#Make money online anywhere in the world
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Earn $100 dollars instantly with your mobile phone
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If you spend 6k actual real us dollars on one single two day vacation it better blow your dick clean off!
#Sorry that's what the whole review boils down to for me#That didn't even include FLIGHTS#My two week long nz trip didn't cost that!#Like I'm starting to put together a three week long trip sometime in the future and it probably won't cost that!#I cannot overstate how expensive that is even for luxury stuff#Oh sorry context this is about that star wars hotel thing#I am a very cheap person at heart I think#Also it's interesting to watch people defend the hotel and vacation online saying it's the best they've been on and totally worth the money#Kinda makes me think that this was a huge splurge vacation for them and they don't have the context around that level of spending#Because if you dropped that kind of money at a luxury hotel and doing high end dining this would simply be unacceptable#Like do they not have a frame of reference for what that kind of spending would get you elsewhere?#Because you would certainly expect much more anywhere else in the world
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I received a $300 streaming bonus just for being apart of the Beauty Category check out Minicosmetics
This is Legit if you’re serious about selling products HOP ON !!
#whatnot#free money#streaming#tips#make money online#money#earn money online#world news#my work#work in progress#workfromhome#work from anywhere#easy money#how to earn money
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Okay. Ice water check. Ate something for lunch and dinner check. Took my pills today check. Got fired. Check. Get high eat food before bed. check (two choc chip frozen toaster waffles with salted butter on them. Heavenly when the dry mouth is too strong for peanut butter). I think the only thing left I have to do from now until the end of time is sleep yippee!
#I literally like. UGH. THIS IS PUTTING ME BACK SO MANY STEPS I FEEL LIKE A TOTAL FAILURE FUCK UP EVEN THO I KNOW ITS OKAY LIKE ITS FINE BUT#ALSO THE THOUGHT OF JOB HUNTING OR GETTING ANOTHER JOB MAKES ME WANT TO RIP MY HAIR OUT#and now I have NO PLANS. EVER. I’m gonna get maybe fifty dollars on my last paycheck in two weeks and then what. nothing. then I’m broke#broke and back to getting money from my mom and owing her money so I can get a job and then not pay her back and then get fired.#I hate myself I want to throw up time is suffocating and endless I’ll never feel like I belong anywhere and it’s making me crazy#but whatever peace and love were fucking vibing letting the universe guide me (I think the universe wants me to kill myself) JOKING#but also like. can things get easier. (says someone with the easiest life ever but fucked up mental health that makes everything feel like#the end of the world all the time forever)#I just need to step up this time and roll with the punches. I’ll start online job searching tomorrow#giving myself permission to close the blinds and fully sleep in tomorrow let’s see how late I wake up
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Shop Anything Anywhere with ATRNO Crypto Tokens
#Have you ever wanted to buy something online but didn't have the means? Have you ever had to book a flight but couldn't afford it? Well#there's good news: ATRNO Crypto Tokens can help unlock your potential to shop anywhere!#ATRNO Crypto Tokens are the future of online shopping and travel. With a single universal digital currency#you can purchase whatever you need without worrying about fluctuating exchange rates or additional fees. And best of all#it's easy to get started and begin making money with ATRNO Crypto Tokens.#It doesn't matter what type of traveler or shopper you are; ATRNO Crypto Tokens make it simple for anyone to access a wide variety of goods#we'll discuss how ATRNO Crypto Tokens work and how they can help you easily earn money while also saving time and money when booking flight#What Are Crypto Tokens?#Have you ever heard of crypto tokens? If you’re looking to use your money to buy and shop anything#anywhere#then you should definitely look into crypto tokens. These are digital coins that are based on blockchain technology#meaning they can be used just like any other kind of currency. With ATRNO Token - the world’s most secure and trusted digital currency - yo#services#and more online with complete confidence.#But what’s so special about crypto tokens? Well#for starters#they are incredibly safe and secure. Because your data is stored in a decentralized ledger on the blockchain rather than in a traditional b#it’s nearly impossible for anyone to manipulate or compromise it. That means your funds are safe no matter what!#In addition to their security features#ATRNO Tokens can also provide some incredible benefits when it comes to booking flights. It’s incredibly easy to find cheap flight tickets#you can also make some extra money by trading these digital coins on marketplaces. So make sure you check out ATRNO Token – the only multi-#The Different Ways to Use ATRNO Crypto Tokens for Shopping#With ATRNO Crypto Tokens#you can shop anything and anywhere. Whether you're staying in or going out#or even just enjoying a staycation – there are so many different ways to use your Crypto Tokens for shopping.#Shopping for Goods: The obvious use for ATRNO Tokens is shopping for goods. You can easily find retailers that accept Crypto Tokens as paym#retailers don’t have to worry about converting currencies at checkout#as they’ll always receive the correct amount in the correct currency.#Shopping for Services: In addition to buying goods#you can also use ATRNO Tokens to pay for services such as airline tickets and hotel stays. Booking your flight tickets with Crypto Tokens i
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Pick a pileくコ:彡
How does your future spouse flirt?
1. 2. 3.
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Pile 1
I see them being a little toxic but in a good way like more so In a teasing manner. He would like to show off his muscles and pick you up ya know do pushups with you on his back🥴. I can see him being very romantic nothing too much when he kisses you it's really fast and deep. After the first kiss he's working fast to get you in bed I don't think it's that hard tho 🤣 you fall for this persons face they may have a cute little doll face or just be really pretty to you and that's what you like. They like buying you things bracelets and stuff may even get you a necklace with something very special to the both of you on it. They may spy on you? They call that flirting I guess 😜. They like taking you on plenty of dates , anywhere you say you want to go the next day he will surprise you and take you. You may complain about work and he would give you a massage to help you lose stress. They definitely like doing your hair if they do that. They could simply like to cuddle and watch a movie they just like spending time with you doing anything. Your person really likes physical touching so anytime you two are touching they are definitely flirting.
( I hope this pile resonates with you. I love you☄️)
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Pile 2
He loves to worship you like anything you want you can have it 2 times. He loves spending large amounts of money on you even if it's dumb shit and you don't need it but simply because you can. I see you might be a little spoiled it's giving daddy's little girl 🫣. He loves to take you on far away trips I am seeing when Aladdin took Jasmine and showed her a whole new world 🌎. They also fix things for you like let's say the cabinet door fell off in 5min it's back up. Believe me this dude wasted no time trying to make you happy . Anything that makes you happy he will get you even if it seems impossible HE WILL MAKE IT HAPPEN honestly he's such a sweet guy🥹.
( I hope this pile resonates with you. I love you☄️)
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Pile 3
Your future is very shyyyy 🫣 so I don't see a whole lot of like physical touching. I think you two are like dating online 😂 I see a lot of flirty text. I think you both are very shy and that's why I am barely getting any info 😅. Or they are a very closed off person in General. I do see them really wanting to hold hands tho and like other soft things. I can feel the blush all over my face literally flushed with fever 🥵. I think they find you too beautiful to even touch at times and just want to keep you safe and clean like a porcelain doll. He likes to keep you dolled up all like a princess you both may be into dressing like royalty. Roleplay?
( I hope this pile resonates with you. I love you☄️)
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Hope you enjoyed your pile♡
#soulmates#twin flame#lovers#tarot#tarot cards#tarot reading#twin souls#twinsoulflame#love reading#general reading
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9th and 12th Houses - How Far is Foreign?
An insight, that adds to depth of understanding of Astrology through diving into Vedic resources is the change in perception between the 12th and the 9th house.
In popular Astrology circles, both of these houses are commonly associated with foreign lands. However, as you explore the meaning of these houses more, you begin to understand them deeper in polarity with their opposite.
The actual house of foreign, far away travel (or relocation, depending on the chart) is the 9th house. That is because the 9th house is the opposite of the 3rd house.
Say you are European, and you lived your whole life in Europe, and you travelled around different European countries to explore the continent. This is the 3rd house. It is the expansion beyond your local home country into exploring its nearest cultural environment, and at the end of such a pilgrimage, you end up with a personal understanding of your individual, cultural identity, which moves you to its emotional interpretation in the 4th house.
But then lets say you travel or move from Europe to Asia, either of the American continents, Australia…take your pick. This is the activation of the 9th house. Because you are no longer exploring just the back yard of a culture with a certain degree of similarity, you are entering a completely new physical world.
This is why houses 9, 10 and 11, and 12th to an extent, are found in charts of famous people. You need to be able to participate in an energy, an idea, that is going to spread into foreign lands to truly be famous. This applies even if we’re talking about online success, which is the way people get recognition nowadays. Otherwise, you are at best a local singer on your continent or your country’s music festival. There is nothing wrong with that of course, as many people love to contribute to their community and they’re happy doing so, but it’s still an accurate observation. You need to be able to go far away, not strictly physically but energetically, to touch a variety of people from many cultures.
You might wonder, how does the 12th house fit into this? Clearly, it’s part of the whole 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th house group, so it should also rule foreign lands. But the 12th house is actually more than that. The 12th house rules a fantastical, foreign idea, that might not necessarily be grounded in the immediate physical, but is nevertheless energetically real and can be accessed from anywhere. It’s the idea of the collective emotional consciousness, that may not have the most quick and obvious material manifestation but is nevertheless a very real thing existing within this Universe.
Up until the 11th house, through 9th and 10th, we are dealing with more or less tangible ideas regarding foreign lands. Let’s say in the 9th house you relocated to a completely foreign culture, in the 10th house you found a way to tangibly join the most prominent physical environment of the world through that culture, in the 11th house you met some of the most prominent, affluent people in the world. I don’t have any 11th house planets, but to give you an idea of how it works, my husband has Venus conjunct Mars in the 11th house, we live in the Las Vegas area, and he plays sports and is casually friendly with some of the wealthiest people in the world, who own successful businesses, own several properties across the world, and spend a lot of their time either making a lot of money or travelling the world, or both. We are not one of those people, but it should give you an idea of what the 11th house is. It’s the creme de la creme of the physical world. I don’t personally interact much with these people, as they are my husband’s friends, not mine, and I don’t play sports with them, but I have a deep awareness of how advanced socially and financially this particular group is, having travelled to many poorer parts of the world. There are people in this world, starving, so in comparison to them, the 11th house society is the top 1% of 1%.
You might think, well, the 11th house is everything, so how can the 12th house be more? The 12th house is more because it sells something even the 11th house people can’t resist, it sells the ultimate fantasy.
In the 12th house we move on to people so wealthy, they barely even interact with others. We move to intangible concepts, physical areas and objects, that provoke people to spend obscene amounts of money simply due to some idea. The 12th house is not just real foreign travel like the 9th house, it is the embodiment of the realisation of all fantasies. That is why Venus is so happy in the 12th house, because it enjoys the ultimate idea of fantastical luxury.
The foreign area that we travel to in the 12th house is not this globe, it is deep inside us. By the time we realise all our fantasies in the 11th house we can feel tired, or even jaded. But in the 12th house we are stimulated to all of our secret, hidden desires being provoked and coming true. This can be done not only within our home, within our room, but completely within our minds. Those, who are successful in the 12th house are those, who made those fantasies concrete enough to realise them and live within them.
What if you could taste and smell the finest perfume created on this planet from purely natural oils? What if you could touch the finest fabrics, created in corners of the world you never even dreamed of? What if you could live this dream, every day, surrounded by an infinite kaleidoscope of the pinnacle of perfection achieved by our planet until this time? “What if?” is the exotic, “foreign”, “far away” dream of the 12th house, and a well realised 12th house is a dream come true.
To offer up an example, in the last few years, youtubers living in rural areas from all over the world have popped up on the internet, offering videos from their seemingly idyllic life. That is the definition of the 12th house fantasy, devoid of the actually reality of having to take the 9th house physical pilgrimage of travelling to rural China and enduring all the difficulties involved with facing the reality of such a location. It may seem idealised, yet the source material for filming is real, so while it may be distant from the viewers geographically, while it may cost the locals a lot of work, it is nevertheless part of an actual, existing reality.
This dream, that can seem excessive to a mundane mind, becomes even clearer in the context of the 12th house’s polarity, the 6th house. The 6th house is the tough battle of dealing with the ugliness and conflict of this world. That is the reality of this physical world for most of us, we get up every day and deal with conflicts, that we have in front of us. It is exhausting, and so the 12th house is everything that heals and soothes the pain of any conflict that ravaged us in the 6th house. It’s the world offering no resistance, it’s all boundaries being breached. After all, in our dreams, or fantasies, we want everything to be perfect and smooth.
Ironically enough, the karaka of the 12th house is Saturn. As someone with significant 12th house influence, it is pretty clear to me why. In order to have only the finest dream come true, to really live in a beautiful fantasy, one actually needs to do a lot of research, be picky, critical and have background expertise and know-how. Otherwise, even as just a consumer, you would be easily fooled, hoodwinked into a fake product, or end up overpaying on something, that is not worth the money you invest into it. Scrutiny of Saturn is necessary for our fantasies to be smooth. It is not something, that is given to us that easily. Saturn also rules isolation, and if the 9th house is foreign, the 12th house is the pinnacle of remote. The 9th house is what is foreign and exciting to us, mentally and physically, but the 12th house represents the most remote corners of both the physical world, and our minds.
This is why the 12th house is the furthest away from the 1st house, our basic, natural, physical life. Because the furthest thing on this planet is not just a foreign continent, it’s a journey inside our minds and emotions, the ability to blend discernment and internal surrender to divine perfection, that leads to manifestation. It is the full depth of untapped potential on the very bottom of our subconscious, a research and response to all collective energetic resources available on the planet, a gold mine waiting to be explored, exploited, and enjoyed. And it is tapping into this gold mine, that has the power to tempt, seduce, and attract people from all around the world into directing their energy towards us, even if we’re physically just sitting in our room, far away from them.
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PLEASE HELP A TRANS PERSON FROM POLAND GET EXPENSIVE SURGERY
hello, my name is irys (or rysiu if you prefer), i'm a trans person from poland, the country that consistently ranks as the worst one for lgbt people in the eu. it's also the only country in the world where as an adult you have to file a civil lawsuit against both of your parents and win in order to get your legal gender marker changed.
TL;DR - i'm in a life situation where i cannot get money for top surgery anywhere but through fundraising, while my chest prevents me from passing as well as causes physical discomfort due to its size, and i'm unable to mitigate it though binding due to health issues. being 8 months on HRT i'm in a gender middle ground which in this country and my area specifically, puts me at high risk of violence and harassment, especially in bathrooms and changing rooms. having raised funds for 5 months now, the crowdfunding campaign has been going on for way longer than expected, taking a toll on my mental health.
unfortunately, i have barely managed to raise 1/3rd of the total money i need. since my last e-begging post, i managed to only get 40PLN (<10USD).
currently, i have barely 7 000 PLN (~1730 USD) out of the full amount i need to raise, being 21 000 PLN (~5155 USD) total. that includes the cost of accomodation, wound dressings, medication etc. out of that, 17 700 PLN (~4345 USD) goes towards the surgery itself and one mandatory night at the hospital.
‼️FUNDRAISER:
the site includes a full breakdown of the costs as well as a detailed overview of my situation, not limited to but including 4 years of forced detransition, details of my health issues, and why i can't get money any other way but through fundraising, why i can't bind nor use any alternative methods, and other fun facts about my life. i'm not going to mince words, and i'll say that this situation in itself, outside of the many other stressors i'm under, is making me lowkey not want to live anymore. i really just want to get this over with, after so many years of struggling and humiliation. please.
‼️zrzutka.pl takes secure international payments without fees!!! USamericans, your donations have four times the impact due to currency conversion! if you still don't want to use zrzutka, you can use the blue online payment website to directly send me money instead!
(please don't tag the post as anything)
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BABE I HAD AN IDEA- Reo Mikage ANGST where he calls reader a gold digging whore in the middle of an argument, ultimately affirming all of her insecurities so he has to figure out a way to show that he didn't mean it and that he's sorry without using his disgustingly abundant wealth 💔 anyways ilysm hope you take care of yourself
NO YOU ARE LITERALLY DISGUSTING FOR THIS (affectionate) YOUR MIND >>> YOU ARE SOOOOO RIGHT. SHUT UP THIS WILL LITERALLY BE THE MOST SCRUMPTIOUS FIC EVER BECAUSE I AM LITERALLY ABOUT TO PUT MY WHOLE EARTHUSSY INTO INCORPORATING THIS IDEA SOMEWHERE !!! BUT FOR NOW, TAKE THIS SNIPPET I WHIPPED UP IN ONE SITTING.
girl feel free to come back into my inbox WHENEVER and giving me your juicy ideas bc holy shit i loved this.
CW: HURT/COMFORT - A LOT OF BOTH, SWEARING, UNEDITED - I WAS GOING THRU IT WHILST WRITING THIS DON'T LOOK AT ME!
IMAGINE THIS: it's been a rough night for both you and reo, he's been through a lot in the past weeks because his dad just had to during the middle of soccer season to lecture reo about how to run a big business. the transition process is beginning to happen since father mikage is about to retire and although your purple-haired boyfriend has been preparing for this his whole life, having gone to business school part-time and graduating with honours, there's still a little part of him that feels weary from all the responsibilities.
all this accumulated stress needs to have an outlet eventually, right? welp, you just happened to be there at the right (wrong) time. you were simply delivering a platter of apples to your boyfriend who had his head in his hands, hunched over an endless pile of paperwork that was beginning to irk him with each passing second. countless images of him shredding up the paper flowed into his mind, a fury that manifested into his reality, except the paper was you D,:
one thing evolved into another, reo's endless stream of venomous words didn't stop flowing out of him as he spat poison after poison, burning you with the intensity of it all.
"you're so overbearing, can't you see that i'm fine? unlike you i can handle myself when things get hard," he spits, eyeing you with fury in his eyes, one that makes you gulp thickly.
"reo-"
-but you wouldn't know the first thing about fighting for what you want right, you fucking gold-digger."
that stops you in your tracks, silences you effortlessly, causing you to let your hands drop limply back to your sides as you stare at your boyfriend blankly. you're sinking into an abyss of hurt and insecurity, it's getting harder to breathe because of the way your chest swells with anger.
reo only continues, not noticing the way you physically and emotionally drop. "even if you don't give me attention for one second of the day, i won't forget you exist, so stop being so clingy and unnecessary! my money isn't going anywhere either, you don't need to occupy majority of my day so leave me alone. go shop online or something."
that was it. was that all reo perceived you to be? a dent in his money, the expenses of his bank account?
"fine. goodbye," you simply mutter before slipping through his office door, out in the hallway.
"don't bother me whilst i'm in here," he says with finality, one last declaration before you shut the door behind you.
the luxurious walls of reo's penthouse look down at you mockingly, the spacious area caging you in, chanting 'gold-digger' over and over again until it's all you hear.
staying here feels wrong.
so, you grab your purse and leave, as quietly as possible. slipping down to the garage where your (second hand) car was parked, you start the engine up and begin reversing out of the parking lot.
you begin to reflect on your relationship with reo. you love him, you really do, you love him because he's reo, the man who was always capable of making you smile, laugh, and make you feel like you were on top of the world. his money and fame was an added bonus that you truly didn't care much about.
but ever since dating him, you've had your own insecurities that have been forced on you by other people. there were crowds calling you a 'gold digger' who was only with reo 'for the money', and although you were sure of yourself and your intentions, your armour breaks down sometimes.
what reo said tonight was the final jab that allowed it to fully disintegrate.
you had a stable job of your own and finances to your own name, money wasn't something you avidly chased, sure having a few zeroes in your bank account was nice but that was all you really needed. as long as you could buy necessities and spoil yourself, it was satisfactory, and you could provide that for yourself!
reo loved to spoil you, showering you in luxurious gifts that you never knew how to accept. it would take a great deal of convincing for you to take what he bought you, and when you promised him to stop buying them for you, he agreed before buying you more material stuff.
as you pull up to the parking lot of the apartment complex that you resided in, you get into the elevator with a heavy heart, pressing the button to your floor with a lot of emotions.
the ride is silent. everything is so silent.
your apartment is even more silent. it's unused, slightly barren. your furniture was still there, except some dust had gathered on the tables and cabinets from how long you've neglected it.
the only reason you were able to keep your apartment was because you had no expenses outflowing since reo took care of almost everything. anything you needed, he bought it, groceries, bills, whatever, were charged on his card. for a period of time, your bank account merely grew and never decreased.
and since you hadn't been here for a while, electricity and water bills never bothered you too much.
you flop onto your made bed with a sigh. it wasn't as soft as reo's but you didn't find it in you to care, you just needed some well-deserved shut eye.
well, 'shut eye' occurred for merely an hour before your phone started vibrating violently.
with a groan, you shove your face back into your pillows before blindly reaching for your phone.
you already knew who it would be without looking at the caller id. of course reo would be looking for you, noting your obvious absence in his penthouse.
"hello?" you mutter.
"y/n? where the hell are you?" comes reo's frantic voice from the other line. he sounds genuinely concerned.
"doesn't matter."
"i'm sorry for everything i said. please, come back."
"reo, i'm tired, i can't do this with you right now."
"i'm sorry, i'm really really sorry."
"i don't want to hear this right now."
"i love you."
you sigh and you're sure reo can hear it on his end. unsure of how to respond, you just hang up on him before throwing your phone away. normally, you would feel bad about the way you left him, but that wasn't the case this time. you just needed to sleep on this.
but, it was reo you were talking about, and the last thing he was going to let you do was sleep without him.
at 1:24am, there's a series of ferocious knocks on your door, followed by screams of your name.
oh my god it was so embarrassing, you literally shoot out of bed as soon as you register what was happening and dash for your door. you don't want to disturb your neighbours' sleep and let them hear that the pathetic grovelling of your boyfriend. the entire hallway could hear reo and his shouting.
you open the door, pull him in, and slam it shut behind you again, leaving the purple-haired to stare at you with a bewildered expression.
"what are you doing here?" you hiss.
he looks at you the same way a puppy does when its owner kicked it out of the house.
you should've known that merely telling reo 'i don't want to hear this right now' would not be enough to pacify his determination and the fact that you hung up on him only intensified his pettiness. the purple-haired always sought you out, pulling himself into your orbit like a magnet. where you went, reo followed, even if it was to the ends of the world.
he had the money to do whatever he wanted, you suppose.
"i wanted to make sure you were safe," he pouts. "i didn't know whether you'd be here or not."
"well, i'm safe, and i'm here. so."
"i can see that," he leans against the back of your couch. reo looks so out of place in your small apartment, awkwardly playing with his hands. "so... should we go to bed?"
the audacity. "what do you mean 'we'? go back home, reo, i'll see you some other time."
as you turn around to go back to your bedroom, reo's quick enough to round around you, blocking you from the hallway with his larger figure.
