#OH MY GOD I LOVE WRITING THIS SO FUCKING MUCH WHAT

[lucid-heart]

Hello… Can I ask for a sex pollen fic about Agatha x reader where reader is infected?

👀👀 I take a long time writng but here we go! First time writing sex pollen so it's relatively tame and consentual (considering sex pollen as a concept). I hope you enjoy! I'll be uploading the fully edited version on my AO3 in a few days (when I get around to it) 😚

Pairing: Agatha Harkness x F!Reader

Tags: established relationship, vaginal fingering, minor choking, sub!reader

"F-Fuck," you groan as you stumble into your home. "What- What was that?"

Agatha, who has an arm wrapped around your waist, keeps you support until the two of you make it inside. She waves a hand and shuts the door behind you.

"That, my dear," she says, rolling her eyes in frustration, "was sex pollen."

"What?!"

She guides you into a chair and starts bustling around your kitchen. You watch as she starts gathering random ingredients and tossing them into a pot.

"It's harmless," she says. "Well. Mostly. I should be able to brew an antidote."

You hope so. Because at this point, after stumbling your way back from the forest, your body has begun to tremble. Shivers roll down your spine and yet you aren't cold. Quite the opposite. Heat spreads through your chest, flushing your cheeks until they're a deep red.

And it doesn't stop there.

By the time Agatha looks over at you again, you have started to pant.

"Oh." She puts down the vial in her hand and crosses over to you. "Well. It seems to have taken quite a root in you, my love."

"What... What's happening to me?" you gasp.

She rests the back of her hand against your forehead to check your temperature but the feeling of her touch has heat rushing to your core. You moan despite yourself. And Agatha's eyes widen.

"Sex pollen is named for... well..." Her lips quirk in amusement as your plight. "The affects of has on the body. It's an aphrodisiac. And this one looks to be particularly strong."

Everywhere burns. You stare up at her, lips parting in a needy whine.

She takes your chin in her hand and tilts your head back, gazing down at you with dark eyes.

"T-The antidote?" you manage.

Your eyes slide past her to the potion ingredients discarded on the counter. Your pulse quickens and your palms feel sweaty.

"I could make it," she admits. "It would relieve your symptoms. But fortunately, there is a much easier solution, darling."

"And that is-?"

Agatha leans down and kisses you, hard. You moan at the feeling of her soft lips pressing against yours. She steps between your legs, bearing down on you, hands reaching to cup your face. It's amazing but you want more. You need more.

Agatha, as if sensing your pull, slowly lowers herself until she's kneeling between your legs, not breaking the kiss. Her hands lower from your face so she can squeeze your thighs.

"Aren't you a needy one?" she murmurs against your mouth.

"Fuck," you groan. "Agatha-"

"Careful, (Y/N)," she purrs. "You know I like it when you're desperate."

Heat pools between your legs and you shift in your seat, seeking any touch, any pressure to ease the ache of your pussy. You reach for her but she grabs your wrists.

"Agatha," you repeat. "Please. Please, oh god, I need you badly."

"I know." Her eyes flash purple. "Don't worry. I'll take good care of you."

You don't doubt it, not when she's looking like she wants to devour you. Agatha wasn't hit by the pollen and yet you can feel the burning desire coursing through her.

"Sit back, pretty girl," Agatha purrs. "Let's get this out of your system."

You expect her to kiss you again. What you don't expect it the wave of heat spreading through your skin. You grasp at her needily, desperate for any contact, any touch. And she's all too willing to give it to you.

Agatha's lips crash against yours, a mess of tongue and teeth, parting your mouth so she can press inside. She kisses you thoroughly until you've gone dizzy. Or perhaps that's just the sex pollen getting to you. She tugs at your bottom lip until it stings.

"Agatha," you gasp. "Please-!"

"Hush," she murmurs. She trails a hand down your chest, teasing the thin layer of fabric separating the two of you. "Let me play."

Play? It doesn't feel like playing, not as she's grabbing you over your clothes. Agatha always has been a tease. She enjoys riling you up until you whimper and beg, likes the power play of holding that desire right out of your reach. Except today, you don't need the build up or foreplay. You're already soaking and needy for her.

