#NOT even about anybody specifically. just so funny how much i see it.

[kickthecan-revolution]

This is long.

I had dinner last night with my friend/employee who’s here for a work trip. He had some incredibly profound things to say about the election that I’m still thinking about today.

I’m reflecting on where I could have been braver. Where I could have been kinder. Mostly, on a part of my life where I was on staff with Young Life, a Christian organization I was heavily involved in during college, and afterwards. When I graduated, I signed up to support a small tutoring program in Seattle’s Central district with at-risk kids that were little, not in high school. Mostly Black and Samoan. My parents hated it. I was the rebel.

The most profound thing I experienced from that year was seeing and contending with my own racism. My classism. I learned how my family had made choices in where we lived so it was predominantly white. I felt unsafe being the minority. I hated how I was seen differently by the other white people in camp, I was there with the kids who made them uncomfortable. I saw how much my identity was viscerally tied to being one of them, these white leaders who had so much fun, were so funny and made me feel like I belonged to a group of people who wouldn’t reject me. But it was these kids who made them do that, I thought to myself. Now they see me as “other”. I hated it.

I remember buying a brand new car and the kids oohing and hanging over it, and I felt sick, realizing the wealth disparity between us. I was 22 years old, realizing some of this for the first time.

It was the most uncomfortable time of my life, I hated almost every second of it but I emerged from it differently, mostly because my Black and Samoan colleagues were so kind to me. I confessed a lot to them - I asked a lot of questions that were likely exhausting for them. They never called me a racist, even though it would have been true. They never scolded me. They loved me and were excited for me that I was on this journey. They were right next to me the whole way. They weren’t shy about asking me questions or saying hard things. They moved in a way where I felt deeply accepted in my vulnerability. Looking back, how hard that must have been in the face of my ignorance is not something I take lightly. It was by far, the most foundational year of my life, I think about some aspect of it almost everyday. I became more aware. Less racist. More empathetic. It changed me permanently.

One man in particular, a speaker at a camp, said something to me that became a core memory. There was a certain girl that was very tough, and I was trying to figure out how to be with her. He just stared at me, probably bewildered and said “just hang out.” that answer baffled me at the time, mostly because I had no idea how to do that with anybody. He spoke to a large group of people after that, mostly white people, and someone asked him how they’ll know they aren’t a racist anymore. He quietly said “when you are willing to give a person of color the full and complete control - the last word - on who they are.” I’ve never forgotten that. Isn’t that what any of us want?

There’s much to be humbled by. Am I invested in being angry, or effective? Everyone infuriated me during this election - Trump supporters, Christians, Andrew Tate supporters, Joe Rogan fans Jill Stein supporters, even pro-Gaza supporters and a lot of the Leftists in the political landscape. I was furious with everyone who wasn’t completely behind Harris. I called people racist on the internet. I called them evil. I scolded, I routinely and regularly vented my moral outrage. The worst part is that I meant it.

So this is my confession, this hatred. My misuse of moral outrage. My need to feel like I was liked.My rage when someone wasn’t acting in my own very specific terms. My behavior that made so many defensive instead of supported.

Ironically, those who I felt were screaming at me (broadly, not specifically) for my Whiteness, for not supporting Gaza enough, saying I support genocide if I didn’t do or say or agree with their very specific terms of support absolutely shut me down and I felt myself pulling further away from them, just keeping all of my thoughts to myself. I wasn’t brave enough to say it out loud and felt like I couldn’t, after all it was largely this group that got us a decent candidate in the first place. Were they right, and I was just being defensive? Well yeah - they were right. And yes, I was defensive. Maybe I didn’t care enough. All I knew is I was tired of being told my level of care was not acceptable, and trying to appreciate the position that the VP was in with our Ally as Putin pushes further into Europe meant I didn’t care at all. That was not giving me the last word on who I am, and I was pissed. I stopped learning about it, I minimized my engagement with them. There was no psychological safety to be vulnerable.

It’s overly simplistic to say who is at the heart of that blame-wise. I think it’s more important to acknowledge it’s pretty human, and the damage it causes when we go underground is significant. And that in this decolonizing journey, I still don’t know how much of the oppressed opinions of me I need to accept if it doesn’t ring true for me in my soul. If there’s any space to say “no you’re wrong about me.”

And I have to wonder if that’s how a lot of people in the country who voted for Trump felt about me. I know that’s true. I wanted to feel like I was part of “the best”, and I treated them as though they weren’t. I hated their character - I still do. They genuinely frighten me. But being the same as those who I saw as the most righteous was more important to me than anything else, it was more important to belong to those I saw as “right” vs being effective. It’s my need to have a family. To not be alone.

It is also my Whiteness, needing to never feel rejected or that someone is mad at me, that’s how it manifests most for me but I’m glad I’m at the place where I am know it’s not entirely that. I am not my Whiteness entirely, though people can and do see me that way. I still get to acknowledge those other aspects of me that many might be unwilling or just not invested in seeing.

Getting at the root cause of why we (white women) do so much damage is mystery and is pretty personal but I think there has to be space for vulnerability to see the brokenness inside of us that is the source of so much unconscious, harmful behavior. There are margins of us that are broken and kind of insane - what do we need to get ahold of it? Is there any solution? I don’t know, beyond something supernatural but I do know being scolded by those who are aligned with elevated values does not seem effective. Part of me as I write that says “oh my God, are you saying you need to be managed and catered to?” that’s gross if the answer is yes, and exhausting. I just don’t know what’s truly effective in promoting change. Part of me wonders if full change is possible and we just need to be overcome/minimized/outnumbered. Its possible.

So I own a lot of contribution to this failure. This rage I feel is weird, particularly when I''m not going to be hurt much by any of this. I need to figure out what parts of it are grounded in empathy and which parts aren't. All I can do is be more honest about my missteps, my own lack of character and braver in talking about it and hope the journey will find some companions along the way. Or not, most of this is a journey we take alone, I guess.

Do you want to be angry or do you want to be effective, Diane. You can be both, but not when they cancel the other out.

[pillarofna]

i feel like a third of my mutual in laws have “dni for liking problematic media” in their links and are like 100% serious about it. just feels so embarrassing bc it is ALWAYS just media that person doesnt like personally. idk its so funny. youre gonna be a fire emblem fan and have “no danganronpa no homestuck” in your bio?

[jichanxo]

made a tierlist of my kuwagami fics for funsies (+ notes for a few) ↓

(everything listed in the same tier are equals, so the order they're listed in has no meaning)

[themyscirah]

Started thinking about the Amanda Waller + Ben Turner relationship again.... fuck, I'm gonna need a minute

[lampochkaart]

The funny thing is that he doesn't even notice that he does that

Monster AU! I've had the idea for this comic for a while but couldn't choose the setting. Eventually I stopped at Monster School AU

Kaito and Maki are werewolfs and Shuichi is a vampire, but at first I was unsure of what creature to make Ouma.

I thought about making him a vampire for that classic werewolf-vampire rivalry, which would be even funnier because one of Momota's best friends is a vampire, but for some reason Ouma is different. I just imagine Kaito complaining about how annoying and pretentious vampires are. And Shuichi is just looking at him, so he's obviously like "Not you though! You're great! So much better than Ouma!". And Shuichi is like "Uhuh. R-righ..."

I also considered other things that kinda fit Kokichi. Like a genie, and he's doing his damned best to find loopholes and people's wordings to fulfill their wishes in the wrongest and most annoying way possible. Or making Ouma a fey — mischevous trickster that you need to be careful around.

Or, you know, some kind of demon, 'cause he really gives me the vibe of a mischevous (and sometimes malevolent) entity. Specifically chort/chertenok ("чёрт/чертёнок"), which is something close to an imp. Mischevous small demon that uses different tricks to cause problems but can often be outsmarted. I feel like he would enjoy testing if someone can see through his plan and beat him.

But then I got an idea of making him a ghost and everyting was settled. Because I can't think of anything funnier than ghost Kokichi in an oumota monster school AU. At first Momota was uttery terrified of him, and though he still feels uneasy, over time he got kinda used to him. They can even hang out when Kaito transfoms and becomes really dangerous, because Kokichi can just become fully intangible and so no matter what anybody tries to do, he's completely safe.

[angstflavoured]

A little fiddauthor analysis...

Making this post mostly just to get all of my thoughts out about it regarding how I think it is inherently very toxic on both ends, despite people treating it as more wholesome near the beginning when they were both younger… and the fact that I think it’s very incredibly one-sided. I’m strictly going to be talking about CANON events, not headcanons or speculations or AU’s. If you wanna draw Fiddleford and Ford being cute and hugging and dating, I don’t care, I like a lot of the content for them myself. It isn’t canon to the show and doesn’t affect or harm anybody. That’s what a fandom is and I’m not trying to police anyone, I just think a lot of people misinterpret their relationship and thought it would be fun to talk about it because I find their dynamic really interesting. I’m going to be using a lot of direct quotes and scenes from Ford’s journal, TBOB, and the show, so buckle in baby ! This was supposed to be a quicker and smaller one while I work on my Billford essay, but I had a lot more to say than I thought…

First off, it’s interesting to see how Ford thinks their interaction after so long is going to go. In Journal 3 he says he has “no choice” but to call Fiddleford up to work on the portal because Ford just doesn’t have the smarts to do what he wants to do himself, and he thinks he’s going to have to literally beg Fiddleford to join him. But as we see in the journal and in the show, it hardly takes ANY convincing at all for Fiddleford to drop everything he was doing and leave his wife and kid for months on end to work on a project he knows nothing about. All the info he has he got over a short phone call. It seems like Ford, at this point being so close with Bill and thinking he’s the only one who cares about him, just assumed that most people he used to talk with don’t think about him anymore. He’s had Bill whispering in his ear that he’s the only one who understands him, so it makes sense he doesn’t think Fiddleford will want to do this with him. But from what it looks like, Fiddleford either has been waiting every second for Ford specifically to get back to him, or just has been waiting for any excuse to get the hell away from his family which is… yeesh. Either way, not very healthy regarding his wife and kid. He doesn’t seem to really care all that much about either of them, but more on that later.

Obviously Ford cares about Fiddleford, as soon as he comes down to live with him, Ford hasn’t been so happy in a good while. He missed human connection, despite how good things were going with Bill. Having another person there to talk with was nice. Despite Fiddleford having strange quirks that did irk Ford, he found them endearing and genuinely felt better in his company.

But I think the biggest thing here a lot of people overlook is that Ford only ever refers to Fiddleford as his college buddy in the show, and in the journals as “my assistant.” I’ve seen so many people have Ford call him his partner, but he actually only calls him this like once in the show i think. It’s always my assistant, my research, my theory. Which is funny because Ford didn’t come up with any of this stuff with the portal on his own. Bill was the one that gave him the blueprints. Fiddleford even questions Ford at one point, asking if he had help coming up with them because of how complex they are, and Ford decidedly DOESN’T mention Bill and instead tells him “with hard work, anything is possible.” (Btw he does refer to Bill as his partner multiple times… just sayin.)

The way he talks to and about Fiddleford, Ford is always talking down. He does think that Fiddleford is smart and does think he has a brilliant mind, but he still thinks that he’s below him.

Because Ford has Bill.

And oh my lord, do I not see anyone talk about this. Soooo many comics always depict Fiddleford knowing about Bill existence, but I think the biggest roadblock with their ship and a huge point of contention is that Fiddleford never canonically knows about Ford’s relationship with Bill until after he’s already lost his mind when he’s old. He doesn’t even KNOW that he exists until he’s half sucked through the portal. People ignore this, but it’s so important to their dynamic. Ford doesn’t think that Fiddleford could handle it, and he doesn’t think he necessarily deserves to know. Because Bill is Fords thing. Their relationship is special. Ford is special.

Ford claims he doesn’t tell Fiddleford about Bill because he would throw him in a looney bin, despite their research being so whimsical and ridiculous already. They’re literally building a portal to a different dimension, Fiddleford would’ve believed him. And the way Ford talks about it, you can tell it’s less about Fiddleford thinking he’s crazy and more about something else.

Could F ever truly appreciate the complex fates that brought me and my Muse together?

He doesn’t think Fiddleford could APPRECIATE it. The language he uses, you can tell that Ford knows that Fiddleford would see right through Bill’s facade. And Ford doesn’t want that because he wants to be friends with Bill and he wants to be special, and he’d rather hide Bill and stay in denial than tell his dearest friend, just so he can feel special a little longer.

This is why I think as much as Fiddleford’s romantic feelings for Ford were there, it never ended up going anywhere. Ford would always choose Bill over him. When Fiddleford got him the axolotl pet, Ford quickly threw it out and lied about it to Fiddleford just because Bill told him to. And there’s multiple cases of interactions like this, where Bill will talk down about Fiddleford and Ford will just be like damn… yeah. Here’s a journal excerpt from TBOB around Christmas time. For context, Ford got into a huge fight with a monster and tried to contact Bill to help him, but he didn’t come. And then Bill randomly shows up later when Ford’s at home decorating.

I was almost roasted by Krampus, and where was he? Off inspiring some other scientist? Posing for some tapestry? Were we even partners? He threw the accusation back in my face. “Hey, I’m not the one skipping portal work to carouse with a third-wheel hillbilly with second thoughts about our project!” I started to argue--but he had a point. F has seemed less and less committed to work lately.

Which is INSANE !!! when we see that only a fucking page ago, Fiddleford was explaining how he got in a fight with his wife because he didn’t get her a present for Christmas. After spending multiple weeks and making multiple prototypes for a pair of 6 fingered gloves for Ford.

And if we hop back to Journal 3, there’s a particular interaction with them which is crazy to me. While hiking up a mountain to go to Crash Site Omega, they get into a fight with the Gremloblin, which fucking swoops up Fiddleford into the sky. In Ford’s attempt to get him down, they both end up falling down through the roof of a barn, where Fiddleford gets stuck full of quills and breaks his arm.

Despite our fortune, I have become worried about my assistant. I was able to treat his physical wounds, but I fear there are mental wounds not as easily remedied. For the past several nights, he has been unable to sleep, apparently still haunted by the Gremloblin’s gaze. More alarming is his Cubic’s Cube. It has sat scrambled, unfixed, on his desk for days. I myself have survived many monster attacks without trauma, but perhaps F is more sensitive than I realized…

OH. MY. GOD. The way that Ford talks so condescendingly is enough to make any person's blood boil. It’s the same way when Fiddleford gets sucked through the portal, and when Fiddleford gets pulled back, Ford’s first words out of his mouth are “WHAT DID YOU SEE!”

As much as he cared for Fiddleford… he has no regard at all for Fiddlefords VERY VALID feelings about events that would traumatize literally anyone. But he just pats Fiddlefords back and tells him to get used to it because this is just part of the job and he shouldn’t be whining so much. He does nothing to properly comfort him and scoffs it off like “apparently he’s ‘TRAMATIZED’ or something. I’ve been through so much worse and never had a problem, I don’t get what his issue is.” And then ford is SURPRISED AND APPALLED when Fiddleford creates the memory gun.

Which oohhhhh lord, the memory gun. jesus christ. Such a big example of the distrust between them on both sides. Fiddleford literally canonically lied about destroying the gun and then erased Fords memory about it so that he could erase his own memories in secret without him knowing. And also probably fords sometimes! Not completely canon, but like…. Fiddleford did it once, I wouldn’t put it past the guy. And then when they go to the carnival, Fiddleford hands out his fucking card to Ivan (the leader of the society of the blind eye, who was a teen/early 20s at the time) so that he can erase memories for him that he didn’t like.

Biggest thing we can take away from everything regarding Fiddleford’s character, is that he always takes the easy way out. He ran away from his family he obviously didn’t really care for as much as he should’ve because that was easier than talking it out or divorcing. He pushed it aside for later. Bro was literally looking for a fucken Brokeback Mountain situation, but Ford wasn’t giving anything back to him. So instead Fiddleford constantly made a fool of himself doing things for Ford and tripping over himself to show his gratitude when all the while Ford was entirely focused on Bill. and then he just goes around and starts erasing memories, because it’s easier than having to actually deal with things. Which is why I don’t foresee a reality in which Fiddauthor makes sense, in the way they actually end up doing anything together. Because Fiddleford’s too much of a coward to admit his feelings first, and Ford obviously has his sights on someone else.

And here’s the BIGGEST damning thing, like oh my god.

In Journal 3, Ford goes to a fortune teller (which don’t get me fucking started on how judgy he is to her and how much he talks down about her, DESPITE HER BEING LEGIT AND ACTUALLY WARNING HIM). Long story short, she gives Ford a spiel about how someone close to him is deceiving him. She then gives him a mood ring and says “when this is blue, you may pull through. When this is black, you can’t turn back.”

And LO AND BEHOLD!! OH MY FUCKING GOD, when they’re at the carnival and Fiddleford is talking to Ivan and whispering--

Ford. Looks down. To check if the ring is black.

I took one last look down at my hand and was strangely relieved to find that the palm reader’s ring was still blue. I shoved it in my pocket, collected F, and tried to put the whole experience out of my mind.

FORD LITERALLY THOUGHT ABOUT THE IDEA OF FIDDLEFORD BETRAYING HIM BEFORE BILL. IN FACT, HE LITERALLY NEVER MENTIONS THINKING IT WAS BILL ONCE.

He talks about how they got into a fight at dinner the night before the portal test because Fiddleford was having second thoughts about it being dangerous, and Ford told him to be there or he would get left behind. He’d do it without him.

And when Fiddleford gets pulled through the portal and quits the project, Ford says gooooddd fucking riddance, I never even needed you bro.

F, you weak-willed hayseed! Go back to your doting family and a life of fear and compromise! I weep now not for our failed partnership, but for the golden opportunity thrown away. To think I considered him a friend! I know my true friend. It is my Muse.

One of the few times he ever refers to it as partnership btw. Literally only when they break everything off.

And Ford only starts fighting with Bill about everything after it starts directly hurting him. It literally just seems like Ford is less upset about Bill’s plan being evil, and more upset at the fact that he lied to Ford LMAOOOOO he didn’t like the fact that he was disposable and lesser to Bill, despite Ford treating Fiddleford the exact same way.