"but you are my home. please, i'm really sorry about what i said, i didn't mean it," he pleads, grabbing your face so you could look him square in the eye.
you step out of his grasp easily, shaking him off. if you were in your right mind, you would've seen the look of heartbreak on reo's face.
"sure, if you didn't mean it then you wouldn't have said it in the first place, mikage."
you swerve around him to reach your bedroom and he follows you the entire time, trailing behind you, desperate for an ounce of your attention.
"i know i fucked up, but i didn't mean to hurt you and project my frustrations like that onto you when you were just trying to care for me." you sit down on your bed with a sigh and reo takes a seat beside you. "you know i love you right? like, a lot."
that's right. if there's one thing about reo it's that he loves you to an endless degree.
"thank you for always caring for me. i know you don't do it because you're after my money or fame, but because you want to ensure that i'm healthy and not rotting in all that i have to do," his voice cracks. is he beginning to cry. "i don't know what i'd do without you."
you let a beat of silence pass by before dropping your walls. he was always going to smash through them no matter what.
"i've always felt insecure in our relationship," you confess, no louder than an exhale and if reo wasn't holding on to every action of yours, he wouldn't have heard you. "being called a gold digger became normal when i started dating you and i didn't really care. well- i tried not to care."
you continue. "i don't want to let these comments get to me, but then you said it and... i don't know, it just felt horrible."
you feel an arm sneak under your leg, and another hand come to your elbow, both of which simultaneously pull you to straddle reo's lap. you don't look him in the eye- something he frowns at.
"i love you for you. you're the best i'll ever have, reo, but sometimes i-"
"-please don't finish that sentence," he murmurs, breath fanning against your face.
you meet his gaze. he's crying freely. tears are running down his cheeks like streams and you instinctively bring use your thumbs to catch the drops. you hate it when he cries.
"i don't want it to be anyone else but you," confesses the purple-haired. "i hate it when we're separated, i can't stay away from you too long or i think i will go insane."
his statement causes you to giggle a little.
"you laugh but i'm telling the truth."
"i laugh because you make me happy."
his arms wound around your waist, keeping you pressed against him, leaving you with no room to escape or part from him. just what reo likes.
"i'm sorry for what i said," he says against your collarbone. "when i didn't see you in our home, i didn't know what to think. i got so scared for a second because i had no idea where you could've gone so i started spamming your number-"
"-yeah wait, was calling me 24 times necessary?"
"i was going to keep calling you until you picked up so it could've taken 24 or 1000 times or more. now let me speak." you nod wordlessly, smiling a little at how silly reo can be. "and when i realised that you went back to your apartment, i felt horrible that i drove you out."
he looks up at you with glossy eyes.
"you came here because you wanted to prove me wrong, right? because you bought all this by yourself and don't need me, right?"
"well, kind of, but i also didn't want to be around you so i came back here."
reo frowns before leaning in to press delicate kisses to your neck. "please don't leave me. i need you by my side," he inhales before whispering his next statement. "even if you don't need me."
a hand of yours go up to thread through his hair. "don't say that," you use your other hand to direct his face away from your neck, pressing a kiss against his puckered lips. "i absolutely adore you, my love. you're my favourite person ever."
he smiles before leaning in again, kissing you with more fervour and passion. you can feel another tear slide down his cheek.
"lets go to bed, reo," you say when you part and he simply nods, laying you on the side of the bed before laying beside you, arms naturally finding themselves around your waist as reo tugs you as humanely close as possible. "sorry if this mattress isn't as comfortable as your twelve grand one back home."
"i couldn't care less," he whispers whilst tracing patterns on your bare skin.
so long as it's you he's next to, reo doesn't have a lot to complain about.
#bro when i say i literally wrote this in one go#I WROTE THIS IN ONE GO#reo mikage x reader#reo x reader#mikage reo x reader#blue lock x reader
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How Amazon Is Ripping You Off
Shopping on Amazon? Stop! Watch this first.
Amazon is the world’s biggest online retailer. This one single juggernaut of a company is responsible for nearly 40% of all online sales in America. In an FTC lawsuit, they’re accused of using their mammoth size, and consumers’ dependence on them, to artificially jack up prices as high as possible, while prohibiting sellers on Amazon from charging lower prices anywhere else.
They’re accused of using a secret algorithm, codenamed "Project Nessie," to charge customers an estimated extra $1 billion dollars,
If this isn’t an abuse of power that hurts consumers, what is? So much for all of those “prime” deals you thought you were getting.
Project Nessie isn’t the only trick Amazon has been accused of using to exert its hulking dominance over the online retail industry — leading to higher prices for you.
Much of the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit centers around the treatment of independent merchants who sell items on Amazon’s online superstore — accounting for 60 percent of Amazon's sales.
Amazon allegedly uses strongarm tactics that force these sellers to keep their prices higher than they need to be. Like barring them from selling products for significantly less at other stores — or else risk being hidden in Amazon’s search results or having their sales stopped entirely.
And Amazon is accused of engaging in pay-to-play schemes and charging merchants excessive fees that end up costing you even more.
Independent sellers are effectively forced to pay Amazon to advertise their products prominently in search results. If they don’t fork over cash, then their products get buried underneath products of companies who do. This hurts sellers but also harms shoppers who have to parse through less relevant products that may be more expensive or lower quality.
And to be eligible for the coveted “Prime” badge on their items — which is considered crucial for competing on the platform — independent sellers are pushed into paying Amazon for additional services like warehousing and shipping, even if they could get those services cheaper elsewhere. If sellers forgo trying to qualify for Prime, their goods apparently become harder for customers to find.
When all of these extra fees are added up, Amazon takes around a 50 percent cut of each sale made by a third party. It’s projected that Amazon will earn around $125 billion from collecting fees in the U.S. in 2023, most of which get passed on to you.
By charging all of these extra fees and stifling independent companies from selling their products for less elsewhere, Amazon is using its dominance to essentially set prices for all consumers across the internet.
And when you combine Amazon’s control of ecommerce with all of the other industries it has entered by gobbling up companies — such as Whole Foods, One Medical, and MGM — you’re left with a behemoth that simply has too much power.
This is all part of a much larger problem of growing corporate dominance in America. In over 75% of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.
The lack of competition and consumer choice has resulted in all of us paying more for goods because corporations like Amazon can raise their prices with impunity. By one estimate, corporate concentration has cost the typical American household $5,000 a year more than they would have spent if markets were truly competitive.
This power isn’t just being used to siphon more money from you. A giant corporation has the power to bust unions, keep workers’ wages low, and funnel money into our political system.
It’s a vicious cycle, making giant corporations more and more powerful.
But under the Biden administration, the government is making a strong effort to revive antitrust law and use its power to reign in big corporations that have grown too powerful.
We must stop the monopolization of America. This FTC lawsuit against Amazon is a great start.
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completely off topic but regarding something that i saw pop up in my FB feed and i need to rant about
please do not fall for this shit
nintendo is NOT anti-AI.
it's really easy for them to say they're not going to use generative AI to create their games, because this statement has nothing to do with the very real issues with AI art such as the blatant theft of artists' work, environmental impact, replacement of humans in the industry, and just flat out unethical shit that AI has been designed around
it has EVERYTHING to do with their intellectual property rights, which Nintendo is NOTORIOUS for protecting with an iron fist even at their own expense. and i'm not talking the usual sensible argument shit like "ofc Nintendo wants to protect their IP's, they're a business!" i'm talking about the fact that this is the same company that just recently did a major takedown of the vast majority of Nintendo-licensed games on Vimm's Lair which aren't even being sold legitimately anywhere anymore-
i have so many fucking bones to pick with the flaccid bootlicking anti-piracy arguments out there but basically it comes down to this:
Nintendo is not a small indie company. They are literally one of the biggest, richest, most powerful gaming companies on the planet, rivalling Disney in just how many major franchises they own and profit off of. Many of their games are cultural classics, not just through the sentimentality and nostalgia of our childhoods, but also for all the innovations they made through games like Super Mario Bros, Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and many others that we, within the world of gaming, owe a lot to and should be able to access and play. It's not a matter of "wanting these games for free", it's a matter of wanting to be able to access these games, period, and Nintendo is deadset on making it as difficult as possible, even when it doesn't necessarily profit from them (need I remind you that many of the games that were taken down from Vimm's Lair are NOT available through their shitty, poorly-ported emulation subscription service - plus that subscription service can be altered and/or removed at any time, regardless of what you paid for, just like the Wii Virtual Console was, meaning you do not own any of the games you're paying to play on there.)
This isn't about being "cheap" or "not wanting to pay for games". This is about media preservation and the virtue of actually owning the things we pay for. If these games were resold at official outlets for reduced prices or made more accessible through e-shops that don't close down in between console generations or drip feed the odd legacy title every few months or release crappy ports on their outdated af tech for only a few months at a time for three times the price of their original value, people would gladly pay. It's the fact that people are having to put up with all of the hoops that Nintendo has put in place to prevent them from even handing them money to play their favorite titles that even drives them to piracy to begin with, and Nintendo will gladly shut those sites down to protect their IP even when it's an IP they're no longer profiting from and aren't making active efforts to sell.
Like, I would gladly hand over a reasonable amount of money (i.e. not the cost of a brand new triple A title in 2024 which is like $80-$100 here in Canada) for Diddy Kong Racing on the Switch, but ofc it's not on the fucking online play store and even if it was, I'd have to deal with paying an overpriced subscription fee for a port of the game that would undoubtedly run WORSE than it does on my PC, and that subscription service can be taken down at any time. But Nintendo wants me to not pirate the game that's not available on their shitty subscription service because... just don't do it, pretty please??
youtube
Nintendo is not anti-AI. They would gladly use AI in place of manual labor to scour the internet and dish out DMCA's to every emulation site, archived ROM hub, fan game, and artist alley creator if they could... oh wait, they already are.
Do not fall for the virtues of anti-AI when it comes to companies like Nintendo. They are not anti-AI. They're anti-ownership. They're anti-preservation.
#fuck you nintendo#the nintendo subscription service sucks ass#the games are ported horribly#the fact that the original gamecube can run at 60fps but the switch is locked at 30fps is fucking insane#it's 2024 get with the fucking PROGRAM
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The Online Boss Academy is a comprehensive program designed to help individuals turn their passions and expertise into a successful online business. The program covers a wide range of topics, including niche selection, building a strong online presence, monetization strategies, and more. This article will provide an in-depth overview of the Online Boss Academy program and what it offers.The Online Boss Academy program provides comprehensive training on how to network and collaborate effectively, including how to reach out to others, build relationships, and grow your network.
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#Make money online anywhere in the world#Online boss academy Course#Buy course and become successful#Affiliate marketing program#Affiliate course 2023
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Sweaty Palms 1
Warnings: this fic will include obsessive behaviour, possible non/ducbon, bullying, and other elements which may not be specifically triggered. Please be cautious in continuing on to the story.
Character: Curtis Everett
Summary: You start going to the gym to break old habits, but new things are scary.
Please reblog and leave some feedback, preferably in a reblog but you can always drop by my asks. I always love working in y'alls ideas with these AUs so I am so excited to hear from you.
As always, take care of yourself <3 be kind and be patient. Love you.
No tag lists. Please review my pinned and bio for guidelines.
You’ve never been to a gym before. You’ve never been to a lot of places. Crowds are not your forte, public places are your personal nightmare, and strangers make your nervous. Everything makes you nervous.
You can’t hide forever. That’s the conclusion you’ve come to. It's not a very comfortable one for you but if you don’t change, you’re always going to feel like this. Heavy, deflated, lost. It’s hard to put into words the feeling. The world just seems to pass you by, it functions around you, and sometimes you almost believe you’re not really there. Like a ghost, you just watch it without effect.
The extra fifteen dollars a month isn’t too much of a stretch. You can hold off on your Kindle addiction for the expense. That’s another thing, you need to start being smart, more practical with your money.
Planning. That’s something you’re working on. You didn’t come without one. You wouldn’t make it past the door without a set of steps to follow.
You stop by the front counter first. You ask the woman behind it about how to get into the gym. You bought a membership online. She brings up your profile and issues you a membership card, explaining how you can also download the app and register with your member number. You thank her and continue through.
You walk along the first floor, the leg machines and the rowing machines being worked by the regulars. You find your way to the dressing room on the second floor and enter with your head down. You try not to look anywhere but where you need to. You find a stall and change, packing away your street clothes, then go out to find a locker to shove your stuff in.
You emerge with your phone and your new smart watch strapped to your wrist. You glance at the face of it. Your heart rate is already elevated. You unlock your phone and tap the app you downloaded the day before. You flipped through the catalogue of beginners’ workouts but didn’t have any of the equipment to do it yourself. It’s cheaper to just come here.
You go to one of the spaces laid with mats and stop before one of the racks of weights. You stare at your phone in exasperation. You don’t understand, you’re connected to the wifi but the app just won’t connect. You could try on your own but you really don’t know what you’re doing.
Ugh, why did you even bother? This is just another failure. You try restarting the app and then your phone, aware of the activity around you. Does anyone notice how clueless you look?
“Hit it or quit it, little girl,” a man startles you as he brushes by you and grabs a large set of dumbbells, the thirty on the side catching your eye. You shift out of the way and press your phone against your chest, the smooth fabric of your shirt causing it to vibrate as if you tapped the screen. “This isn’t the phone club, it’s a gym.”
“Sorry, I...”
“There’s a cafe across the street, you can go play candy crush there,” he scoffs, “seems more your speed.”
“Must feel real big, huh?” A gritty voice nears from your other side, “real heavy lifting there, pushing around a woman.”
“Huh?” The first man narrows his eyes as he grips the set of dumbbells at his sides and faces the other man.
He’s taller than you, muscular but not too bulky. His head is shaved and a dark short beard lines his jaw. Similar hair peeks out from the top of his tee shirt and dusts his toned arms. He slips past you, inserting himself between you and the gym watchdog.
“Bro,” the first guy sneers, “don’t even start with me. You think you can step up.”
“I’m not stepping up,” the other man defies, “I’m telling you to mind your business. Take your weights and leave her alone.”
“Pfft, this some sort of date? You know, this isn’t the Olive Garden--”
The second man crosses his arms, his back to you as he postures at the other man. He’s silent as he stares him down. You can’t see his face but you can feel the tension roiling off of him. There’s a thick lull as both men stand in a deadlock.
“Got something to say, bud,” the first guy drops the weights and they boom against the floor. You wince and step back, “go on, I could use the work out.”
“I said it,” the second man utters flatly, unyielding as he looms like a wall between you.
“Fucking loser,” the other spits back, “you’re really gonna fuck around for that? Have you seen the skin around her?.”
The man doesn’t respond. He stays as he is, an unmoving sentinel. The other man growls in frustration.
“Fucking chicken shit, why don’t you speak up, dude?”
Still no answer. Just a glare. You clutch your phone against your chest, frozen in horror and confusion. You didn’t mean to start a fight. You hate confrontation.
Suddenly, the man before you jerks as he’s grabbed by the large man. His back hits you slightly and you drop your phone as he latches onto the other man. Everything happens so fast. The man who came to your defence has the other man on his back on the mat in seconds, a knee on his chest as his fists clasp around the top of his tank top. He bends over him and snarls.
“Christ, bro, get the fuck off of me,” the man on the floor shoves on his arm helplessly.
You glance around and notice the audience forming around you. Oh no. You look back to the two men. You step forward and tap the closest man on the shoulder, the one who defended you.
“Please,” you croak nervously, “I don’t wanna get in trouble.”
He turns his head, glancing back at you with powder blue eyes made bright by the dark row of his lashes. He exhales and lets go of the other man. He stands and puts his arm out as if to keep your behind him.
“You really want me to repeat myself?” He sneers down at the other man.
The larger man pushes himself up and scowls, shaking his head and he turns to stalk off muttering, leaving behind his forgotten dumbbells. The other man bends to pick them up and returns them to the rack. You look down at your empty hands then search the floor.
You reach for your phone but it’s plucked up before you. The man brings it up between you and holds it out. You take it with a thank you.
“No problem,” he rasps.
“I... you didn’t have to--”
“That guy’s an—he's not nice,” he corrects himself and drags his hand over his mouth and chin, “I don’t like bullies.”
“It’s my fault,” you shrug, “I was in the way. But er, thanks. I'm... I’m sorry.”
You turn away and look back at your phone. The app isn’t working. It says it needs another update.
“You need help with something?” The man asks.
“I...” you peek at him over your shoulder, “yeah, I... I don’t... I don’t usually... it’s my first time.”
He nods and hums as he steps closer. You face him and show him your phone. You’re jittery as it trembles in your grip. He’s a stranger. Your whole plan was to avoid those.
“I got this app to help but it’s not working,” you frown.
“Try the update?” He points his thick, long finger at the screen.
You tap and keep the phone visible. The app shop comes up and the update button is grayed out. Underneath, italics read ‘this update is not available for this device’. You frown and bring the screen closer to your face.
“It won’t let me,” you pout and flick your lashes, mortified. How are you this helpless? Why did you have to have a witness? Several. You look around, some eyes darting in your direction.
“Hm, well, what are you trying to do? You said this is your first day?” He prompts, “I could... I could help out a little. If you need. I’m no trainer, I just do my own thing but I could try.”
You bat your lashes up at him then look back at your phone. You don’t know what else to do. Your whole plan has fallen apart because your operating system is outdated.
“I... I’m not very... athletic,” you explain, “so I can’t go very fast.”
“That’s okay,” he assures you, “I can go slow.”
“You don’t have to do that. I can figure it out.”
“I know I don’t have to,” he shifts and peers over his shoulder, “but how about I stay close anyway,” he moves and you can see the guy from earlier staring daggers from a chest press, “just in case.”
“Oh, I... I’m sorry,” you tuck your phone into the pocket of your leggings, “I made him mad.”
“Let him be mad. Got nothing to do with you,” he turns back to you again, “I could take you through some stretches and basics; lunges, squats, stuff like that. As best I can.”
“Erm, I guess... I don’t wanna be in the way,” you rub your neck.
“Not in my way,” he says evenly, “lets grab some weights first.”
He directs you to the rack and without a thought you go to it. He approaches beside you as you realise, you didn’t say yes, you didn’t agree to this, but you don’t know what else to do.
“Start with some twos,” he advises, “and if you’re not getting a good burn, we can up it later.”
“Oh, okay,” you grab the dumbbells with the large twos on the side. He grabs the twenties. You feel totally inadequate.
“So let’s get out space,” he backs up and looks around the mat, “here should be good.” He bends and sets down his weights, "for now, let’s put these aside and start our stretches. You don’t wanna pull anything.”
You nod and place your weights beside you. You stand and stare at him. He’s in good shape. Great shape. He makes you even more conscious of your neglect. You already feel breathless.
“I’m Curtis by the way,” he steps forward and offers his hand.
“Oh, uh,” you shake his hand and give your name.
“Pretty,” he says as he squeezes before letting you go. His hand is huge compared to yours and the gap in your strength is obvious just in that small gesture.
“Alright, easy, slow, arms out,” he extends arms, “roll your shoulders and your head, loosen up.”
You watch him and hesitate to follow his direction. You hate that there’s so many people around. You don’t want to look stupid. You’re so ungainly and awkward.
“Try not to think about it too much. We’re all just here to work out, right?” He says and you shy away, embarrassed that he noticed your discomfort. You raise your arms and start the stretches, “good, you’re doing good, angel. Make sure to breath, alright?”
You roll your shoulders and head and blow out a breath. Your nerves are pinging all over and your muscles are shaky. This isn’t what you expected at all. Your plans fallen to pieces and yet, it’s not entirely a lost cause.
“Arms up,” he guides you into the next exercise, “on your toes, reach as far as you can...”
You obey, letting his voice guide you. His deep, calm timber is almost comforting. The even tenor is a stark contrast to chaotic nervously. You can get through this.
#curtis everett#dark curtis everett#dark!curtis everett#curtis everett x reader#drabble#gym au#au#sweaty palms#snowpiercer#series
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❧ word count: 25.5k ❧ warnings: cursing, neck/shoulder biting and marking if you’re squeamish about that, talking about like werewolf scenting and stuff, blood, brief kissing with blood on/around mouths, this is a werewolf fic either you’re into this stuff or you’re not lol ❧ genre: fluff, so incredibly fluffy and sweet it should’ve been a warning honestly, established relationship, modern magical creatures au, college au, werewolf sungchan, human reader, ft. siren shotaro, werewolf jeno & various magical neos, same universe as strawberry sunday, sequel to changer ❧ extra info: this is a sequel to changer! it cannot be read as a standalone, you must read changer first! this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe (aside from changer to this one), they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: so this is technically the spiritual threequel (fourqual?) to my werewolf jeno fics (pupsick + abh) but you still don’t have to read those to understand this one at all! this is absolutely meant to be read by itself (after changer, ofc), and if you were able to survive changer, then you deserve a medal. and this is that medal, i suppose!
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!
The whole thing probably lasted just a couple seconds, but to you it felt like minutes, as every one of your heartbeats pounded through you, ricocheted around in your skull and grey matter. Could Sungchan feel that? Feel your pulse in his mouth? Was he scraping at it with his canines? Just one wrong move away from tearing open something vital?
“Shh, shh, it’s okay, Sung.” You wrapped your arms around your boyfriend, holding him close with no hesitation, even as his own arms were much slower to react. But once they did, he pulled you to him with a nearly crushing force, a strength that could all but make you forget that he was only half-werewolf.
Tonight, he’d let you stay with him for one of his shifts. It was exactly because he was half-werewolf that he’d even considered it in the first place, his shifts were much less intense than full werewolves, generally less violent and possibly dangerous for anybody who happened to be around him. He’d described it to you after the last full moon, that it was more just sort of painful, confusing, and sometimes sort of like when drunk-you left problems for sober-you, like drunk-dialing people or spending too much money online. Except in his case, werewolf-him generally destroyed smaller pieces of property like school notes or clothes. When he said that he always asked Shotaro to leave the night of the full moon, you asked if you could be with him the next time. It sounded terrible to have to do that alone every month. And to your surprise, he’d only responded with a weak ‘please?’
So when you’d arrived this afternoon, you’d taken everything out of his room that you feasibly could that he didn’t want to chew up: his bookbag, textbooks, nice sneakers, photo albums, laptop, etc. And then you’d locked the door, and stayed with him.
Now he was coming out of it—a glance at his bedside clock that had been knocked out of place but was otherwise fine told you that it was almost three in the morning. You cradled the back of his fully-human-again head, not minding the matted, damp hair.
“I’m right here,” you reminded him. “I didn’t go anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.”
You felt him shudder as he let out what sounded like a whine of pain. It made you worried about him staying up on his own two feet. “Sung? Do you need to lay down?”