Agatha kisses a line across your cheek until she reaches your jaw. She sucks a hard mark into your skin and hums her appreciation.

She continues down, along the column of your throat, down to the neckline of your shirt. You grab the bottom and tug it over your head.

"Delightful," Agatha says, and her eyes gleam.

Her hands roam over you and you arch into her palms. She slips a hand under your bra, taking a greedy handful as you moan. It doesn't take her long to take it off completely and then her mouth is on you.

"Fuck!" you gasp. "Agatha, oh my-!"

That wicked tongue flicks over your hardened nipple as she takes it between her lips. Any word you could have gasped is erased from your mind. All you know is her and her lips.

Reaching out blindly, you find her wrist and drag it between your legs, desperately seeking the press of her inside you.

"Oh, you poor thing," Agatha breathes. "Soaking through your clothes, are you?"

You bite your lip and groan as she presses her fingers along the length of fabric. You're so sensitive that each motion has your hips jumping, seeking more, wanting her. You look at her, words coming up in a whine.

"I need you," you gasp. "So badly. Please. Please. Just- Anything."

Agatha pauses for a moment and you see the cruel flash of her eyes. She has you completely at her mercy.

But she takes pity on you, pressing a gentle kiss on your lips.

"Anything for you, my love."

It takes her moments to undo the button of your pants and to slide her hand inside but those moments feel like eternity. Your chest rises and falls in needy pants, hands falling to grasp the chair beneath you. Good, because you need to support as her fingers find your wet pussy, soaked through your underwear.

Agatha teases at first, circling your entrance, not pushing inside like you want.

"Agatha-!" you whine.

Her free hand catches you around the throat and she pins you back to the armchair with a powerful arm. She smiles at you.

"Now, now. Let me."

Your throat bobs against her palm as you surrender to her.

The tips of her fingers press to where you need it most and you moan, hips stuttering against her. This time, she does indulge you. Two fingers slide into you and it's heavenly. You take her gracefully as she starts to thrust.

Harder, faster, she quickly finds a rhythm that has your nails digging into the arms of the chair.

"Yes, oh god! Just like that!" you moan.

She leans down and kisses you, drinking your moans as she thrusts her fingers in your wet pussy. She is devastating in all the right ways, able to play your body until you can't help yourself. Every nerve feels like it's on fire and you're going to explode.

The noises that you're making is filthy but you could hardly care. Not when she's knuckle deep in you, destroying you from the inside out.

"Go ahead, my love," Agatha murmurs.

You cry out her name as you come. She kisses you again, swallowing your noises of pleasure. She murmurs something to you, a note of praise, but you don't hear it exactly. Not as the blood rushes around your ears and your heart sings for her.

"Fuck," you mumble. "That was..."

"Good," Agatha finishes. "But not enough to satisfy you."

You open your mouth to refute it but you feel the warmth simmering in your gut. The crave, the desire for more. She hasn't pulled out yet, fingers still inside you. You squirm, cheeks flushing.

"Don't worry," Agatha says, as she sinks to her knees. "I'll make sure to flush every bit of that pollen from your system."

And you don't doubt that she will.

[acynicalsweetheart]

HIII i love ur writing so much !!! if your requests are open (and if they arent, feel free to delete this ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა) may i request curly x fem reader who’s jimmy’s girlfriend, but like curly is head over heeellss for her?

if thats not your style, no worries! you can delete my request for any reason, but thank you so much if you write this!! >_< 😭💗

hai thanku very much anon ♡… sawry it took forever. this is awful omg i had no idea. what direction i wanted to take this in LOL. but here’s your head over HEELS sorry had to… anyway first non dead dove drabble yay

content warning: 18+, infidelity

“Curly, stooppp!” You draw between giggles, playfully slapping his awfully muscular yet plush arm. The kind of plush that makes you want to bite a chunk out of it. 

“What? I’m not doing anything.” Curly flashes you his blindingly white Hollywood smile, fingers tickling your side for the eleventh time in the past five minutes. 

Jimmy glares at Curly. Then at you. His gaze burns holes into your skull like it’s made of lasers. 

You blow a kiss to the scowling face across the couch. 

Frown deepening further than you’ve ever seen before, Jimmy pinches the bridge of his nose. “I need a drink.” 