At the end of all of this… it may seem like I’m really fighting against this ship, but not in the slightest. I LOVEEEE them so much, but in a way where it would be really toxic and not actually end up with anything happening.

Such a biggg theme when it comes to Ford’s character specifically is yearning. He yearns for success and attention and love and acceptance, but he’s constantly never giving other people those things. Which ends in him not receiving any in return. That is obviously until he gets back from dimension hopping and works on being a better person. When he starts towards healing, that’s when he starts receiving what he always wanted.

There’s so much tension between Ford and Fiddleford it's like disgusting, they were so incredibly gay… but, I hate to say it, it was very one-sided. They did have some fun times together and Ford enjoyed his company for quite a bit, but it was nothing like how Fiddleford felt for him. Fiddleford was always thinking about how Ford was feeling and what he was doing, and Ford never really did that for Fiddleford unless he was prompted to. But he was alwayasyayayss thinking about how Bill felt. And he always chose Bill in the end.

I just see so much of all of this get swept under the rug and never addressed, when it's kind of sad because it’s all so interesting and really adds a lot to both of their characters. They were both so morally gray back in their day, and honestly even more so now that they’re older, and its kinda sad to see that all go ignored. I JUST LOVE TOXIC GAYS SM AND THEY WERE SO TOXIC AND I’D LOVE TO SEE PEOPLE EXPLORE THAT MORE. Hopefully maybe this will prompt some people to think about it like this…….. It’s all so very tragic and their relationship was doomed from the start and i loveeeee shit like that. only misery to be had...

[empressdede]

Disrespectful

Chapter six

Love. It was a feeling that London didn’t associate with a lot of people. She was very peculiar with who she expressed that specific feeling with.

She understands that love is a feeling that you can’t control, and she knew exactly the moment she knew it was an emotion she felt for Roman. It was while they were still in Dallas. They had all went out as a collective group to hang out at the bar, just something to do because Nora did book the trip for an entire week and she refused to not enjoy it.

After realizing her mission was a success, she convinced London and Roman to go outside and have some fun, Khalid of course didn’t want to stay at the hotel by himself and ended up tagging along.

At the bar, they were able to let themselves go and enjoy the nightlife of what Dallas had to offer, and London was having a great time; until she found Roman chatting it up with some girl while he was trying to order drinks.

London is very aware that Roman wasn’t her man. She didn’t really know what they were, but she wasn’t going to let another second pass without letting it be known to every bitch in the building that he was here with her.

She slipped through the crowd easily walking to the bar, keeping her eyes locked on the two. Was Roman flirting with her? She questioned herself because what the fuck was so funny?

“Awe, C’mon. I think me and my friends could show you how we get down in Texas, we’re really good at sharing you know?”

Roman flashed the girl a small smile, shaking his head at her. “I don’t think-“

“Your wife doesn’t have to know. I see the ring honey but it dont change Nun.” The woman was persistent but London didn’t care about none of that.

"Maybe to you." London replied, turning both of their attention towards her. She flashed the woman a genuine smile before turning her attention to Roman.

Roman, who was glad for the save, kept his eyes on London. They’ve never been put in this predicament before and he wanted to see how she was going to handle herself. Her smile stayed plastered on her face, walking to him and caressing his face with her left hand.

The woman watched with an aloof attitude until London seen her eyes zero in on her ring. “But my husband isn’t really the sharing type. I think it’s something we have in common don’t you think baby?”

She don’t know where it came from, but she said it and couldn’t take it back. The ring she wore on her finger was given to her from a man who vowed to stand by her side until the end of time. And she shattered that promise with the claim of it belonging to another man, of her belonging to another man.

Roman heard every word but only focused on what really gained his attention: My husband. He let himself appreciate the appearance of London, from head to toe his eyes trailed over her body before wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer to him.

The other woman had been long gone by then but that didn’t matter to him. He didn’t even notice if she was still there or not. His main focus being on the one woman who couldn’t escape his mind no matter how much he tried.

“I don’t think I could ever share you with anybody.” He muttered back to her.

London let out a small chuckle, the hand she had caressing his face now cupped his jaw. “Did you understand me Roman? You heard what I said?” She questioned because she wasn’t playing with him. London and jealousy did not get along and she did not want to be in the presence of jealousy for too long.

A small smirk fell on Roman’s lips at her dominance showing. London was jealous and he was living for it.

“I heard you baby. My wife is a little jealous but that’s okay. I wasn’t going to leave without my wife anyways.” He whispered before closing the space between them

She may have not known what they were yet but they staked claim to each other as husband and wife and it was enough for them in that moment.

Except it wasn’t just for that moment.

London’s eyes rolled to the back of her head and her manicured hand reach up to hold onto his hand that was wrapped around her neck.

Her head fell back against his shoulders as he continued to pound into her from behind.

“F-fuck Roman…wait.” She cried out, her other hand reaching back to at least attempt to make him slow down, but he just smacked her hand away.

“Wait for what? This what you needed right mama?” He stated back to her, grunting when she clenched around him.

She could only moan back in response. The position they were in did nothing to keep London still, he thrusted into her and was hitting her spot with each stroked. Her knees trembled beneath her with an effort to keep her upright.

If it wasn’t for his arm around her neck forcing her to stay in said position, she’s pretty sure she would’ve fell over by now.

“That’s what all that was back there right?” He continued, pressing his lips to her ear to give it a kiss before whispering, “wanted them to know who this dick belong to huh?”

“S’mine Daddy, only mine.” She slurred out. The hand she had gripping onto his tightened, her nails digging into his skin but it only caused him to do the same, tightening the grip around her neck.

“I can feel it, I know baby. You can let it go.” Roman muttered and London’s moans only got louder. It felt so good, it almost felt like too much.

“Roman.” She cried out as a warning but he didn’t need it. He knew.

“Thassit baby, tell me who’s pussy this is.” He asked but London couldn’t respond to him the way he wanted. She reached back again to press her hand against his waist but he grabbed it and pulled behind her back. “Tell me.”

She tried her best to even slur out, “S’yours… fuck Roman I’m gonna-“

“Cum for your husband?” He muttered huskily in her ear cutting her off and her body shook. “Cum then. Make a mess for me mama, you can take it.”

London eyes rolled as she let out a cry once she felt herself sent over the edge, Roman slow down his pace to let her ride it out, but he wasn’t done with her yet.

London couldn’t even see anymore, vision going white. And Roman decided to finally let her go, watching as her body fell forward on the mattress. She panted to catch her breath and it filled Roman with pride to see her like that.

“You good baby?” He softly asked and she nodded to answer him. She was so good. Better than good, she just wish she could stay in this bubble forever.

Roman leaned his body against hers, leaving kisses against her neck, feeling her melt into the mattress. “I’m not done with you. But before we go the next round, you gotta do me a favor.”

“A favor?”

“Yeah. Take that fuckin ring off.”

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Love. It was a feeling that London didn’t associate with a lot of people. She was very peculiar with who she expressed that specific feeling with.

But she knew she felt it for Roman. She just didn’t want to openly admit to it, there was no reason to.

Her Texas trip did open her eyes though, she allowed herself to do a lot of stuff she didn’t think she would’ve let anybody else do to her. He made her take off her ring. And for the entirety of that trip, she kept it off. But he did too.

The vows committed to those rings were thrown to the side literally when they got around each other, and now that London had a feeling that the feeling she has for him is love… she doesn’t know how to move.

She keeps thinking about everything he did to and for her when they finally decided they didn’t want to be around Nora and Khalid anymore.

He drove her to Houston to book another hotel. They had four days left and he wanted to make every second count. He swore she owed him a couple dinners over these past couple of months so he took her shopping.

She didn’t even want to get anything to crazy because it was just a dinner. Roman insisted. He took her to at least three stores before he found something he liked.

“Reminds me of the first dress you bought me.” London whispered out to him in the dressing room.

They were both admiring the dress on her, London smoothing the dress out and Roman stood behind her trailing his hands up her body.

“You look just as beautiful in this one as you did the first one.” He chuckled out, but the tension between the two was already building.

“Roman.” She stated his name as a warning but he did not care for it. His hand slipped through the slit of her dress to rub his fingers against her lower lips.

“We can’t-“ she tried to protest.

“Shhhhhh” When he pushed her panties to the side and slid two fingers in her causing a small moan to escape her mouth. “You look pretty don’t you baby?”

Her eyes locked with his in the mirror and she didn’t need to be told to keep her eyes in the mirror because she already knew where this was going. “Daddy’s pretty girl” He cooed and it caused her to fail the mission because her eyes immediately rolled to the back of her head as his fingers started to pick up its pace.

“Keep your eyes open so you can see how pretty you look.” He muttered against her ears and London shot a quick prayer that she was able to walk out of here on steady legs.

Then the dinner happened. It wasn’t like the dinners they usually have. For one it was outdoors. And it was set up… with flowers all over the table.

London’s eyes widen when she took in the picturesque view in front of her. Roman flashed her a smile and grabbed onto her hand to lead her towards the table.

“We’re making core memory moments only remember?”

A smile flashed on her lips as that night replayed in her head. It was a date that she would never forget.

“Umm I’m Sorry to interrupt but your sister is here to see you.” Her second assistant Jada stated snapping her back to reality.

In desperate need of a distraction, she allowed her sister to come in. She never got to thank her properly for the blessing of that trip.

“Damn bitch, a whole week no contact? Tell me how you really feel.” Nora stated as soon as she walked in causing London to roll her eyes.

“I’ve been busy. I came back and a couple things weren’t completed so I came back to make sure everything is done by the extended deadline that I was graceful to give them.”

Nora placed her Chanel bag on her desk and took a seat but didn’t say anything. She hasn’t seen London since she decided to ditch her to go to Houston with Roman.

A small smile etched its way on Nora’s face when she took in her little sister’s body language. For the first time in months, London looked happy.

“What?” London questioned raising an eyebrow at her sister.

“You’re damn near glowing London. That’s what. Mind you, a bitch never got her thank you.”

“Cause I was waiting to take you and Sienna out to dinner or something. Treat you guys to something nice.”

“Ouuu girl, not treat me to something nice. Someone got her back blown out thoroughly.” Nora teased

London bit her lip as she contemplated on if she should tell her sister or not. “I don’t know what it is Nora, but something bout him makes me feel good.”

“Yeah girl, that man got you dickmatized. You got a lil extra pep in your step and I love it.”

London shook her head, “I said something about him. I’m not talking about the sex.”

That took Nora for a loop. “Girl hold up. I know you not saying what I think you saying.”

“And what do you think I’m saying?” London asked, tilting her head.

“Bitch I know you not telling me you like Roman. I thought it was just sex? I thought you were miserable these past couple of months because you needed some good dick and whole time its cause you have feelings for him!?”

“Why it sound like you judging me? You’re literally the one who set me up to go fuck him.”

Nora raised an eyebrow, “Judging you? Can I process the feeling of being shocked first? I didn’t expect to hear that you’re falling for Roman.”

London shrugged her shoulders, “It was almost like we were on a couples getaway in Texas. Flowers, dinner, we talked about almost everything. We didn’t have sex like we usually do. It was…different.”

Nora watched her sister eyes sparkle as she reminisced about everything she experienced with Roman and knew in that moment that this was deeper than what she originally thought it was.

“Damn…. We gon have to jump that bitch huh?” Nora asked but London laughed and shook her head.

“No. Because it’s already to late. That dick belong to me now.” And she meant that as disrespectfully as possible, because fuck Tiara and James.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

So….. what we feeling like?

Lmfaooo do not mind that weak ass smut scene, I fought for my life to make this chapter better but this was best I could do.

Please comment and give me some love🥺❤️‍🩹

Tagging the lovelies: @whatdoeseverybodywant @theninthwonder @christinabae @2-muchsauce @alichesmi @pitlissa22 @sassginawanmills @harmshake @po3ticb3auty @unfriendly--blvck--hottie @dershalover89 @serena004 @reci1996 @scarlettnoir01 @kill-the-artiste @southerngirl41 @badbitchcentralinc @reignsboy19 @mzv11 @cyberdejos2 @msbigredmachine @msniaimani @skyesthebomb @wanderingreigns @alyyaanna @katymae12344 @bebesobrielo @raya-hunter01 @headoftheetable

[sanjisblackasswife]

Little Things OP Men Do To Their S/O (SFW)

Black Fem Reader in Mind

Ft. Luffy, Sanji, Zoro, Ace, Law

CW: Not much(?), It’s a bit suggestive at Sanji’s (surprise surprise) but it’s not descriptive or lewd.

Luffy

Okay this is pretty specific and I said this in one Ace HC but Luffy enjoys punching your butt, lmao. Like your back could be facing him and Luffy would come up behind you and ask you mindless things while punching the cup of your butt. It doesn’t hurt but it’s funny and cute to you.

Speaking of touching Luffy will squish the fatty parts of your body if you’re beside him. He doesn’t take notice when he touches you it’s just a reflex and form of comfort to him to feel you.

You’re the first person he grabs with his stretchy arms when he is about to catapult towards the Sunny/Merry. Just like Nami he wraps his arms around you a few times before grabbing anybody else

He has a lot of inside jokes with you and you alone. You both can have a whole conversation based on nothing but references and those jokes only you both understand.

He holds your hand when walking together. It’s very similar to how a kid drags their parent to show them something and if you can’t keep up he just slings you over his shoulder.

He places his hat on your head alot. When you need shade, when you’re sitting, eating, napping, doesn’t matter he love putting his hat on you

Zoro

He holds your hand, waist, and thighs. Similar to Luffy your touch is a form of comfort.

Zoro looks directly in your eyes when you speak. If you can’t handle eye contact he does it on purpose to make you fluster but if you can handle his intense gaze it encourages him to do it more

He mocks you when you misspeak. It sounds annoying but it’s really funny because he changes his voice to high pitched you end up laughing instead of being mad

He places you on his thigh or lap when you sit together. You don’t remember the last time you actually sat NEXT to Zoro, he just immediately throws you on his lap

You lay on his back when he does push ups. You recommended to do it once as a joke to annoy him but your extra weight helped him. Granted he could be a bit better with how he asks you: “Y/N, I need your extra weight on my back.”

He plays in your hair. This man looks like a damn monkey the way he gets so invested in taking out any knots or kinks you may have in your hair. He even has the nerve to get mad when you move

His voice is …I’m not sure how to describe it but he says your name completely different from how he says anybody else’s. It’s mostly calmer and it will always get your attention.

Sanji

He plays with your fingers. Many times when you both are talking and carrying on he’ll intertwine his fingers with yours or even play with your nails as you both talk. It usually ends with him kissing your knuckles and holding your hand the rest of the conversation

He adjusts your clothes/hair. You do the same with him, but when he does it it’s very quick and simple. For example if the wind could be blowing too harshly and Sanji will immediately hold down your hair with his hands and fluff your curls/smooth your hair back to normal

He stare at your lips when you speak. Your voice is already beautiful to him so when he pay attention to your pretty lips it sometimes makes you flustered, but really he just wants to kiss you.

He almost never says your real name. It’s always “Angel, Sweetheart, Mademoiselle, or Love”. You’re the only woman he speaks that way too.

He lets you light his cigarettes. He tends to lose his lighter or it runs out so you started to carry your own for him. His heart skips a beat seeing your focused eyes light him up.

When you both are sleeping his hands are always in your shirt giving your breast loving squeezes. It was him being a pervert at first but now it’s completely almost innocent.

Ace

Just like his Baby to YOURE always wearing his hat or necklace. You just look hotter with it on

His arm is always drapped over you. If he sees you he will come over and just do it out of habit. You never push him away even though his body sometimes is too damn hot for comfort.

He kisses your forehead many times in a day. Before he leaves, when he comes back, as he is walking by. He just loves doing it

“Baby” & “Babe” is his go to’s when calling out to you. You’re his first love so he gets a little bit of pride being able to see how you look back at him across the ship when he calls out to you

When he is feeling pouty he snuggles you and leans his whole body weight on you. You almost fell the first time but now you’re prepared to carry this 6ft man when he’s in a mood.

Law

You’re always the first person he looks for when he walks in a room. His eyes will always automatically wander until he spots your figure and does a sly smirk. He doesn’t know when it started but he has no complains

He likes spending quiet time with you. He’ll have you in his office/room as he does paper work and study while you do your own thing. He just enjoys your presence.

He stares at you A LOT. He enjoys watching you talk, laugh, do chores, whatever it may be he loves cute things and you are most definitely one of them.

Okay so when he wants to read on his bed he enjoys having you lay on your back against his chest with one of his arms drapped under your breast tracing circles on your skin. Similar to Sanji he uses your breast as a stress ball.

He always makes sure you eat/take vitamins. Yes that is the doctor in him but ever since you both got together it’s been one of his top priorities to keep you healthy and safe.

[kkyaka]

Summary: Running into someone who was a key part in making high school hell for you wasn't what you expected when you settled into college Pairing: Ukai Keishin x black!fem!reader Warnings: friends to lovers (kinda), college!au, a handful of angst, reader kinda overworks herself, ukai is whipped for reader, one random bad encounter with an oc, reader was bullied in high school and is still holding onto that LMFAO, making out, grinding, tit sucking, little bit of marking, fingering, i think that's it, if there's anymore please tell me ya girl is tired Word Count: 21,351 (oops) A/N: Um, it's been a while LMFAO. I'm honestly not very proud of this fic, but I wanted to post it anyway as kinda of gateway to getting back into posting my fics cause I have four more (maybe five) that I wanna post. This was a part of my scrapped follower event (RIP). Reblogs are appreciated, and thank you for reading if you do read this trash!

The first week of classes always makes you anxious. This semester, you’ve got some classes in buildings you’ve never been in, and you didn’t get a chance to walk the campus to find them because you moved in so late. You don’t know why the apartment you moved into decided that moving in the weekend before school started was a great idea.