He didn’t answer, and you realized he might not be back at the point where he could speak yet. Before you could finish weighing your options of attempting to drag the 186cm still partially-shifted half-werewolf to his bed by yourself, he’d buried his face in your neck, opened his mouth, and was resting his set of sharp canines against the curve of where your neck met your shoulder.
You breathed in through your nose, hand still on his head as he just… waited. For what, you couldn’t say. He was still whining softly, though now there was a slight undertone of need cutting through the pain you’d heard earlier.
Your hand was still resting on his head, and you gently pulled him closer, feeling the dull pressure of his teeth against your skin. “It’s okay, Sung. Whatever you need. I trust you.”
Finally, he closed his jaw. But it wasn’t a bite at all, it was more like a toddler teething on something cold to soothe their aching gums while their new teeth grew in. It didn’t hurt; he certainly wasn’t breaking skin, and you doubted that any marks would be left. The worst damage would be slobber, you were sure. If anything, it just… tickled. Suppressing a giggle at the feeling, you stroked his hair affectionately.
“There you go, Sung. There you go…” You murmured quietly. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay. You’re okay, baby…”
“Bite…” He finally let out a grunt that sounded akin to a real word.
“What? What was that?” You tried to pull your head back to be able to look him in the face, but he didn’t want to detach from you in the slightest, his whines becoming less pained and more pathetic. Giving up on the task, you shook your head just a little, “Never mind, sorry. But what were you saying, Sung? Something about biting? You didn’t chew anything up this time, actually. We kept you in check pretty well. Your wallet will thank us, I’m sure.”
Sungchan continued to mouth at your neck a couple more times before he gave another full body shudder and tremble, then fell to his knees. As wrapped up in each other as you were, you went down with him, your kneecaps only saved by the fact that he had a nice plush rug. Your forehead wasn’t so lucky, as it got cracked against his on the way down, and you bit your tongue as a result.
“Shit!” You hissed, but couldn’t even focus on your own pain for very long, because Sungchan was now leaning most of his weight forward onto you. You quickly readjusted hold him up by the underarms. “Woah, woah. You alright, Sung?”
“I… bite…” He groaned again.
“You bite your tongue too?” You guessed humorously, scooting to sit on the floor against his bed and ushering him to lay down with his head in your lap. Ideally, you’d be in the bed, not on the floor next to it, but this was close enough.
Sungchan curled up in your lap as if he’d forgotten how big he was, fitting as much of the top half of his body there as he could. It was as he turned over slightly onto his side that you finally got a good look at his face again and saw just how exhausted he looked. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, and his skin was warm, flushed, and drenched with sweat. You gently brushed the damp bangs away from his forehead with one hand, reaching your other up towards his nightstand. After fumbling around in the top drawer for a ridiculous amount of time considering you’d put it literally right on top, you finally grabbed the lunchbox filled with cold, damp washcloths and ice packs that you’d stored in there earlier.
Unzipping it, the ice packs were all melted, but the washcloths were still nice and cool, which was what you really needed. Taking the first one, you blotted it along Sungchan’s forehead, cheeks, and neck, following it up with fleeting touches of your hand to assess if it was really helping or not. Judging by the small, soft, not painful sigh he let out, it at least didn’t seem to be hurting.
“Y/N…” He panted, grabbing your wrist as you were pressing the washcloth to his cheek.
“Yep, I’m right here, Sung,” you reassured him, putting your other hand over his. “I’m right here, okay?”
“I…”
“Do you need something, baby? Water? Food?
“I want…”
You dropped the washcloth from his face to listen attentively. “Yeah, Sung?”
His eyes finally opened, letting you see that his irises were still the same glowing, burning amber as earlier in the night. Not quite out of his shift yet. He sat up until he was nearly level with your neck, breathing in deeply. His grip on your wrist tightened, then he all but collapsed back onto your lap again, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Mm… I should… We should… I wan’ to…” He was slurring his words like he was drunk, chest heaving with every breath, and his grip on your wrist relaxed until he was loosely holding your hand, pulling it down to cradle your forearm to his chest like it was a stuffed animal. “Wan’… give you my mating bite… Y/N…”
You stared down at Sungchan with wide, dumbstruck eyes. As he slowly blinked, you could see that his eyes were still that same bright gold. He just shifted further up to try to fit more of himself in your lap, though, pressing his head against your stomach and wedging his shoulder in the gap left by your criss-crossed legs.
Even as you were so shocked, you curled up and readjusted to mold your body around him, one hand giving his head a soft, reassuring pat as the other rubbed up and down his arm, soothing over the surely tired muscles.
“You…” You trailed off in your attempt to get clarification, unable to even begin to try to rephrase it yourself. In packs, mated werewolf couples bit each other in elaborate rituals. Neither of you were any of those things. Could Sungchan even give a werewolf mating bite, as a half-werewolf? Could you receive one? You definitely couldn’t give him one back. Wouldn’t he want one back? Or maybe not? Not to mention he wasn’t in a pack and had never been in his life. What did a mating bite mean to him?
God, your head hurt, and you weren’t even the one who had gone through a werewolf shift tonight.
Sungchan took another deep breath, and long, slow blink, his eyes almost back to their normal brown color. “‘Cause I… I love you. I wan’ to… ‘cause I love you… my… Y/N.”
His eyes fluttered shut, and you heard his breathing even out as he finally fell asleep in just a few moments.
It didn’t seem like you’d get the answer to any of those questions tonight. And as much as the idea of going any longer without knowing made your stomach twist into painful, uncomfortable knots, Sungchan needed the rest. He wasn’t in the right state for any sort of conversation like that. There wouldn’t be any way he’d be able to answer your questions even if you could force yourself to ask them.
Taking a deep breath, you leaned over to gently peck his hair. “Your Y/N loves you too, Sung…”
Your back ached. You had a crick in your neck. And another one in your back. And another one in another part of your back. And yet another one in one more part of your back. You groaned, rolling over in bed to try to crack some of the kinks out without having to actually get up.
That gave you pause. There was definitely a mattress underneath you, blankets covering you, and a pillow supporting your head. But you remembered falling asleep on the floor next to Sungchan’s bed after his shift last night.
Squinting one eye open suspiciously, you saw that it was still very dark in his room, but you had without a doubt been mysteriously tucked into his bed. Much too tired to investigate past that, you pulled the blankets up over your head and buried your face in your pillow, very quickly falling back asleep.
When you woke up again, it was brighter outside, and at first you thought Sungchan had put a weighted blanket on you in the middle of the night. Odd choice, considering you didn’t have one on you the first time you woke up, or at least that you could remember. And then you realized that Sungchan was your weighted blanket.
Your boyfriend was fully snuggled up on top of your back, completely passed out, as you were dozing on your front. You couldn’t even roll him over, he was dead weight. With a sigh, you closed your eyes again, wondering if you’d be able to go back to sleep for a second—third?—time this morning.
“You up?” He mumbled in your ear, voice barely above a hoarse grumble.
“You’re awake?” You asked in disbelief.
“Yeah?”
“So you’re suffocating me on purpose?”
He rolled off onto the mattress next to you, and immediately your lungs could work better. “Oh, so when you do it to me, it’s cute and I’m supposed to enjoy it, but when I do it, it’s attempted murder and ‘Ouch, Sungchan, get off of me, you’re crushing me with your big, huge werewolf muscles.’”
“So I don’t need to ask if you’re feeling better,” you scoffed, but nevertheless shifted onto your side to face him.
He wasn’t pink-faced and sweaty anymore, instead looking unnaturally pale, with dark circles under his eyes like he’d pulled two all-nighters in a row for finals week. You cupped his cheek, gently running your thumb under one of his eyes. His skin wasn’t warm to the touch, instead it felt the same temperature as yours—cold for a werewolf or half-werewolf.
“You’ve got a chill, Sung,” you observed with a frown, taking your hand back as you prepared to get up.
“It’s normal, baby,” he reassured you, grabbing your arm to keep you from leaving. “Just uh… returning to homeostasis or whatever. I’ll be okay.”
“Alright… if you say so…” you sighed, staying put and pressing a kiss to his forehead, sneakily taking note of his temperature that way instead. “You can at least eat, right? Breakfast sound good?”
“Sure. In a minute.”
“You stay here, I’ll go make you something. Breakfast in bed. What’s better than that?”
He pretended to deliberate on this, then grabbed you with two arms around your waist, pulling you to his chest. “This.”
Tucked under his chin, you couldn’t look up to read his face, instead just staring at his t-shirt. “Really? You’re not hungry?”
“A little. But I won’t die if I don’t eat right now.”
“Are you implying that you’ll die if we don’t cuddle right now?”
“Yes,” he replied dramatically. “Absolutely. I’ll simply perish if I don’t get my Y/N time this instant.”
You couldn’t help but snicker at that, finally giving in. Not forgetting about his drop in temperature, you made sure to pull the blankets up around you two before you fully snuggled in, wrapping your arms around him and nuzzling your face into his chest.
“Alright, alright. Slow your roll on your imminent decay. I’m right here, Sung. Like I said last night, I’m not going anywhere.”
“You did say that, didn’t you?” He mused, tangling your legs together.
“Yeah, I did.” You chewed on the inside of your cheek nervously. “Uhm… How much do you remember about your shifts?”
“While I’m fully shifted? Not a lot usually. Immediately before and after? Depends. Why? Did I do something?”
The hairs on the back of your neck stood up as you remembered the feeling of his teeth on your neck, of him asking to bite you, to give you his mating bite. Did he remember that? Sungchan wasn’t bringing it up… Surely he’d mention it again now if he remembered, or was serious about it.
“Well, afterwards… you were kind of saying some stuff. I just didn’t know if you—”
“Hey… look at me?” Sungchan requested as he leaned back from you. When you’d picked up your head to oblige, he looked you in the eye with no hesitation, his face entirely serious now. “Of course I meant it when I said I love you. I’m sorry I said it to you for the first time looking like a hot fucking mess, and again now not in much better shape, but I mean it all the same. I love you, my Y/N. So much. So goddamn much I feel like I could explode if I don’t tell you every 5 seconds. Except you might get kind of tired of me if I did that.”
Despite it not being the words you were expecting to hear, you were beaming from ear to ear, even managing out a choked laugh through the happy tears suddenly welling up in your eyes.
“Woah, hey, I didn’t mean to make you cry with how bad my confession was,” he joked, wiping at the first tear as it slipped down your cheek.
“Oh shut it!” You chastised him. “What have I told you about being a sweetheart?”
“Own up to it or don’t do it at all,” he recited dutifully. “I’m sorry, baby. I love you, so fucking much and I’m going to explode if you don’t say it back maybe? But no pressure? Also, I love you. And no pressure to say it back right now.”
“Oh my god, Sung, I love you too,” you laughed, grabbing his face in both of your hands to pull his mouth to yours. “So fucking much.”
Dr. and Mr. Jung lived in a two-story townhouse just a couple blocks over from campus. The old bricks on the face of it were a warm red, and as you got closer, you saw that there were shimmery flecks mixed into the rogue.
“How old are these buildings?” You asked Sungchan, reaching out to touch one of the bricks around the entryway. “There’s dragon scales in the brick.”
“There’s what?” Sungchan’s eyes widened, and you pointed to a particularly large chunk, about the size of the head of a thumbtack. It reflected amber in the setting sun.
“Dragon scales. They used to be incorporated into building materials to make them more durable. You know, before integration. There’s been really big debates at like, every open-door City Hall meeting about if we should keep buildings up that have dragon scale brick in them or not, since so many dragons had to be killed to make them.”
“Oh my god.”
“So far it looks like they’re going to move towards tearing down abandoned buildings made of dragon scale brick at least.”
“How-How many dragons? Were killed?”
“We have no way to know. And the thing is, you can gather dragon scales without hurting a dragon, it’s just not going to be enough to make dragon scale brick of any usable quantity.”
“So it should’ve never been made.”
“No. It shouldn’t have.” You turned away from the wall with a shake of your head. “Anyway, that’s why I was asking how old these homes are. They’re by the university, so pretty old, I guess.”
“I have no clue. You’d have to ask my parents.” Sungchan ushered you towards the door with a hand on the small of your back.
“I don’t think I will. Not incredible meet-the-parents dinner conversation, really.”
“As much I want to say they’ll love you anyway, which they would, I do have to agree with you. Maybe save the existential horror of the materials of their home for the second dinner.” He kissed the top of your head.
“Will do.” You nodded. “Now, are you going to knock on the door, or are we going to keep standing out here like we’re casing the place?”
“Oh, sorry, you can’t hear that. My mom’s—”
And then the sound of the front door unlocking came, and you looked up at Sungchan questioningly. It was opened by a face familiar to you only from pictures.
Dr. Jung was already beaming at you. “Hello! Oh, I’m sorry if I startled you, Y/N. I was grading in my office and could hear you two coming up the steps, got a bit excited.” She gestured to the window next to the brick that you’d been discussing.
Dr. Jung was an economics professor at your university, though you’d never taken a class from her personally.
“I was about to give you a heads up,” Sungchan patted you on the back. “I heard her footsteps, that’s—”
“—why you weren’t knocking. Of course.” You nodded, then turned your focus back to Sungchan’s mother. “It’s lovely to meet you, Dr. Jung.”
“You too, Y/N.” She was still smiling ear-to-ear as she reached forward to take your hands. “You’ll have to tell me more about the history of these dragon scale bricks, I truly had no idea.”
You looked at Sungchan in alarm, and he just shrugged. But she was already leading you into the house by your hand, your boyfriend trailing behind.
“Mom, I don’t even get a hug? No hello for your own son?” Sungchan complained dramatically, closing the door behind you three.
“Well since you’re going to be a big baby about it.” A man’s voice suddenly joined in as you had emerged from the front hallway into the living room. You turned around towards the stairs to see Sungchan’s dad standing on the bottom step, still not eye level with his son even with the added height. He wrapped his arms around Sungchan with an affectionate fake growl, and your boyfriend eagerly hugged his dad back.
Mr. Jung was a middle school science teacher, and you couldn’t help but wonder if that was where Sungchan got his love for science from. He never said it specifically, but he’d told you plenty of stories of doing home science experiments with his dad as a kid.
“Hey, Dad.” He was grinning so brightly as he pulled away, then eagerly gestured to you. “Dad, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is my dad.”
“Jung Yoonseo, how are you?” The other human greeted you. But your gaze got stuck on the dip of Mr. Jung’s shoulder, where his neck met shoulder, and two-thirds of a dark bite mark were visible above the collar of his shirt.
You tore your eyes away from the mating bite to look up at his face, smiling again. “I’m good, Mr. Jung, thank you. How are you?”
“I’m very well.” He nodded to you, starting towards the connected kitchen.
“Oh, honey, Y/N was just telling me that apparently our home is made of dragon scale brick,” Dr. Jung pulled you into the kitchen as well.
Mr. Jung turned around from where he’d started peeling a vegetable to look at his wife curiously. “Sorry, you said dragon scales, Jieun?”
“Yes! Go on, Y/N. I didn’t catch much of what you were telling Sungchan, I came to get you all as soon as I heard that you’d arrived.”
You looked to Sungchan imploringly, but he just shrugged again, then mouthed something that looked like ‘go for it’ to you. So you inhaled, and went for it.
“Dr. and Mr. Jung, do you two know how old your house is?”
“I think that went pretty well,” Sungchan declared as the two of you walked down the sidewalks hand-in-hand later that evening. He had a bag filled with containers of leftovers in his other hand.
“Glad you think so. I felt like Renjun, giving people impromptu lectures at the most out-of-pocket times,” you scoffed.
“Yeah, and they loved it. My parents are big nerds like you.”
“You’re literally a STEM major.”
“Point taken.”
“So your dad wasn’t just being nice when he invited me over for tea, then?”
Your boyfriend looked down at you with wide eyes. “When did he do that?”
“When you and your mom were packing up the leftovers and he was showing me the backyard. I forgot how it came up, but I’d mentioned the boba shop, and he said if I liked tea, then I was welcome to come over for a cup anytime. Since he’s still on summer break and everything.”
Despite the smile that had creeped across his face as you spoke, you furrowed your brow suspiciously.
“What? What are you smiling for?”
He surprised you by smooching your temple loudly. “I was wrong. It didn’t go pretty well. It went great.”
“Being invited over for tea is a good sign?” You asked cautiously.
“Definitely.” He stopped the two of you on the deserted sidewalk, letting go of your hand just to immediately seize your waist, pulling you towards him. The surprised noise you were about to make got muffled by Sungchan sealing his lips over yours. You curled a hand around the back of his neck as the other gripped onto his forearm for some kind of stability as he kissed you breathless.
As he pulled back to look down at you with that same big, tender grin, you couldn’t help but let out an airy giggle.
“And what was that for?”
“I love you. And do I need a reason to kiss my amazing, beautiful girlfriend?” He punctuated each of the last three words with more kisses to your cheek this time, making you giggle again.
“Like that, in the middle of the street? Yes.” You pinched his side teasingly, earning a laugh as he squirmed away from your touch. You made sure to tack on an, “I love you too, Sung.”
“We’re not in the street, we’re on the sidewalk.”
Before you could give your retort, he’d caught your lips in another sweet kiss, and all banter was gone from your mind.
“Are you staying at my place?” Sungchan asked when you’d finally restarted your journey.
“Let’s do my place tonight, hm?” You suggested, squeezing his hand.
He tilted his head, an adorable, confused pout on his face. “Why?”
“Because I don’t have some poor roommate that we’ll be annoying.”
“Says the girl who used to specifically ask if Shotaro was going to be home before she’d agree to come over,” he snickered.
“I did that because I had a huge crush on you and you’d friendzoned me, you ass.” You elbowed him in the side teasingly. “Having Taro there made it easier to ignore the aching hole in my chest whenever I looked at you, you dick.”
You landed a gentle mock punch that was in actuality a light tap to his chest, but Sungchan was no longer laughing. He looked down at you, pensive sadness on his features.
“I’m sorry, Y/N. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to articulate how much I regret putting you through that. You didn’t deserve to ever feel… an aching hole, because of me.”
“Ah, Sung.” You hugged his arm to your chest, resting your head against his shoulder as you walked. “I know you would’ve never done that to me on purpose. But if we can’t laugh about it—about the uh, admittedly kind of funny scenario we put ourselves in before we started dating—then we’ll never be able to really move past it. We’re together now, and that’s what really matters.”
He sighed. “I agree. I just… I don’t think I’m past the feeling bad part yet.”
“That’s okay.” You squeezed his upper arm reassuringly. “Just don’t beat yourself up on my account. Alright?”
“Okay,” he said, and you could hear the small smile in his voice.
“So, my place?”
“I just remembered that my mom put in some leftovers for Shotaro. Kelp rolls.”
“We should probably take that to him, huh?”
“Yeah…”
“Hopefully that’ll be enough to counteract us existing around him.”
Shotaro was enthused to receive his kelp rolls, not even commenting on you staying the night as he excitedly took his food into his room.
“You want something to eat?” Sungchan asked as he put the rest of the leftovers in the fridge.
“No. I ate plenty at your parents’ house.” You shook your head. Stretching and yawning, you started towards the hallway with their bedrooms. “You make your little post-dinner snack. Feed your half-werewolf metabolism. I’m going to get ready for bed.”
“Feel free to take a sweatshirt or something.”
“Way ahead of you.”
Your boyfriend found you a few minutes later already curled up in his bed, bundled up in just one of his oversized hoodies. He scooted in next to you, encouraging you to move your head from the pillow to his lap as you went to snuggle up to his side instead.
“Whatcha eating, Sung?” You mumbled, mouth splitting into another yawn. All you could tell was that he had a bowl of some kind of finger food, as he’d brought no utensil in with him.
“Some fruit. Strawberries, honeydew, blueberries… Oh, you want a grape?”
“I’m still not entirely convinced that you’re not trying to fatten me up to eat, you know?” You said teasingly. “Like some mix of the witch from Hansel and Gretel and the big bad wolf from Little Red Riding Hood…”
“Banana slice?”
But you knew it was just his instinct to feed you, so you always indulged him to a certain extent—not so much that you felt like you were going to burst, but enough to calm his need to know that you were well-fed.
“Mm, grape.” You opened your mouth like a baby bird. He deposited the fruit on your tongue, but due to how you were laying, it landed more-so on the inside of your cheek. You had to sit up and prop yourself up on an elbow to chew and swallow properly without choking, but then promptly laid back down, nuzzling your face into his thigh.
Just a few seconds later, he asked you through a full mouth, “Baby? You want another?”
“I’m good, Sung, thank you,” you replied sweetly. “Your dad’s a really good cook, I ate a lot at dinner.”
“Yeah, he is,” he agreed proudly.
“Now finish your food so you can cuddle me to sleep.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
And less than ten minutes later, you were laid on your side, pulled flush to Sungchan’s front, your back to his chest and your legs tangled together. You had one of his arms ensnared, fingers laced loosely with his as you wrapped the limb tighter around you. His face was buried in your neck, planting absentminded kisses to your skin as you were gently floating between waking and sleep.
“I used to think you liked him, for a little bit, you know,” Sungchan murmured next to your ear, clearly a sudden blurting from his own train of thought that you weren’t privy to.
Oh, this sounded like a conversation. You squinted your eyes open blearily, turning over in his arms to face him. Throwing a leg over his to pull him closer, you offered him a sleepy smile and asked, “Who?”
He readjusted to keep holding you like that, one hand resting where the bottom of the hoodie had ridden up around your hip, settling on your thigh. His thumb and forefinger messed with the hem of the sweater, and you could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down in the dim light as he swallowed.
“Shotaro. Since you’d always ask if he was going to be at the apartment. But your heartrate never went up around him.”
You hummed in amusement, reaching out to gently pinch the tip of his nose. “Endearing that you were listening to my heartbeat to figure out if I liked your roommate.”
“But it did… go up around me sometimes. I knew that,” he confessed, his eyes locking on yours, desperate. Like he was searching, asking you for something. Absolution, penance, maybe. “And it made me happy. Even though I had told myself that I shouldn’t have you. It still… made me happy at first, but then it’d make me sad. That you hadn’t moved on. Because I thought you’d deserved to move on.”
But he’d done no sin that you needed to cleanse him of in your eyes. He was a guy who made a few mistakes and then finally made the right choice. After you smacked him upside the head with it, but nobody was perfect. The person who really needed to forgive him was himself. He was still stuck in the past, seemingly afraid that he could lose you at any moment. But he wasn’t going to, and you wished he would just believe that.
“But you got me now,” you promised, cradling his face and wishing he could feel just how much you really meant those words.
“I do.” He brought his hand up to cover your own, and you felt like you could cry. “I do got you now.”
