orgasm ripping through your body as he started thrusting. But not even an orgasm could lessen the effects of the aphrodisiac, it just intensified every feeling. Your back arched off the bed as he jackhammered into you, his heavy balls slapped against the curve of your ass and the tip of his cock hit your g spot perfectly each time he bottomed out. Strands of ash blonde hair stuck to his sweaty forehead and he took his kiss swollen bottom lip between his teeth as his eyes moved along your body, capturing how your tits bounced with each movement and how your eyes grew emptier by the second. And wait, was that drool spilling from the corner of your mouth? Fuck, you were really fucked out for him.

Then the next idea struck him.

He looked over and grabbed your phone that fell on the bed with one hand and opened the camera. He pressed the record button for the video and brought the phone close to your face. “Okay my love, why don’t you do something for me? Go on and say, ‘hi Tobio’ for me.” You blinked dumbly at his command but followed, “hi Tobio.” Your words were slurred as you spoke and your empty eyes met Semi’s for the next command. “Now go on and tell Tobio what’s happening to you.” He moved the camera even closer to your face as you started to speak, “‘m getting fucked and it feels so good. Never felt this good before, I don’t want it to stop.” Your words almost made Semi cum right then and there, you sounded so sweet and so fucked out. He couldn’t wait to send the video to that idiot. “Good girl, such a good girl for me. Now, one more thing, tell him who’s fucking you this good and tell him who’s gonna fill this needy little cunt.”

His thrusts picked up in pace and you were on the verge of a second orgasm. “Eita! Eita is fucking me this good! A-and Eita is going to fill my pussy with hot, sticky cum over and over again! Only Eita!” Your words blinded him and he slammed his hips into yours as he reached his orgasm, as the thick white ropes started to fill you, your second orgasm was triggered. This time it was more intense, tears spilled from the corner of your eyes and your juices gushed out of you, coating Semi’s abs in your essence. He groaned as he continued to fill you then started to move the camera down your sweat covered body until he reached your pussy. He used his other hand to spread your pussy as he pulled out then moved the camera closer to your leaking hole, getting the perfect money shot of his cum leaking out of your spent hole. “And that is something you’ll never get to experience for yourself, consider yourself lucky and if you ever contact my girl again, I’ll rip your eyes out of your fucking skull. Now say bye bye to Tobio, my love.” He brought the camera back up to your face and you brought a hand up to wave, “bye bye Tobio.” Your voice was weak as was the rest of your body and Semi stopped the video, then unlocked your phone and sent it to the man you were supposed to be with tonight. Once it went through he deleted all the messages, blocked the contact and deleted the video. It's not like he needed to send it to himself, the camera that was on your nightstand had caught everything and it would be saved into a private folder on his laptop. Plus you really needed to change the passcode to your phone, if it had gotten into the wrong hands then they would have access to all your personal details.

He set your phone down and leaned down to kiss down your body, kissing in between your breasts and continued to move south until he was at your pussy. “Oh poor baby, this little pussy is swollen, was I too rough? Want me to kiss it better?” He cooed at you and you just nodded along, letting out a meek “mhm” before he pressed open mouth kisses to your cunt. “I’m so sorry, I won’t be so rough on her ever again, I promise.” He continued to kiss along your cunt before he stuck his tongue out and started to lick at your entrance, collecting his cum that had been leaking out. He licked and sucked for a few moments before moving back up your body. He gripped your face and pressed his thumb and fingers against your cheeks to open your mouth then he spit his cum inside. “Swallow for me, since you can’t keep it inside your pussy, I might as well give you some to eat.” You swallowed then opened your mouth for him to show that you had swallowed it, he smiled and kissed you, softer this time than before then laid down beside you.

“My sweet girl. I love you so much, you could never understand.” He pulled you close and you rested your head on his chest, the exhaustion of everything finally wearing on your body. Your eyes were heavy and half lidded. You just wanted to sleep. “You love me too, right? Say it, I want you to say that you love me.” At this point, you were so tired, you could agree to anything. “I love you Eita. I love you.” You mumbled your words before you closed your eyes completely but that was enough to fuel his delusions further. “I know you do, you were just misguided. But don’t worry, I won’t let you slip from my fingers ever again. And if you manage to do so, I’ll just reappear from the shadows, maybe I’ll slip a second aphrodisiac into your drink. That would be fun.”