Luckily, you found your first class with ease, a simple elective that you need to graduate, and you hope that the coursework won’t be too hard. You got here early just in case you had trouble finding it, so you scroll on your phone to pass the time as the class fills in. None of your friends are in this class, so you’re not waiting on anybody.

By the size of the room, it doesn’t look like the class size will be that big, so you hope that the people that are taking it with you are bearable. No one is sitting at the desks around you, and that doesn’t bother you, but what does bother you is that someone sits right next to you when there were other seats open. 

You try to keep the sigh you make as silent as possible, not even giving the person a look as you keep your attention on your phone. You put it away when the professor walks in, pulling your laptop out of your backpack as she introduces herself. “Make sure you guys introduce yourselves to the people around you because you’re going to be working with them a lot this semester.”

You try to hide your annoyance, putting on a nice smile before you turn to the person that’s sitting next to you, but it drops the moment your eyes land on them. You feel something run through you that you can’t explain, grabbing the corner of your desk in a tight grip. 

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he laughs, but there’s not a single part of you that finds any of this funny.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” you whisper, thankful that you’re in the back of the classroom so no one can eavesdrop. 

“Why so hostile? I thought we were friends.”

“We’re far from that Ukai, and you know it.” His name feels heavy, foreign on your tongue, something you hadn’t even thought about saying in months. 

Ukai Keishin. Someone that you’d never thought you’d see again. Someone who’s been haunting your past for way longer than you’d like. You thought that college would give you the chance to get away from him, and yeah sure, you picked a relatively small college, but out of all of the colleges, he picks this one? You can’t help but look over him, seeing how much he’s changed; how much he’s grown. He is not the same boy that you’ve known for so long, and you willfully ignore that part of you that wants to examine that even further.

“You’ve always been so mean to me,” he whines playfully, which makes you roll your eyes because that’s rich coming from him. 

“Answer my question,” you say, hoping that you get an answer from him, and then you just go back to ignoring him. 

“Same reason you are, no?”

“Why this one, specifically?” you press, looking around with your eyes for somewhere else you can sit the next time you have this class.

“You can ease up, alright? I’m being totally honest when I say I had no idea you would be here too.” It doesn’t sound like he’s lying, looking over his face before finding something else to do. You don’t bother to continue the conversation; thankfully, the professor gets the class's attention again. 

She asks if anyone wants to share something about the person that they introduce themselves to, and a few people raise their hands. You sigh slowly, resting your chin on your hand after you put your elbow on the desk. After a few people have shared, she goes over the syllabus, but you’re not paying attention.

Even though you’re not looking at him, the fact that you now know he’s sitting next to you, is the only thing you can focus on. You’ve never wished for a class to be over so fast in your life so that you can just get out of here without having to speak to him again. You sigh a bit, feeling like he’s watching you, but you refuse to look over at him to confirm that.

The longer your professor talks, the more uneasy you start to feel. You knew that the class wouldn’t last the whole time today since it was the first class, but you swear that time has slowed down. You see Ukai move a little bit closer to you in the corner of your eye, and you try to act like you didn’t see it.

“When’s your next class?” you hear him whisper, but you don’t answer, only responding with a quick side-eye. You turn your attention back to the front, and you sigh in annoyance, but that’s not enough to deter him because you feel a nudge at your desk. 

“Leave me alone,” you whisper, keeping your eyes forward.

“I will when you tell me.” You ball your hand into a fist, sighing again because you’re pretty sure he’s not going to mess with you anymore; figuring he just said that to get a rise out of you. You shake your head softly. It’s too fucking early for this. She’s starting to get toward the end of the syllabus, so you decide to order some food since you skipped breakfast this morning. You leave your phone on your desk while you put your laptop back into your bag, and when your eyes land on your desk, your phone is gone.

Your head immediately turns to the culprit, and he’s looking at the screen, but you can’t tell what he’s doing. “Are you a child?!” you grit, glancing at the front of the room before you try to reach for it. He’s quick to move away from you so that you can’t reach your phone, and right as your professor dismisses the class, he gives you your phone back.

You frown, thinking that he was going to put up more of a fight, and you notice how he steps closer to you when the other students are leaving the classroom, but there’s nowhere for you to move to. When the last student is out, you quickly make your way out, sliding past him when he puts distance between the two of you. 

You have a class in about another hour, so you order your food before you check to see if he did anything to your phone. Nothing looks different, and he cleared your apps, covering his tracks, so you’d have to do some digging to figure out what he did. You don’t bother to find it right now, trying not to concentrate on the fact that you will now be in the same room as Ukai.

You cross your fingers that he’ll drop the class, and you could also do that, but there’s no way you’d go through with it. You had left high school with high hopes that you would never see him again, but it’s just your shitty luck that you do. He made your life a living hell before college, and you were hoping that you could start fresh, leaving all of that behind.

But how long has he been here? You’ve been here a year already and you had no clue that he was here. And even if he was, your mom would’ve probably told you about it since she stays in touch with some of the other parents of your peers from high school. So, why were you unpleasantly surprised today?

You check to see how close your food is to being ready when you get a text. Your walking slows when you see Ukai’s name pop up, and seeing it allows you to figure out what he was doing with your phone. You swipe it away, shaking your head before you pick up the pace, but you falter when you see that he’s calling you.

You stop, stepping off to the side so that you’re not in the way of other people before you answer it. “God, what do you want?” you groan. 

“It’s only ten-thirty in the morning, and you’re already this grumpy?” he chuckles, and you ball your hand into a fist, taking a deep breath to try and calm yourself.

“I’m blocking you,” you say.

“Aw, you don’t mean that, do you?” You can hear his voice more precisely this time, but it doesn’t sound like it’s coming through the phone. You turn around to see him walking up to you with a smirk on his face, phone by his ear.

You hang up the phone, sighing heavily. “What do you want?” you repeat, way past annoyed right now, and when you look back at him, you see something flash in his eyes, but it’s gone before you can figure out what it was.

“Just give me fifteen minutes, okay?” He’s lost that teasing tone in his voice, and you chew on your lip softly while you contemplate before you finally give in. 

“Fine. I’m heading to the student union to get some food,” you tell him, hoping that this will finally get him to leave you alone. You start walking, and he happily steps in rhythm right next to you. It’s pretty silent for the first couple of feet you walk, and you expected him to continue the conversation, but he stays silent.

You definitely don’t have anything you want to say to him; well, in public at least. Your mind is racing as you walk, and you’re starting to wish that he would talk to you so that you can shut your thoughts out. You can’t help but think about how he treated you when you were younger, and how most of the time he was the aid in your bullying. 

As far as you’re concerned, you didn’t think he liked you, or either he loved to make your life a living hell, and his actions justified that. But what he’s doing now is completely baffling to you. You can’t help but scoff, rubbing over your head as you smile. Who knew that your day could be turned upside down in a matter of minutes?

“What’s so funny?” he asks, making you realize that you accidentally reacted to your thoughts out loud.

“So, did you transfer, or…?” you say, not wanting to answer the question.

“Nah, I was here last school year,” he answers, shoving his hands in his pockets. You nod softly, looking at the ground. The school isn’t that small, so you may have just never run into him. But on the other hand, the school isn’t massive either, so you’re a bit surprised that you haven’t seen him.

“I’m assuming you’re majoring in something dealing with agriculture?” you ask next, meeting his gaze, and the smile he gives you makes you feel too many things, and you don’t like it.

“Horticulture, specifically, yeah,” he tells you with a nod, looking at the ground before he looks at you again. “Now, how’d you know that?”

You choke a bit, clearing your throat as you look off to the side. “I mean, who didn’t? Farming was all you talked about in high school,” you try. It’s a horrible attempt at taking the heat off the fact that you know what he’s interested in, and you know there’s no way that it worked.

“You were listening to me in high school?” he questions, and the teasing tone in his voice increases your urge to punch him in the stomach.

“It’s not like I had a choice, you and your friends talked so fucking loud all of the time.” That you say with confidence because there’s a ton of truth to that statement. He’s always been obnoxious, but with his friends, it seemed like it would always multiply. Not seeing him was the best part of your high school career. 

He laughs a bit in surprise before he nods. “Okay, I’ll give you that.” One of the bigger classes must’ve gotten out because there are a lot more people around as you walk, forcing Ukai to move closer to you. You try to shy away, but there’s no way you can move without falling off the sidewalk, so you just bite your tongue when you feel his shoulder brush against yours.

“Alright, so how’s your schedule looking this semester?”

“Hectic to say the least,” you chuckle, sighing a bit as you think about your future workload. “So, I hope this class will be the least of my worries.”

“Ah, you’ll be fine, just don’t stress too much about it.”

You scoff. “Yeah, that’s a lot easier said than done.” When you get to the student union, he holds the door open for you, and you thank him softly, picking up your pace a little, but he falls in time with your steps.

You quickly glance at your phone, seeing that your order is ready, and you’re grateful for an excuse to get away from him. “Uh, well, my food is ready, so I should probably go.” You try to turn around as fast as you can, but he must notice that you’re trying to leave because he starts talking right when you finish.

“Do you have any other classes today?” he says quickly, and you stop, trying to hide your heavy sigh.

“No,” you lie, but that isn’t enough to let him drop the conversation because he speaks up again, and you wonder why you haven’t just walked away yet. 

“You mind if I join you while you eat?” That sounds like a horrible idea, so you promptly come up with an excuse that thankfully doesn’t sound forced.

“Oh, well, I’m probably gonna go sit in the library,” you say. “Wanna make sure I’m not gonna fall behind since I already have homework.” You feel like you might be playing it up too much, especially when he squints after he hears your words.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounds like you’re trying to avoid me,” he infers, and you start to panic a little bit, trying to think about how to respond.

“I’m not. I promise.” You chuckle, waving your hand out right as you feel your phone vibrate with a text. “I’ve already made plans to meet up with my friend, so…” Perfect timing, you think in your head because if that text hadn’t come through, you don’t know what you would’ve said.

He smirks at you before he nods his head. “Okay, then. I’ll let you go.” You almost curl your body forward slightly in relief, but you hold that urge back. “It was good to see you again.”

“Yeah,” you say tersely, giving him a tight smile. You awkwardly wave before you finally turn around and walk away to get your food. You don’t walk fast, but you do try to get out of there as soon as you can because you can feel his eyes on you without even having to look. 

It makes you feel a certain type of way that you don’t even want to try and tackle, so you hightail it out of there. Once you get outside, you feel like you can breathe again, but now you don’t know where to go. It’s not like you could sit inside the student union after lying to Keishin, so you look at the time on your phone to try and figure out where would be the best place to go.

Based on the time, there’s a building you could sit in and not have to worry about a lot of people being there, so you head on over there. You slide your headphones onto your head from around your neck and let the music take over the thoughts that you don’t want to hear right now as you walk.

“It’s only the beginning of the week, and you already look like you want it to be over.” Your forehead is pillowed by your forearms on the table, and you lift your head to set your chin on your arms. 

“I had a terrible surprise this morning,” you answer solemnly. You didn’t lie to Ukai entirely. You were meeting up with your friend, but it was after your second class, and you weren’t meeting her in the library. So, it was just a tiny lie. Luckily, you didn’t run into him anymore today, but you hate how you were on high alert the whole day.

You’ve never been more aware of your surroundings, looking around when you leave the building, and making sure you’re continuously looking around as you walked to your car. You could say that you’re being dramatic, but another part of you just wants to consider it “keeping your peace” since seeing Ukai again brought back painful memories.

“What? You tripped in front of a lot of people or what?” You sit up, sighing as you lean back in your chair.

“I saw someone from high school that I thought I’d never see again.” Your friend flips through her textbook, already having homework, as she shrugs.

“So? What’s so bad about that?”

“He made my life a living hell.” Your friend perks up at that, lifting her head to give you her full attention.

“Oh, it’s a ‘he’? Is he cute?” You give her a plain look, which makes her chuckle a little. “Okay, so I need a backstory. We’ve been friends for like a year, and I don’t think I’ve heard about this guy.”

And there’s a reason for that. You would much rather leave painful memories behind, but your luck says otherwise. “Well, I would prefer to not talk about a guy that made my life harder than needed,” you start with a sigh, “but today, he acted like everything from high school never happened.”

“What does that mean?”

“He was nice to me.” You can’t help but scoff a little, laughing because it sounds like the bare minimum, but he was nowhere near acting like that back then. “I thought he hated me or something.” 

“Why do you think he hates you?”

“Because he messed with me non-stop! He and his friends humiliated me as much as they could.”

“Are you sure that it was him that was messing with you or was he just in the background?” That makes you freeze, and you slump a little at her question. If you think about it, he’s never physically done or said anything to you, but the fact that he was there, and didn’t do anything to stop it was enough to convince you that he didn’t like you. And it was enough for you to not like him. 

“What did he say to you today?” your friend asks after you’re silent for a while. 

“He put his number in my phone, and he walked with me to the student union. He said he thought we were friends.” You rub your hand over your face, resting your top half on the table again. There’s so much confusion on a Monday, and you’ve barely been to all of your classes. 

“It doesn’t sound like he hates you to me.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s making me sound like I’m fucking crazy,” you say lightly, looking at what’s playing on the TV behind your friend. “I’m pretty sure he’s just trying to butter me up or something to try and make himself look good. And then he’ll make my life miserable again once I let him back in.”

“You’ve always been so dramatic,” your friend laughs. “I’m telling you right now, that I don’t think that’s the case. He definitely would’ve acted differently, right? Did he ever talk to you in high school?”

“Barely. I caught him staring at me all the fucking time. He sometimes tried to talk to me after his friends did something to me, but I never let him speak.” Your friend is a hundred percent invested in this story, all of her attention on you instead of her textbooks.

“Okay, give me a couple of instances where you were messed with,” she tells you after she laughs at your answer. You take a deep breath, preparing yourself to re-live through some of those moments. 

You tell her about the time they constantly tripped you while you were walking to your seat in a class you shared with him. You tell her about the time they started rumors about you multiple times. Now, that you’re older, they weren’t that bad, but just the thought of people that stuff about you made you hate half of high school. 

You told her about all the times you heard them whispering, knowing that they were talking about you and feeling tears welling up in your eyes at the snickers you would hear behind you. You stop soon after, biting your lip to calm yourself before your friend asks where was Ukai in all of this.

“He never said anything, and like I said, he was always staring at me whenever I looked at him.” You tell her about the times he would come up to you after class, usually after the bullying, but you didn’t give him a chance to speak, darting out of the room before he could even get your name out.

“Maybe he was trying to apologize,” she offers. “I’m not saying that I’m condoning him sitting there and letting it happen, but I don’t think he hates you like you say he does. At all.”

“Well, he had a lot of time to apologize, and he never did.” Yeah, you’re still hung up about it, and you don’t care if you sound like a child. He was a bystander and still dared to call them his friends and hang out with them after what they did to you.

“Well, I’m not gonna tell you what to do, but if you wanna hear him out, I don’t blame you. But if you don’t, then you could always drop the class and find another one to fill your requirement,” she says. “But, I know you’re not gonna drop, so it’s up to you,” she tacks on, making you frown at her. She smiles at you before she goes back to your textbook, and you can’t help but copy it, standing up and making your way toward your room, but not without playfully shoving her first.

You spend the rest of your night torn between completely ignoring your friend or taking her advice. Not having homework is a good and bad thing because you don’t have anything to distract you from your thoughts. You kill the time by watching a show that you’ve already seen a bunch of times, scrolling through your phone while you sit on your bed. 

Your friend has a point, but there’s a part of you that’s spent a while trying to lock that part of your life away, and you don’t want to go through the trouble of opening it back up again. You don’t know if you’ll be able to handle it when everything you’ve suppressed comes flying out.

When your eyelids start to feel heavy, you decide to call it a night, hoping in the shower before you do your face routine. When you get in bed, you toss and turn for a little bit, hoping that your dilemma stays out of your dreams.

Wednesday rolls around faster than you’d like, and you find yourself in that class once again in the same seat you picked on the first day of classes. You keep your headphones on as you get comfortable, having about fifteen minutes before class starts. You can feel yourself getting antsier as the class time approaches, wondering if Ukai dropped the class. 

You shrug off your thoughts, questioning in your head why you’re so worried about him in the first place. It doesn’t do much though because you feel your heart start racing when you can see someone sitting next to you in your peripheral. You don’t look, keeping your eyes on your phone, but you decide to switch your attention to your laptop.

You think the professor talks starting, so you turn your headphones off, sliding them off your head. “Good morning.” You hear it almost as soon as you take the headphones off your ears, and it nearly scares you.

“Morning,” you reply softly, glancing to the side to confirm that Ukai is sitting next to you. 

“How was your day yesterday?” he asks, and you shake your head a little as you shrug.

“Uh, it was pretty okay, I guess. It’ll be more hectic next week once my labs start,” you tell him, and it feels weird to be making small talk with him. Your friend’s words echo in your head as you ask him about his day yesterday.

“Mine was pretty okay, too. You know the first week of classes is always dragging.” You give him a nod, deciding to fully turn your head to look at him, but when you see that he’s staring right at you, you quickly look back at your laptop. 

Your professor starts talking, so you attempt to pay attention even though you’re more nervous than you’d like to be. Right as she finishes the discussion about what you’re going to be doing today, someone walks into the class. 

No one notices because they’ve all started talking to themselves in the groups that they’re in, and since you’re sitting in the back right by the door, she catches your attention. You look over her, commenting in your head how pretty her outfit is, but then Ukai quickly averts your attention to him.

“You did the readings, right?” he asks, and you squint at him.

“Did you?” you say right back, and he smiles a little which makes you think about how you’re feeling about that. 

“I did,” he answers confidently before giving you a synopsis of the reading much to your surprise. “I can’t slack off like I did in high school, so I’m trying to start early so I don’t get behind.” His words leave you a little stunned, but before you can even try and form a response, the girl who walked in late walks up to the both of you.

“You don’t mind if I work with you, do you?” She’s only looking at Ukai when she asks, and she must’ve walked up to the professor and had her fill her in on what you’re doing.