“And I’ve got you.”
“You’ve always had me. I just hadn’t told you yet. But you’ve always had me,” Sungchan admitted with a bittersweet smile, curling his hand around yours.
You surged forward to close the minute gap between the two of you, kissing him so hard that your lips hurt. Your fingers tangled in his hair, your hands grabbed at his shoulders, his clothes, anything to pull him closer to you. He was hugging you tight to him, thank god, because it felt like you could never be close enough. Your bones ached with a need to break the laws of physics and exist in the same time and space as him, and a tiny part of you believed that if you just wanted it enough, if you tried hard enough, maybe you could.
“You know, I thought all I’d feel was relief when you and Sungchan finally got together, but instead I’m plagued by near constant nausea.”
You stopped in your tracks in the hallway. You’d been trying to quietly pee then hurry back into Sungchan’s room the next morning, but instead, you spun around to face Shotaro, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
He was standing in front of his door at the opposite end of the hall, arms crossed over his chest.
“Maybe go see a witch about that. It sounds serious,” you wrinkled your nose teasingly. Thankfully you’d had the wherewithal to pull on a pair of sleep shorts you had stashed in Sungchan’s drawers before leaving his room that morning.
“Yeah, that and my recently developed insomnia, too,” he scoffed. “Three in the morning, Y/N. Some people like to sleep, you know.”
Your skin burned as you started shuffling backwards towards Sungchan’s room. “Sorry! Bye!”
You slammed the door behind you, startling Sungchan awake.
“Huh?” He blinked sleepily, lifting his head to look around.
You launched yourself back into bed, burying your face in the pillow in shame.
“Woah, Y/N, you okay?” Sungchan’s voice was thick and deep this early in the morning, but you couldn’t even focus on that. He rubbed your back soothingly as you shook your head.
You turned your head just enough to clear your mouth to speak. “We should’ve gone to my place... No roommate...”
“Oh, Shotaro giving you a hard time?”
“‘Three in the morning, Y/N. Some people like to sleep.’” You did your best Shotaro impression. “I don’t think it was enough kelp rolls.”
“Ah, I’m-I’m sorry, baby.” Sungchan kept rubbing your back, but you could hear that he was holding back laughter.
You rolled onto your back, shooting him a glare before staring up at the ceiling. “Why do I always let you talk me into staying at your place?”
“Because you love me,” he replied in a sing-song voice, pressing a lingering kiss to your cheekbone, near your hairline.
“Yeah, but I mean, why do we always end up at your apartment, Sung? Why do you never want to come over to mine?”
The teasing dropped from his tone as he straightened up slightly. “It’s not like that, Y/N. I like spending time with you, no matter where we are. We could be in the cold vacuum of space, and I’d be fine with it as long as we were hanging out. And, in space suits so we didn’t die, you know. But, it’s just... I don’t know, I like having you here. In my space. It feels like everything’s right in the universe, like I know everything will be okay, that you’re going to be okay. As stupid as that sounds—”
“No, Sung, it’s not stupid.” You shifted to face him, brushing some hair back from his face. The same anxiety that you’d seen the night before was painted across his features again, and you didn’t like that you were seeing it more and more often. His sentiments weren’t stupid, they were loving, but the root of them concerned you. Was he constantly plagued by worries of something bad happening to you?
“Not at all...” You reiterated softly, running your thumb over the crease between his brows. “Sung? Baby?”
“Yeah?”
“I know you have class today but… can I stay here? While you’re on campus? Then we can do something together when you get back. We can go downtown or something.”
You could feel his face relax again under your touch, and he nodded with a smile.
“Yeah, of course. If you think you can handle being around Shotaro for that long. He’s off work today.”
“I’ll manage, somehow.”
When it was finally time for Sungchan to go to class, though, you encountered an issue.
“Sung, you need to go to class,” you sighed, nudging him from where he had his arms wrapped around you. You’d been lounging on the couch when it struck time for him to finally depart for campus, but you were now dealing with a clingy werewolf.
“The professor doesn’t count attendance for a grade,” he grumbled. “I can skip.”
“You literally said this morning that you had a quiz today.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did, you liar,” you scoffed, trying to wriggle out of his grip. “And you need to go take that quiz.”
Shotaro, meanwhile, was observing the entire thing from the threshold between the living room and the hallway, a fascinating mixture of equal parts disgust and amusement on his features. You looked at him pleadingly for any kind of assistance, and he rolled his eyes, but nevertheless helped you anyway.
“Sungchan, dude, seriously,” Shotaro sighed, his tone on the border of exasperation and understanding. “Y/N’s wearing your clothes, staying in our apartment, and you haven’t let her go for I think the past four hours straight, not even to pee. You’ve scented her up enough to last the next month, a few hours will be fine.”
Your jaw set as there was a sudden spark of recognition in the back of your mind, but you couldn’t follow that train of thought in the moment. Sungchan loosened his grip on you, sitting up and blinking as if woken from a trance. “R-Right. Sorry, Y/N.”
“It’s okay, Sung,” you smiled, standing up and yanking him to his feet as well. You practically dragged him towards the front door, shoving his backpack in his hands. “Now go, you’re going to be late.”
He looked down at you with a small, fond smile as well, slinging the bag over his shoulder. “Bye, love you.”
“I love you too.” You got up on your tiptoes to give him a fleeting kiss goodbye, and he wrapped an arm around you for a hug. You were worried that this was about to be another borderline hostage situation, but he took one more inhale near your neck, then let you go and straightened up.
“Okay. See you in a few.” He said, his hand on the door handle.
“Go, Sungchan.”
“Fine, fine. Bye.”
And with that, he was finally gone. You turned back around to Shotaro, letting out a sigh of relief. The siren just chuckled, shaking his head.
“Werewolves, dude.” He flopped onto the opposite side of the couch from where you and Sungchan had just been.
You sat back down, kicking your feet up and pulling out your phone. “Yeah. Werewolves...”
Shotaro started flicking through a streaming service to try to find something to watch. “Hey wait, shouldn’t he be scenting you less since he’s a half-werewolf?”
“I... don’t know,” you admitted. “There’s not really any sort of research on half-werewolves. We don’t know anything about what they ‘should’ be like. Not even one of those unethical case studies from the 1800s.”
“Huh. But like I was saying earlier, you two make me nauseous.”
“Just put on your trashy reality TV that we know you’re going to pick after scrolling around for 30 minutes.”
“The browsing is part of the experience.”
As Shotaro browsed on the TV then eventually picked a show, you searched on your phone. The Real Sirens of Diamond Bay was great background noise as you dug through the internet, and you barely even realized the time until your friend was calling for your attention from the kitchen.
“Hm?” You looked up from the forum post that you’d been reading.
“I asked if you wanted lunch.” He opened the fridge, taking out the containers of leftovers you and your boyfriend had brought home last night. “Or if only Sungchan could feed you.”
“Yeah, sure, I could eat.” You joined him in the kitchen, stretching out your back. “So you noticed that too, huh?”
“Oh, the pre-mating behaviors? Well, you did give me a very convenient list when you were still in your denial phase.”
You punched his arm, making him nearly drop the plates he’d just gotten from the cabinet.
“Ow!” He rubbed the spot with a pout, handing you one of the dishes. “Rude... I’m feeding you food from my fridge.”
“No, I’m letting you eat my leftovers,” you corrected him. “Dr. Jung made us take all the steamed buns because she knew they were my favorite.”
Shotaro had been loading said steamed buns up onto his plate, then started shoveling the rest of them onto yours. “Calm down, I wasn’t taking them all.”
You looked at the empty container with a sigh, putting half of yours back. “Well, we can’t just leave nothing for Sung.”
After you’d made your plates with minimal bickering and warmed them up, you took them to the small dining table in the corner of the living room to eat. Shotaro continued playing the episode he’d been on for ambiance as he engaged you in conversation.
“So what were you so invested in on your phone?” He asked, cracking open a seaweed-infused sparkling tea drink popular with younger sirens. “You usually love Real Sirens.”
You popped the tab on your soda, taking a sip before answering. “I was doing some research, on what we were talking about earlier—”
“I thought you said there wasn’t a lot of research on half-werewolves.”
“Not a lot of scholarly research. But I found some people posting online about their own experiences either as half-werewolves themselves, or dating half-werewolves. About the scenting.” You explained, pausing to take a bite of your food. “And it seems like the general consensus is that most likely because their sense of smell isn’t as great as full werewolves, but they still can smell that kind of stuff, unlike humans, half-werewolves get a little more… intense with scenting behaviors.”
“Gross.”
“I meant the clothes and the hugging, dude.” You soft-balled a kick at his shin under the table. “Not my fault you’re immediately gross.”
“Does it ever stop?”
You grimaced, “Well…”
“No?” Shotaro asked with wide eyes, presumably having the rest of his recently renewed lease flashing before them.
“Again, there aren’t a lot of half-werewolves. Or at least ones talking about it. But there is one half-werewolf/human couple I found who says that the scenting took better, and the behaviors therefore decreased after…” You trailed off, messing with the strings of Sungchan’s hoodie.
“After…?”
“After they followed through with the werewolf mating bite.”
The siren stared at you blankly. “Oh.”
“They’re the only ones I could find online who has done that, so who knows if that’s a guaranteed result, not to mention that at that point they were also human married, and had been together for over five years, so there was definitely just a lot of security in their relationship not to mention they’d been living together for years so they were going to smell like each other anyway—”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it.” Shotaro stopped your defensive rambles gently. “You two don’t need to do that for me. Just wear his clothes and be annoying, it’s fine.”
You stabbed your fork into a bun. “Yeah, I know that.”
“That was some weird stressing of your words there, Y/N. Anything you want to share?”
You let out a long, steady breath, your lips just a centimeter away from being pressed together. Your mind was swirling with the memory of Sungchan’s last shift. Of him asking you to take his bite. He hadn’t mentioned it again since, but you couldn’t stop thinking about it. Especially because he hadn’t brought it up again since. And seeing his dad’s last night…
“Sungchan mentioned it once, but I don’t know how serious he was being, and he hasn’t brought it up again,” you admitted before tearing into the bun you’d just assaulted. It was filled with delightfully seasoned veggies wrapped in smooth, pillowy dough. God, these really were some of the best steamed buns you’d ever had.
Shotaro practically did a spit take with his tea, dribbling the sip he’d just taken back into the bottle. “He what? When?”
“Shotaro—”
“No, he brought up essentially werewolf engagement to you— What? While you two were playing video games or something? And neither of you mentioned this to me?”
“It wasn’t like that but... sure. I guess.”
“No, no, what was the context? Post-nut confessions or something?”
“God! Why are you like this?” You groaned, dragging a hand over your face in exasperation. “No, he let me be with him for his last shift, it was when he was coming out of it. He wasn’t all there, he was tired, he had all the extra adrenaline and everything else going through his body still.”
He didn’t seem convinced. “So I was right.”
You gave him an unamused look. “Think more like a boxer with a concussion.”
“And you haven’t brought it up with him since?”
“I was just focused on making sure he was okay. And now, I don’t know, he hasn’t mentioned it again. Maybe he wasn’t serious about it?”
“If he was... would you say yes? To be werewolf married?” The siren waggled his eyebrows at you teasingly. “Or half-werewolf married? Half-werewolf half-married?”
“They really need to make like even a single MCS class mandatory in the Gen Ed requirements, because what the hell are you saying to me right now?”
“You know what I mean. Would you say yes?”
“I… need to talk to some other people, I think.” You turned your eyes downwards as you tried to really think about it.
“That wasn’t a no! Hell yeah! I’m so going to be Sungchan’s best man!”
You rolled your eyes. “You have no clue what you’re talking about.”
As you finished up your lunch, your mind wouldn’t stop turning over what Shotaro had said. If Sungchan had been serious, would you say yes? You knew from class what the bite meant to werewolves within packs, but did it mean the same thing to Sungchan since he was half-werewolf? Did that even make a difference? Not to mention that you weren’t any part werewolf, the exchanging of bites was supposed to be an entire ritual similar to a couple exchanging rings on their wedding day. You couldn’t exactly bite him back. And the couple online was already legally married anyway…
Well, you did know one other werewolf/human couple that you could talk to, at least. You quickly texted Jeno.
[you: hey, are you home right now?]
Miraculously, he texted back almost immediately.
[jeno: yeah, just got back from a run]
[jeno: why?]
[you: mind if i come over really quick? need some advice on something with sung]
[jeno: oh sure]
[jeno: everything okay? should i have tissues out…?]
[you: omg no like werewolf stuff]
[jeno: oh good]
[you: thanks though. be over in a few]
Standing up from the couch, you stood off to the side of the TV so you didn’t block Shotaro’s show as you announced, “I’ll be right back.”
The siren gave a thumbs up in acknowledgement as his focus remained on the screen. You nodded before hurrying to pull your shoes on. The last thing to do before leaving was shoot off a text to Sungchan.
[you: hey sung, i’ve got a quick errand to run. i should be back before you get home from class, but just in case i’m not, i’ll be coming right back to the apartment! love you!]
“Hey, Jeno, thanks for having me over on such short notice.” You offered your friend a nervous smile as you stepped into his apartment.
“I’m not your professor that you’re seeing outside of his office hours, Y/N,” he chuckled, shutting the door behind you. “Don’t worry about it. What’s up? You said it’s something about Sungchan?”
“Is your girlfriend here?” You looked around the living room as the two of you sat down.
Jeno tilted his head curiously. “No, she’s at the bakery this afternoon. Did you need her too?”
“Not necessarily, it’s just...” You dropped your head into your hands, frustrated. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Try to start at the beginning?”
“Right. Sung let me be with him on the last full moon.”
“Wow. I haven’t even done that.” Jeno sounded genuinely impressed.
“Well… Uhm, do you know? About Sung?”
He stared at you blankly. “Need you to be way more specific here. I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
You tried to pick your words carefully to give him enough of a hint if he did know without outright telling him if he didn’t know. You were sure that Sungchan wouldn’t mind if Jeno knew that he was half-werewolf, but you still didn’t feel like that was your place to go around telling people. “About his parents?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah.” Your friend nodded in recognition. “Half-werewolf, that’s why he was able to have you there, duh.”
“Anyway, when he was coming back out of the shift afterwards, he mentioned us... he mentioned the werewolf mating bite.”
His eyes widened as he took a short inhale before slowly starting with, “Well, I can tell that you two haven’t done that.”
“I figured. So, with Sung being half-werewolf, he’s been having a difficult time with the scenting. I think because he can smell it enough to notice it, but not as strongly as full werewolves...”
“He would have a higher threshold for scenting in order to register it, right. Hence your current attire, I’m guessing?” Jeno gestured to the large black leather jacket you were currently drowning in, which was much too hot for the sweltering summer heat that was still going on outside, but still a better option than the hoodie you had previously been in.
You gave a resigned, what-can-you-do smile. “Yeah. And he’s not going to say anything about it, but I know he’s going to be stressed when I see him after this and he can smell you and Jaemin.”
“Oh, definitely.” He snorted lightly, not judgmental, but more sympathetic. “Let me guess: he gets all needy and clingy? Likes to bury his face in your neck?”
“Exactly. And the cuddles would be nice but, I don’t know... I hate seeing him like this, you know? So... anxious. It’s not like him.” You sighed, beginning to feel more guilty the longer you stayed here and got wrapped up in the smells of other people.
“It’s the first time in his life the wolf side is in charge of him and not the other way around. He’s really understanding what it’s like being a full werewolf outside of the full moon, of course he’s not having a good time.”
“Is it like that for you? With her?”
“Kind of. I can smell everything better, so I can smell the subtler things. Without going into too much detail, all those instincts aren’t on edge for me as much as Sungchan’s are right now. And we also figured something else out.”
“Something else?” You asked curiously. Last time you saw Jeno’s girlfriend, you couldn’t remember her having a bite mark. But maybe there was something that hadn’t been covered in your classes. After all, several millennia of the cultures, histories, and customs of fourteen species just couldn’t be fit into one undergrad degree. Your bachelor’s was nothing more than a survey of the two fields, to give you the broad strokes and the tools to start wading in.
Jeno pulled on a leather cord that you hadn’t even noticed was hanging around his neck, bringing a pendant out from under his collar. It was a pale white stone, flat, the size of a coin, with opalescent flecks that caught the light as he showed it to you.
“Moonstone. We have matching ones. They’re even enchanted so that when I…” he wrapped his whole hand around the stone “…hold onto it a little tighter, it reacts, and she can feel hers warm up too. So she knows I’m thinking about her.”
“And it helps with your shifts. That’s really sweet, Jeno,” you said, watching as he tucked it back under his shirt, presumably to keep it in skin-to-skin contact so he could feel if she squeezed her gem back in response.
“But that’s what works for us. It needs to be whatever works for you guys.”
You looked down at your fingers nervously. “But you two haven’t even…”
“I haven’t bit her?” The werewolf said bluntly.
“Yeah, and you’ve been together for a lot longer than us.”
“We’re not you and Sungchan. We may have set you guys up, but we’re not you.”
“You set us up? What?” That little off-hand comment had stolen your focus for the moment.
Jeno’s brow furrowed. “Did you never get the full story of how you got sent on that first blind date with him?”
“I mean, Jaemin had shown me a picture of him from your Instagram account, and I knew that you two knew each other through your girlfriend. But no, I guess I never did get the whole story. Jaemin said something about a deal, I think…”
His wide eyes and ‘oh shit’ face said it all. With a wince, he sighed, “I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you this…”
“What? Jeno, come on,” you pleaded, clasping your hands together in front of you like you were kneeling at an altar.
“Ah, fine, fine.” He gave in easily, regret immediately coming to his features as you perked up, eager to hear the story. “We were all playing soccer one day and her—” he jerked his thumb at the empty space on the couch beside him that the both of you had both been vaguely referring to whenever you mentioned his girlfriend. “—and Sungchan made this bet. You see, something had happened at the park that day. There was another werewolf there, and he called my girlfriend something nasty. And Sungchan was saying that because of stuff like that, he wanted to just stick with dating other werewolves. He also kept saying something about love making my brain rot. It made sense in context. Sort of.”
You raised an eyebrow, but didn’t interrupt Jeno for fear that you’d get him off-track and lose your opportunity.
“Anyway, they made a bet that if she was on Sungchan’s team and did her best in the game against me, then Sungchan would let her set him up on one blind date with anybody, werewolf or not. And he wasn’t allowed to intentionally bomb it, he had to actually put in a genuine effort.”
“And I was that date…” You surmised, several pieces falling into place. Specifically, Jaemin and Donghyuck’s initial pitch of Sungchan to you.
“Jaemin suggested you, and we thought the two of you would be a good fit.”
You added humorously, “And I’m not a werewolf.”
“Well, yeah.” Jeno ducked his head sheepishly like he was a puppy that was afraid you were going to notice the shoes that he had chewed up behind him. “But we really did put a lot of thought into it, I swear. And then when we heard he made you walk out in ten minutes, we were actually going to make him go on another one because we thought that he had sabotaged his one with you.”
“Amazingly, no, I think that really was his best effort at the time.” You snickered.
“Now I feel like I have to apologize for subjecting you to him.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Anyway, he said he didn’t want to go on another date, he had to fix things with you first. She let up on him after that. Apparently believed his mind had been changed.”
“I don’t know how a ten-minute conversation where he practically accused me of being a werewolf fetishist for dating two werewolves, and I asked about his major and told him about my cheating ex could’ve possibly changed his mind but— Hey, look how far we’ve come.”
“And now you know the story of how you two ended up on that ten-minute, awful, terrible blind date that I almost wish we didn’t send you on now that I’ve heard what happened on it.”
“I’ve had worse dates.”
“But like I was saying. We—” he pointed between himself and the empty space proxy of his girlfriend “—are not you two. Just like in human relationships, the big steps happen at different times for everyone, there isn’t one right answer to when a werewolf couple take on each other’s bites. There’s even less of a blueprint for werewolf-human couples. So as far as I’m concerned, you and Sungchan? A half-werewolf and human couple? You two do whatever the hell you want. You’re unprecedented.”
“Unprecedented…” You repeated to yourself, drumming your fingers along your knee.
You and Jeno chatted for a few more minutes about this and that, but you soon decided that you’d have to be going. Sungchan had texted you the full sequence of finishing class, leaving campus, and arriving home while you’d been talking, and there was a pinch at your heart as you could imagine him getting more anxious with each passing minute that you weren’t there. And then there were the smells that you were going to have to deal with once you did return, too.
As Jeno walked you to the front door, your eyes drifted over to the kitchen, an idea popping into your head.
“Hey, Jeno? Can I have a glass of water?”
“Sung?” You called out into the seemingly empty apartment as you turned to close and lock the front door up. “I’m— oof!”
You were knocked off kilter by 186cm of werewolf, barely catching yourself against the door on your forearms to avoid bonking your forehead into it. Sungchan had his arms wrapped around your waist, already nosing around your hair and neck.
“Hi…” Sungchan said against your cheek, his tone apologetic. He got too excited, he didn’t mean to almost KO you like that.
Slowly, you reached over to finish flicking the deadbolt into the locked position. Then, you blindly stretched a hand back to pat him on the head. “Hey, hey.” You kept your voice calm and soothing.
He was getting down to the collar of the shirt you were wearing—one of his t-shirts, and you could feel him shifting to hold you tighter. He’d definitely noticed something was off.
“You know, I’m really sorry, Sung,” you began, turning your tone mournful and looking down at the wet patch on the front of your shirt. “I know this is your shirt, I feel really bad about this, but I spilled water on myself while I was out. Do you think I can throw this one in your wash here and borrow a new one?”
He immediately perked up at this, “Yeah, of course!”
You smiled. “Thanks.”
Success.
After your dinner and night out together in downtown, you ended up back in Sungchan’s room, fitted in your new crewneck sweater—this one for a concert he’d gone to last year. You were reclined between his legs against his chest as you half-watched him game, half-scrolled on your phone, and half-snoozed. You’d been playing the game in multi-player mode with him earlier but put your controller aside some time ago when you’d let out a couple loud yawns. Ruminating thoughts of your conversation with Jeno had kept you from fully falling asleep, though.
“Sung?” You waited for a pause on a loading screen to call for his attention.
“Mm?” He hummed back to let you know he was listening, even as the new map loaded in. He hadn’t moved his character yet, fingers frozen as they hovered over the buttons.
“Can we talk for a second?”
“Of course.” Your boyfriend quickly saved and exited the game, setting the controller beside yours on the nightstand.
He wrapped his arms around your waist to pull you tighter to him, resting his chin on your shoulder as he waited attentively for you to start with whatever you needed to talk about. You could hear him take a pause to sniff the air around you, and a small, disgruntled sound came from the back of his throat almost immediately.