You would have to face the consequences of your decisions in the morning but maybe Semi was right, maybe it was true. Maybe no one could love you as much as he did. Or maybe there was someone out there that could, you wouldn’t get to experience it. He had an invisible chain tethered to your ankle and you were stuck with him for the rest of your life.

taglist: @punkgibsons @suyacho @tojjist @hitobaby @satmitsuplanet @litepowee @enchantedforest-network

[braxlrose]

maybe hcs about Bill's childhood and a bit of Tom's (twins in general)? I wonder what they liked to play and what damage and chaos they caused (☠️) it can also be somehow connected with the reader who is their friend and partner in crime! in the devilish era sense (if u can its would be nice if reader was Bills love interest/ i sm love childhood friends to lovers trope☠️😭) i love ur hcs and fics!!! lmao all those fights with bill would be so much fun😭 also the guy would definitely make a fake wedding with the reader..i know that🤷🏻‍♀️ besides the very concept of living with horny boys growing up lol.. Dayum ☠️ (srry 4bad engilsh)

↑wtf why Bill look so tall.. anyways they all look soo CUTE 🫡 baby GUS oh my ????🤭 and tom LMAOO 😭

a/n: they were adorable as children and I love this idea!! I haven't read Career Suicide yet, so some of these may be inaccurate, but again most are just headcanons that I don't have much to back up on besides their personalities

devilish headcanons

1996-2000

• you became friends with Bill and Tom when you were seven years old and bill had the biggest crush on you. he thought you were so cool and was even more happy when he found out you played guitar so he asked you to join Black Question Mark. you obviously said yes and you had so much fun rehearsing and hanging out with them

• one day at school bill asked you what your favorite cookie was and he practically begged his mom to help him bake those cookies for you. when he brought them in the next day he was so happy when you got excited for them.

• as you guys got a little bit older, you and tom would protect bill from bullies even if you got bullied too. but before you guys knew about what they were doing to bill, you would always clean up his cuts and kiss his bruises. after that, you would always walk with him, holding onto his hand tightly and try not to pay any attention to them.

• bill would pick flowers for you on valentines day because him and tom would pick them for his mom, and now that you were around, he'd get you some too

• when tom and bill looked more alike, you'd help them switch places in class and then act all surprised and be like "What do you mean? That's tom, Frau Schiller."

• they were little menaces, so when you were brought into the mix, they teachers all hated you. but they couldn't actually prove you were doing anything, which made it 10x more fun

• you and tom would always laugh about getting better grades in singing classes than bill and bill would just sit there like "🙄".

• you and bill had skipped class together (its like 4th grade, yall are like doing 4x8 idk why yall so lazy 🙄, but anyways), you guys did Stein, Schere, Papier (rock, paper, scissors) and Tom lost so he had to stay in class and pretend to be bill 💀. you and Bill were just walking around the halls when bill got the brilliant idea to pull the fire alarm. you two almost got caught but you were quick enough to run outside and get in line with the rest of your class.

• you and their mom are like best friends so you bake recipes with her all the time. like Puddingbrezel, Apfelstrudel, Apfelkuchen, Käsekuchen, Pfefferneusse, etc.

• you and tom tagged a couple buildings with spray paint

• you, tom and bill have sleepovers all the time and you guys would make a pillow fort and watch tons of movies.

• bills a very cuddly person, so he'd always end up wrapping his arms around you after you guys fell asleep in the fort

• you guys went CD shopping all the time and get tons of cds for your collection

• you would take nail polish from your moms collection and help bill paint his nails

• you moved to Magdeburg just around the time Bill and Tom's dad moved out. Bill wasn't as upset as tom was, but you still comforted the both of them. if your parents were divorced to, you'd also be able to empathize with them

• Bill and Tome step dad would invite you to go fishing with them on a boat on the lake whenever they went. you were basically apart of the family because you hung around so much so he didn't want to leave you out

• you and bill would play with his mom's makeup all the time and give eachother makeovers

• you, tom and bill once got caught trying to sneak a beer can out of the fridge and you guys all had to sit in time out. honestly, that just helped you guys be more sneaky about getting it

• if you have long hair, bill begs his mom to teach him how to braid hair so he can braid yours. he did this in the first place because you laughed at tom for not knowing how to braid hair and you were all like "you know how to braid hair, right bill?" and he was just like "😃😄😃 yeah."

• you three all used to have bonfires in the backyard. you guys would throw in paper and wood and all that shit and then go steal a lighter from the house. then you'd all grab some marshmallows and roast them

• when you guys were eleven years old, you walked in on him jerking off and you had literally no idea what he was doing at first so you just opened the door and stood there like "wtf 😀"

• you stole some cigarettes from your dad and you, tom and bill all smoked them outside of school for the first time. you were all coughing your asses off because you guys have never smoked before

• you three would all go to weddings together and play music for them.