“Okay, babe,” you speak to Jimmy’s back as he’s leaving the room, returning your attention to Curly to get your revenge by attacking his side for a change. 

His couch squeaks when he squirms away, chuckling and grabbing your wrists. Craning his neck, Curly chimes to the doorway. “Hey, get one for me too!” 

A groan can be heard all the way from the kitchen. 

“Oh,” Curly’s face brightens like he has a revelation, letting go of you to briefly search his pockets to pull out a small velvet box. It looks comically miniature in his hand when he holds it out. “I got this for you.”

“What’s that?” You ask confused and curious, ‘cause it very much looks like he might just propose to you. 

It opens sesame. 

“An anklet.” 

“Oh.” 

Well, thank God. Jimmy would’ve fucking shot Curly if it was a ring. 

“Here, let me…” Curly reaches for your feet, careful in the way he peels off your socks and it’s all oddly romantic. So romantic there’s a slight heartbeat beneath your panties. 

Jimmy would never do that for you and that’s why it’s so wrong. 

“There,” he closes the clasp after a good two minute fumble, adorning your ankle with gold that costs more than your boyfriend’s entire net worth. 

“Oh,” it’s so shiny you can’t help but to blink at it, “wow. You… could’ve just gotten me a bracelet or something, Curly, I mean—“

“I could’ve,” his gentle up-and-down caresses to your calves pause, quickly adding, “but who would’ve gotten you this?”

You both know the answer to that question. 

“It’s not that I—“ 

“Hey, next time, I’ll get you that bracelet.” He pulls out his phone, squinting at the screen as his fingers move. 

“It’s fine, Curly,” you tell him—not wanting to seem ungrateful, “this is more than enough.”

But he’s already typing in his credit card information on the Tiffany & Co website when you look over his shoulder. 

What are you supposed to do? Smack the phone out of his hold? It feels… nice to be appreciated. Jimmy’s never bought you anything—you’re the one buying shit for him. Including his black market drugs. 

“Jim’s not coming,” you note after a long moment of awkward silence, poking your head forward like he’s coming through the doorway any second. 

“I guess not.” Curly says, meeting your eye once you look back at him. 

Almost kind of scary, the tenderness in his gaze. Not like Jimmy’s wolfish one that says he wants to eat you alive. In the cannibal way. 

“You’re gorgeous.”

“Me?” You can’t help but to laugh out loud, it’s so sudden, and Jimmy’s your boyfriend and he doesn’t even think that. “No… no I—“

“You are!” Curly insists, making a motion with his hands towards you. “Doesn’t he tell you that? Doesn’t he…” he pauses again, voice lowering, “show you that?”

“Show me?” 

“Like this,” he leans in closer, like way in-your-personal-bubble type of closer, noses brushing against each other. Curly lifts your chin up like he’s about to do something forbidden. 

You were almost convinced it was a joke till he actually kissed you. 

“Oh!” Lightly pushing on his chest, you stare at him. “Curly, that’s… we can’t.” 

Fisting at Curly’s shirt to pull him closer, you kiss him back. Harder. 

“Stop it,” like you’re not the one sucking on his tongue, tracing the bulge in his pants with your toes. “He’ll kill us!” It’s a half-whisper, half-yell. 

“Nah, I know Jim.” Says Curly, who more than well knows that Jimmy would have both of your heads on each respective stick to then keep as decorations in his trailer, “trust me.”

“Well…” but Jimmy doesn’t seem to be coming back anytime soon—you know him well enough to assume that he’s most likely sulking by now. “Okay then.”

And so you let him lay you down on his couch the way Jimmy did your first time with him. Only Curly is a thousand times more gentle in comparison. You’re a bad person for thinking it, but you almost wish Curly was your first. 

You’re still desperately kissing when his hands trail up your thighs, creeping under the hem of your dress to pull down your panties. Curly gets them about halfway down when you hear the unthinkable and the unmistakable. 

The cock of a gun. 

Jimmy’s holding this pesky little revolver that he probably found in his mom’s bedside drawer—the same one she blew her brains out with—pointing it at Curly and you with an expression resembling a wild animal more than a human face. 

[mihii-i]

silver bullet.