“Face-to-face?” You requested quietly.
“Right, sorry.”
He loosened his arms, reluctantly letting them fall from around you.
Pushing yourself up off his legs into a full sitting position, you turned around in place, still finding yourself between his thighs. He straightened up a little bit from his spot against the headboard.
You reached out to take his hands in yours. “This is something that really stresses you out, isn’t it? The smells?”
“It’s… I can’t put my finger on it. It’s like…” He took one of his hands back to run his fingers through his hair, and your chest hurt to see the distress on his features. “Imagine being able to constantly see something right in the corner of your eye, but when you turn your head, you can’t actually look at it. You know it’s there, but you can never actually get a proper look. Humans never know it’s there, and werewolves get to look at it head-on. But I don’t get either. It’s terrible.”
“Ah, Sung… That sounds awful, baby.” You grimaced sympathetically, unable to imagine how wound up and panicky he must be all the time. You just wanted to cut this conversation short right now to wrap your arms around him, rub his back and tell him you were never going to leave him again. But for right now, all you could do was squeeze his hand tighter, and hope he got the message.
“I know that sometimes you smell right and sometimes you don’t. But I don’t know why, usually. And it’s not like you smell bad like you need a shower or anything. But like… ah, I can’t describe it.” He groaned, rubbing his face. “I don’t even know what I’m smelling all the time. But it’s just—”
“Not right. I get it, that made sense. And it’s better when I wear your clothes, or spend time with you? Here?”
“I’m sorry…” He said weakly.
“Woah, hey, where in there was I asking for an apology? I’m trying to figure this out together, okay? Not make you feel bad for being unable to turn your nose off. I don’t like that you’re this stressed all the time, you know?”
“In my normal, thinking brain I know you should—and I want you to—be able to wear whatever clothes you want to wear. And I’m glad that you’re spending time with your friends, and I want to go wherever you want to go, whether that’s out somewhere, or to your place. I loved our date night out tonight. It’s not those actual things that bother me at all, it’s just that you smell different.”
“I know, I know.” You reassured him, continuing to hold his hand and gently rubbing his forearm with your free hand. “So maybe there’s something more permanent we can do to help you with the smells?”
Sungchan met your gaze uncertainly. “Permanent?”
“You mentioned it after your last shift. Me taking your bite. I found one other half-werewolf/human couple who did it, online, and they said it helped with the scent anxiety.”
“Y/N…” He breathed your name out.
“I understand if you’re not ready for it. I know it’s a really big step for werewolves. But I had to put it out there, if there’s any possibility that it’ll help.”
“This is not how I imagined this conversation going at all.”
“What?”
“The human reassuring the werewolf that it’s okay if the werewolf isn’t ready for a mating bite yet.” He laughed, throwing his head back. “Oh my god. We really are one-of-a-kind, huh?”
You couldn’t help but chuckle too. “When you put it like that, that is pretty funny. You thought you were going to have to convince me, huh?”
“I wasn’t going to badger you into it if you didn’t want it, that’s for sure. But I mean, I didn’t bring it up again after my last shift because I wanted to do it more… I don’t know, romantically than being a sweaty, exhausted, slurring mess in your lap. I just hadn’t figured out how to do that yet because I’ve been too focused on spending every spare second I can with you.”
“I thought you were a very cute sweaty, exhausted, slurring mess when you asked me last time,” you giggled.
“Right, thanks.”
“So, do you want to do it, then?”
“Aren’t I supposed to be asking you that?”
Jeno’s words came back to you: You two do whatever the hell you want. You’re unprecedented.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to be doing anything any specific way, Sung. We just do it. But if you want to ask me, go for it.” You smiled at him encouragingly. After a few beats of silence, though, you pinched his thigh teasingly, “I’m waiting.”
“What—Right now? Really putting me on the spot.” Sungchan rubbed the back of his neck nervously.
“Well when else—”
“No, I’ve got it.” He squared his shoulders, face turning serious as he turned his eyes to you. Briefly kissing the back of your fingers first, he began, his voice much shakier than you had expected, “Y/N, I’m ready to give you my mating bite, if you will accept it. But I don’t want it to just be me biting you. I-I want you to do whatever you need to do to make it feel complete to you, too. Since you can’t give me one back. If that’s okay with you?”
Despite you (mostly) knowing what was coming, you still unexpectedly found yourself tearing up as you went to nod your head yes. “Of course, Sung. That’d be perfect, yes. You’ll have to give me some time to figure it out, but yes, I love that.”
“I love you.”
You stood up on your knees to wrap your arms around his neck, giving him a quick kiss before burying your face in his collar. “I love you, too.”
Sungchan hugged you back tightly, pulling you back with him into almost the same position as before, with you against his chest. He pressed kisses to any part of you that he could access, your cheek, your jaw, your neck, your ear. You turned your head enough so that the next one he could plant on your lips, a sweet, loving kiss.
“Ah…” He sighed, his eyes squeezed shut, a bright smile on his face.
“What?” You traced over the smile lines at the corner of his eye.
He was almost nose-to-nose with you when his beautiful brown eyes were open again. Looking at you, he admitted freely, “I’m just… so happy.”
“Me too.” You beamed.
“And I can’t believe I almost let myself miss out on this, on you, so many times.”
“Let’s see… the night we actually got together.” You teased, ticking the instances off on your fingers.
“Mm-hm.” A pink flush was starting to creep up Sungchan’s neck.
“Valentine’s Day at the boba shop. Which you owe me emotional damages for, by the way.”
“Yeah. Sorry…” The pink had overtaken his neck and was starting to flush his cheeks.
“Our first date.”
Completely red-faced, he nodded and sighed. “Like I said, I’m just happy that—”
“Oh, and the bet.”
“Huh?” He was entirely frozen, staring at you with wide, unblinking eyes.
“I saw Jeno today,” you stated.
“Yes, I did smell him when you came home.”
“I finally got the full story of how you ended up on our blind date, Sung.”
“Listen, I am a proud member of the Love-Rotten Brains Club now.” He tightened his arms around you and nuzzled his nose along your cheek and neck as he spoke, making his lips brush over your skin in ghosts of kisses. “I’m the president and the whole board and the social media intern and whatever else. Never have I ever been more proud of being wrong. I’ll say it every day for the rest of our lives.”
“Ah!” You squirmed and laughed as he was over a ticklish spot. “Alright, you don’t have to do that. But I’m glad they pushed you out of your comfort zone.”
Sungchan let up, allowing you to simply rest your head in the crook of his neck.
“To my credit, I was the one who offered the terms of that bet in the first place.”
“Really? You had to know that they were definitely going to set you up with someone who was not a werewolf, right?”
“I knew. I figured I could make polite small talk for an hour and be done with my end.”
You couldn’t help but laugh loudly, from the gut. “Oh, baby, if polite small talk was your goal, then you failed miserably.”
“Yes, I’m aware,” he said remorsefully.
“Now, I’ve got to know.” You poked his chest pointedly. “Everyone seems convinced that you were like, in love with me and a changed man from that one plane crash of a conversation. Shotaro says that you kept walking around talking about how you wanted to apologize to me for weeks after. Jeno and his girlfriend didn’t set you up on another date despite you not really holding up your end because she was content that you had changed your mind. So?”
Sungchan’s chest rose and fell under you with a deep breath, and he took a pause as if piecing together his thoughts before responding. “Even if we didn’t end up meeting again, I think that date with you was always going to be an important lesson for me, about getting my head out of my ass. I’m just glad I got to take what I learned back to you and apologize and show you that. Like, yeah, our first date was only a few minutes, but I kind of hate to admit that I thought about it for weeks afterwards, because that sounds like weirdo behavior. I mean, literally until the night we saw each other at the boba place. It’s not that it was even romantic at that point, it was more guilt than anything else. I knew I was in the wrong, and I felt awful that I might not be able to tell you that I knew that.”
“I’m glad you found me again at the boba shop. Not a lot of guys would’ve had the guts to actually apologize. Probably would’ve grabbed their drink and ran. Or ran as soon as they saw me and not even ordered.”
“I just wish I had the guts to actually ask you out that night.”
“Me too. But I’m not entirely blameless either. The start of our relationship isn’t a weight that falls solely on your shoulders just because you’re the guy, or the werewolf, or whatever.” You shrugged. “And we figured it out eventually anyway.”
“Yeah, we did.” Sungchan pressed a kiss to your forehead.
Stopping in front of a familiar red brick townhouse, you ran up the couple short steps to knock on the front door before you could psych yourself out. You and Sungchan had decided to go through with the mating bite after the next full moon in one week, which was a couple days after the end of the summer semester. It gave him time to focus on his finals, and fell in the two-week break between the summer semester ending and the fall semester starting. This was going to be your last year as undergraduates, both you and Sungchan were graduating in the spring. You could hardly believe that you only had two more semesters left of your bachelor’s degree. And then you had grad school.
But right now, you had this: The front door being opened to reveal Mr. Jung to you, a smile immediately crossing his face as he recognized you. Even behind the glasses perched on his nose, you could easily see Sungchan in his features.
“Hi, Mr. Jung,” you greeted him politely.
“Oh, hey, Y/N.” He tucked the pen that was in his hand behind his ear. “Here to see Jieun?”
“Uh, no. Sorry to just drop in, but I wanted to talk to you about something, actually. Do you have time for some tea?”
He backed up, waving you in. “Sure, of course. Come on in.”
“Thank you.” You walked in with a grateful head dip, taking your denim Jasmine & Pearls baseball cap off as you passed over the threshold of the front door.
“Sungchan’s got a hat just like that,” Mr. Jung commented, leading you further into the home. “Or is that one his?”
“Oh, we actually won them in a game at the boba shop that Shotaro works at. We each have our own.” You looked over the purple embroidered logo fondly. “It’s kind of how we met. The second time.”
“Right, the boba tea place that Shotaro works at…” He echoed, recognition in his tone.
You followed Mr. Jung upstairs, which you didn’t get to see the last time you’d been over for dinner. He led you into a room with wallpaper depicting cartoon spaceships, planets, moons, and stars. The ceiling was covered in glow in the dark stars, and even the curtains were embroidered with star maps. The furniture itself was set up to be an adult’s home office, though, despite the shell having clearly been a child’s bedroom. There were still some shelves on the wall with trophies from science fairs and sports teams.
“Sorry, Jieun doesn’t drink tea, and the electric kettle in the kitchen is busted.” Mr. Jung half-explained why he’d brought you in here, another electric kettle in his hand. “Give me a second, I need to fill this up.”
“Of course,” you nodded, not entirely paying attention to what he was saying. Truly, you were still looking around at what was obviously Sungchan’s childhood bedroom.
Any kids’ furniture was gone and replaced with a desk, laptop, two chairs, and a printer. But you didn’t mind, as you leaned in to read the little engravings on his science fair trophies, and from his soccer teams, and baseball teams, and spelling bees, and mathletes competitions—god, you were dating a mathlete? He’d failed to mention that. There was a picture that looked like it was from a field trip from primary school, of his whole class in front of a space shuttle at the closest space and natural history museum. You squinted your eyes as you studied the picture, trying to figure out which one was your boyfriend.
“Sungchan’s the really tall one that you probably thought was a teacher’s helper,” Mr. Jung said humorously, announcing his return.
You turned around, the picture still in your hand, and your eyes immediately landed on the child he was referring to. Gangly, awkward, nearly a head taller than the rest of the kids, but still smiling so brightly—his crooked smile gap-toothed at that moment in time—because he was just so, so excited to be there.
“Ah, yep. There he is,” you smiled fondly, setting the picture back down.
“He gets his height from Jieun’s father. In case you were curious.”
Mr. Jung set the kettle back on its stand on the desk and started heating it up. He cleared a huge stack of papers off a second chair that was next to the desk, then gestured for you to sit. You did so, watching him take down a couple mugs from the shelves over his desk, and pull open the top drawer to root around in it.
“Jasmine?” He asked.
“That sounds lovely, thank you.”
He took out one tin, right as the kettle made a small ding to let him know the water was ready. Mr. Jung poured the water into both mugs first, then took out a couple small, empty pouches. He measured out the loose jasmine tea into each before sealing them and dropping them in the water.
“I figured you would’ve wanted to talk to Jieun about the bite,” he said as he handed you your cup. “Also, let me know if you want some honey for that.”
“I’m good on the honey, thanks,” you smiled awkwardly. “So he told you already.”
The other human eased himself down into the office chair in front of you. “Yes, Sungchan’s been keeping us appraised. He was nervous to tell us at first, since you two haven’t been together very long.”
“Well, yes—”
“It’s okay, Y/N. It’s a decision for you and Sungchan to make, not his parents.”
That put you at ease again. “Thank you.”
“And it did make Jieun laugh when she heard that you were the one who did the mating bite talk with him. She likes you a lot. We both do.”
“Oh, thanks…”
“So why did you want to see me? I’m always happy to have some tea with you, but it sounded like you came with a purpose.”
“I wanted to ask about what it’s like? Taking a werewolf’s mating bite as a human?” You plunged into the conversation head-first. “The only other werewolf/human couple we know hasn’t done it, so I don’t really have a point of reference. Like, in class, I’ve learned about the sociocultural importance of it within werewolf packs for mated werewolf couples, but… Sung and I are a bit different, you know?”
Mr. Jung nodded thoughtfully. “I can tell you what my personal experience is, sure. It may be different for you since Sungchan is half-werewolf.”
“Right, of course.” You sat forward, interested. Blowing over your tea, you took your first sip, the lightness of the jasmine dancing across your tongue.
“The biting itself hurts at first. If we were werewolves, my understanding is that it’s nearly painless since their bodies are prepared for it. Humans, not so much.” He rubbed at his mark absentmindedly. “So it will hurt, which I’m sure my son will feel awful about. The shoulder will be a little sore for maybe half an hour or so after, but he won’t even draw blood. And it heals very fast, too. Then you’ll be left with the mark. Werewolves who receive bites have something happen biologically in them with pheromones or something. Again, we don’t have that going on. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t be meaningful for you at all. That meaning will just manifest differently, I’m sure.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jung. That was really informative.” You took another drink of your tea.
“Of course. And you know that it’s not a one and done, right?” He warned.
You let out a half-chuckle. “I do know that, yes.”
“Again, I don’t know how much it’ll vary since Sungchan is half-human, but the bite will need to be refreshed more often than if you were both werewolves. My guess would be even more frequently than if he were a full werewolf, but that’s just purely speculation.”
“That would make sense. Thanks for the heads up.” You said, watching the metal of his wedding band glint as he lifted his mug to his mouth. “Can I ask… when did you take your wife’s bite?”
Mr. Jung sighed, a bittersweet sort of smile coming to his face. “It was before we were married. We’d been dating for some time at that point, a couple years. When we first got together, there were some… vocally unhappy members of her pack, but they did quiet down after a while. However, I think they hadn’t expected us to last so long, or that Jieun was just going through a phase or something. After a while they started pressuring Jieun to break up with me and date within her pack— or at least another werewolf. We’d discussed the bite once or twice before, and she thought that if I took it on, it would make everyone leave us alone; that we’d look like any other mated pair of werewolves. It ended up doing the opposite. It was way too far in the eyes of Jieun’s pack. I already knew at that point that I was going to spend the rest of my life with her, so from there we eloped, settled down here, eventually had Sungchan a few years later.”
“And you all… have you spoken to her pack again since?”
“No. Unfortunately Sungchan has never been able to meet his family on that side. I suggested it to Jieun when she was pregnant, but she looked me in the eye and asked me if her pack reacted that way just to us being together, then could I imagine what sort of awful things they might think of our child? And would I want to put our baby through that just for some romanticized idea of family? I never brought it up again.”
“What about your family?”
There was no more bitterness in his smile anymore, just pure love and fondness. “They’ve been incredible. Never looked at Jieun or Sungchan as anything other than family. I know Sungchan would probably rather have the pack but—”
“What do you mean?” You couldn’t help but blurt out, furrowing your brow in confusion.
“I know he doesn’t tell people he’s half-human. And really, it’s alright. I get it, being a human isn’t anything to brag about.” Mr. Jung sounded like he really had come to terms with that, that his son would rather not tell people about his dad, about where he came from. Which wasn’t even true.
“That’s not why he tells people he’s only a werewolf. He’s not ashamed of you, or of what he is, on either side. He loves you, a lot. He does that because if he tells people that he’s half-human half-werewolf up front, they take it as a free pass to ask him weird questions.”
The man’s face relaxed, and he nodded his head in acknowledgement. “I never realized that. Thank you, Y/N.”
“And I mean, you didn’t need me to tell you that. Just look around you. It’s not like he’s exactly got wallpaper of spreadsheets and supply/demand graphs in here, right?”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth at that. “You’re right. It’s… comforting, though, to have outside confirmation.”
“I know, I get it.”
Mr. Jung gazed past you, out the window behind your head wistfully, taking another sip of his tea. “Growing up how he did… we—Jieun and I—were worried about him for a while, you know.”
“Worried how?”
“Well, that he’d spend so much time trying to protect himself from what our life was like, that he wouldn’t actually be looking for what he wanted.” Mr. Jung’s eyes focused back on yours then, and he smiled at you. “But as soon as he brought you home, we knew we could rest easy.”
“Because I’m human?”
“No, no,” he shook his head, lifting his mug to take another relaxed sip of his tea. “We would’ve loved you if you were human, werewolf, fairy, dragon, anything.”
“I’m sorry but… I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“When he was in high school… he and his mom used to get into fights. Teenager hormones, half-werewolf teenager hormones… it was a lot. I know the fact that he was the only half-werewolf at his school, and the only werewolf not in a pack, too, didn’t help either. A lot of it was Sungchan not understanding his mother’s choices, either about leaving her pack, or dating a human in the first place, or not going back to the pack, or whatever else he decided she’d done wrong that day. He’d pretty much always declare that he’d make the ‘better choice.’” Mr. Jung put air-quotes around the last two words. “You know, have a werewolf partner so that his family wouldn’t get harassed, join his future partner’s pack, things like that. Sungchan mellowed out a bit more after he started college, and they started properly getting along again once he moved out last year.”
That mostly lined up with what Jeno had told you about his conversation with Sungchan at the park, his previous policy to only date other werewolves. You frowned thoughtfully, taking a long, slow drink of tea.
“Seeing how Sungchan is with you… he’s not hiding from anything,” he finished fondly.
“I’m sorry I was so dismissive before, Mr. Jung,” you finally said, your voice quiet and contemplative. “When you were talking about Sungchan not telling people he’s half-human. I jumped in completely forgetting that you’ve known him for his whole life… and there could’ve been a lot more reasons why you would’ve thought he was ashamed to be human.”
“Hey, Y/N.” Mr. Jung put his tea down on the desk, perching on the front of his seat to gently place a hand on your forearm. “It’s okay, really. For one, I know you meant well. And two, we know Sungchan very differently. Obviously, yes, I’ve known him his whole life, but you were lucky enough to meet him now, when he has some stuff already kind of figured out. And I’m very glad you did. Because trust me, you should not have met Sungchan in high school. I love my son, I’ve always loved him, but I definitely do not think that if you two had met in high school, you and I would be sharing a cup of tea right now.”
You couldn’t help but giggle at that, thinking not only of the high school version of Sungchan that had just been recollected to you by Mr. Jung, but also of yourself in high school, who honestly wasn’t any more put together. “Yeah… I don’t talk to any of my high school boyfriends anymore. Saw one of their moms at the grocery store last week actually, and she still recognized me, gave me a nasty look, and blocked the aisle with her shopping cart so I couldn’t get by her. I dated her son almost five years ago now, I think?”
The other human laughed, giving your arm a couple pats before taking his hand away and reclining back in his desk chair again. “Not to mention, if we both had known him his entire life, then I wouldn’t get to tell you any of the fun stories about him as a kid. Has he told you he was a mathlete?”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“Team captain junior and senior year. They were semi-finalists both years he was captain and even won the State series his senior year.”
“Did he have like a little dweebus uniform or something?”
“Polo shirt, khaki cargo shorts, the whole nine.”
“Please tell me you have pictures.”
“Oh yeah, him and Shotaro.”
“Taro too?!”
[you: attached image]
[you: attached image]
[taro: HOW DID YOU GET THOSE?????????]
[taro: WHAT THE HELL I MADE SUNGCHAN PROMISE ME THOSE WOULD NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY AGAIN]
[you: did you make Mr. Jung promise you though?]
[taro: does sungchan know that you’re getting blackmail material from your new bestie, HIS DAD??]
[you: what do you mean blackmail material?? personally, i think you look SO cute in those pictures in your little mathletes uniform]
[you: i didn’t even know sirens could need glasses and braces]
[you: wait does this mean you wear contacts??? i feel like it’s illegal to know this]
[taro: it is, now i have to kill you]
[you: ooooohh, wait till i tell sung]
[taro: not if i drown you first]
[you: you can’t kill me, i know where Mr. Jung keeps the mathletes photos]
[taro: damn it]
[you: and the ones from your first school dance]
[taro: DOES THIS MAN JUST HAVE A SHOEBOX LABELED “OSAKI SHOTARO BLACKMAIL MATERIAL” OR SOMETHING WHAT THE FUCK]
[you: no it’s labeled “jung sungchan blackmail material” actually but you just happen to be in a lot of the pictures too]
[taro: wait for real?]
[you: no, dumbass, he’s sungchan’s dad, of course he’s going to have a lot of old photos of his son and by extension, his son’s friends]
[taro: don’t get a guy’s hopes up like that, damn]
[taro: alright come on, let me see the bad pics you got of sungchan now]
[you: noooo, they’re not bad, they’re actually really cute 🥹🥹]
[you: attached images(+5)]
[you: like just LOOK at my little guy 🥹 he was so little and cute]
[taro: the FUCK are you talking about]
[taro: he’s clearly like 20cm taller than me and everyone else INCLUDING THE TEACHER SPONSOR]
[you: yeah, and he’s JUST a little guy, so little and cute]
[you: i wouldn’t expect you to get it, taro…………sigh]
[taro: attached image]
[taro: THIS IS YOUR MANS????]
[you: WELL WHEN YOU ZOOM IN ON ANYBODY’S FACE LIKE THAT OF COURSE IT’LL LOOK A BIT OFF]
[taro: the favoritism is so real right now]
[you: i’m so tired of your dramatic ass like what fucking “favoritism” 😭😭 of course i like sung better he’s my boyfriend]
[taro: and??]
[you: you’re not??? the fuck you mean “and??”]