• you and bill would play dress up all the time and you'd scream at anybody who said something to him about wearing a dress

• at nine years old, you and bill had a wedding and after that, he would always call you his wife and he was your husband. like if a teacher didn't partner you two up together he'd be like "but she's my wife!"

• his mom and your mom became friends too, since you guys spent so much time together and they'd be like "if those two don't get married one day, I'm losing faith in all love."

2000-2004

• you were up on stage, playing on the guitar with Tom and Bill on the night when Georg and Gustav came to see you guys. you were a bit hesitant at first, since you were used to only bill and tom, but you guys needed a bassist and drummer, so you agreed.

• after that, you guys all became a friend group pretty quick. even though at first the age difference was weird, you guys got past that and kind of forgot about it

• you five would go to the corner store all the time and would sneak candy in your clothes. even if you had enough money 💀

• movie nights 24/7, and you guys had to watch labyrinth. it was a must and bill would force you guys to watch it

• you and bill were already super close, but the older you got the more close you got and the more your relationship progressed.

• you had to be careful when walking around the house at first because you didn't know if you'd be fine, or you'd turn the corner and one of the four boys would be sitting there jerking off

• the more time passed, the more you got used to it and it got to a point where you'd just walk into a room looking for something and if one of them was jerking off you'd just walk right past them.

• they're literally saying the dirtiest, nastiest jokes all the time and you'll just be sitting there like "🙂 wtf man"

• they're a bunch of horny, pre-teen/teenage boys so hanging out with them can be a handful but they always treated you like one of the guys and never made you feel any different.

• even bill, even though you were his gf you were still his bestfriend so you guys would roughhouse and do dumb shit together and all that kind of stuff

• you sat and listened to bill all day while he practiced singing It's Raining Men for Star Search and always helped him out with stuff

• you went to Star Search with Bill, his mutter and his Oma and was so excited to see him on stage. when he came out you were smiling and cheering and clapping your hands as loud as you can. his singing voice is amazing

• you held him for a long time after he got second place. he was really sad and bawling his eyes out because he promised you and his Oma that he'd win for you guys

• you made sure he knew it was okay, and that second place is still amazing. but he still moped for days once you guys got home.

• you and gustav would make food together too. like cookies and milkshakes. it was tons of fun baking with him

• when you first got your period, the boys were super confused because you were holding your hand in front of your intestines (and yes its actually where your intestines are, your stomach is way higher than you think 😨 but back to this) they didn't have any idea what was going on until Georg was like "she probably got her period."

• the rest of them all looked back at him like "wtf is that?" and georg was like "it's where girls bleed out of their vaginas." after that, tom and bill thought you were dying or something because georg did a terrible job explaining what a period was 💀

• once their mom got home and say they were freaking out and she asked what was wrong and they were like "Georg says Y/n is bleeding out her vagina! She's dying!" and their mom just started laughing her ass off and grabbed you a heating pad.

• tom and bill were mad at their mom for a bit before she explained what was actually happening because they thought she was just gonna let you die. but then she explained it happens to all women and its just shedding the lining of a woman's uterus. and that you were laying on the couch like that because periods cause awful cramps that can hurt as much as heart attacks.

• they were extremely nice to you after that

• bill went to the store and bought you some chocolate and then rubbed your back for you. his mom was just standing in the doorway of the living room as you two sat on the floor watching a TV show with a bunch of pillows and blankets as bill rubbed your shoulders.

• you guys got high on weed all the time and you'd be laughing your asses off while bill would just be sitting around, super fucking paranoid about everything

• you and tom were little assholes in school, especially in science class💀 you two would fuck things up on purpose when doing experiments and your teacher hated you guys so much

• you, bill and tom once started a fire at school and you all got grounded for 2 weeks and suspended from school for 3 days

• you and bill would get matching clothes together

• when tom had sex for the first time at 13, he told all of you right away and you just started laughing 💀 he was super offended and was like "uhmm..wtf bro?!" and you were like "I just feel bad for the girl who had to sleep with a guy with a 3 inch dick who still has voice cracks." and his jaw dropped and went on a rant about how his dick was huge and that he didn't have voice cracks. his voice cracked like 6 times during that rant btw.

I hope you enjoyed this!!

taglist: @hearts4kaulitz @burntb4bydoll @spelaelamela @bored0writer @fishinaband @billsleftnutt @tokiiohot @bluepoptartwithsprinkles @saumspam @5hyslv7 @killed-kiss @memog1rl