Pairings: jinx x fem!reader

CW: sfw, female reader, vampire jinx, vampire hunter reader, graphic violence, blood, reader fucking HATES jinx in the beginning, but this ho has a crush on her implied, I use more foul language than usual uh oh, jinx is too silly for reader’s gloomy ass, my girl gets lowk messy with drinking blood cause whys it getting everywhere, part 2 (pending), collab fic, I was leaping up and down like a baby writing this god, proud of this one, the way I want to give isha another sibling holy shit, licking up the green tea today, not proofread.

A/N: now playing touchin’ me by chandler leighton—oh yall KNOW I have to do another collab fic with her come on @kadriss-loves-gifflars anyway I loev jinx so yes this woman makes me a total 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴 also lowkey this kinda works cause silco reminded me of a vampire when I first saw him and post shimmer jinx? Yeah definitely 🕯️

Heavy onslaughts of rain poured in a fervent wash of deafening white noise circling you as your drenched form stood upright in the frigid shower, droplets dribbling down the protruding jugular veins of your throat with your teeth bared in a rugged scrape against each other. Days. Weeks. Months. You don’t know how long you’d feel the numbing shivers crawling up your spine as a product of your unending weariness, head swerving weakly from side to side in caution to make sure that a pair of fangs didn’t tear away at your flesh from behind.

The torture was unbearable for you. Countless nights of lost sleep lingered in the fury of your sanity slipping past the fingertips of any ground of stability, fingers buried deep into the plush of the pillow to crease as it sank under the weight of your thumb pressured upon it. How long had you truly spent hunting down this blood sucking demon? How many more lives had to be lost for you to finally put an end to her advances chewing up the city you resided in?

Every awful detail of her face was etched into your mind, sticking in like a leech as you memorized those deep, pink eyes flaring with their sights set on you, stray strands of turquoise blue locks framing her face whenever she poked out from the engulfing darkness of a hallway. Much worse, she didn’t even take the potential of you ending her life seriously at all. Likely taunting you further at the prospect of her dying at your hands, as if it was an absurd idea. Occasionally even throwing up a finger gun with that shit eating grin on her face to mock you, the same grin she had on her face when she devoured another innocent soul with specks of blood decorating the corner of her lip.

Heavy breaths rumbled out of your throat in accordance with your twitching eyelids, jerking with each descending droplet over water plinking against the metallic nub lodged between your bare fingers, peeking out from the bumps of fabric crowned with dark leather sheathing the palm and dorsal side of your hand. Sharply inhaling through your nose, you idly dragged your thumb along the intricate carvings scratched into the steel bullet hemmed in the grasp of your fingers slowly rotating it like the digits of a combination lock.

This would be the time. You swore. You’d bury that bullet in her skull and wipe that grin off her face if it was the last thing you’d ever fucking do.

You’d murder Jinx if it was the last thing you’d do.

You carefully drew in another breath of the pungent air sided, with the specks of rain landing onto the black leather coat draped over your shoulders, the foul stench of dried blood dissolved into rainwater stung your nostrils in a near assault as your shoes imprinted an outline of blocky lines into the thick mud. The rusted brass of your pistol rested against your hip with your hand hovering over the drenched gunmetal, rapidly yanking it out and slamming the bullet to load into it as if you were resolute on a definite decision to put down this killer.

What a shame. You couldn’t help but chuckle to yourself weakly in the midst of your pathway to Jinx, teeth dragging up your bottom lip to bite off the loose skin chapped along the soaked, dull tint of your lips. Even through this endless cycle of hunting her and losing her, braids falling behind her every time she shot you a glance upon emerging victorious, you couldn’t help but grow fond of this particular undefeated vampire.

The lingering status as a supposed ‘mortal enemy,’ if that’s what you could call it, only resulted in a bond stemming from this constant interaction that pumped streams of adrenaline across the tensed veins of your body. And strangely enough, you found yourself attached to the very person you hate, gaining a peculiar thrill from the rush of hunting her down. Relishing in the way her sharp, painted nails would lightly tap the barrel of your gun with a smile of feigned innocence, before spiraling past you at a speed you couldn’t keep up with.