[taro: and i think a good friend should be fair and impartial]
[you: i came here to name and shame you to your face, not to be fair and impartial i don’t know how you could’ve been under any other impression]
[taro: i’m so telling sungchan about this]
[you: don’t forget to leave in the part where i called him cute and you intentionally manipulated a picture of him to make him look worse]
[taro: i regret ever setting you two up]
[you: actually jeno and them did it first]
[taro: and i should’ve left you two crashed and burned and SINGLE where i found you]
[you: love you taro 🫶]
[taro: nice try demon that lives in my apartment and doesn’t pay rent 🫶🫶🫶]
[you: SUNGCHAN DOESN’T LET ME WHEN I TRY TO CHIP IN FOR HOW MUCH I’M OVER THERE I SWEAR]
[taro: i figured, which is why i don’t let him pay more than his half either]
[you: then why are you being mean to me about it 🥺]
[taro: do you feel bad enough that you’ll delete those mathlete photos off your phone now?]
[you: nice try demon that i’m never paying rent to 🫶🫶🫶]
Pushing open the door to the next shop on this street, you were pleasantly surprised by the calm, quaint atmosphere that you were greeted by. The bright red and gold pillars outside of the toy and watch shop had suggested otherwise, but inside of it were a few display cases filled with watches and other pieces of jewelry, while the other half of the shop had shelves upon shelves of toys. Every item in the store seemed handmade, and even to your untrained eye, you could tell that several had magical properties. A girl about your age was behind one of the watch and jewelry counters towards the front of the store, which also had the register on it. She was fiddling with an open watch, and you watched as she readjusted the light of the lamp above her with just a flick of her wrist—not touching a single button or switch on the device. All the jewelry and other accessories she was wearing already made you think she might’ve been a witch, but that just locked it in for you.
Some music played throughout the store, though you couldn’t quite tell where it was coming from, as there were no visible speakers on the ceiling or elsewhere. Briefly dragging your eyes over the display cases as you strolled up towards the employee, you spotted quite a few watches, of course, as well as necklaces, rings, earrings, and small trinkets. But nothing that quite stuck out to you as what you were looking for.
The witch perked up as you came to a stop in front of her, setting her tiny tools down on the small rag alongside the watch pieces. “Hi! Welcome in. Is there something I can help you with?”
“This is a magical kind of shop, right?” You asked curiously. Apothecaries usually stuck out as such, but having a witch and a couple things that glowed didn’t guarantee anything.
“Yep! This place is ran by my coven!” She told you proudly. “We make everything in here by hand in the back, fine tune the mechanics and the magic ourselves. Are you looking for any particular kind of magic thing?”
“Yes, well, sort of…” You trailed off sheepishly. “I’m kind of gift shopping right now.”
“What’s the occasion?”
After a split-second internal debate, you figured this witch had probably dealt with weirder, and you would definitely need her insight and experience when it came to the magical properties of all of the options in front of you.
“My boyfriend is giving me his mating bite in a few days, but I don’t want to show up empty-handed, you know?” You scratched at the back of your neck. “Like, it’s not an engagement-level thing for us, but it’s still big, and I want to be able to give him something too…”
She didn’t seem thrown off in the slightest, instead seeming to ponder this for a moment, tapping her chin, before her features lit up, and she slid over to the other end of the display case. You followed her down.
“Now, I’m guessing you already know about moonstone—” She explained, pulling out a small display of rings. “Helps their shifts.”
You nodded as you looked over the many rings inlaid with opalescent stones like the one on Jeno’s necklace. “Yeah. And, I mean, his aren’t that bad. Just sort of… disorienting and confusing. Though I hate how sickly he gets the day or so after.”
The witch gave you an intrigued look. “He’s… half-werewolf?”
Darting your eyes back up to her, you wondered which part of what you just said had given it away. The less intense shift? The ‘sickly’ bit?
“And half-human?” She took your silence as an apparent cue to finish her guess.
You slowly nodded.
Immediately, the rings were whisked away from under your nose. She was practically alight with excitement as she flitted over to a completely different display case, grabbing just one singular piece from there and bringing it back over to you. It was another ring, a thick silver band of one width, with no obvious gem settings or other such features.
“So, you wouldn’t really be worried about the shift itself, then. Or, at least not the pain part, which is really what the moonstone helps werewolves with. Easing the transition into and during the shift.” The employee rambled enthusiastically. “The symptoms that he really has a problem with are about getting back into balance after. Since he’s half-human, his body has to work a lot harder to return to homeostasis after an ordeal like a werewolf shift.”
“He’s said something about that before. Homeostasis.”
“Then what you really want is something like this—” She offered the ring out for you to take, depositing it onto your palm. You curiously looked it over closer. “Instead of moonstone, like most things designed for werewolves, this has concentrated moonflower essence in the chamber that makes up most of the band.”
You tilted the ring and could in fact see a small amount of mostly clear, but shimmery iridescent cobalt blue liquid shift around in the light. The container that held the liquid must have been incredibly thin to fit along the ring whilst adding negligible bulk.
Moonflower was of course familiar to you from Magical Botany Club. While the plant itself wasn’t magical, it had a slew of magical applications, and could be distilled down to a magical essence. Much like moonstone, which also wasn’t in and of itself magical, it had an effect on magical beings that were also tied to the moon, most notably, werewolves. Moonflower paste was a common ingredient in traditional werewolf medicine, and even in modern pharmaceuticals, many medications with different formulations for werewolves—or formulated to treat diseases that only werewolves got—often had ingredients derived from the moonflower. In addition to healing properties, the smell tended to have a calming effect on them as well, both in and out of their shifts (unlike moonstone, which exclusively aided their shifts).
You had a moonflower plant in your own apartment, which had been useless for any werewolf purposes as of late with Sungchan never coming over, but hopefully it wouldn’t be that way for long. It had been slightly altered so that it would be suited to growing indoors; moonflower was typically a vine, which was difficult to keep in a one-bedroom apartment with limited balcony space, so after a little bit of help from Jaemin, your moonflower grew as a cute little potted bush instead.
But there was still one more feature on the ring that hadn’t been explained to you. A single, silver, almost-circle on one side of the outside of the ring, entirely flush with the top of the container that held the moonflower essence. The outline of the rest of the circle was there, but it wasn’t quite filled in all the way, a small crescent of darkness keeping the silver from being whole.
“And this?” You gestured to the symbol.
“Tracks the lunar cycle. Waxing gibbous, we’re just a couple days away from the full moon. He probably instinctually knows what phase of the moon it is, but it doesn’t hurt to have an extra reminder.”
Turning the ring over in your hand again, you found yourself nodding and smiling. “Yeah. This is perfect.”
“And you said it’s happening in a few days? So after the full moon, right?”
“Oh, uhm, yes.”
“We could totally make another by then, if you wanted a matching set,” she offered.
“Really? So quick?”
“A lot of the initial process is the R&D,” the witch explained with a laugh. “But we already know how to make this one, it’ll be easy. Promise.”
You thought this over for a moment. After telling so many people that it wasn’t marriage or engagement, getting matching rings… But the whole point of exchanging mating bites in the first place was to match. Well, almost, since no two werewolves would have the same bite. To coordinate. To give each other your own version of the same thing. Your own version of the same thing.
“Do you think you could make it without the chamber with the moonflower essence, actually?” You asked. “Like, still with the lunar tracker. Just the main band and the little part that tracks the lunar cycle.”
She lit up. “Absolutely! Should be even quicker, actually. Probably have that done by the end of business tomorrow, morning after tomorrow at the latest.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah! Say the word and I’ll start as soon as you leave.”
“Yes, please!”
Sungchan hadn’t let go of you once since you arrived at his apartment the evening that you were to be receiving his bite. Either with an arm around your waist, pressed up against your back, or holding your hand. Shotaro had already vacated the premises by the time you’d gotten there, a half-excuse of him staying at Jisung and Chenle’s place tonight being given by the werewolf when you asked.
The two of you ate dinner first. He wanted to feed you, making sure you had eaten and were hydrated before. You were finally taking your class on werewolves this looming fall semester, and had already bought and read ahead in the textbook for it. Specifically, you’d lost count of the amount of times that you’d read and re-read the sections on mating bites, mating bite rituals, and anything else that you could imagine would be relevant to your current predicament.
For mated werewolf couples in packs who were going through the actual ritual, the first step was to usually share a meal consisting of raw meat—fresh kill. Neither you nor Sungchan could or would actually eat that, so you just had a hearty serving of your favorite takeout orders.
Sungchan didn’t even let you sit in your own chair, having insistently pulled you into his lap right at their kitchen table, lifting bite after bite of food to your mouth, always sure to follow it up with your slowly draining glass of water. You were mindful of him, too, making sure he didn’t ignore his half-werewolf appetite in his concern over you.
“‘M full, Sung…” You murmured, gently covering his hand with yours to maneuver the food towards his mouth instead.
He frowned thoughtfully, not parting his lips even as you bumped the spoon against them, looking like a very serious toddler who wasn’t enjoying the game of airplane being played at the moment. “You sure?”
“Yeah, promise.” You nodded with a smile. “It was delicious, and I’m all done. You took good care of me, Sung. Can you let me finish taking care of you, now?”
Your boyfriend’s features softened at that, and he parted his mouth, letting you feed him the spoonful. He happily chewed and swallowed, looking especially blissed out as you gently scratched his scalp with your free hand. In between continuing to feed Sungchan, you finished off your water, and made sure he drank his as well.
Finally, he too declared that he was done eating. Curled up in your boyfriend’s embrace, with a full belly and a full heart, you could’ve almost thought that this was any normal night; nearly forgotten what was going to come next. Nearly.
Sungchan took you to his room next, which wasn’t really necessary, since you had the whole apartment to yourselves. He held you to him with an arm around your waist as he shut the door behind you two. You raised an eyebrow when you heard the door lock.
He buried his face in your neck, wrapping both arms around you now as he half-growled, “Smells like Shotaro out there…”
“Locking the door to keep the smells out…” You hummed in amusement, leaning your head on his shoulder and resting your weight back against him. You decided not to outright point out the flaw in logic there, nor the fact that the two of you could’ve also done this at your place, where there was no smells of Shotaro or anybody else, just you. But of course, you figured it needed to be here because it smelled like Sungchan. It had been so long since Sungchan had been to your home that you were doubtful even a full werewolf would be able to catch a trace of him.
He lifted his head and breathed in like he was about to say something, but you just pulled his arms tighter around you and reassured him, “It’s perfect, Sung. Our own little space. Just you and me.”
Dropping his cheek back down to your shoulder, Sungchan let out a long but shaky breath. Putting your hands over his, your slotted your fingers with your boyfriend’s.
“Sung? Baby? Everything okay?” You asked.
“I just can’t believe we’re doing this…”
“Hey, if you’re not ready for this, we can stop. If you don’t want to do it, that’s okay.”
“No, I want to,” he said, a hard edge to his voice. He coughed, his voice softening again but sounding a little strained as he continued, “Really. I mean… I can’t believe I’m doing this with you. I seriously thought I’d royally fucked things up forever. Multiple times.”
“Well, you didn’t,” you told him strongly. “Now, can I go first?”
“You… go first?” He repeated, confusion coloring his voice so clearly. Apparently, he’d forgotten that you’d be doing more than just getting bitten tonight.
“Aw, I would love to, thanks, Sung,” you tittered jokingly, patting his cheek. “Close your eyes, please?”
He chuckled, and a beat later, announced, “Okay, they’re closed.”
You craned your neck just the slightest to be able to peer at him out of the corner of your vision, seeing that he was in fact squeezing his eyes shut tightly. Reaching into your pocket, you retrieved the small pouch that you’d picked up from the coven’s shop this morning. You shook out the two rings inside into your palm, and put yours on your left middle finger first, a simple silver band with the lunar indicator welded into it. It looked almost like a full moon, but you could see just the faintest strip of black showing that it was actually beginning to wane. Next, you gently put the other on Sungchan’s right ring finger, his with a faint shimmer of the moonflower essence.
Holding the side of his head to press a soft kiss to his cheek, you declared, “Done. You can open your eyes.”
He did so, immediately holding up his hand to inspect what you’d done to it. As he looked over the new jewelry, you explained, “It has moonflower essence, all around the band. And the moon design on it will actually change with the phases of the real moon.”
“Thank you, Y/N. It’s beautiful,” he picked up your left hand, bringing it up towards his face that was still hooked over your shoulder—presumably to kiss the back of it—but stopped short as he seemed to have noticed your new accessory as well. His fingers turned your silver band until he could get a good look at the lunar tracker that matched his.
“I got one too,” you added, skin turning warmer and starting to prickle the longer he went without saying anything. “It’s a lot prettier than those phone apps that track the lunar cycle, right?”
Then Sungchan was turning you around by the hips. He grabbed your face with two hands to kiss you, and you got on your tiptoes to wrap your arms around his neck, eagerly kissing him back. You could feel the cool band of his new ring pressing against your cheek, warming up with every passing second from yours and Sungchan’s bodies.
Breaking the kiss, he reached behind his neck for your left hand with his right, bringing them both down to rest over his chest. He pressed your palm against him firmly, and you could feel his heart beating under your touch.
“I love you so much, Y/N,” he said quietly, earnestly, his voice cracking over your name. “So much… that it doesn’t feel real sometimes.”
“What do you mean, Sung?”
“Like, one person shouldn’t be able to have this much love in their body. Or at least, I shouldn’t.”
“What?” You let out a breathy chuckle. “That’s what so beautiful about love, there can only be more of it, it’s infinite. Of course you’re capable of so much love. How could you think anything else?”
“I used to never understand how my mom could choose to fall in love with a human. To doom her family—me—to our life. No safety or identity that comes with a pack. Even after I realized I had fallen for you, I-I was afraid I was so… messed up from thinking like that my whole life that I wasn’t going to be able to love you like you deserved. Like something might’ve been broken in me.”
“Sung…” You touched under his eye with your free hand, where a tear had fallen. “You’re not broken. You’ve never done anything but love me with your whole heart, I know that. You’ve been so good to me, always.”
“I know,” he nodded zealously, accompanied by a sniffle. “I know now, that I’m not broken. That I can have all this overflowing love in me, and it’s so awesome, but also kind of terrifying?”
You chuckled lightly at that. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I love you so much I get a little scared too, because I’ve never loved someone like I love you. And we haven’t even been properly dating for that long, so if I already love you this much, then how much more am I going to love you in six months? A year? Two? Five? Ten?”
He snapped his head up from where he’d been gazing down at your hands, eyes locking on yours. You smiled back at him weakly. The urge to stuff your words back in your mouth was there, but you knew you couldn’t. It was the truth, that you could picture yourself with Sungchan that far ahead in your life. For the rest of it, if you were going to be that honest, but you bit your tongue before you got there.
The two of you had unintentionally moved onto the next part of the werewolf mating ritual: moonlit confessionals. The light of the nearly full moon shone down on the two of you in front of one of his bedroom windows. Your textbook hadn’t been terribly explicit on the exact content of the words exchanged at this point, just that it was an opportunity for the couple to truly bare their souls to each other, make sure there was nothing hidden that would make the other not want to go through with the rest of the ritual.
“After my last relationship… ended like it did, I thought I might be a little broken, too,” you pushed on with your confession. “I was afraid that in my next relationship, I’d just see cheating everywhere. I was honestly a little relieved when our first date blew up, because I thought that if I dated someone again, I’d treat them like a criminal. But never once has it ever crossed my mind with you, never once have I ever doubted you, have I ever felt anything less than absolutely loved and adored.”
“I do, absolutely love and adore you,” he replied. “And I’m so glad you brought up the future, because I think about it, too. Like, all the time. When I imagine my life after college, or what my life is going to be like in five or ten years… I don’t know much, but I always imagine that you’re there. Like, I don’t know what I want to be, other than happy, with you.”
You couldn’t take it anymore, grabbing him by the neck to yank his mouth down to yours. Pulling him with you towards the bed, you stopped when you felt your legs back up against it.
“Do it, Sung. Bite me,” you murmured against his lips.
He let out a low, throaty groan at your words, tipping his head back as he took a couple deep breaths. You pressed a few more open-mouth kisses to his Adam’s apple and collarbones. Sungchan made another sound that was between a sigh and a grunt.
“We should be sitting down for this,” he stated, though he made no move to follow through on his words.
You removed your lips from his skin to happily plop down into the center of his mattress. The front of you was a bit cold since you were no longer pressed up against him, though you had a feeling that wasn’t going to be for very long.
Sungchan sat down facing you, scooping you up into his arms. You easily settled into his lap, your legs finding familiar places on either side of his hips. Fondly brushing some hair off his forehead, you would’ve been rather content to just stare down at your Sung bathed in moonlight for the next several minutes, so handsome and all yours. But you had something you needed to do tonight.
Grabbing the hem of the sweatshirt you were wearing—Sungchan’s, of course—you shucked it over your head and off onto the floor. That left you just in a tank top with nearly negligible straps. You could see your boyfriend’s eyes zero in on the bare expanse of skin from your shoulder to your neck that you’d just exposed, where his bite was supposed to go.
“I had my turn,” you said, slipping the thin strap off of the shoulder he was staring at, and tilting your head to open up as much space as possible, make it as clear of an invitation as possible. “Now it’s yours. Go on, baby. I trust you.”
Sungchan didn’t say anything more, but he did grab both of your hands by the wrist—his grip surprisingly gentle—to wrap your arms around his waist. You splayed your hands out over his lower back under his shirt, indulging yourself in his warmth, and smoothing a thumb over his skin. He then wrapped his around you to hold you even closer, if that was possible, and you watched him open his mouth, his white teeth catching the pale moonlight, glinting, and looking much sharper than normal— reminding you of how they looked during his shifts.
Then those teeth were biting you, sinking into your muscle.
Renjun had described what being bitten by a vampire was like to you, once. He had a bucket list for that sort of thing—magical encounters. He said it was a small pinch, barely more than the pressure of a needle, then it was all pleasure from thereafter. Vampire venom, of course, was meant to do that so that those they were biting felt so good so they wouldn’t resist while the vampire drank as much as they pleased from them.
Werewolves were predators in an entirely different sense, with the teeth to match. Theirs were meant to grab prey, hold them in their jaws no matter how much they struggled, and rip flesh from bone. As much damage as possible in one go, so that if said prey happened to escape, they wouldn’t be able to get very far with their injuries.
It was visceral pain, the moment Sungchan bit you. You couldn’t hear the noise that you made—only aware that you made one as you felt the gurgle of something in the back of your throat—through the white noise that exploded behind your eyes the instant his teeth hit bone. You were glad he’d directed you to put your arms around him just moments earlier, as your nails were now firmly embedded in the skin of his lower back—you were sure those would’ve been drawing your own blood in your palms if they hadn’t been there.
A memory suddenly flashed in your mind. You were seven, in your backyard with your dad, watching two squirrels chase each other across the grass. Then your neighbor’s dog came out of nowhere—maybe slipped his collar—and got one in his mouth. Your dad couldn’t get his hand over your eyes quick enough. You didn’t want to pet Mr. Lee’s dog when you saw him a couple days later, despite how well he sat, the adorable way his tongue lolled out from between his razor-sharp canines, and how fast his tail wagged.
The whole thing probably lasted just a couple seconds, but to you it felt like minutes, as every one of your heartbeats pounded through you, ricocheted around in your skull and grey matter. Could Sungchan feel that? Feel your pulse in his mouth? Was he scraping at it with his canines? Just one wrong move away from tearing open something vital?
You trusted him, of course, or you wouldn’t have asked him to do this. Not let him; but suggested, encouraged, requested, told him to. Your fingernails dug into his back even harder at the idea, as much to anchor yourself and provide an outlet as to hold him to you as well. Surely you had to be breaking skin at this point.
You had the urge to bite down on something too. It was a need that came from deep in your jaw. Like when people were given something to bite on for painful procedures in old medical dramas. Or maybe reciprocity.
This go around, you kept your teeth to yourself, though, sinking them into your bottom lip. That pain didn’t even register past the supernova radiating out from your shoulder.
Sungchan finally pulled his teeth out from your flesh, and the rest of your senses snapped back into focus. Your eyes fluttered open—when did you close them?—back to Sungchan’s bedroom, your fingers slowly unfurled from where they’d dug into his back, and you could hear him talking to you as he gently inspected the bite wound.
You brought your hands back around in front of you. Your eyes widened minutely as you realized that there was bright red under a couple of your fingernails. And it wasn’t yours. The beds of your nails were perfectly intact, meaning that you really had broken his skin.
“Oh God, Y/N, the blood. I’m so sorry.” Sungchan muttered under his breath, reaching for something on his nightstand.
For half a second, you thought he meant his, and you were about to apologize as you were still staring down at your hands mostly in awe. But then you actually saw his face for the first time as he turned back around, clutching a damp hand towel.
There was a red tint to his lips, and you realized that wasyour blood. Electricity jolted up your spine before the thought had even fully formed.
…he won’t even draw blood. So much for that, Mr. Jung.
His tongue darted out to instinctively investigate the wetness on his mouth, and a sudden thrill shuddered through you as you watched. You decided not to ask how it tasted to him, despite the question certainly popping into your mind.
You pressed a kiss to his cheekbone instead, so far back it was nearly in his hairline. “I’m okay, Sung. I’m okay.”
Without a word, he started gently cleaning up the bite wound, and you had half a mind to ask for another towel for his back, though you knew that would be futile until he got you situated. So, you sat patiently, keeping your head craned to the side to give him plenty of room, and watched his intent face as he worked.
“Sung?”
He sighed, a sound that let you know he was already beginning his mental descent through the seven circles of werewolf hell. “I know, I know, I’m sorry, I’m so—”
“Can I bite you next time?” You asked simply.
The towel stilled over your bite.
“You… next time… bite… me?” His eyes glassed over as his mouth stumbled to even form around the individual words.
“I know I won’t leave a mark like you but… so I can have something to do?” You used the hand of your unbitten shoulder to trace a line from his ear down his jugular, under his collar, to his shoulder, then back to his collarbone. You took your hand back as you went to joke, “Unless you’re expecting extravagant and meaningful gifts every time?”
“No, no. I mean yes! I mean—” Sungchan took a second to shake his head and blink, clearing his mind. “I don’t expect gifts every time. And yes, you can bite me next time. I didn’t think you would be up for a next time after I… well, after all this.”
He gestured vaguely to the wound that he’d gone back to tending to. A quick glance at it out of the corner of your eye showed you that it had already stopped bleeding and was starting to mend itself. At least Mr. Jung was right about that part.
Even through the acute worry over the unexpected severity of the bite, you could tell that Sungchan was already more clear-headed and overall relaxed, the constant nervous tension in his body gone, replaced just by a determined set of his shoulders, and momentary furrow of his brow as he cleaned up the bite. Brushing his hair off his forehead, you trailed your hand down to cup his cheek fondly. “Sungchan, this is the most yourself I’ve seen you in a long time. Yes, I’m going to keep your bite.”