“Well, I’m working with her already, so,” he answers, and you make a face when it looks like disdain appears across her face.

“Oh, well, the professor said I could join a group,” she responds, and you can feel the air taking an awkward turn, but you have no idea what to say. Ukai sighs a little, glancing at you before he looks at her.

“Sure, one more doesn’t hurt.” She smiles widely before moving one of the desks closer to him before sitting down, and he leans towards you, which makes you lean back a little. “Are you okay with this?” he whispers.

“Uh, yeah, it’s fine,” you mumble back quickly, overwhelmed by how close he is. It doesn’t look like your words convinced him, but she’s talking to him again, so he doesn’t get a chance to make sure. While he’s talking to her, filling her in on what you’re supposed to be doing, you pull up your annotations from the readings you had to read for this class.

For about ten minutes, absolutely no work gets done because every time Ukai tries to talk to you, she interrupts with questions that have nothing to do with the work. And she’s only talking to him. You have an annoyed look on your face as you stare at your empty word document. Ukai seems to be just annoyed as you, and you truly don’t know why she’s acting like this. You don’t even know her.

You figure that you’re probably not going to get any work done, and by the conversations you’re overhearing from the other groups, they’re not necessarily talking about their group work either. It seems like there’s a lull in the conversation between her and Ukai, so you speak up.

“I like your outfit,” you say, giving her a small smile.

“I didn’t ask.” 

Keishin freezes, his fingers no longer typing on his keyboard, and your face drops. She’s giving you an ugly look, and you’re about to turn and face her, but he stops you by asking you some questions about the work. There’s a look in his eyes that you can’t decipher, but after that, he barely pays attention to her.

Every time she tries to talk, he talks over her, and it’s starting to get to you. “Ukai, it’s okay,” you say softly, and you don’t need to say it that loud because he’s practically in your space, moving over whenever she moved closer to him.

“No, it’s not,” he grits, and you never knew that fifty minutes could be so long. You managed to get some of your document filled, and you start to pack your stuff up once there are about five minutes left in class. You wish you could be out of here sooner. The girl continues to talk now that Ukai isn’t occupied anymore, and you can’t even bring yourself to look their way.

You feel a pit forming in your stomach at what she said to you, her attitude not sitting right with you, but you don’t want to say anything to her. The other part of you just wants to get out of her, and you refuse to let her ruin the rest of your day. Your professor lets the class out a little early once she sees that everyone is finishing up, and since your backpack is already packed, you quickly stand.

Ukai stands up almost at the same time you do, way faster. “So, I was wondering–” The girl is standing as well, and she’s still talking to him. 

“I didn’t ask.” You choke a bit at Ukai’s sudden response, turning your head to look away as you try to hold in your laugh, but not before you can catch her stunned reaction. You jump when he grabs your hand and pulls you out of the room ahead of everyone else. You have to walk a little faster to keep up with him, and he doesn’t let your hand go until you’re both well away from the building.

“Are you okay?” he asks, slowing his steps.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be okay?” you say. “I’m a little pissed, yeah, but I’m not stressed over it.” He doesn’t say anything in return, and the silence allows you to remember that he’s still holding your hand. 

You feel your face grow warm as you slightly tug, and he feels it, letting go of your hand immediately. “Sorry about that,” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Don’t worry about it,” you say lightly even though your body isn’t taking it so lightly. You grab your hand gently, rubbing over your palm as if you’re missing the feeling of his hand against yours. 

“So, it looks like you’re done for the day,” he says without missing a beat, and you frown a bit before you quickly remember that you lied to him about your schedule. 

“Oh, yeah,” you respond slowly, wondering if you want to come clean about it. “I would be, but I do have another class in an hour. My professor canceled the class on Monday for some reason.” You don’t know why you’re telling him this, and there’s a small part of you that regrets it the moment you do.

“Really? What class is it?”

“Uh, quantitative chemistry.”

“Oof, sounds hard,” he grimaces, and you chuckle a little, shaking your head a little.

“I don’t think it’ll be that bad, hopefully. Math wasn’t always my best, but it’s stuff I already learned so I should be fine.” You try not to focus on how close he is to you as you walk, and you know there’s no reason for him to be since the foot traffic isn’t bad. “Do you have anything else today?” you ask, trying to use conversation as a way to keep your thoughts quiet.

“Yeah, I have a stats class in an hour as well,” he sighs.

“God, I do not miss taking that. I’m glad I’m done with it.”

“Lucky you then,” he jests, nudging you with his shoulder. “I absolutely suck at math, so this won’t be fun.” You open your mouth getting ready to say that you remember that from high school, but you quickly shut it. You don’t need to expose yourself anymore.

“It might not be that bad, you’re given the formulas on the exams anyways.” 

“Well, if I ever have trouble, I know to call you.”

“Right,” you mumble. The conversation thankfully stops without being awkward, but you don’t want to listen to your head right now. There’s so much going on, your brain is trying to process too much, so you try to think about where you’re going to kill time until your next class.

“Are you gonna be getting food again today?” he asks after a while even though you’re not walking anywhere near the student union. Which makes you notice that he’s just been walking wherever you’re going.

You shake your head. “No, I ate a pretty big breakfast today, so I’m just gonna find somewhere to sit while I wait for my next class.” 

“You mind if I join you?” You hesitate for a split second before you answer.

“If you want to,” you say, leaving it at that as you try not to reveal how you’re feeling. But hell, you don’t even know how you’re feeling about this.

You find a place outside since it’s nice and not too hot to sit at, and it’s an equal distance for both of you from your next class. Since you already have assignments due for your classes, you try to get a headstart on it, so you pull out your notes and laptop to get started on that. 

Ukai sits across from you, and it takes everything in you to not look at him. He’s on his phone for a while that you can see from your peripheral, but then he’s on his laptop soon after that. You get into your work, finding a groove, and you’re almost done with most of it when you hear someone call Ukai’s name.

Both of you look up, and your heart drops when your eyes land on the owner of the voice. You quickly put your head down, hoping that your undivided attention on your laptop screen will cause him not to notice you. You swallow heavily as they greet each other, and you look at the time to see that you still have twenty minutes until your class starts.

You try to pack up some of your stuff since you’re done anyway, but then you feel your body run cold when Ukai says your name. “You remember her, right?” You hesitantly look up, and you can feel all of the emotions that you’ve been trying to suppress bubble over.

The guy says your name again in disbelief before recognition goes across his face. “Wow, it is you! I almost didn’t recognize you,” he laughs, and you wait for it. “You aren’t as ugly as you were in high school.” There it is.

You barely smile at him because there’s no way you can laugh that off, and you see Ukai frown deeply, turning to the guy, you start to close your laptop. “I’m gonna head out,” you start, and Ukai tries to stop you, but the guy won’t shut up about how much you’ve changed, calling you the names he called you back then, and you can feel yourself starting to break down.

“Don’t leave,” Ukai says, catching your hand before you can put your stuff in your bag. 

“Yeah, we have to stay and catch up,” the guy buds in, and you know there isn’t a smile on your face when you look at him.

“You can go,” Ukai orders, keeping his hand on yours, and this situation is so awkward and embarrassing, but your body is frozen at Keishin’s words. The guy tries to laugh Ukai’s sudden change in attitude off, not even the slightest put off by him. 

“Come on, man. This is hilarious, no? You remember how much she–”

“I remember how much I wanted to beat your ass,” Ukai states. “Now leave before I do.” You try to keep your breathing even as you look around. No one was around to hear the conversation, but some people are looking as they walk to wherever they are going. The guy stops smiling, looking at Ukai like he’s grown a second head.

“Are you serious right now?” the guy questions incredulously as he looks at you. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling this bitch–”

Ukai is on his feet in a split second, grabbing the guy by the collar of his shirt. “You have two seconds to move your ass before I do it for you. You apologize to her now, and I never want to see your face again.” 

Your body is shaking so badly, you feel like you could cry, and you flinch a little when Ukai tightens his grip on his shirt, shaking him just a little. “I’m not playing around here. Apologize. Now.”

“Ukai, it’s okay, he doesn’t have to–” you try, but he doesn’t even look at you, pulling the guy closer to him and nearly off of his feet.

“Yes. He. Does.” 

“Okay, okay. Just chill,” the guy pleads, and Keishin lets his grip loose just a little, but he doesn’t let him go. “I’m sorry, okay?” At this point, you don’t care for his half-assed apology, but the high school part of you is feeling a rush from hearing him say those words.

“Mean it,” he says angrily, and the guy turns to look at you.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but that doesn’t satisfy Ukai.

“For?”

“For messing with you. I’m sorry for what I just said. I was just fucking around in high school, and I didn’t mean any of the things I said. I promise,” he rushes out, and you’d never thought you’d hear that from him. You’re so overwhelmed with emotions right now, that you don’t say anything, but Ukai lets the guy go with a rough shove.

“Get the fuck out of my face,” he hisses, and the guy fixes his shirt, giving Ukai a searing glare, but he walks off without another word. You take a deep breath when he disappears out of sight, and you jump a bit when Ukai’s next to you. “Are you okay? I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I’m fine,” you breathe, finally looking at Ukai, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him look so worried. His hands are on your shoulders, and you give him a smile to try and lessen his worries. “I’m fine. I just thought I’d never see him again,” you say with an airy chuckle, and when you start to relax, he lets his hands slide off of you, but you’re still a little frazzled to notice how long they take to leave your body.

Ukai goes to say something, but you check the time on your phone to see that you don’t have a lot of time until your next class. “Oh, we have to go,” you say softly, packing up your stuff. Ukai stands there, watching you, and you turn to him once you have your backpack on your shoulders. “Thanks, Ukai,” you say softly.

“Of course,” he says just as softly, and you return the smile he gives you. “You go on ahead, I’ll see you on Friday.” You nod, walking off, and he watches you go. He sighs as he starts to pack his stuff up. There’s so much he wanted to say to you. 

Maybe next time.

You’re a month into the semester, and your work is already stockpiling. You try to get ahead of it, but it always ends up catching up to you. You’ve piled up on your classes this semester, and you’re starting to hate your past self for doing that. The class you have with Ukai is the only class where the workload isn’t the heaviest, but it still takes a hefty amount of time to do the work for it. 

The readings that you have to read before class have gotten longer, and you just barely have enough time to read them. You’re dragging ass when you get to class on Monday, feeling like you might fall asleep at your desk when you sit down. You’re surprised you managed to even remember bringing all of your stuff for class today, and Ukai sits next to you as you slowly take your stuff out of your bag.

“Rough night?” you barely hear him ask, and it takes you a while to blink, your eyelids feeling like they’re tied to weights.

“Something like that,” you whisper before you rub your eyes. “My workload is a bitch especially with midterms coming up, so I’m not getting a lot of sleep.” You yawn as you rest your chin on your hand. He doesn’t say anything else, and the professor starts talking, but he keeps his eyes on you while she does.

You rub your hand over your face, even drinking water to try and keep yourself awake. You feel like you might cry when she announces that you’re going to be presenting in front of the class about the readings you’re doing. Ukai watches you make a face at her words, and then he notices that you’re still working on things all the while. 

But when the class breaks off to do work, you immediately start talking about the readings that you had to do for the class. He wants to ask about how you’re doing, but he doesn’t think he’ll get the chance. His concern is only fueled when you keep having to stop to think about what you’re saying. He ends up doing most of the work, which he doesn’t mind, and it seems like class flies by in a blur. 

You and Ukai will have to present at least twice this semester, the first presentation being next week, which means you’ll have to get started on your papers now. When class is dismissed, he waits for you to pack up your stuff, and he can tell that you’re really tired especially since you’re not walking as fast as you usually do.

“So, are you going to be free any time to work on this?” he asks you once you’re both walking outside. 

“It’s gonna have to be at the end of the week. I’m gonna try and get as much work done as I can so I can focus on this. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, I can make it work.”

“We can try and start on it now while we wait for our next class if you want to,” you offer, and you both find a spot inside this time since it looks like it might rain, which doesn’t help your grogginess. Ukai sits next to you, but you’re too tired to freak out about it. He starts talking about the readings that you have to do, and what you could potentially write about in your paper.

You don’t know if it’s because you’ve chosen a pretty quiet spot, or if it’s his voice, but something starts to put you to sleep. Ukai can see your head bobbing every time you doze off, but he doesn’t say anything, continuing to talk about the material, and while you start to doze off again, he lets his hand gently guide it to his shoulder.

You don’t protest, going without a fight, and he looks down at you, only stopping when he realizes he’s been staring at you too long. He continues working, making sure not to move his arm too much so that he doesn’t wake you, and he opens up another document, typing up stuff that you could add to your paper.

When it’s almost time for you to go, he hesitates to wake you up because you look like you need sleep, but he knows you’d kill him for not waking you up in time for class. He gently shakes you, and you wake up with a start, looking around. You calm down instantly when you look at Ukai, looking at his laptop screen before sighing.

“God, Ukai, I am so sorry,” you say, rubbing your head. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“Don’t sweat it. I wrote down some ideas for you to start with,” he tells you. “I’ll send it to you later. You gotta get to class.” 

“Thank you so much. I owe you.” You don’t have to put your stuff up since you didn’t even get the chance to take anything out, and you stand up, stretching when you stand up fully. You check the time on your phone, putting a little pep in your step since you feel a bit energized as you start to walk away. You turn to wave to him as you leave, and the smile doesn’t leave his face even when you’re gone.

“Should’ve taken a picture,” he mumbles.

~

When you get home, you all but drag yourself to your room. You change your clothes before flopping down on your bed, and sleep is calling your name, but if you go to sleep now, you’ll mess up your schedule. You lift yourself when you hear a knock on your door while you let your roommate know that she can come in.

“Are you getting enough sleep?” she questions the moment she walks in. She sits down at your desk with a feigned stern look, already knowing the answer.

“I’ll try tonight. I just have a lot of work this week. And now I have to write a paper to present with Ukai next week,” you groan, and your roommate raises her eyebrows.

“Ukai? Haven’t heard his name since you mentioned him,” she says. “How’s all that going?”

“It’s going, I guess. I don’t know what you want me to say.” You think about how your head was on his shoulder earlier, and you feel your face start to warm, and your roommate notices the change.

“Yeah, okay. You’re not fooling me. What’s up with you two?”

“Nothing!” you exclaim. “I think,” you add softly, ultimately sighing in defeat, and your roommate moves to sit next to you on your bed, very invested. “I mean, we’ve been hanging on a lot during our breaks in-between classes. And I fell asleep on his shoulder today,” you say, grimacing at the thought.

“So, what? Do you like him or something?”

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. “I kinda had a crush on him in high school, but it was mostly bittersweet because he was always there whenever I was being messed with. Speaking of, I saw one of the guys a while ago.”

“What?” your roommate says, her mouth open. “What happened?”

“Ukai threatened him and had him apologize to me,” you laugh which you can do now that the situation is behind you.

“Shit, girl, you don’t think he’s into you too, right?”

“No,” you respond quickly with a shake of your head. “There’s no way he likes me now or back then. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Don’t say that,” she tries. “I feel like there might be something there.”

“Maybe,” you say reluctantly. “I just don’t wanna read anything wrong.”

“I don’t think you are. I feel like he might have a thing for you. He has had a thing for you.” You try not to fall too deep into her words, but with the way he’s been acting, it doesn’t sound totally out of the ordinary. “Just keep me updated, I’m invested in your love story now.”

“Don’t call it that!” You shove her playfully as both of you laugh, and she gets off your bed, heading to the door. 

“Don’t stay up too late, okay?” she says before she closes the door. Once it gets quiet, you begrudgingly decide to start on your work, so you move to your desk, starting on your chemistry homework since that’s what’s taking you so much time.

You play some music to help you focus, and you try to get into study mode. Which takes you a lot longer than it should because your head is focused on a certain someone. You groan softly as you let your head fall on your desk. Maybe if you think about it now, it’ll help you focus.

You definitely had some feelings for Ukai back then. You thought he was really cute, he actually is still very much cute. He looks even better now than he did in high school. But you were never confident enough to even start a conversation with him all through high school. You shared the same classes, but you just kept it to yourself. Not even your high school friends knew how you felt about him.

But then those feelings started to fade a bit when the guys he hung out with started to bully you. You mostly felt anger at first, but then it turned to hurt and a little bit of betrayal because the guy you liked wasn’t doing anything to stop what was happening. And then you hated yourself for being a damsel in distress. Once the bullying seemed to die down by the time you were in your last year, you were “over” him.

You didn’t have nearly as many feelings for him, they were still there, but you sort of suppressed them. And then you attempted to get rid of them when you got to college because you were under the notion that you would never see him again. But of course, you had to run into him, and now those feelings are starting to bloom again.

You never once thought that he reciprocated his feelings, and you never talked to him because it seemed like the only time he was going to say something to you was after his friends did, and the last thing you wanted to do was talk to him. 

“Okay, that’s enough,” you say to yourself, picking up your pencil and trying to get back to where you were. Right as you’re about to start another problem, your phone stops playing music and then your ringtone follows. You pick it up to see who’s calling, and you feel your heart start racing when you see that it’s Ukai.

You were thinking about him, and now he’s calling you. You don’t wait to answer it, putting it on speaker as you set the phone back down. “You cut off my music,” you say lightly, and you bite your lip a little when you hear his laugh come through the phone.

“Sorry. I just wanted to check on you. Making sure you’re giving yourself a break,” he says, and your roommate’s words start to play in your mind.

“I actually haven’t been working for that long,” you say, but then you look at the clock, seeing how much time has passed.

“Really? When did you start?” he questions, and when you go silent, he chuckles again. “Okay, so that means you need to take a break.”

“Okay, fine,” you relent. “Is that all you were calling about?”

“Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice.” You don’t know how to respond to that, his words making you silent again. “I was having trouble focusing so I thought you might be able to help me.”

“And how would I be able to do that?” you ask, trying to calm your racing heart. 

“Don’t know,” he answers, which makes you roll your eyes. “I guess I could try and listen to music like you.”

“You should, it helps.”

“I’d rather talk to you,” he replies almost too fast.

“But I don’t think it’s helping you,” you chuckle. “It just sounds like I’m distracting you.”

“I’m okay with that.” You put your hand over your mouth to stop yourself from screaming. What is happening right now? 

“So, you called me just to distract you then?” you ask after your quick freak out.

“Yeah,” he answers quickly. “Work doesn’t seem so bad now that I’m talking to you.” 

You can’t help but laugh. “Well, obviously. A lot of people would rather be doing anything else other than work.”

He goes silent for a second, and you’re about to ask him if he’s still there, but he talks before you can. “Am I being too much of a distraction?”

You let a shy smile appear on your face as you shake your head even though he can’t see you. “No, you’re not. I like talking to you,” you say, feeling your face warm.

“Good. I like talking to you too,” he says, and you quietly laugh, but you stop the urge to kick your feet like you’re in high school. Time seems to fly by as you talk to Ukai, and you’re having such a good time that you don’t even notice that it has until your roommate knocks on your door.

“Hey, girl, I was checking on you. You haven’t come out of your room,” she says, peeking her head into your room.

“I’m taking breaks, don’t worry,” you tell her, hoping that she won’t see that you’re on the phone with Ukai. “I’ll probably finish up here soon.” That seems to be enough to convince her because she gives you a smile and a goodnight before she closes the door.

“Sorry, that was my roommate,” you tell him.

“Don’t worry about it. Glad to know you have someone that’s making sure you’re taking care of yourself.”

“Yeah, she’s like my mom,” you laugh.

“I didn’t mean to keep you on the phone this long, you probably got no work done,” he says.

“I actually did. So, talking to you helped after all.”

“Well, you’re welcome,” he jokes, and you roll your eyes. “...I don’t wanna hang up,” he whispers after he goes silent, and in your head, you agree. 

“Well,” you start. “I could call you after I get out of the shower,” you offer, and your eyes dart around to the things on your desk as you wait for his answer.

“Yeah. That sounds good. I’ll be waiting.” 

“Okay, well, I’ll talk to you soon.” You hang up the phone, and you have to get it out, so you do a little happy dance before you calm yourself down. You jump violently when your door burst open.

“I knew you were talking to him!” your roommate yells. “You can’t fool me!”

“Thank you for giving me a heart attack,” you sigh, grabbing your phone and standing up.

“So, what’s going on now? A date?” she presses, and you scoff as you shake your head.

“Absolutely nothing of the sort. I’m getting in the shower,” you say, pushing her out of your room so you can get ready.

“Yeah, okay. You better keep me posted,” she tells you again, and you shake your head before closing the door. 

You shower quickly, washing your face, and brushing your teeth before you get in bed. You wait for a little just in case he might be showering too, and it takes you a while to even call him at that. Your finger hovers over the call button in your recents until you finally press it. It doesn’t even ring twice before he picks up.

“I missed you.”

“It hasn’t even been that long,” you say, a laugh leaving your chest against your will.

“Doesn’t matter,” he tells you softly as you start to get comfortable. “You laying down?”

“Yes, I am. I might fall asleep on you if I’m being honest,” you say, a yawn following right after.

“That’s okay. You need to get your sleep.” 

Ukai ends up doing most of the talking which is fine by him, and he can’t help but smile to himself when he hears your responses turning into soft hums. A part of him wishes he would’ve video called you so that he could see you, but he’ll take this for now. He stops talking once he can hear you softly snoring, but he doesn’t hang up. 

Sleep is right behind him, so he rolls over on his side, getting more comfortable. “Goodnight,” he tells you even though you can’t hear him, and it’s not long until he’s asleep himself.

You had gotten enough work done this week that you had enough time to work on your presentation with Ukai. You decided to meet up at his place this weekend, and you feel so conflicted with yourself as you stand in front of your mirror trying to figure out what to wear.

“Why am I being like this?” you mumble to yourself. You’ve been trying to tell yourself not to worry about it and just put on some clothes, but there’s a part of you that has too much of a say to let you do just that. You’ve put on and taken off so many clothes, the pile on your bed and floor only increasing. 

You don’t have time for this, having only about twenty minutes before you have to get there. Ukai lives pretty close to campus while you have to drive back and forth between your apartment and campus. That’s something you and your roommate hate, so you’re currently looking for a new place for next school year. 

You groan out loud as the voice in your head tells you that you don’t like the outfit you have on. You jump when you hear a knock on your door, and the familiar sight of your roommate peeking her head in fills your eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” you say, but she’s always been good at reading you, and she frowns before pushing the door open further. Her eyebrows crease when she sees that your room looks like your closet exploded. 

“You’re worried about what you’re wearing? You going somewhere special or something?” she questions instantly, but even the question doesn’t give you enough time to come up with a lie, because she quickly puts two and two together. “Don’t tell me you’re going on a date.”

“It’s not a date,” you emphasize. “We’re just working on a presentation we have to do on Monday.”

“Well, where are you meeting him?” she asks, and you look away from her, hesitant to answer. “His place?” she says when you don’t respond, and your reaction to the next question is all she needs to know the answer. “This is news to me! Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Because I knew you were gonna make a big deal about it, and I didn’t wanna psych myself out.”

“Okay, okay. Relax, y/n,” she says, putting her hands on your shoulders. “There’s nothing to be worried about. I won’t make a big deal about it because it isn’t if you think about it. It’s just two people working on a project,” she offers, and that perspective does make you feel better. “It’s only a big deal if you make it, and it’s not like it’s gonna be awkward. You both have been in close proximity before,” she adds, and you admit in your head that she’s right.

“I guess you have a point,” you say, but you’re still looking around at all of the clothes you’ve put on. 

“But, I can help you with an outfit,” she smiles, and you roll your eyes. 

“You just said it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Okay, yeah, but that doesn’t mean you can’t dress up a little. You’re going out, why wouldn’t you?” she says, and you chuckle a bit, starting to consider if her words are a contradiction to what she just said, but you let her do it anyway. 

While she’s going through your clothes, you quickly text Ukai to tell him that you’re running a little late, and you can’t help but smile when he responds almost instantly telling you it’s no big deal. Maybe you are overthinking this whole thing. 

“Okay, here ya go.” You look up to see her holding one of your worn t-shirts, and some shorts, but when you look at which ones she’s holding, you put your hands on your hips.

“I am not wearing those shorts,” you tell her, taking the shirt from her and slipping it on. 

“Why not? It’s hot outside, you don’t wanna be sweaty when you get there,” she tries, but you’re not buying it.

“I only wear those around the house,” you argue.

“And you will be around the house! His house,” she says, and you’re starting to realize that you don’t have time for this, but you know that you won’t be able to pick out anything else to wear.

“Fine. I’m only putting them on because I don’t have time,” you say, taking them from her, and she walks out to let you change into them. They’re not that short, but they’re short enough, and seeing that you only have about ten minutes to leave, you can’t waste time debating over what to wear.

You put your shoes on, making sure that you have everything before putting your backpack on. You walk out, tugging on the shorts when you feel like they’re starting to ride up, and you all but glare at your roommate as you walk towards the door. 

“Have fun!” she beams, and you squint your eyes at her.

“Mm-hmm,” you mumble. “I’ll be back later tonight.” You both say goodbye, and you close the door, locking it behind you, putting some pep in your step on your way to your car.

You know where his apartment is, so you make your way over there, and you try to repeat your roommate’s words in your head when you feel yourself starting to get nervous. You know there’s no reason for you to be nervous, but you can’t help it. You know that you’re feelings for him are starting to come back, and there’s a part of you that’s trying to fight it, but so far, suppressing things hasn’t been the easiest thing to do.

Your roommate swears that he’s into you, which doesn’t really help your case, but those words alone are enough to make you sweat. You don’t know how you would feel if he felt the same way. You’ve felt something for him for almost all of high school, and if you think about it, those feelings never really left when you got to college. 

You text him as soon as you park, and he meets you outside of his apartment. “Sorry, I’m running late,” you tell him when you get to him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, and you follow him into the building and up the stairs to his apartment. You pick at your phone case as you will your heart to stop racing because you know it’s not from taking the stairs. 

You follow him inside, and you look around, taking in the room. He mentioned having a roommate, but he said he wouldn’t be here while you guys were working. You take your shoes off once you get in, and you see that he already has everything set up on the dining table. It almost has the same layout as your apartment except it’s much nicer. In the back of your head, you think to mention this place to your friend and see if she’d like it.

“Okay, so I’ve already finished my paper, but I wanted you to read over it just to make sure that ours don’t overlap,” he says when he sits down. 

You sit down in the chair next to him, taking your backpack off so that you can get your laptop out. “That sounds good, but I’ll admit I haven’t written most of it,” you admit shyly, and he waves you off.

“That’s okay. It shouldn’t take you that long anyway,” he reassures, and you pull up the half-written document. You read over his, and you’re relieved that he ended up talking about something completely different from yours. You tell him what you want to talk about for your presentation, and he helps you out by pulling up the reading and offering what parts of it you could pull from. 

Writing your paper takes about an hour, and then you both work on the PowerPoint slides you have to have with questions to ask the class about the readings. Your stomach grumbles suddenly once you’re finishing up, and that’s when you remember that you forgot to eat while you were panicking about what to wear.

“Sorry,” you laugh, and he laughs under his breath.

“I’m getting hungry too,” he says. “There are places around here that we could eat at if you’re okay with that.”

“Yeah, I’m good with that.” You both put your shoes on, and you follow him out onto the street, and there’s a bunch of places that are within walking distance where you could eat. You don’t care where to eat, so you agree on the first place that he offers. You’ve never been there before, but Ukai reassures you that it’s good. You both talk about anything and everything as you walk to the place, and when you get inside, it’s super packed.

“I guess it is dinner time,” he says as he takes the place in. “We can just take it to-go if that’s okay with you?” he offers, and you nod, in no mood to oppose as you look at how many people are in here. Ukai orders first, and instead of paying, he turns to you. “What do you want?” he asks, and you tell him, but then he’s repeating your order to the person at the register, and you realize what he’s doing.

“Ukai, you don’t have to pay,” you try, but he just shrugs you off. You try to memorize the price as you both move to the side while you wait for your food. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Seriously, y/n. Don’t worry about it,” he tells you again, but you don’t look very convinced. “How about you pay me back by helping me with my stats homework?”

“That doesn’t sound like a fair trade.”

“It does to me. I didn’t do well on the first exam, and I need some serious help,” he explains, and you decide that he’s not going to let you pay him back, so you give up.

“Fine. I’ll help you out then.” The smile he gives you makes your heart flutter, and you don’t get much time to take in how you feel because your food is ready. 

You walk back to his apartment, and you silently thank your friend for picking out shorts because even though the sun is starting to go down, the air is still really warm. You aren’t walking that fast, so luckily you’re not a sweating mess when you get back to his apartment. 

You push your work aside so that you can eat at the table, and he puts on a show that he’s been watching for a while. You’ve never seen it, and when you tell him, he looks at you like you’ve offended him terribly. He starts the show over for you, and it seems like a pretty good show, and you make a note of the name so you can continue to watch it. 

You finish eating in the middle of the first season, and you both move to the couch so you can finish it. Ukai tells you that he’ll start on the work once it’s over, and you wonder if he actually means that. Your focus on the show starts to waver when you notice how close he’s sitting to you. He’s wearing shorts, so when his leg brushes against yours, it sends goosebumps across your skin. You try to pay attention because you don’t want to miss anything, but it’s even more difficult when he places his arm on the back of the couch behind you.

You don’t think it’s a cliche move because you look at him from the corner of your eye, and he’s completely engrossed in the show even though he’s seen it probably a million times. You realize how tense you are, and you try to relax, but that means you’d be relaxing into him, and you don’t want to make anything awkward. 

You decide to rub over your arms since it’ll keep you from touching him. “Are you cold?” he asks, and you turn your head to him quickly.

“No, no. I’m fine,” you say with a shake of your head, and you quickly turn back to the TV, but you can see him looking over you, so you put your hands on your lap. He finally follows your gaze, and you release a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

The last episode of the season plays, and Ukai groans loudly. “Guess I have to do my homework now,” he says to your surprise. You guess he was serious about actually doing his work. 

“Can I use your bathroom?” you ask, standing up and feeling relieved that you’re not sitting directly next to him anymore.

“Yeah, my room’s right there,” he says, pointing at the right door. He’s been fighting it since you got here, but he watches you walk away, and his eyes slide up your legs. He can see some of your ass peeking out from your shorts before you pull them down, and he sighs softly to himself as he diverts his eyes. 

He turns his head quickly before he stands and turns the TV off. He sits down at the table while he gets his stuff out, and he hears you come back into the room. You sit down next to him, and he shows you one of the problems that he’s struggling with. You move your seat closer to his so that you don’t have to lean over, and he immediately thinks about how good you smell.

He noticed when he was sitting next to you, and that’s when he also noticed that he had put his arm behind you. He didn’t move his arm because he didn’t want it to be awkward, but he had to strongly fight the urge to pull you into him. He felt his hair stand up on end whenever he accidentally brushed against you, and the entire time he thought about if he should say something to you.

“Keishin.” His eyes snap to yours, realizing that he was just staring at his notebook. “Are you okay?” you ask softly.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, I just got lost in thought,” he says, giving a smile so that he doesn’t have to explain that he was daydreaming about you.

“Don’t worry about the exam. I’m sure you’ll do fine.” 

“Of course, I will. I have you to help me,” he says, thankful that you think he’s stressed about the exam. His smile widens when yours does, and he feels so much right now that he almost opens his mouth, but then you’re turning your attention back to the work. So, he clears his thoughts and decides to focus on his work too.

He’s relieved when he realizes that he’s not doing as bad as he thought, he was just having some trouble remembering when to do what. You have him go over it multiple times, and it helps, and when you think he’s ready, you have him try some practice problems.

He’s definitely nervous to try them out, but your reassurance is what gets him to try them. You busy yourself with some other classwork, and he’s grateful because he doesn’t know what he’d be able to do if you were watching him. He makes sure to check over his work, even putting his work through the calculator more than once to make sure that he’s getting the same answer as before.

He lets you know that he’s finished, and his professor added the answers to the questions, so you look over his work and the answers. He fiddles with his pencil in nervousness and anticipation as he watches you check. It feels like it takes forever and it almost kills him, but then you finally look up at him.

“You did really well! There’s a couple that you messed up on, but other than that, I’d say that you’d got this stuff down.” He takes a breath of relief, running his hand down his chest as he leans back in his seat.

“Thank God,” he breathes. 

“You just have to trust yourself. You know what you’re doing, just don’t get nervous,” you tell him. “I know when I do that, I end up freaking myself out so much that I start to forget things.”

“Thank you so much. I owe you one.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s definitely not something I understood at first, so I’m happy to help.” At your words, for some reason, he feels like you might be about to leave, and he selfishly doesn’t want that to happen.

“Do you mind checking over my work again? I wanna go through some more just in case,” he tries, and he tightens his grip on his pencil, hoping you say yes.

“Of course. While you’re working, I’m getting work done too, so it’s a win-win,” you answer, and he’s never felt more elated. He nods, getting to work on more problems, and you switch your attention back to the work you were doing. 

You get up to go to the bathroom again, and you stretch when you do, and Ukai’s eyes catch on your shorts again. He diverts his eyes as soon as you walk out of his line of sight, and he shakes his head. Focus. He sighs, getting back on track, and finishes the problem with ease. He gets to the next one though, and he’s stuck.

He tries to do it himself, but when he feels like he’s not doing something right, he stops so that he doesn’t get too far ahead of himself. Luckily, you come back when he stops, so he asks you right before you sit back down.

“I just wanna make sure I’m starting this right,” he says, and you put your hand on the back of his chair before you lean down to see what he’s doing. You lean down a little bit more to look at his work, and he holds the urge to flinch when your shirt brushes against his ear. He takes a deep breath in, your scent filling his nose, and he desperately wants to know what it is. 

He thinks it might be like shea butter or something but before he can get a chance to investigate further, you break him out of his thoughts. “Yeah, you’re fine. Looks good to me,” you say, and he makes the mistake of turning to look up at you.

He was going to say something, but the words die in his throat when he looks at your face. He gets lost in your eyes and the curve of your lips, and he can’t look away. He looks back at your eyes, and to his surprise, you’re looking at his lips too. He has half a mind to just say fuck it and lean in, but then he feels you rub at his back.

“Have more confidence in yourself, Keishin,” you say, smiling at him before you move to sit back down. He’s glad that there doesn’t seem to be any awkward air between the two of you, and he realizes that his heart is racing when he looks back at his work. It feels like the motion of your hand rubbing his back is burned into his skin, and he would give anything to feel it again.

Ukai yawns as he finishes the last of the problems, and he passes the notebook to you. He rubs over his eyes as you look over them, and it doesn’t take you long to look through them. “You did great. You got all of them right,” you say with a yawn.

“I guess we better call it a night,” he says around a laugh that you copy, but then he looks at the time. “Shit, I didn’t mean to keep you here so late.”

You blink sleepily as you yawn again, looking at the time. “Oh, God. I didn’t even know I was here for that long,” you hum.

He once again doesn’t want you to leave. “You can sleep here for the night if you want, I’ll sleep on the couch,” he offers, and at the same time, you look like you could fall asleep any minute now.

“I couldn’t take your bed,” you try, but you end up yawning again.

“Seriously. It’s the least I could for keeping you here so long.” He’s really tired himself. He woke early this morning to make sure that his apartment was spotless. He’s never done so much cleaning, but he won’t tell you that.

Surprisingly, you don’t put up much of a fight, but he can’t really blame you. “Alright,” you say. “Do you have an extra toothbrush?” 

“Yeah, of course. Just let me use the bathroom first,” he answers, and you give him a nod, turning to your work to finish it up. He mildly panics when he gets to his room because he didn’t think about changing his sheets. He quickly uses the bathroom, brushing his teeth after, and tries his hardest to change his sheets as fast as he can. 