Just the bright, tender smile on Sungchan’s face—the recognition of being loved and reflecting it back to you—would’ve been more than enough for you to do this again, whether or not it helped the scent anxiety. You could always work on another solution for that. But this you wouldn’t take away for the world.
He set the towel aside again, and you grabbed his hands now that they were free, messing with the brand-new ring adorning one of his fingers.
“Besides, even if I can’t leave a mark like yours next time, I can still mark you up,” you mused quietly, almost as if it were to yourself, except for the fact that you had a werewolf practically chest-to-chest with you. And you knew very well that you did. “They just won’t last as long.”
“Why wait until next time?” He suggested, and you heard the long inhale he took after. You wondered if you smelled any different to him already, or if he just needed to breathe.
You looked up from your hands to him with a smirk. “I like the way you think.”
Sungchan captured your lips in a kiss that tasted of hunger, and love, and metal— your blood was still around his mouth. And you smiled into it before doing as promised and dropping your mouth to the column of his throat, well above his collar, and letting your teeth graze his skin. You could feel his gasp rush in under your lips as his hands pulled your hips firmly down against his.
You decided that Jeno could be a ‘puppy’ all he wanted. You had a wolf, and you were more than happy with that.
“I think I made it out more marked up than you, you know,” Sungchan called out to you from the bathroom the next morning.
“Really?” You replied just as loudly, amusement in your tone as you stretched leisurely in his sheets.
“Shotaro’s going to be concerned for my wellbeing at this rate.”
Sitting up and scooting towards the corner of his bed closest to the mirror, you checked out your own reflection as you imagined he was currently doing, your fingers trailing over the dark bite mark now set into your skin. There was no scab or blood, just the faintest ring of raised skin and distinct outline of teeth. Rolling out your shoulder, you winced as a dull pain radiated out from the bite. Dropping the arm back down, you continued staring at the mark, a certain giddiness fluttering around in your stomach. You’d have this for… who knows how long. The rest of your life, maybe.
Clearing your throat and your mind, you responded to Sungchan with a disbelieving snort, “No he’s not.”
“No, he’s not,” he agreed with a sigh as he walked back into his bedroom just in a pair of sweatpants. Which let you get a great view of the countless blue and purple hickies, love bites, long red scratches, and faded remains of crescent-shaped nail marks that littered his neck, chest, shoulders, and back. You bit down on your bottom lip, a strange mixture of pride and embarrassment welling up in your chest. Sungchan fixed you with a shit-eating grin, putting his hands on his hips. “But my parents will be when we go over for dinner next week.”
“We’re going over for dinner next week?!” You yelped, covering your mouth in horror, panic, and mortification. A lot of the worst of those bruises were well above the collar of all of his shirts. “Why did you let me—”
“I’m kidding,” he cut you off with a chuckle, lumbering over towards the bed to flop down beside you on the mattress.
You smacked his arm as you hissed, “I’m going to kill you, Jung Sungchan! Don’t do that to me!”
“Ouch, full name.” He pouted.
“God, I was about to preemptively die of embarrassment!”
“So it’ll be fine for them to see that,” he pointed to your shoulder, “but not these?” He gestured from his own neck down.
“Different situational and cultural contexts!”
He nodded slowly, “Oh, right, of course...”
“You’re half-human, Sungchan, don’t pull that ‘I’m-just-a-simple-werewolf’ act on me!”
“I upset you. I’m sorry,” he apologized, grabbing your hand and kissing the back of it.
“You better be, Sungchan.”
“I am, baby, I am.” He gave your hand a half dozen more fervent, rapid-fire smooches. “Now are you done calling me that?”
“What? Your name?” You scoffed.
“You know what I mean, baby...”
“So we don’t have dinner with your parents next week?”
“Nope. Two weeks.”
You shook your head and sighed. “And so you live to see another day, Sung.”
“I’m half-werewolf, I would’ve been all healed up by next week, you know,” he pointed out, sitting up behind you and pressing a couple lingering kisses to your shoulder with your new mating bite.
“I know, I know.”
He continued trailing sweet kisses up your neck and jaw. “Which means I’ll also be all healed in two weeks if you were to give me some more…”
“I don’t know, you just played a very mean trick on me, Sung,” you teased, crossing your arms over your chest as if you were genuinely deliberating not giving in and absolutely devouring this man right now.
“I know,” he murmured between kisses, gently holding your chin with one hand to turn your head back towards him. “I’m the worst.”
“You are,” you breathed out against his lips.
“So now that we agree on that…”
“I feel like I’m going to throw up.” You jabbed the crosswalk button repeatedly.
“It’s going to be fine, Y/N,” Sungchan reassured you, lacing his fingers with yours. “I’ve already met your parents before and it was fine.”
“Yeah, once, for like two minutes, as my friend.” You pointed out, banging the button with the side of your fist when it still hadn’t changed.
You were of course talking about a random Sunday afternoon way back in the spring semester, before you and Sungchan had started dating. He had come over that day to help you put together your new coffee table that you’d finally gotten around to buying. Except, upon starting the assembling, the two of you had realized that neither of you had one of the tools required for it. Thankfully, your dad did, and offered to bring it by since he and your mom were about to head out to run errands anyway. Cue some very brief, very awkward introductions between your parents and Sungchan when they’d brought the promised tool. You weren’t counting, but you would’ve bet money that you had called him your friend at least ten times during that less-than-five-minute conversation, with so much stress and nervous emphasis on the word that you wouldn’t have been surprised if your parents had left your apartment that day already thinking that the two of you were dating.
But now you were actually supposed to be introducing him to them as your boyfriend, and you felt like you were going to throw up and pass out and die before you even got there.
Sungchan wordlessly let go of your hand to smoothly step between you and the crosswalk button, picking up your other hand to hold.
“Come on, you said it yourself that they were impressed with me after that two-minute conversation,” he reminded you. “Imagine how great of an impression I’ll leave after two hours.”
“All I said was that my dad told me later that he was surprised that you were a werewolf because you were so calm,” you corrected him. “He’s used to all my friends from high school who had the bouncing-off-the-fucking-walls energy like Jeno.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Which, by the way, I’ve already told them that you’re not in a pack or anything like that, but pretty much all they know about werewolves is from my classmates and friends from when I was in high school. So… apologies in advance for any assumptions or comparisons they make.”
“Right, the two packs you went to school with.”
“Yeah, them. I told them you’re not in a pack, and don’t have any of that going on. It actually made my mom relax a lot more. I think all that stuff kind of scares her.”
“What? Afraid that I’d whisk you away with my big werewolf muscles to my werewolf pack and she’d never hear from her poor little human daughter ever again?”
You burst out into an incredulous laugh. “You have got to stop talking about yourself like that or I’m seriously going to hurt your feelings one of these days, baby.”
“By saying what? It’s not like I’m lying?”
“Your ego is as stupid big as your stupid big werewolf muscles.”
“Ha!” He cheered out victoriously. “So you admit it.”
“Wasn’t falling in love supposed to rot your brain? Make you more docile or whatever? I think it’s just made you even worse…” You tutted, shaking your head.
“How could I not be on an ego trip? I mean, have you seen my girlfriend?” He retorted. “She’s crazy beautiful, and smart, and funny, and so sweet. I’d be jealous of me if I wasn’t me.”
You rolled your eyes, but squeezed his hand tighter. “Alright, you sap. Maybe the ego trip is warranted. But seriously, don’t talk about yourself like that in front of my parents or I’ll die of secondhand embarrassment. Okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
So far lunch was going okay. Your mom had invited the two of you over for a late Sunday lunch, which always meant sandwiches and lemonade in your house. And it was going okay, aside from the initial reaction you’d gotten when they’d opened the front door. You could still hear your mother’s shocked gasp and ‘Oh my God…’ muttered under her breath as her eyes were glued onto your neck. More specifically, you knew she was staring at your new mating bite. Or, the half of it that she could see— you weren’t exactly hiding it, so you’d picked your t-shirt today only for comfort in the lingering end-of-August-cusp-of-September heat. It was just over three weeks since Sungchan had given you his bite, a couple days shy of the upcoming full moon, and yeah maybe you should visit your parents more often. But in your defense, you’d been a bit busy between getting the bite in the first place, and the new semester starting.
Your father didn’t have much better of a reaction than your mother, eyes going wide behind his thick, frameless lenses before his jaw clenched. There was still a certain tension in his muscles that jumped every time he saw Sungchan touch you, whether it was a brush of arms, holding your hand, or an innocent squeeze of your knee as he stood up to head to the bathroom that he’d just been gestured towards.
Picking your glass of lemonade back up after Sungchan had left the room, you took only a sip before your mom was reaching across the table to gently take your hand in hers.
“Hey, sweetie…” She said softly but with a certain worried tenseness in her tone that made your stomach drop.
You tried to mimic the front she was putting up, smiling back at her brightly and innocently, “Hey, Mom?”
“Listen... We are so happy for you, and we love Sungchan, we really do.”
“Okay, then why does it feel like this is about to go somewhere that I’m not going to like?”
“Don’t you think that the two of you might just be moving a little fast?”
Entirely dropping all sunny pretenses, you narrowed your eyes at her suspiciously. “What do you mean?”
“The-the bite,” she explained with a wince, pointing to her own shoulder.
“That’s sort of like marriage for them, right?” Your dad cut in gruffly.
Despite it being phrased like a question, his tone made it sound much more like an accusation, like he already knew he was right and was just letting you know that he knew the truth—or at least what he thought the truth was. It reminded you of when you’d get in trouble as a kid and he’d ask you if you knew how the vase in the living room got broken despite very much already having a good idea himself. Giving you the opportunity to fess up before he punished you even more severely for the initial bad deed and then lying about it on top of that. But you hadn’t done anything wrong this time.
“Sort of, not really, it depends. In some packs, I guess. But Sung’s not in a pack, you know that,” you reminded them firmly, straightening up in your seat.
Your mom jumped back in, “Right, but still, don’t you think he kind of rushed you into—”
“It was my idea,” you cut her off before she could even finish articulating that thought. You knew you’d get all the way pissed off if she did. It was already taking a lot to dampen your anger now and keep this at a civil conversation. It’s just because they didn’t understand. You had to keep telling yourself that, and do your best to explain, calmly, and make them understand. Not everybody had three years of Sociology and Magical Creatures Studies under their belt like you. Your mom had been a stay-at-home mom all your life, and your dad was just a few years away from retirement, having worked in a human-dominated field for his whole career. An architect.
Those same sharp eyes that would pore over building designs late at night in his home office while you sat in his lap and did your own colorful sketches in crayon—and eventually fell asleep in his arms—were now regarding you with a clear distrust. “Darling, really, it—”
“Look, when we first started dating, Sung was having a really hard time with scent anxiety,” you once again spoke over him authoritatively. “All the usual scenting stuff, it wasn’t working. He was really stressed, and anxious, and just… worried sick all the time about me like spontaneously combusting or something if we were apart for even a second. Me taking his bite was the best solution. And now, the beginning of the semester has gone off without a hitch. Classes, my Magical Botany Club, his astronomy club, his senior thesis meetings, my research mentorship project... I don’t know if we would’ve been able to do all of this apart, clear-headed like… literally a month ago. And yes, I brought it up to him. I’m fine, I promise. This is what I want, he’s what I want.”
The two of them exchanged perturbed, skeptical glances, before your mom nodded, and your father let out a resigned sigh.
“Alright, sweetheart. Like we said, we like Sungchan. We just don’t want you two doing anything that you might regret. Either of you.”
“I know, Dad. But we’ve got this. Seriously, it’s… really good with him,” you promised him, a giddy smile coming to your features with your last words.
“We’re happy to hear that, sweetie,” your mom patted your hand.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“I don’t want to know anything else about how it happens, but— Does it hurt? Like, right now, does it hurt you?”
“Oh, no, Mom, it’s not painful to the touch or sore or anything,” you reassured her, carefully skirting around the how and instead focusing on the now, pressing on the bite mark to demonstrate that it wasn’t tender like a bruise.
“Good, good, I’m glad.”
The sound of the bathroom door opening echoed down the hall to you, and you turned around to smile at Sungchan over your shoulder as he started back towards you all.
“Well, I think it’s time for the tart I’ve got in the fridge, huh?” Your mom beamed at everyone, standing up from the kitchen table.
“That could’ve gone worse,” you declared as soon as your parents’ front door shut behind the two of you, leaving you and Sungchan on the sidewalk. There wasn’t much in the way of leftovers aside from the berry tart, which your mom sent you off with so that your father wouldn’t eat it all.
“You think so?” Sungchan asked warily. “Because I uh… I did hear what you all were talking about when I was in the bathroom.”
“Yeah, I thought you might’ve.” You nodded, squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry about all that, Sung. I think they get it now. And really, it was my fault for not at least giving them a heads-up about the bite, it didn’t even cross my mind. We just caught them off-guard.”
Sungchan suddenly stopped the two of you on the empty sidewalk. He cupped your cheek in his hand, running a thumb over your cheekbone, then down your jaw, the side of your neck, until he stopped right over where you knew the mating bite was. His thumb once again stroked over your skin, tracing the shape of the bite and pushing aside your collar when needed.
“Hearing you say that this is what you want, I’m what you want… made me really happy,” he declared simply, eyes still locked on the mark.
“It’s true,” you replied.
A bright, giddy smile spread across his face. “I know. And I knew it as soon as I heard you say it, too.”
You grinned back up at him. “That makes me really happy to hear, Sung. I always want you to know how much I love you.”
He leaned in nearer, and you closed your eyes anticipating a kiss, but instead he just dropped a fond peck to your nose before standing up straight. “I think it’s starting to finally uh, get through my thick skull.”
“Finally,” you echoed with a giggle. “Alright, your place?”
“I actually wanted to ask… Can we go to your place tonight?”
“Finally going to give poor Taro some peace?”
“That, yeah. But I wasn’t even thinking about him to be honest. I just… I want to.”
“Okay, Sung. Come on.” You tugged him down the street in the direction of your apartment.
Sungchan had been to your place on several occasions as your friend and your boyfriend, and yet you were drawing a blank for exactly the last time he had been there. Maybe your third date? Or, technically your fourth date, but you and Sungchan had unanimously agreed to not count that first awkward blind date that the guys set you up on as your official first date. Regardless, it’d been… a while since he’d been over. You kicked your shoes off by the door and didn’t bother to turn the lights on as you deposited the leftover tart in the fridge before beginning your nightly plant-tending. There were a few that needed to be misted still, then you could fully relax. You did the majority of your plant care-taking duties during the actual day, there was just the odd handful that needed a couple good spritzes.
Sungchan watched you patiently as you did so just in the moonlight coming in through the sheers you had over a window. Then, once the spray bottle was put back down, you led the way into your bedroom with maybe a little bit of a skip in your step. While you weren’t a werewolf, you were understanding how nice it felt to have your person in a space that you felt safe and warm and good in again. Like everything was going to be okay forever, maybe.
“You want to wear one of my hoodies?” You joked, rifling through your drawers for some pajamas for yourself.
“You have anything that’d fit?” Sungchan perked up from where he was laying on your bed to ask. He’d already located his few pieces of clothing still stored away here, meanwhile you were struggling as it turns out you very much needed to do a laundry day.
“Try that.” You tossed one at him before turning back around to the dresser. After a few moments, you hadn’t heard anything from behind you, though. “Sung? Love? Everything okay back there?” You looked over your shoulder to find a very cozy-looking werewolf in your extra, extra large hoodie—which just fit him regularly. But it was the eyes-closed, soft, happy smile on his face as he had the hood up around his head, his hair strewn about messily, and he held the ends of the sleeves up to his nose that made you stop in your tracks to just take him in.
His eyes snapped open, and he dropped his hands almost sheepishly. “Yeah, yeah, all good. It fits. Thanks, baby.”
“Of course.” You nodded, feeling a fond smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. “I’ll be there in a sec.”
You quickly got into your own pajamas for the night and climbed into bed as well. As you reached over to turn off your lamp, Sungchan stopped your hand.
“Are you going to sleep right now?” He asked.
“Well, no,” you said, an eyebrow raised as you watched his eyes flick between your hand and your neck.
“Can we leave the lights on for just a little longer? You can turn them off as soon as you need to sleep. I just… So I can see it?” He let go of your hand and instead graced a finger over your bite mark.
You dropped your hand, nodding. “Sure, Sung.”
He smiled brightly at you. “Thank you.”
With the added light, you decided to do some reading, and Sungchan kept busy alternating between his phone, and folding and unfolding the same origami heart on your bedside table next to him. But you could feel him look over at you every so often, and you knew he was getting used to the still-new image of you with his mating bite. As you came to the close of a chapter, you tucked your bookmark—the film strip of you two from Valentine’s Day at the boba shop—back in and set the book aside.
“Sung?”
“Mm?”
Now that you’d gotten his attention, you wordlessly opened your arms, and he immediately launched himself into them. You let out a punched-out giggle as you suddenly had an arm- and lapful of werewolf. He settled in with his head in the crook of your neck and shoulder, his lips right against your bite again, his arms wrapped around your waist, and one of his legs slung over you, caging you in. You rested your cheek on the crown of his head, threading the fingers of one hand in his hair as you rubbed your other hand up and down his back. The metal of your lunar ring glinted from among his soft brown locks. Waning crescent.
“Can I turn the light off now, love? I don’t think you can see it from this angle, right?” You requested humorously.
“Hm?” Sungchan made a low, slow, questioning noise in the back of his throat, and you knew he hadn’t even processed your ask.
“Light. Off?”
“Mm, yeah, mkay.”
You could feel him nod against you.
Reaching over towards your lamp was a bit difficult, but you were finally able to stretch your fingers enough to turn it off, plunging your room into darkness. Shifting to relax a bit lower into your pillows, you returned your hand to your boyfriend’s back.
“You’re cuddly tonight,” you commented. Cuddly, not clingy like before the bite. You didn’t feel guilty for reading earlier, he’d been content to do his own thing in the meantime, and you’d been the one to initiate the cuddling now. He’d just been very enthusiastic.
“Don’t you know, Miss MCS Major?”
“How long have we known each other, and you don’t know my major?”
“‘Miss Interdisciplinary Major with a concentration in Magical Creatures Studies’ is a bit long, don’t you think?”
“It’s correct.”
“Miss MCS Student?”
“That’s… acceptable.”
“Anyway, don’t you know about werewolf mating bites, Miss MCS Student?”
“Only whatever was covered in my Intro course, the sociocultural importance of them in packs. We haven’t covered that in my class on werewolves yet. And unfortunately, Dr. Kwon’s Interspecies Marriage class didn’t fit in my schedule last year.”
“Scent swapping. After a werewolf couple exchanges bites, they swap scents until they eventually just have one new one.”
“Ah, so it’s my turn to scent you.”
“Something like that.” Sungchan shrugged. “I know that’s the scientific explanation, like, the magianthropological one or whatever. But really… I just know that being here right now feels right. Like I was never meant to do anything else. Like I could go to class, or go hang out with friends, or something. But after, this is where I’m supposed to be. With you.”
“Home.” You replied simply. “You feel like home.”
“Yeah. You’re my home.”
Unable to come up with anything to say near intelligible, you pressed a long kiss to the top of his head before nuzzling your cheek back into his hair. His arms tightened around you minutely, holding you just that much closer to him.
“And you can’t just start calling me ‘love’ and expect me to just do nothing,” he added teasingly.
“Sung.”
“Yeah?”
The darkness made it so that you couldn’t see Sungchan as the two of you laid together, but every place that you touched felt much more alive, so much more real, connected. “I love you.”
He grabbed one of your hands, just to hold it. You let him.
“I love you, too.” His words didn’t hang in the air, they laid over you like a warm blanket, wound and weaved through your mind like your favorite song, and wrapped around you like a familiar hug. You stayed silent as you basked in them, letting out a soft, content hum as you cradled his head closer to your chest.
“I think I really understand her now,” Sungchan spoke up after some time.
You were used to his non-sequiturs by now. “Who?”
“My mom… Who you love isn’t always a choice, but where you go from there is. The choices you make with that love is up to you.” His hand tightened around yours.
“I can’t wait to be there to make more choices with you, Sung,” you murmured, running a thumb over the back of his knuckles.
Entering Half Moon Bakery with a skip in your step, Sungchan stopped you just past the front door. The two of you had been out and about running various errands all day, and had finally popped into your friends’ workplace for a little breather.
“I’ll be right back.” Sungchan pecked your forehead.
“I’ll go order.” You nodded, watching him disappear around the corner that led to the restrooms.
As you walked up to the counter, you offered the familiar wolf behind the counter a big smile. “Hey Jeno!”
“Hey, Y/N!” He grinned back. “So what can I get—”
He was cut off by a clanging from the kitchens behind him that made you jump out of your skin. The werewolf whipped around, concern etched on his features. He looked to you apologetically, “Sorry, I need to—”
“Go check on her,” you agreed, not liking the distinct lack of cursing that had accompanied the raucous noise. “I wanted to pick something new today anyway, so I’ll need some time.”
“Thanks, be right back!” And with that, he darted into the back.
You did in fact meander over to the display case of pastries, bending at the waist to peer at your options. Humming along to the song playing over the speakers, when you heard footsteps coming up behind you, you figured that it was Sungchan.
“Back so soon, love?” You asked with humor in your voice, standing up straight and turning around. All warmth that was in your chest froze and turned to dread when you saw who was actually behind you.
“Y/N. Been a while since you called me that.” You hadn’t seen your ex in over a year. Not since a week after you’d found out he’d been cheating on you throughout the entirety of your short-lived relationship, when he’d come to pick up what few things he had at your place. But somehow he was at your friends’ bakery now.
“I never did.” You reminded him through gritted teeth. “And clearly I didn’t mean to now.”
Pivoting back around, you crossed your arms and stared straight ahead at the menu board behind the counter.
“Back to your old type, huh?” He was peeling back the collar of your blouse to reveal all of your mating bite.
You snapped around, slapping his hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
“Humans weren’t good enough, so you’re back on the werewolf dick, of course.”
You couldn’t stand to be in here for another second with him sneering at you like this. He wasn’t worth it. You could leave, go around the corner and text Sungchan and tell him where you are and what happened. The two of you could just go somewhere else for the afternoon.
“I’m not going to justify myself to someone like you, so if you’ll excuse me—” You tried to walk past him, but he stepped in front of you, blocking your path.
He seized your wrist. “Y/N, come on—”
“Let go of her.” Jeno had appeared at your side, stepping in between you and pulling your ex’s hand off of you.
“Oh, Jeno,” you breathed his name out as a sigh of relief, almost absent-mindedly, as you withdrew your hand back to your chest.