He’s nearly sweating by the end of it, but he can proudly say that he set a record for himself. He kicks the dirty sheets into his closet before grabbing the toothbrush and setting it on the bathroom counter. If you noticed that he was gone for so long, you don’t question it, which he’s grateful for even though he prepared a lie just in case. 

“My room’s all yours,” he jokes, and you can’t help but laugh before you stand. You yawn again as you stretch, and Ukai finally fights the urge to look over your body again. 

“Are you sure it’s okay if I sleep in your room? I can sleep on the couch, I don’t mind.”

“Yes, it’s fine. You look more tired than me right now. I’ll be fine,” he says, and you give him a sleepy smile that only strengthens his words. 

“Well, thanks. Goodnight, Keishin.”

“Goodnight,” he echoes, and there’s a part of him that’s ecstatic that he gets to say it to you in person, and he ignores the pang in his chest that he can’t be laying next to you as he says it. You walk to his room, and he watches until you softly close the door. He already grabbed a pillow from his bed before he walked out, so he throws that onto the couch.

He has a blanket on the couch, so he lays down, throwing it over himself and he tries to get comfortable. This couch isn’t the most comfortable, and he’s fallen asleep on it before, but there was no way he was going to ask you if you wanted to share a bed with him. He finds himself thinking about what would’ve happened if you had said yes.

His thoughts start to derail right after that, and he groans before deciding to turn on the TV. It’s the only way he’ll be able to keep his thoughts at bay. He turns the volume down, and he puts on a show that he can fall asleep to. Of course, it only works for so long. He hasn’t heard you say his first name at all. Today was the first time, and he can’t help but smile widely at the thought. 

He always wanted to say something to you in high school, but you never gave him the time of day. Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t blame you at all. His friends weren’t kind to you at all, and he doesn’t even think he would call them friends. His real friends were in different classes with him, and he really only hung with them after school or on the weekends.

There were times that he told them to stop messing with you, and they took it as him having a crush on you, which was very much true, but he didn’t want that getting out, so he kept his mouth shut. Seeing you again and spending so much time with you has made him realize how stupid he was. He was more worried about himself than you, someone that he really liked, and he hates himself every time he thinks about it.

He hopes one day he’ll get the courage to tell you everything. Right now, he’s more than content with having what he has with you, and he doesn’t want to say anything to ruin that. He definitely wants to come clean about high school, there’s no doubt about it. But there is doubt if you’ll even talk to him after he reveals everything.

He plays back your first interaction in his head every night before he goes to sleep. At first, it kept him up at night. You had every right to act as you did towards him, and he tried to play it cool while he was with you, but after you left, he felt like total shit. He put his number in your phone to see how you would react, and he was more than relieved when you kept talking to him.

As he starts to fall asleep, he thinks about what he’s going to say to you. He hopes that when he finally gets the confidence and the chance, he won’t mess it up. He tries to rehearse it in his head, but he falls asleep as soon as he starts.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep, but as he starts to wake up, he hears a familiar voice. “Dude, why are you sleeping on the couch? Get in your bed.” He recognizes that it’s his roommate, but that’s about all he can register. He was a lot more tired than he thought. 

He groggily makes his way to his room, and even in the dark, he can easily locate his bed, like it’s calling to him. He sheds his shirt and nearly sighs in comfort at the relief he feels when his body hits the bedsheets. He notices that he can’t stretch out like he wants to, but he’s starting to fall asleep, so he doesn’t worry about it that much. His bed also isn’t cold like it should be, but he gladly accepts the warmth, wrapping his arm around the pillow, and it takes no time for him to fall back asleep.

Ukai notices that the sun is peeking through the blinds as he starts to wake up. He takes a deep breath in, and he swears his nostrils fill with your scent, but this time he’s getting something different. Mango, maybe? He leans further into it, taking another deep breath, and whatever the source may be is soft against his face. He could stay here forever.

He tightens his arm around his pillow, settling in again as the smell starts to put him back to sleep. But he frowns when he faintly notices that his pillow is moving. He slowly opens his eyes, and his heart drops when he realizes that it hasn’t been a pillow all along. His eyes widen when he sees you laying in his arm, and his heart begins to race. 

You’re looking right at him, but there’s nothing that can come out of his mouth. You’re just waking up too, and you blink a bit, but there’s no hint of surprise on your face. “Keishin?” you whisper, and he never thought his name could sound so good coming from you.

“Y-Yeah,” he mumbles, and he can feel his face warm at his stuttering, but he gives himself a break because he’s just waking up. You roll over so that your back is fully against the bed, and you rub over your eyes. 

“What time is it?”

“It’s only nine-thirty,” he says after he looks at his clock, and you groan softly.

“God, that is too early for a weekend.” He smiles at your sleepy state, and he can’t take his eyes off of you. You raise your arm over your head to stretch, and he notices that your shirt rises, and he can’t help but let his eyes trail down your body. His breath catches in his throat when he sees how high your shorts have ridden up, and there’s only one thing on his mind.

His eyes cut towards you when you call his name again, and he’ll blame his tired brain later, but he leans down closer to you. “Am I dreaming?” he questions, and his hand is itching to touch you, so he carefully puts his hand on your face.

“I don’t think so,” you whisper, and he can barely hear it over the blood pumping in his ears. He glances down at your lips when you lick over them, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to stop himself now.

“Good.” When you don’t make any move to pull away, he takes the opportunity to press his lips to yours. He sighs at how soft your lips are, and he only gets more eager when you kiss him back. You said he wasn’t dreaming, but this sure feels like he is. He pulls away only for a second, missing the feeling of your lips almost the instant he does.

He goes in for another, and you let your arm loosely loop around his neck as you meet him halfway. He groans when you deepen the kiss as you roll over onto your side, and he grabs your leg, putting it over his body. He’s borderline frantic to feel every part of you, and he lets his hand run up your leg, his fingers just barely getting under your shorts.

You move in closer to him, so he allows himself to let his hands drift up further, and your shorts have moved up so high, that they barely get in the way of him feeling even more of your ass. You moan when he pulls back with your lip in between his teeth, and he’s never felt so hot. He stops for a second to look at you, and your heavy breathing is the only thing that can be heard in the room.

Your lips are swollen from his kisses, and your pupils are blown wide as you look up at him, and he thought there was no way you could get any prettier, but right now, you’re proving him wrong again. “Fuck,” he breathes before he leans back in, rolling the both of you over while keeping your leg in his hand.

Your hands rub all over his chest, and you run your hands up his back, and he shudders at the motions, goosebumps rising all over as blood rushes straight to his dick. Your arms find their place around his neck, and he abandons his hold on your leg in favor of letting his weight press into you.

He pulls away to quickly pull your shirt off, and you easily let your upper half lift off the bed so he can do so. His movements slow when his eyes land on your chest, your boobs are basically falling out of the bralette you’re wearing, and his brain short circuits. He can’t think about anything else, and he swallows heavily when you pull the straps down, fully exposing yourself to him.

He lets your shirt fall next to you, and like he’s in a trance, his hands reach up to squeeze at the underside of the fat, and he wants to pinch himself. There’s no way he’s really doing this with you, but he’ll worry about this being a dream later. He kisses you again, feeling like that’s the only way he can regulate his breathing right now as he continues to fondle your tits. 

He kisses down your neck, feeling like he might go crazy as he kisses over your chest before he slips one of your nipples in his mouth. He moans when you do, his name slipping from your lips as your hands slip into his hair. He ruts against you, and he’s definitely drooling as he sucks at your chest, but he doesn’t even care.

You pull him back to your face, and he kisses you sloppily, your legs wrapping around his torso when he grinds even harder against you. “K-Kei,” you keen, and he rests his forehead against yours, his pleasure becoming too much for him to continue to kiss you. You arch into him, and he swears when your chest pushes into his. He’s definitely close to cumming, feeling his pleasure start to mount in his spine, and he digs into his teeth into whatever part of your skin he can reach to try and hold himself back as he pulls at your shorts.

Right as he does though, his burst open, scaring the both of you. Ukai quickly falls on his side to hide you, and he looks over his shoulder to see his roommate standing in the doorway. “What?!” he barks, and the guy holds his hands up.

“Sorry, dude,” he laughs before quickly walking back out, slamming the door when he leaves. Ukai doesn’t even want to look at you, the air now becoming awkward in the silence. He slowly turns his head towards you, and when he makes eye contact, you can’t help but laugh. He internally sighs in relief as he laughs with you, and yours dies down when your phone starts ringing.

He hands it to you, and you give him a small smile as you answer it. He doesn’t listen to the conversation because he’s too busy looking at you. His eyes stay on your lips while you talk before they trail down to your chest, and he can see the marks he left on you which causes him to twitch in his shorts.

“Sorry, I totally forgot. I’m leaving right now.” That makes him look up at you, and you hang up the phone, taking a while to meet his eyes. “I forgot I had plans with my roommate today. That was her,” you tell him, and he pushes down the disappointment that he feels, and he thinks that he hears it in your voice; at least he hopes so.

“No, that’s okay. I should probably see what my friend wanted,” he responds, and you quietly grab your clothes and put them back on. He moves over so that you can get out of bed to get to the bathroom, and he releases a heavy breath through his mouth when the door closes.

He runs a hand through his hair as he tries to think about what in the fuck got into him, and he wills his hard-on to go away. He gets off his bed, sliding his shirt on right as you open the door, and he goes in after you. He doesn’t even try to look at himself in the mirror while he brushes his teeth, and when he walks back out, you’re standing by his bed, looking at your phone.

You look up at him when he walks into the room, and he pulls his shirt down to cover himself. “Sorry, I have to leave so suddenly,” you say, and he waves you off.

“It’s okay. We got a lot of work done yesterday, so it’s all good.” You give him a little nod, and he quickly decides to walk towards the door so things don’t get awkward. You follow him out of his room, and his roommate is sitting on the couch when you walk out. He looks over his shoulder just as your grabbing your backpack.

“Sorry for interrupting earlier,” he laughs. “I’m Takinoue.”

Ukai glares at him as you feel your face warm. “Nice to meet you. I’m y/n,” you say softly, and Ukai’s eyes widen when Takinoue’s does.

“Wait, you’re y/n? The girl that–”

“She really has to go, so end of the introduction,” Keishin rushes out, and he pushes you towards the door. While you’re slipping your shoes on, Ukai smacks his friend on the back of the head, but before he can turn around, he’s already slipping his shoes on and walking with you out the door. 

Neither of you speaks as he walks you to your car, and he doesn’t know what to say when you finally get there. “Uh, thanks again for the help last night. I really appreciate it,” he eventually says.

“You’re welcome. Just let me know if you need any more help,” you tell him, and that reassures him a bit that maybe you didn’t hate what you both did earlier. But now, he doesn’t whether to wave, hug you, or kiss you. He definitely wants to do the last one; his hands are itching to touch you again, but he doesn’t know if you’d be okay with that.

You break him out of his thoughts when you take a step closer to him and kiss his cheek. His world seems to stop when you do, and you pull away, having a hard time holding his gaze. “See you on Monday, Keishin.”

He’s too dazed to respond, barely remembering you getting in the car, and the next thing he knows, you’re driving away. He doesn’t jump out of it until your car is long out of his sight, and when he finally does, he smiles widely against his will. He softly touches his cheek, and he doesn’t lose the smile on his face as he walks back to his apartment.

But it drops the moment he opens the door and sees his friend’s smug smile. “You weren’t gonna tell me that you’re sleeping with the girl that you’ve been pining over since high school?” he questions, and you Ukai shakes his head as he rolls his eyes.

“We’re not sleeping together, okay? We were just working on a project last night.”

“For what class? Anatomy?” he jokes, and it actually makes him laugh.

“Ha! Good one,” he muses. “But we finished really late, so I let her take the bed. That’s why I was on the couch.” He rubs his hand down his face as he sighs, but it doesn’t take long for him to smile again.

“Well, it looks like you should’ve just taken the bed anyway. You look like a lovesick puppy.”

“Fuck you,” he retorts with no heat behind it, but it’s not like he can deny it. He’s still not sure if he’s dreaming or not, and in the back of his head, he’s waiting for himself to wake up. 

“So, what happens now? Are you actually gonna confess to her? You’ve only been waiting for this moment for like, five years.” He hates how he still can’t answer that question. With the way everything is going, he’s thinking that it’ll be better to not tell you the truth, but on the other hand, he wants to come clean to you and tell you everything. And Takinoue’s right, he’s been waiting for a miracle, and it’s finally here.

He thought he would jump at the opportunity, but with the first interaction he had with you, he held back. “I don’t know,” he eventually says.

“Don’t stress it too much, man. As far as I’m concerned, it looks like she feels the same way,” he says, with a hard clap on his back that makes him stumble forward a bit, and it definitely feels intentional. At least now he knows he’s not dreaming. “And that also explains why the apartment was spotless when I got home. Now where’d you put my shit?” he asks, and Ukai lets himself drop his dilemma for now.

~

When you get home, you close the door behind you and let your back fall against the door. Even if what happened with Ukai was long ago, your heart is still racing just thinking about it. You don’t know what came over either of you, but there’s not a single bone in your body that hated it. You rub your fingers over your lips as your mind starts to replay the events in your head.

You jump when your roommate opens her door, and you quickly stand up. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” you say. “It was really late, so I just slept over at his place since I was so tired.” You try to school your expression so that she doesn’t pick up on anything, and you hope the look on your face is convincing enough.

“So, did anything happen?”

“Ah, no. We just worked on our presentation, it was pretty uneventful,” you say, and to be honest, you’re a little bit embarrassed to admit to her what happened. Maybe it’s because you’re still reeling from it. “Just let me hope in the shower, and I’ll be ready to go.”

Surprisingly, she lets you walk past her without saying anything else, and when you get to your room after closing the door, the events of this morning start to hit you. You go from sitting in shock to flailing in one spot just to get it out of you. You take a deep breath, composing yourself before you get in the shower.

Your shower takes a little longer than you anticipated because your thoughts keep running from you in all the wrong ways. You throw some cold water on your face when you get out, telling yourself to get it together. You get dressed, and your friend is waiting at the dining table for you when you walk out.

She looks up from her from, and her words die in her throat when she looks at you. You frown when her smile disappears, and she points an accusing finger at you. “You bitch! You lied to me!” she yells, and you’re still very much confused until you look down at your chest where she’s pointing. Your eyes widen and you feel your face warm when you see hickeys all over your chest. 

You don’t know how you didn’t notice until now, but thanks to the low-cut shirt you’re wearing, you almost showed everyone what you were up to this morning. “Um…” you say weakly, covering your chest with your hands. “I’ll go change and we can get out of here,” you try, but you don’t even get to take a step back before she speaks.

“Absolutely not, missy. You sit your ass right here and tell me everything.” You sigh, knowing that she’s going to get it out of you sooner or later, and you sit down across from her. She looks so invested, resting her hands on her face as she leans forward. “So, did you guys sleep together?”

“No,” you start with a shake of your head before you shrug. “Well, kinda. It was really late, and I was tired, so he said I could sleep in his bed. When I woke up, he was there, and…stuff happened.”

“What happened?! Tell me everything!” she presses, and your face gets even hotter just thinking about it.

“We just made out,” you eventually say. “His roommate walked in, so it didn’t go much further than that.” Honestly, you don’t know what you would’ve done if his roommate hadn’t interrupted. You probably would’ve done anything with him at that moment.

“So, how was it?” she presses.

“It was really good,” you gush, a laugh rushing out of your chest. “It was the hottest thing I’ve ever done,” you add, feeling how hot your face is when you put your hands on it.

“I bet,” your roommate laughs. “I can see that you’re flustered from here.” You can’t help but laugh again, putting your hands over your face and sighing. “So, what’s your relationship now?”

“I don’t know. We really didn’t talk about it. Like I said, it was just a kinda spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Well, I’m getting that it means you’re admitting your feelings for him,” she responds, and move your hands to look at her.

“I’m scared too,” you answer honestly. “I don’t wanna say that, and then he pulls a complete one-eighty on me.”

“That’s understandable, but truthfully, I don’t think he’s the same guy he was in high school. From what you’ve been telling me, it doesn’t sound like he’s going to do that to you.” You let her words bounce around in your head, both of you going silent as you think.

“Maybe,” you say after a while.

“Have some faith, girl. I bet he likes you a lot more than you like him.” Her words make you smile, and then she stands up. “Alright, we need to get a move-on if we want to make it to this thrifting event on time.”

“You were the one who wanted me to tell you about what happened,” you say after you scoff. 

“Well, it was only natural. You tell me it was uneventful, but you have hickeys on your chest? I’d be crazy not to ask,” she counters, and she has a point because you would do the same thing if the tables were turned.

You go back into your room to change your shirt, and then you’re walking out the door with your roommate, putting your situation with Ukai to the side for a while.

Monday rolls around faster than you’d like, and you spend all morning thinking about how the conversation with Ukai will go. You’re not dreading it, you’re just more worried about if your conversation will be awkward or not. You get to class pretty early since you woke up early, and you listen to your music as you wait for Ukai to get here.

You pull up the paper that you have to present while you wait, and you read over it just in case. There’s no point in making any changes since you had to submit it to your professor before class, but you still want to go over it anyway. You freeze for a split second when you see Ukai sit down next to you in your peripheral, and you slide your headphone off your head, but you don’t look his way.

“Morning,” you hear him say, and you turn to him, having a hard time keeping your smile small.

“M-Morning.” You pick at the corner of your laptop as you internally roll your eyes at how nervous you are.

“Listen,” he starts, leaning towards you and lowering his voice. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable yesterday–”

“No, it’s okay,” you say, cutting him off. “It was–I, um…I liked it,” you whisper, and there’s no way you can look him in the eyes after saying that. Both of you jump when the professor announces for you to start your presentation. 

Thankfully, it goes off without a hitch, the only thing is, you started to notice about halfway through your paper that someone’s glaring at you. You couldn’t figure out who it was while you were reading, but when you start to ask the class questions, you realize it was the girl that tried to talk to Ukai a while ago.

You try not to let it affect you, but you have no idea why she’s staring you down. You don’t know if Ukai notices her too, but before you know it, it’s all over. You sigh quietly in relief when the professor says that class is over, and you both pack up your stuff. You notice that Ukai is walking way closer to you when you walk out of class, and you feel sparks go up your arm every time his hand brushes against yours.

“I’d say we did pretty good,” he says while you both walk.

“Yeah. She seemed really happy with our questions. I have you to thank for that, though. You did most of the work,” you respond.

“I’d say it was pretty even,” he jokes, and you can’t help but laugh. “Our usual spot?” he asks, and you nod even though the both of you are already walking that way. 

The area you usually sit in is pretty empty when you get there, and you and Ukai both sit where you usually do. You sit next to him, but there’s no way you can get any work done. Even though it’s quiet, the air between you is stiflingly filled with attraction. 

Since you’re not going to get any work done, you carefully lay your head on his shoulder, and you bite your lip to hide your smile when he wraps his arm around you. “You gonna nap?” he asks, you nod as you press further into him.

“Yeah, I’m gonna try.” You turn your face to press it into his shoulder, and you close your eyes as you breathe him in. He smells so good, and it’s nearly too late when you start to realize that you’re getting warm all over. You will yourself to calm down, but there’s no way you’re going to be able to go to sleep, so you keep your eyes open, focusing on what work he’s doing every now and then.

When you feel yourself starting to go to sleep, it’s too late because you feel him shaking you gently to let you know that you have to get to class. He gets up after you do, and you wait for him to put his stuff in his backpack before you leave. When he stands, he’s nearly in your space, but you make no move to step back. You actually want to step closer to him, but you have to remind yourself that you’re not alone.

You look around, and you see that you are, but there’s no way you’d be bold enough to do anything in public anyway. You both look at each other for a second before you move to kiss him on the cheek again. It’s the only thing you bring yourself to do right now. “I’ll see you later,” you whisper when you step back, but you don’t even get a chance to turn around.

He grabs your wrist softly, pulling you into him with his hand on the back of your neck. His lips meet yours for a hungry kiss, and you can’t help but melt into him, and suddenly you’re forgetting about being in public. You’re dazed when you pull away, your breathing ragged as you let your fingers softly touch your lips.

You look around again, and when the coast is clear, you move towards him again, and he holds you closer to him as he deepens the kiss. Fuck, he’s such a good kisser. Every single one makes you feel like you’re floating, but he pulls away the moment you moan. “You should go,” he breathes, his hands resting on your hips. “Cause if you don’t, I won’t be able to let you go.”

You give him a shaky nod, and it seems like it takes forever for you to step back from him, and you nearly don’t, deciding that class isn’t so important anymore. But you really should go. His hands slip from your hips when you move, and it takes everything in you to walk away from him. You give him a small wave, hightailing out of there before you can change your mind.

Turns out, you should’ve just stayed with him because you reply the kiss over and over in your head the whole class period.

~

“Hey, are you doing anything Friday?” your friend asks, and you look up from your homework.

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Cause my team’s having a mixer, and I can bring a plus-one, and you need to get out. You’ve been studying all week,” she says, and you roll your eyes.

“I don’t know. I don’t really know any of your teammates,” you tell her, and she waves you off.

“Just bring your boyfriend. It’ll be fun.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” you yell, but she’s already walking to her room. 

She has a point though. You’ve been nothing but working all week, and the only time you’ve seen Keishin is during class, which always leads to a heated kiss that has you wanting more. Even when you look back down at your work, you don’t want to think about it anymore, so you decide to take the offer.

You text Ukai about it, and he instantly agrees. You start to feel nervous just thinking about it, especially since you don’t attend things like this very often. You’ve been to a few due to your friend’s outgoing nature, but sometimes you just like to be at home watching your favorite show. But, maybe it won’t be so bad since Ukai will be with you.

When Friday rolls around, you’re waiting on your friend to finish getting ready, so you’re sitting on the couch. You offered to drive since you won’t be drinking that much anyway, and you stand when you hear her heels clicking on the floor behind you. “Why are you wearing that?” she asks, and you look down at your outfit.

“What’s wrong with it? I thought you’d like that I’m wearing a dress,” you muse, even though you’re going to be tugging on it all night. It hugs your body way more than you’d like, but you bought it on a whim and you’ve barely worn it. 

“I’m talking about the jacket.”

“What’s wrong with the jacket? It’s gonna get cold tonight,” you tell her, genuinely not understanding what she’s getting at.

She rolls her eyes before she plants her hands on her hips. “You can’t show up with a jacket. Now, he can’t give you one.” You instantly understand what she means, and you can’t help but scoff.

“Are you seriously telling me to ditch the jacket just so Ukai will give me his?”

“Uh, duh. Why else would I be telling you this?” You don’t have much of a choice because she pulls it off of you, throwing it on the couch. You don’t have time to protest because even in heels, she’s moving out of the door quickly. 

You must be here early because parking isn’t absolute shit yet, and you can feel your nerves start to hit you as you walk up to the house. When you get inside, you quickly realize that this is nowhere near a mixer; it’s a full blown party. Your friend guides you to the kitchen, handing you a drink once she gets there, and her friends find her almost instantly.

They talk to you for a while, and you check your phone to see that Ukai just texted you. Your friend waits for him to get there before she leaves with her friends, and you both find a corner to occupy as the music pounds in your head. “This isn’t really your thing, is it?” He has to lean down to ask you, and you shake your head as you move your hand side-to-side.

“Not really, but my friend thought I should get out since I’ve been studying all week.” 

“She sounds like a good friend,” he yells back, and that makes you laugh.

“When she wants to be, yeah.” The room’s starting to fill up, so you grab his hand to find somewhere else to go. You decide to just step outside since they’re playing music that you don’t really listen to. “Did you drive here?” you ask, finally relieved that you can hear yourself think.

“Yeah. I have a friend that’s on the team, so I’m the designated driver tonight.”

“So am I,” you say, taking a sip of the seltzer, and you offer it to him. He takes a swig before he puts the drink down on the half-brick wall that you’re sitting on.

“Are you not cold?” he asks, gesturing to your body, and you nod your head quickly.

“Oh, I definitely am. My friend told me to ditch the jacket though.” He gives you a questioning look, and you chuckle a bit before you explain. “She said if I ditch the jacket, you would give me yours,” you explain. “You don’t have to though,” you add, but he’s already sliding it off, and your eyes land on his arms which look like they might rip the sleeves of his shirt.

He puts it on you, and it’s so warm that you can’t help but curl into the warmth. You stick your arms in the sleeves, and he moves closer to you. You stand so that you can make your way in between his legs, and his hands land on your hips. 

“You look good tonight,” he comments, and you hum as you put your hands on his shoulders.

“Yeah?”

He nods. “Especially in my jacket,” he adds, wrapping his arms around you to pull you closer to him.

“And what are you gonna do about it?” you question, and he grabs both sides of his jacket in one hand to pull you down to him. 

“I’ll show you,” he whispers against your lips before he kisses you firmly, and you gladly let your weight fall on him. He easily catches you as you move your arms to hang over his shoulders. He keeps one of his arms wrapped around you while the other falls so that he can trail his hand up your leg. You know the goosebumps that rise on your skin aren’t from the cold because your body starting to heat up and he’s barely started kissing you.

His fingers start to reach under the hem of your dress, and it feels so teasing to you that it makes you leak onto your panties. You’re glad you’re in the backyard because you would be embarrassed otherwise at how easily he’s pulling all kinds of sounds from you. He sucks on your tongue, and you’re pretty sure you would let him do anything to you right now.

He groans when you pull at his hair, and his fingers dig into the fat of your ass as his fingers start to inch further up your dress. You jump away from him quickly when someone yells your name, and you look up to see a girl walking up to you. You recognize her as one of your friend’s teammates, and she carefully steps outside, but Ukai doesn’t let you go.

That’s also when you realize that people could see you from inside since the curtains to the backdoor are wide open, but you don’t have time to think about that because she starts talking to you. “We’re playing seven minutes in heaven. You have to play!”

“O-Oh, I don’t know about that–” She cuts you off with a rough yank of your hand that nearly tips you over, and you grab Ukai’s hand also since there’s no way you’re stopping her. She pulls you upstairs, and you all walk into a room that’s filled with people but not as many downstairs. There’s music playing in here, and when she closes the door, the music blasting downstairs is severely muffled.

She pulls you into the circle, and you quickly fix your dress when you sit down to make sure you don’t flash anybody. “God, it’s like she didn’t stop,” you breathe, turning to Ukai when he sits down next to you.

“Yeah, that’s for sure.”

“I’m sure we can just sneak out of here in like, five minutes,” you say, but it’s too late because someone stands up and starts talking. You look around the room, and you start to feel uneasy when you see the same guy that Ukai nearly beat up. He barely spares either of you a glance, and you definitely feel uneasy when you see the girl that shares the same class with the both of you.

She makes eye contact with you, and she gives you a smile that’s all too friendly. There’s no way you can leave now because there’s no point in explaining the rules since everyone knows how to play. You and Ukai are definitely the only sober ones in the room, and you feel anxious as the girl from your class picks you to spin the bottle first.

You do it just to do it so you can get out of here faster because you’d rather be anywhere with Ukai but here. You chew on your lip nervously as the conversation gets quiet while people wait to see who’s going in the closet with you. You nearly slump in relief when it lands on Ukai, and when you look at him, he has a look in his eyes that gets both of your heartbeats racing.

He gets up before you do, pulling you to the closet faster than you can even process what’s going on. When he closes the door, you try to find a light to turn on, but he’s pushing you against the nearest wall before you can. As he pushes you, you feel something cold run across your forehead, and you assume it’s the string to the light, so you try to pull it while he kisses you frantically. 

You manage to turn it on, but the moment it happens, you soon forget about it when his lips find your neck. He pulls the jacket off of you, letting it fall to the floor as his hands rub at your thighs. “Keishin,” you whisper, trying to keep your voice down since you don’t know how soundproof the door is.

“I’m so glad it landed on me. I don’t know if I would be able to handle you coming in here with someone else,” he breathes against your skin, and you’re glad it landed on him too, but there’s no way you’re able to tell him that when he pushes your dress up so that it’s bunched at your waist. 

He hikes your leg up so that it’s on his waist, and his other hand runs under the side of your panties. You jump when he finally touches you down there, and you hide your face in his hair to try and muffle your moans. He uses his other hand to pull your dress further up your body so until your tits fall out. The straps of the dress were designed where wearing a bra would’ve looked weird, and you don’t regret not wearing one at all right now.

You can’t even begin to try and get a word in when he starts to suck at your tits at the same time he pulls your underwear to the side. You ball his shirt in your fist when he rubs at your clit, and you dig your teeth into the other side of his shirt. You’re glad he has you up against the wall because you definitely would’ve fallen otherwise. 

You wanna try and make him feel good too, but he’s got you trapped between him and the wall, and there’s no way you could, so you just let the pleasure overtake you. You feel tears start to form at the corner of your eyes when he slides his fingers into you, and you’re confident the groan he releases is loud enough for everyone outside to hear.

“Oh, God,” you whine. “Oh, God, Kei–” You stand on your toes to the best of your ability when he presses against your walls, and your fingers hurt from how hard you’re gripping his shirt. He finally abandons your chest in favor of watching your face as he fingers you, nudging your head up with his shoulder, and you bite into your lip as your pleasure builds.

“Fuck, baby, you’re so hot,” he moans as he looks at you, and he pulls your lip out from between your teeth.

“T-They’ll hear–me,” you try to whisper.

“I don’t care. Let ‘em hear how good I’m making you feel, baby.” You can’t fight the urge to bite your lip, and you let your head fall back against the wall. You’re definitely starting to get too loud, so he crashes your lips onto his. He swallows every sound you make, pressing up against you even more when he presses on that spot that has you keening into his mouth.

The knock on the door should startle you but it doesn’t. The only thing you care about now is how good you’re feeling. The second round of knocks are harder, and this time you hear a voice, but you don’t know what they’re saying. He kisses you soundly as he slides his fingers out of you, and you don’t hide your disappointment.

He slides his fingers into his mouth, his breathing just as ragged as yours when he pulls them out. “I’m nowhere near done with you,” he whispers, and he fixes your dress right as the door opens. He picks up his jacket off of the floor, and he grabs your hand, making a bee-line for the exit. 

He’s suddenly stopped by a familiar face with another familiar face on his arm. “I knew you could do it,” he says, and he hands Ukai some money. You both frown at him, and the girl laughs.

“You won the bet, Ukai,” she says, and you can feel your heart start to race in the wrong way as your hand starts to slip from his. “It only took what? Like two months?”

“You don’t remember the bet we made before school started?” the guy asks, and you start to feel sick, looking over your shoulder to see everyone looking at you. You feel like you might puke as you wretch your hand from him and run out of the room. You hear Ukai call after you but you don’t stop, running down the stairs and pushing past people, ignoring their comments.

You can’t help but let the tears fall when you get outside once the music starts to fade. Your ears are ringing so badly, and your feet are moving you to your car. You let out a sob as you run, and you don’t even hear your name being called behind you. A hand grabs your arm, and you try to shake it off, but it tightens its grip.

“Let me go!” you scream, turning around to see Ukai, and the only thing you see is the guy that let you get bullied in high school. “You’re a piece of shit!”

“Just listen to me,” he tries, but you continue to fight him. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I didn’t see him until that day!” he says, but you’re not listening.

You stop moving, and he doesn’t let you go. “You’re still that same guy. Nothing fucking changed and I fell for it!” You take the chance to slip out of his grip, and you succeed, making a run for your car. You unlock it, but right as you try to open it, his hand lands on yours. 

“Just listen to me, please.”

“No! I don’t want to talk to you.” He turns you around so fast that it almost scares you, and he pushes you against your car door.

“Are you really going to listen to some people that you barely know instead of me?” he questions. Your lip is still wobbling, and you can’t stop the tears that are running down your face.

“It’s not like I have anything else to go off of,” you bite back, and he presses you against the car a little harder when he thinks you might move.

“Yes, you do. And you know it,” he declares. “I have no idea what the fuck they were talking about. I didn’t even know he was going here until I saw him that day. And I haven’t talked to her since that day in class.” You start to calm down, but your heart is still racing a mile a minute. “I really like you, okay?” he starts. “I have since I laid my eyes on you in high school, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell them to stop messing with you. I was more worried about myself.”

His words hang in the air between the two of you, and when you start to relax, he lets you go. “Nothing that I have said or done with you has been a part of some bet. Everything I did was my choice.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” you ask, and you hate how your voice trembles.

“You think I threaten to beat him up all for some bet? I’m better than that, and you know it.” He lets his hands fall into your hands, grabbing them soft but his grip is firm. “I would never do something like that to you. I’ve been thinking about telling you the truth ever since I saw you that day, but I thought if I did, you would hate me. I couldn’t live with that, so I stayed quiet.”

You don’t respond, sniffling heavily. “And now I’m realizing that that was the dumbest decision I could’ve ever made. Spending this time with you has been the best moment of my life,” he breathes. “Don’t tell me that you don’t feel the same.”

You can’t even tell yourself that you don’t feel the same. You know from the start that your feelings for him never left, and there was a part of you that just accepted it. But you were so scared to let your guard down, to be vulnerable with him like you are now. 

“I really like you. I mean that. And I’m sorry for letting you be hurt all this time.” You let go of his hand so that you can wipe your face.

“It’s not your fault,” you eventually say. “I do feel the same way, but I was scared. Back then and now, I blamed you for the bullying, but it was never your fault.”

“Yes, it was,” he presses, but you stop him.

“No. It wasn’t.” You sniffle again, taking a deep, shaky breath. “I was letting the past dictate my feelings. I shouldnt’ve let their words get to me. But I was scared that you would hurt me if I let you back in.”

“I won’t hurt you again. I promise. I’ll never make you feel like that again.” He lets his head fall on yours as he speaks. “I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you, but I won’t let it happen again.” You pull away, looking in his eyes, and you lean forward to kiss him softly. He lets his hands move to your neck, kissing you back just as softly. 

“I believe you,” you whisper when you pull away. “I’m sorry I didn’t before. I really like you, too.” He can’t help but smile, and he kisses you again just because he can.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” you ask, frowning a bit.

“For letting me say what I’ve always wanted to say. I thought I lost my chance forever.” You shake your head, wrapping your arms around his neck and kissing him again.

“No,” you say. “Now you have me forever.”

[mixelation]

do you recommend yugioh? i saw a screencap of the guy who's like "no more white wine spritzers before bed" or something and it kinda made me want to watch the show. but some shows (cough naruto cough) are like. i wouldnt recommend this to anybody even though i liked it. i'd tell them to watch specific episodes or fights but forget the whole show yk

oh boy. would i recommend it........ hmm. definitely i would recommend looking up an episode list/guide and skipping filler if you do decide to watch it. but for the rest.... depends on what you are looking for in a show!!

first, do not let my blog fool you. yugioh is about playing a card game. all conflict is solved with card games. all of it. every once in a while someone throws a punch or they have to escape a burning building, but usually somehow these events will also involve card games. somehow. there is ancient dark magic, but it doesn't come up nearly as much as just playing a card game. there are compelling characters and friendships, but most of their shonen-style friendship bonds are forged through the card game. you need to accept this in order to enjoy the series.