The human was unfazed, though, a sick delight lighting up his eyes as he looked Jeno up and down. “You must be the lucky dogboy. I should tell you, for your sake, she has a type, if you know what I mean. Dated two werewolves before me, and she broke up with me because I just couldn’t satisfy her like she was used to.”
“You’re disgusting,” you hissed.
“She broke up with you because you’re a cheating scumbag, actually.” Sungchan was back from the bathrooms, and strode up behind your ex, a deep frown already etched onto his features.
“That’s the lucky wolf whose girlfriend you just manhandled.” Jeno pointed up at him.
Sungchan clearly hadn’t witnessed anything, as his eyebrows raised minutely at the word ‘manhandled’ before his frown became a hard glare and he pushed your ex back against the wall by the shoulder. “If you grab her again, you lose the hand and the arm it’s attached to.”
The human looked around Sungchan at you with wide eyes. You nodded firmly in agreement with what your boyfriend had just said. Sounded plenty reasonable to you.
“Get the fuck out of here and don’t come back, we don’t want scumbags for customers,” Jeno growled, folding his arms over his chest.
The human had to wrench his shoulder out from Sungchan’s grip, giving the lot of you a final glare before storming out of the bakery. When you could finally no longer see him, you let out a shaky breath, and Sungchan immediately came over to wrap his arms around you. There was a vein protruding on his forehead that you weren’t used to seeing, and his jaw was still clenched tightly.
“Thanks, Sung.” You pressed yourself into his side, all too happy to be back in his familiar warmth. You weren’t going to forget about your friend that had come to your aid first, though. “You too, Jeno.”
“Yeah, thank you, Jeno.” Sungchan clapped the other werewolf on the back sincerely. “On one hand I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, Y/N, but on the other… I’m kind of glad I wasn’t because—”
“You might’ve actually broken his hand if you had been. I know, I know.” Jeno interrupted him humorously, despite how not humorous that outcome would’ve been. Satisfactory in the moment, yes, but ultimately not worth the criminal charges he could’ve pressed against Sungchan. “Try some werewolf meditation apps.”
“They have those?”
“You’ve never had to look into those before. Ha! Mr. Zen Werewolf taking advice on werewolf meditation apps from me! Oh, hold on, she’s going to get a kick out of this one, I’ve got to go tell her.” Jeno pointed to the kitchen over his shoulder with a thumb, turning around and pushing a door open, laughing the whole way back.
As Jeno relayed this hilarious revelation to his girlfriend, Sungchan led you over to a small loveseat in the corner of the bakery, settling the two of you down on it. Judging by the dual cackling laughter now coming from the kitchens, it was going to be a while before you’d be able to get your pastries.
“I know I can’t prevent everything bad ever from happening, but…” Sungchan laced his right hand with your left and rubbed slow circles into your skin with his thumb. “I hope you’ll always let me be there with you after.”
You rested your head on his shoulder, gazing at your lunar rings displaying matching half moons. “Always, Sung. We made a deal, remember?”
“Of course,” he said, and you could hear the smile in his voice before he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.
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ꕀ LUST FOR LIFE ꕀ 02
↳ sex money feelings die remastered .ᐟ cross posted on ao3
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“ they say only the good die young, that just ain't right 'cause we're having too much fun, too much fun tonight ”
↳ synopsis: a group of individuals find that their first taste of freedom in the world brings more obstacles than expected. some of them, find solace by drowning in liquor or in the backseat of somebody else’s car. a lot of them have got to get their shit together. a lot of them won't.
mdni » story contains nsfw content intended for 18+ audiences pairings » member specific, not listed for spoiler purposes ↳ ateez x female reader, ateez x ateez ↳ genre » coming of age ↳ word count » 3.5k ↳ general warnings » substance abuse & consumption, sexual content, morally grey characters, unreliable narrators, internalised homophobia, angst, basically every struggle young adolescence can go through
02⌇relationships, fuck buddies, heartbreaks
San has made a lot of bad decisions in his lifetime. For starters, back in the golden days of high school he decided to skip class and go on a bike ride with his friends. It was fun, until they decided to add alcohol into the mix, then it got stupidly fun. He ended up on the ground with his bike reduced to a pile of metal scraps with wheels. The addition of a nasty scar near his hairline wasn’t the most favourable either. His parents weren’t happy with that, nor when he hosted a house party the very next weekend that got more than just a little out of hand.
He’s glad most of the mistakes were correctable in some way. The bike definitely wasn’t salvageable, but he did eventually get a new one. Then, after the party, he had to give up a month’s allowance to mend the window he had broken after an intense game of beer pong. That month he also decided to take up a part-time job.
To put it plainly, San doesn’t make a lot of good decisions. Even after transitioning out of the angsty rebellious teen phase, trouble seems to just follow him. It’s okay with him though, he doesn’t just live with chaos, he thrives in it. Some things really do not change.
The building in front of him, previously only seen through images online stands almost confronting now. His clothes make him feel worse, like extremely out of place. They’re all wrinkled from being worn on the airplane and subway ride, and he feels the stares of people in their expensive evening wear as they walk by. It’s too late to back down now, so he reaches for his phone to inform the reason he’s here of his arrival. As he waits, San pays extra attention to his surroundings. Movies were right about one thing; New York, the city that never sleeps. He likes it, the honking cars in the distance and the occasional construction sounds are comforting in a strange way. Life at home felt too quiet, especially after you left.
He loves to be on the move, the thrill of exploring has always been dangerously enticing. San could have done that in lots of ways after high school, spontaneous road trip, booking a one-way ticket to anywhere he could think of. Temporary choices. He didn’t want that though, San wanted to live big. After more thought, transferring to a college that requires a plane ride to reach his hometown might’ve been living a little bigger than he anticipated.
He looks down at his phone, fumbling with the volume button in attempt to seem busy while he waits for a reply from his soon-to-be roommate. He hasn’t packed much, but his backpack has been weighing him down for twenty minutes after his subway commute. San checks his phone again, no reply.
There wasn’t much special about this college, education wise nothing he couldn’t have gained from any closer schools, but this one had something else. Someone else. San is well aware how moronic it is to chase after an ex (well, ex something) yet here he is, outside an apartment five miles from the campus you attend. His plan was always to move to a school further away. San’s decision to move to this school was only slightly influenced by the “vague” memory of your attendance here.
The rest of his belongings, haphazardly thrown into cardboard boxes are on the way soon, hopefully. The moving process is more complicated than San ought to have believed. He doesn’t have anything of too much value from home, except for his well-loved motorcycle. A more recent purchase, a gift to himself for finally deciding to make the big move.
A figure appears from the apartment building’s entrance and San hopes his prayers have been answered, for once. The man across from him squints his eyes curiously, recognition fills them instead after a few seconds and a grin spreads across his face.
“San, right?”
“I don’t get it; you know you could easily pay for this place yourself.” A second voice scoffs, chiming in, “Yeah, you just got the last roomie out. Why don’t you enjoy solo living for a while?” The two boys across from Mingi aren’t accusatory in tone, yet he feels it from their expression. It’s probably stupid from their view, understandably. It’s also kind of stupid from his, he’s just lonely. He can’t say that to them though. It’s hard to not sound like a wealthy prick whose upset his friends have jobs and other friends while he’s spending his days rotting away in some luxury penthouse in Brooklyn Heights.
“Dunno, save money I guess.” Wooyoung scoffs, “Complete bullshit, your parents pay for this place.” Mingi shrugs, “Saving them money, then.” Mingi watches as Wooyoung taps the boy next to him on the floor, holding his hand out. Yeosang squints up at him, elbow resting on his knee, lit joint in his hand sending smoke around in small swirls. “Puff, puff, pass fuckin’ hog.” Yeosang takes another drag, blowing a stream of smoke into the other’s face.
“Not even your stash, stop acting stingy.” Wooyoung rolls his eyes in response, bringing the stick up to his mouth as he leans back into the upholstered sofa. Mingi scowls, “Get another burn mark in this couch and I’m done with you forever.” Wooyoung hovers the lit end of the joint just above the leathered surface before the former knocks his hand away lightly. Wooyoung grins, passing Mingi the joint in surrender. He shuffles in his spot before bringing the stick to his lips between two fingers. Yeosang lays his back onto the cashmere carpet, stretching out his back.
Mingi likes the two boys. They are his friends, as much as friends who come to your place to smoke all your weed and use your fancy television can be. They keep him company, when they’re not studying or working, or at some shitty frat party. Mingi doesn’t really wish to join in on the trashy ragers they go to, it’s all cheap liquor that’ll leave him with a bad hangover. Sometimes he thinks he really does live up to the pretentious rich kid stereotype.
“So,” Yeosang continues, eyes still closed as he lies down, “Who is the new roomie?” Mingi clears his throat to respond, yet the other voice in the room interrupts. “Seriously though, who cares, I’m still grieving the last one. Missing him.”
“You’ve seen him a total of like, seven times.” Yeosang lifts his head up to give the youngest of the three a judgemental look, “Have you guys even spoken before?”
Mingi snorts, “They did, once. Hongjoong lost his key and Wooyoung let him in. He was too out of it to respond and ran to the bathroom to throw up.” The black-haired boy scowls, “Don’t care. He was hot. Fuck happened to him?”
Mingi shrugs, he doesn’t really know much about his old roommate either. He moved in because the guy was looking for some extra studio space. Some preppy art school kid. Not a lot to know, apart from the fact he drank a little too much. And barely spoke unless he was wasted out of his mind. He didn’t mind it though, just enjoyed having someone to share his place with. To be honest, the place just feels so hollow with just him in it. Last week he had packed his stuff up, handed his key to Mingi and on his way he went. Mingi didn’t have a lot of friends, dropping out of school early kind of kickstarts that. All of Mingi’s old friends were off in foreign countries, travelling and exploring with their parent’s money, and the two with him now were always closer to each other. Not that they’d exclude him, but they were each other’s best friends.
“Long story, you guys hungry?” The two boys nod. Yeosang props himself up, “New restaurant opened up like last week down the road.” Mingi nods, moving to get up before Wooyoung sucks in a breath. “Your treat though, yeah?” He sings, patting the boy on the chest. Mingi nods letting the two make their way out first as he reaches for his wallet on the coffee table. “What are friends for?” He mutters, shoving the wallet into his pocket.
Ever since Jongho was young, he knew he belonged on the field. Football wasn’t just about the winning, the congratulations or the glory of the trophies and medals, it was more than that. He couldn’t boil it down to one thing that made football so important to him. He loved the chill against his skin as he ran across the grass, ball in his grasp as the screaming and shouting all melted in a dull buzz. He loved when after every point he scored added up onto the scoreboard, celebratory ding ringing in his ears louder than any cheers from his team or the crowd.
The game had always been his calling, the practices just as much entertainment to him. Loved the drills, again and again. First one on the field and last to leave. He was unstoppable, sum it up to physical advantage, extra training, but what he knew was that it all began with his mentality. That this was the thing nobody could take from him. Unfortunately, life will always find a way to do exactly that.
His dad, who had fuelled his love for the game for a much younger Jongho many years ago was sick. Jongho knew he was ill; he also knew that the last thing his dad would want to see was him crying at his bedside. So, he chose to be strong. Or try to, as much as one can when you want to cry and hide until the hurt in one’s heart would cease. He went to practices with his team as much as he could, tackled, defended until his body gave up. Then, he would get up and do the same thing again the very next day.
He pretended as long as he could, that nothing in his life had changed. He’d come home from practice, ask his dad if he wanted to throw the ball around with him and when his dad would shake his head and respond with a simple “Too tired, tomorrow maybe.” Jongho would smile, close the door and return to his room. It was easier, to agree his dad was tired, not sick.
It was hard to ignore other things though, like in his house. The paintings his parents bought during their trip in Greece had been sold, his mom’s engagement ring pawned off, the small tv he kept in his bedroom given away in a garage sale for practically nothing. Jongho would be stupid if he didn’t notice they were having money troubles. So, he did something he really, really didn’t want to do.
Quitting his team was one of the first times Jongho had felt completely and utterly hopeless. But he also knew it was the right thing to do. Too much money spent on his equipment and uniforms, too much time taken away that he didn’t have. So, his afternoons routinely spent sweating, running and catching transformed into mind numbing endless shifts at his local convenience store, as well as studying harder than he ever had before.
During his final semester he joined his team again, played the final games of the season but, the universe is cruel sometimes, so damn cruel. Just under a year of being off the field had set him back too far, no amount of practice could’ve helped him. The other top players of the team had received sport scholarships from some of the top schools, and he was left behind. He’s glad to have at least paid enough attention in school to receive a scholarship, an academic one for science. Without it, college fees would’ve set him back far more.
His first year of college went by with a breeze, then the universe had made its round again. Jongho’s dad had passed away, peacefully, in his sleep on New Years. His nights spent buried in books, reviewing lectures and revising for exams had turned into endless bottles of whatever he could get his hands on until he’d pass out. Then, he would get up and do the same thing again the very next day. He doesn’t talk about his dad much for obvious reasons, but by the start of his second year he had entered lectures painfully wasted or stoned out of his mind instead.
Wooyoung’s spent his whole life thinking about love. Watching it first with his parents, as his mom would look up into his dad’s eyes, fixing his tie while he tucked her hair behind her ear before they’d leave for their weekly date night. They were the classic high school sweethearts. He didn’t know exactly what love would be in store for him yet, but he knew what his parents had was simple, plain, love.
As he got older, he watched it in elementary school. More juvenile versions of it, smiles across the playground and confessions scribbled onto paper. He also remembers his first crush. She was pretty, always waved to him in middle school before running off to her friends. Wooyoung would walk the longer route to his own classes to see her as she passed him, locking eyes before one of them (usually him) would feel his breath hitch and he’d walk a little faster. They even went to their school dance together, by that he means they held hands and stood next to each other at the punch table.
They never dated but she was also his first heartbreak in a sense, thanks to the new guy that showed up and swept her off her feet by their final year of middle school. Wooyoung hadn’t cared too much after like a week, they went off to different high schools and he’d forgotten all about her. He certainly doesn’t remember much of her now, but he does remember the feeling of loving someone for the first time. Whatever illusioned version of love a person can have in their teenage years.
By the time high school ended, he’d enjoyed his fair share of relationships, fuck buddies, heartbreaks and whatever else there was in between. Unfortunately, that meant the rose-coloured lenses of his adolescence had been removed, and love had gradually become more of a whimsical fantasy than something he’d truly ever achieve. Life just got in the way most of the time, made relationships way too complicated. Therefore, in the meantime, while he waited for the special someone to come along he chose to embrace college life to the absolute fullest. Which translates to get wasted every weekend and wake up with a stranger in your bed.
“Any of you planning to get some tonight? Because I know I am,” Wooyoung winks. Mingi scoffs, picking up a slice of pizza, “Didn’t I tell you I’m not going? Those parties you and Yeosang go to are always so,” he pauses, holding his hands up to find an eloquent expression, “fucked up.” Yeosang pleads, “You can’t be lame tonight too, dude.” Placing his cup down he continues, “Wooyoung’s gonna ditch me before he’s even gotten a drink in him. Just come with.” Mingi shakes his head, “Isn’t your roommate going? Just stay with him,” he offers with a shrug.
Yeosang exhales, arms dropping to his sides, “Yes, exactly- I don’t want to be drunk around him. I swear Yunho’s straight as shit and I’m gonna try make out with him or something. You need to be there to stop me, deadass.” Mingi purses his lips, “I don’t know, new roommate’s bringing all his shit tonight and I said I was gonna help him unpack.” Wooyoung swallows his bite quickly, tilting his chin towards Mingi, “Didn’t he transfer to Columbia? He would’ve seen the flyers, I’m sure he’d be going already.”
Mingi sighs in defeat, nodding, “I’m gonna head back now. I’ll ask once I get there, text me the details yeah?” The boys break out into grins, elbowing each other in celebration. “Yeah, I got you. See you man.” Yeosang hits Mingi on the arm shooting him a small smile, while Wooyoung bids him goodbye with a tap to his behind, the two watch him leave the store before continuing to finish their food. Unfortunately for the tallest of the three, Mingi hadn’t told them how cute his new roommate was, and just how nervous he’d been around him since the first time they met.
Mingi takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment to pray he doesn’t embarrass himself. He shuts the door behind him before making his way to the living room. Stacks of cardboard boxes greet him, splayed out on the ground. Mingi spots books and stacks of clothing folded messily in some of the opened boxes. He furrows his brows looking around for the boy.
After toeing off his shoes, he places his keys on the counter before calling out, “Hey, San?” Shuffling is heard in the distance before Mingi turns around and finds who he’s looking for. Unfortunately for him, (fortunate for his eyes) the boy is far less clothed than he had anticipated. Holy shit. This new roommate of his is really fucking jacked. And worse, even hotter without a shirt.
“Hey! I’ll get the boxes cleared soon,” San pauses, eyes widening as he notices how Mingi is frozen in place, “Sorry um, moving just got kind of uh, hot.” He presses his lips into a thin line before gesturing towards his very half-naked body. Mingi shakes his head quickly, “No dude it’s fine, is the AC not working or, something?” Mingi realises how much he needs to peel his eyes away, so he does. Extremely unwillingly. His hands tremble as he shrugs his jacket off. Mingi turns away from man opposite him whose still very much not clothed to busy himself with a desperately needed glass of water.
San scratches the back of his neck, looking down, “I don’t really, know how to use it? Embarrassing I know, but I just have some shitty remote. Not the whole touch screen thing, not that it’s bad at all! This whole place is really great, your bedroom is really nice by the way. Not in that way! I just walked in accidentally, this place has a lot of rooms. My bedroom is really great too. Oh my god, I need to shut up. I’m sorry.”
A small chuckle escapes before Mingi can suppress it, “I’ll show you how to use it later. Have you um, unpacked enough of your clothes yet? My friends were asking if you wanted to come with us to that Columbia party tonight.” San grins in return, nodding enthusiastically, “Yeah!” he clears his throat, “Yeah, for sure. No that’s cool with me, I was planning on going already.”
“Okay, yeah. Cool. I’m gonna get changed then we can meet them there.” Mingi empties the last bit of water from his glass, watching as San rubs his now sweaty hands on the sides of his pants. He spins on his heels, returning back to boxes he was previously sorting through. Mingi mutters a quick “see you in a bit” before rushing past the other, off to his bedroom. He pushes his door shut quickly, pulling out his phone as he slides against the wall down to the floor.
mingi: fuck me yeosang: thank u god i knew this day wld come
mingi: wtf dude no
new roomie is hot as fuck yeosang: thought you finally loved me back
kidding spill
so what does he have that i dont Mingi rolls his eyes, poking his tongue to the inside of his cheek before typing frantically back.
mingi: can u shut up
i alr thought he was cute n then he walked in half naked and i Don’t Know What To Do yeosang: is he coming party tn ?
mingi: yes . i want to jump his bones
yeosang: cant wait to see that
mingi: ok voyeur kink is not needed rn
yeosang: sorry i thought this was a Safe Space
mingi: how do i live with him now
i cant be normal around hot ppl
yeosang: idk man u kno i don’t fuck the roomies for a reason
need me to keep u on lock tn ? js keep me from yunho i beg
mingi: i think ill b ok
Can i fuck yunho instead
yeosang: not funny
mingi: sorry x
wooyoung: god when is my hot roomie coming along ..
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Regarding scans and watermarks
Yesterday, a SxF clear file scan made by my friend @xxscarletxrosexx (who had allowed me to share the scan on my blog here) was reposted on Twitter with her watermark clearly removed. She wrote an insightful post about how, despite what many people think, it does take a good amount of work to obtain and scan rare collectibles like this. As someone who makes a lot of scans with watermarks, I want to offer my thoughts on the topic.
For those who have followed me since my blog started, you may have noticed that my watermarks have "evolved" over time. This was in response to, of course, my scans getting reposted without credit (my old watermarks were easy to crop/edit out). I know some people take issue with putting watermarks on official art because we technically didn't "create" it. But that doesn't mean time and effort wasn't put into making the scan. To me, it's similar to people who take photos of exclusive events or people who make gifs...while they didn't create the subjects of these things, they still created the presentation of it. For people who take and share exclusive photos, they spent time, effort, and money not just on going to that location and taking the photos, but posting them in a presentable way online for others to enjoy. For people who make gifs, it again takes a lot of time and effort to create, edit, and present the gifs in an attractive way on social media. In both these cases, while these people didn't draw, animate, design, etc, the subject of their photos or gifs, there was still self-imposed work and creative effort behind it, which I think deserves some recognition. It's the same with making scans...I didn't personally draw the images I scan (and I make this clear by including "scanned by..." in my watermarks) but I still made the presentation of it - the scan - which does take time and effort; I bought a Canon TS6300 scanner a while back particularly for this purpose, I often have to finagle with the books I scan to make sure they're properly flattened so the scans aren't blurry or crooked (have to redo them sometimes when this happens), and if little pieces of lint or other blemishes get in the scanner, I either have to scan them again or use photo editing software to fix them. And while I paid for all the books, posters, etc, I scan with my own money, sometimes just obtaining certain rare collectibles not only takes money, but a lot of dedication to obtain! The Twiyor chara fine graph I recently posted about is a perfect example of how much work can go into acquiring a rare item...and I have no obligation to scan the merch I get. I could just enjoy them on my own and only share quick, low-quality photos from my phone. But I like making scans because I know other people enjoy them 🙂 I also know that many people don't have the means or funds to get this kind of merch, so it's nice to let them have enjoyment from it second-hand through my scans! Sometimes I buy merch only or mostly for the purpose of making scans because I know that artwork isn't currently available in an official artbook or anywhere else.
Since I make so many scans, I just accept the fact that they will get reposted without any mention of me or my blog...which I don't mind that much since that's what the watermarks are for - they're to show people who see the scan where it came from, and if they choose to go to that site, they'll be able to find even more scans to enjoy! But if someone actually removes a watermark, it's like they so adamantly believe that the person who made the scan doesn't deserve any recognition for their time, effort, money, etc, put into it that they're going to spend their own time to remove any trace of that person from the scan...I mean, I can't say it's the most heinous act in the world, but it's disrespectful and just plain not nice. I try not to let it bother me, but it is hurtful to see someone else get recognition for something you put work into. But I just keep things in perspective and tell myself that at least I'm not an artist whose creations are getting posted all over the place without credit (I always cringe at all the uncredited fan art I see on Facebook groups and YouTube music compilations. It's so out of control 😔)
Anyway, I hope I've properly illustrated here that it does take a good amount of time and effort to make scans. I don't think I deserve as much recognition for it as an artist who actually draws the images they post, but I still think this kind of content sharing deserves some credit, even if it's just leaving a watermark intact.
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