(the first few volumes of the manga use a variety of games and challenges instead of focusing on the main card game. the chapters are mostly episodic with a few longer arcs, and the focus is on yugi's friendships. also the ghost possessing him sets at least two people on fire. if you're dubious of the card game aspect but interested in getting to know the main cast, this might be up your alley.)

for the anime, a lot of the zanier lines you see in screen caps are from the english dub, which has nostalgic "call the rice ball a donut" and "give this character a ridiculous accent for no reason" vibes. sometimes the dub is genuinely funny. sometimes it's annoying. if you want an entertaining and over-the-top old school-ish anime, you might enjoy the dub.

the original Japanese is slightly more serious. for example, in the dub, Yugi does a magical girl transformation every time he uses the puzzle. this doesn't happen in the original. there's fewer bizarre ad-libbed lines (like the wine spritzer joke). in some ways it makes the show less fun? but also some of the zanier situations get a little more fun if, for example, the buzzsaws set to chop off your legs if you lose a card game aren't edited out. it is still VERY firmly a show about playing card games, but it takes itself more seriously.

honestly, if i did a rewatch, i'd probably watch the dub for duelist kingdom (the first arc) for the nostalgia and then switch to the japanese for the rest. my recollection is that post duelist kingdom is when the weird voice acting choices started to get grating, and also bizarre editing choices got worse (like changing buzzsaws to.... glowing disks that send you to the shadow realm. or something)

OR you can try YuGiOh the Abridges series, which is housed entirely on youtube and leans fully into how ridiculous YGO is as a concept. I've only seen a few rando episodes of it, but it's very well-loved. (also a warning that apparently it's very "of its time" so there might be some jokes that.... would not be acceptable in 2024.)

[mal3vol3nt]

I don't mean to bombard you with asks or anything like that, but are there any noncanon ships you really like? Or even ones you really hate, aside from Zvtara?

when it comes to non-canon ships there are very very few i actually fuck with or can even see the vision behind. i guess to put it simply, if i can’t see it happening in canon then i can’t find it in me to ship them, and even for the ships where i can see it happening, i don’t actively seek out content for them

non-canon ships i like

katara x jiang -> katara likes em bald and pretty idk what else to tell yall. i am fully convinced they had a lil thing for each other but there was a heist going on so they didn’t have time to worry about that

kuzaang -> i can totally see pre-iceberg aang and kuzon having an innocent early childhood crush on each other. the kind where holding hands is like legendary stuff

tyzula -> azula just gives off repressed lesbian energy and i can’t help but interpret their lil conversation in the beach episode as two gay girls who kinda like each other but dont realize it’s romantic and who also don’t wanna pass off their flirting as flirting so it’s all disguised as straight girl talk. “omg you’re like soooo pretty” and “omg you should totally ask him (me) out! you could be with anybody in this room cause you’re soooo pretty (i’m including me in that).” not to mention the way ty lee getting so much male attention hits azula close to home. i think two things can be true at once where azula is both perplexed she hasn’t had the same luck and is upset that ty lee specifically is getting attention (cause lesbian)

teoaang -> more so in the sense i could see teo maybe having a lil crush on aang

non-canon ships i don’t like (other than zutara)

(also i’m talking explicitly about how i feel about the ships, not the shippers. i don’t care if you ship them)

azutara -> just no please

sokka x azula -> i have to look away

azulaang -> it’s getting painful (really good fan art tho i must admit)

zukka -> this one doesn’t bother me as much and i can consume fanfics where they are a background pair, but i mean very very background. like they’re only ever mentioned and they contribute nothing to the story 😭

zukaang -> i made a joke once about how this ship has potential in a tier list, so this may seem hypocritical, but i made that tier list (along with every tier list posted on this acc) with an irl who got really into atla after the netflix version came out, and we died laughing putting zukaang in a tier of their own. idk it was funny as fuck in the moment and we were kinda greening out, so every time i look back at that list i giggle a lil bit. and i kind of have this ship to thank for that memory so i can’t bring myself to hate it hate it just because it makes me laugh so much and reminisce on that moment. also, great fan art. there’s this one artist who drew aang and zuko so adorably for their au and it is admittedly one of my favorite atla fanarts. but, overall, i don’t ship them together like at all

taang -> the most sibling coded pair to ever sibling code. i absolutely can’t with this one. like this is genuinely in the top worst atla ships of all time

katoph -> this just feels like taang 2.0 to me

[foreverautumn89]

@miwiromantics

Also can I just say that I hate the anti-Jonathan fans with a passion because they're awful people in general? And they like seriously remind me of the townspeople of Hawkins? Like exactly like them? They are them and its so funny they don't even realize how they act exactly like them but they hate the Hawkins townspeople. And Jonathan is their Eddie Munson. Think about it. They don't understand him. They don't try to. They believe lies others have made up about him even though the truth is right in front of them. They make him out to be a monster when really hes a hero and been a good guy all along. They ignore all the goods hes done, but hyper focus on bad things hes done. Bad things btw that they've spun their own narrative on.

But back to Jonathan and the anti-Jonathan ppl specifically: They care only about looks and appearances and no matter how horrible you are and how many bad things you've done, if you're hot enough to them, you're forgiven automatically-no matter how awful you were. Actually in some cases they even claim that the character in question never did anything wrong to begin with even though its clearly not true. Meanwhile, Jonathan who has been a good guy all his life and did one thing wrong that they make out to be something it wasn't, is evil and a monster and worse than Vecna a serial killing child abuser. And in fact-they even like Vecna. Talking about how hot he is and justifying his actions because ''his mom was mean to him''. They even defend VECNA over Jonathan. VECNA. Because why? Because hes hot and hes sexy and powerful. But Jonathan? eww.

They support Jonathan's abuse. They support him being abused by his father as a child and being locked in a trunk and thrown around. Saying he deserved much worse. They support Joyce treating him badly and think she should be worse to him. They justify him being bullied and tortured by people and claim his bully was the victim in it. They take the sides of people who have tortured him in the past. They make up lies about him to make him look like a monster. Things they know not to be true. And then back each other up on it even though we ALL saw what really happened. They have said he is worse than Vecna multiple times said he's worse than a child abusing serial killer.

Let's not forget Jonathan was abused and bullied and tortured all his life and those people have said many times that he deserves a lot worse. Cheering on his death. Cheering on Vecna torturing him and doing horrible things to him. Cheering on the idea of people hurting this abused tortured child even worse. Making up fanfiction to satisfy their desire to see him 'put in his place' and making the other characters like Nancy and the kids and everyone be their mouth pieces.

Why are we begging for those people to come to our side again? Even if they did realize that Jonathan wasn't the monster they paint him to be and start attacking other characters instead-I don't want that. i don't want people like that over here on Jonathan's side and I have to interact with people like that and then they're making other characters out to be monsters so we Jonathan fans look like trash. Hell to the no. They can stay in their own filth. I dont want them around me. It's bad enough we're already in the same fanbase thats close enough for me thank you.

And I don't want to hear from anybody else reading this Damn its just a show they're just characters. I get that. The issue is these peoples mentality. Jonathan is a character, but the people in their real lives are not. They look at a bullied abuse victim and can't see any good in him only see the bad and make up bad things about him and treat it as the truth so they can justify their cruelty. They make up lies to justify hating him and wanting to see him abused-they're this vile to a *fictional* character imagine how they treat abuse/bullied victims in real life.

[lazyfandombean]

Psst, you!

Hey, hey you! Yeah, you! I've got a question for ya. Do you feel normal about SCC (Sweet Cap'n Cakes)?

-> Yes -> No

[❤️Yes] [Ohhhh, I see. You're in denial, aren't you? ;)]

[❤️No] [Aha! Just as I projected- I mean suspected! Suspected. Yeah.]

Well, I've got some GREAT news for you! Have you ever felt saddened by the lack of SCC-centric fanfiction? Specifically the kind that depicts them as brothers instead of bandmates or partners (no shade to those depictions btw)?

No? Shut up yes you have /j

Yes? Fantastic! Well, no, sorry that you're sad :/ BUT! Be sad no longer! For I've come to save the day!

In the form of my newfound SCC hyperfixation!!!

That's right!! I've been going crazy about The Guys™️ for the past week or so, but to my absolute SHOCK, there are hardly ANY fanfics for them!!! And almost all them revolve around them as a SHIP! And no offense, but I just don't like reading about ships all that much, sorry!!! :(

SO!!! How am I going to fix this dilemma, I wondered? But THEN! I remembered something!! Something very, VERY important:

'Oh yeah I'm a fanfic author.'

Is this me implying that I'm now writing a bunch of SCC fanfiction in a very roundabout way? YES YES IT IS! :D

In fact, I've already posted one on Ao3 and have turned it into a 'series'! By that I just mean that the 'series' is really just a place for me to dump all of my SCC-centric fics. I'll link the series here, BUT I'll also be cross-posting most, if not all, of those fics from Ao3 to here on Tumblr!

Oh also link btw:

But why am I talking about it like this on Tumblr, you ask? Introducing it in such a way when I could have just started posting SCC content? For two reasons!

One: Idk I just felt like it

Two: Because!! It has come to my attention that hardly anybody on Ao3 even reads SCC fanfiction.

And no, this isn't me begging for like... kudos or subscriptions (or followers, I guess it is on Tumblr? Idk I don't use it much) or anything like that. What I AM asking for is for people to read it. Not because I want to get popular, but because...

I am very self-conscious about the way I write SCC.

Well, to be honest I'm just self-conscious about the way I write any fictional character. It's actually the thing I worry about the most when it comes to fanfiction; whether or not I'm getting the personalities right. And I'm aware that it's more about how you perceive the characters, and that headcanons are a thing (I have plenty of them myself), but in my opinion, there's a line between having a headcanon and writing something ooc. Headcanons are fine, yes, and I use them a lot (especially when it comes to Undertale and Deltarune characters), but I feel like it can get to the point where it's so ooc that it doesn't even feel like the same character. And that's something I definitely don't want to happen when I write about my three favorite guys EVER. So basically, I'm asking people to read my fics specifically so I can get feedback on how to write the characters.

Why didn't I ask my friends? Bold of you to assume I have any /hj

But no fr, none of my friends play Deltarune, and I'm not even sure if any of them have heard of it. My sister has played before, but she never really got into it, and it's been so long that I doubt she would even remember who SCC are if I asked.

So, I've taken it to random strangers on Tumblr!

There's only one work in the series right now, but I'm currently working on another and have many more ideas sitting in a doc, waiting to be written! I'll also take requests if anyone has any (which I doubt will happen but anything's possible I guess), but before I post any more, I'd really like to get some feedback from... someone, I guess. I dunno I just really want to do them justice 😭

Anyways, that's all! Sorry that this was so long and probably annoying to read, I just thought it'd be funny but now I don't even know aldkdsfljk- but I'm leaving it like this because why not I guess

[rubra-wav]

SFW Vox x Reader head anon request where the reader was his nibling on Earth but he died when they were very little. They ended up very lost and numb due to the death and found the only time they felt anything was in a fight so they became a bouncer, which is actually what led to them dying at 28. Reader doesn't realize who Voc is until they hear him speak.

Vox x Former relative reader headcanons

A/N This is a very hyperspecific request, so I hope you understand I've made it a little more general. 🙏

General plotline and idea is kept tho - bit vaguer, however.

Reader was his favourite relative btw, if this man saw just some random family member come up to him I think he'd just swat them away faster than light ngl.

Cw: Sfw, platonic obv 💀, gn reader

- When you showed up before Vox, he didn't recognise you at all either. He'd died when you were young, and when demons die they don't exactly come back looking 'normal'.

- So when you show up before him after seeking him to speak for several weeks - sending letters to meet him in person like your life depended upon it, claiming you had something very important to discuss with him, he doesn't recognise the sinner who clearly died while enthralled in extreme violence before him.

- When the people who escort you into the room leave, leaving you two alone at his request, Vox's first instinct is to interrogate you.

- He immediately assumed you had some sort of blackmail on him and were trying to play games to extort money from him or something.

- But, when you're lunging forward at him to wrap your arms around him while calling him an extremely specific nickname he hadn't heard in decades, he's at a complete loss in disbelief.

- When his initial shock wears off and he realises who you were to him, he doesn't know how to react properly and sends you away, saying he needed a bit to think and he'll contact you again.

- The conflict between his past self that he was when he knew you, as compared to the self he is now, has him absolutely reeling.

- It wasn't exactly foreign for him to come across people who knew him from his shows when alive, but not somebody who had actually known him as a family member - much less one who still thought highly of him after everything he'd done to end up there.

- When he finally calms the hell down, he tells you not to tell anybody you two are related for your own safety (and his own image), and that he will help provide whatever you need.

- He'd be distant as all hell from you, but would still want you to be safe. Both of these are due to him having a particular soft spot for you even now.

- Would probably consciously make an effort to try be an asshole to make you not want to see him- then feel kinda bad when you still want to see him and obviously still very much love him. 💀

- Even if you want to spend time around him really bad, he'd probably not give in most times.

- if he does spend time with you though down the line, he's just screaming inside the whole time because he actually gives a fuck in the same way he did back in his life and that's terrifying to him after living in hell. You don't get to his standing with caring about many people.

- Would be super paranoid during the whole thing as well about someone somehow finding out (especially the Vees because he'd never hear the end of it and if Val ever tried to flirt with you he'd probably go apeshit despite his on and off thing with him. )

- If anyone ever saw you were a soft spot to him, that would instantly make you a target. And, because it bruises his ego to know he still gives this much of a fuck about a relative who he hadn't seen in decades.

Writing this made me realise just how funny Vox would be as one of those bitter adoptive father figures who didnt sign up for this shit but just very begrudgingly love their 'child' and fucking hate themselves over it. 💀

[peaterookie]

More Info abt Merman Lupin AU

I'm not posting anything for day 5 of lupin week (prepping for next drawings + i have no idea what to draw for it) so i'll post some extra stuff about my au!

Character Sheet:

before, i didn't really have a specific species of shark to model him off of, so i did like a 3 minute research on google and landed on the carribean reef shark! it's mainly cuz they're one of the friendliest sharks.

yeah, merman lupin's a bit of a cutie in this au. mostly cuz he does not know any life of crime. he doesn't have a reason to hurt anybody. don't imagine him as some sort of 'innocent cinnamon roll' though. he's still lupin after all.

the gun shot wound is there because of his interaction with zenigata as mentioned before in my prev thread.

like the og lupin, he really doesn't understand when to stop getting into dangerous situations. he only sees humans as funny creatures to watch. sometimes, he even tries to scare people by putting on makeup and covering himself up with bones and kelp. he's built up a reputation for himself as some sort of sea monster around the east coast of japan because of his tomfoolery.

other than messing with humans, his other hobby is collecting cool shiny stuff and racking up a huge collection that he keeps all in a cave somewhere in the pacific. he doesn't just collect jewels, but other human nitnacks from machines to forks. he even knows how to use them! he's a smart fella

---

that's most of what i have for his personality. now for a little history lesson.

i made this au back in june 2022, you can tell cuz my art style looks a bit strange. fujiko was intended to be the second person he meets instead of goemon.

i decided against fujiko because they might not get along sometimes given their complicated dynamic in the manga, plus goemon makes sense to be one doing shit in the middle of the ocean.

lupin was able to go in land without any consequences, now he dies if he stays for too long. (it's due to the crystal's power not being powerful enough to keep him alive if he strays too far from where he died

old merman lupin also had gills! i realized after that it's too complicated of a choice given how sharks have to move all the time to keep breathing, so now he functions like a sea mammal.

and yeah that's all thanks for reading up to this point, im really grateful for the praise i got for this au. it genuinely made me so happy!! i would've never expect this much people to like my au...

maybe ill do more of this in the future.

[charmwasjess]

Stupid sexy the Acolyte why I am still watching you

Ugh, because it unfortunately rules, that's why. I don't know. On one hand, I still have all of my concerns about the portrayal of the Jedi Order and my absolute exhaustion with the plotline of "oooh, but wHaT iF the Jedi bAd?!" while offhandedly massacring interesting cool Jedi who are voluntarily and honorably living out their convictions as empty plot fodder. I am so tired. But I also keep genuinely finding things to like about the show.

I really like the big chunky boxy lightsaber designs. They remind me of my first car: one of those perfectly square Volvo station wagons. I think the prequel Jedi lightsaber designs tend to be a little industrial/ utilitarian, whereas Dooku's generation (in the few example we have, I'm thinking of his, Sifo-Dyas's, and Jocasta's, because those are the ones I've looked at too many times) can be a little fussy and overdesigned. It's cool to see how generations of Jedi riff on popular designs for their era.

The size makes for a big impact when characters do things such as hold the emitter against the head of another character, or as in last night, bring it up to someone's throat, because damn, that thing is a clunker. It looks so dangerous.

Master Sol. Master Sol. Master Sol. I'm not sure I have ever seen a live action role where the actor has more uniquely and specifically captured what I love about the Jedi in one character.

The scene where he goes down to reset the transmitter and has his little micro-breakdown after the "team is dead" bit. What an powerful moment. The amount of acting he did with absolutely no dialogue, no one else in the scene to bounce off of, just a quiet moment of grief, rage, and loss. I've read both criticism and rebuttals of Jedi acting - oh, they're wooden, no, they're accurately playing a person with a lifetime worth of trained emotional control - and this was such an incredible example of portraying a person with a lifetime of emotional control training realistically experiencing an excruciating, heartbreaking loss. You see him lose control, open himself up to the Force/self soothe, and regain it. All just with a sequence of facial expressions. Honestly, if I get absolutely nothing else out of the show and hate where they go with this, it will have been worth watching for that alone. It's that important to me.

And just - Sol. :') When he gives Not-Osha a big HUG? I'm such a sucker for Jedi onscreen hugs. Man, his inevitable death is gonna blow.

Aww, and speaking of death, confirmation that the Osha and Jecki vibes were really there. Just kill me. And I kind of love how Qimir phrases it, this idea that the Jedi she loves will never love her back the way that she wants them to, but also the twisty subtext there. Maybe this is me giving the show too much credit, but I got a lot of Sith-version of love "to love is to possess a person" vibes in the way he talked about that?

BUt ohhhhh nooooo ewww stupid sexy Qimir trying to s-seduce (?) Osha by being all sexy and funny and likeable and weirdly kind and not like a classic Sith. Pffffh. Yeah, he's going after the other twin now. Completely and totally expected. Oh, good. And now he's taking off his stupid shirt and his beautiful body is there in this dumb stupid scene. He loves to show off his awful muscles and handsome dumb face, as if anybody is interested in that. Presumably his dark side dong is out. Who would care about that? Not me, a scholar.

Whatever, who even cares about this show. CLEARLY I DO NOT