Well, looks like you’ve grown attached to the vamp after all. You’ll miss her after you’ve buried that fancy silver bullet in her cranium.

Choking up at the diffusing clouds of dust sealing your airways, you firmly planted your palm against the drenched, slippery leather clothed over your left breast, avoiding the familiar shiver that racked your body as the familiar scenery unfolded before you for the umpteenth time. As you caught sight of the dark, extravagant mansion unfolded before you, a whirlwind of determination seared up within you as you took in the stygian architecture towering over you.

Of course. The countless number of times you could roll your eyes at the fact that this unkempt vampire had such an opulent living space, with the furnished decor seeming like it was left to rot for eternity, probably because she wouldn’t even bother to clean it. It was ridiculous at how this sloppy ass vampire could have everything in the world, and still prefer to toss it aside like a spoiled child. Personally, you couldn’t help but scoff internally at the immaturity exhibited by the very woman who had mauled hundreds, the only vampire you couldn’t kill so far.

A quiet cough was expelled from your lungs as the sole of your glossed boot tapped against the creak of the dusted floorboards, the dim glow of writhing candlelight flooding your vision as slivers of melted wax skipped along the little bowls that held them. Waves of apprehensive caution locked you into place as your vision wavered in the unusually dim sights of the mansion, breath coming out in shallow, rapid expulsions of air forcing their way out of your chest. It was the same as usual you could handle it. You wouldn’t let this stupid girl have her way this time.

Your expression contorted into a scrunched up picture of repulsion painted across your features as that sinister giggle bellowed in your ears in a dreadful reverberation, the frequencies of her voice cutting through any possible sense of tranquility you had left. The lingering vibrations soon faded into the pits of shadowy darkness swallowing the hallways and crevices of the area, the near colorless candlelight seeming like the only safe space that would hold you from dissolving into the belly of nothingness.

“Gotta hand it to you. You’re still chasin’ after me for what? Millions of years now?”

A swift click echoed across the confined of the enclosure, accompanied by the tiny flames burning along the candle wicks inclining in a lean to the side as if perfectly matching your every move. Jinx’s piercing eyes were practically illuminated by the little candlelight there was in a deathly glow of reddish pink, eyeing the smallest jerk of your body with a petrifying precision.

“I know you’ve got that damn grin plastered across your face even in those shadows like a coward.” You spat, your hand ghosting along the wavering, cold trigger as you rose the gun to aim into the lurking depth of pitch black.

You were aiming at nothing, the anxious lump lodged in your throat refusing to go down at your limited periphery fogging up your senses with a lurch of unusual panic.

“You won’t be running around like a moron once I rip your heart out and blow your brain out.” You added, attempting to calm your nerves with any ounce of confidence.

Jinx merely rolled her eyes, emerging into a sliver of light briefly illuminating a thin strip along her pale complexion where that messy side bang fell over her face.

“Oo. Scary.”

Her mocking tone only aggravated you further, using the remaining sanity you had bottled up left to keep yourself from folding your index finger like a trigger happy maniac.

“Come onn! Lighten up! I wore something special for our thousandth anniversary!”

“Oh? You wanna die fancy? I can respect that.”

“By dying you mean you ending up on the floor with that little gun of yours unable to clicky-clicky?”

“Shut your mouth. We’ll see who’s laughing when I squeeze your heart in my fucking hands.”

“Huh. That sounds romantic. You like me trying to chomp down on you this bad?”

You breathed out exasperated cracking your voice as your eyes flitted along every corner of the mansion hall, gripping along the swirled carvings of the worn brass tighter as to not let it clatter to the ground from the sweat of your palm mixing with the slippery drops of rainwater. Your sigh was quickly substituted with a dry laugh of choked back loathing, seething across your tensed forearms in an attempt to keep your cool in case she hurls another one of her cheap tricks at you.

“Mm. I’ll admit. I’ll miss that rush I get when I try to tear you apart with the stake, Jinx.” You mention, earning an equally amused laugh from Jinx, a flash of her faux sweet demeanor splayed along her features.

Suddenly, a swift wave seared across the blank air in an incomprehensible speed, gentle waves of a synthetic breeze caressing the exposed skin of your face as that unmistakable chill shot along the rigid column of your spine once more.

“Yeah. ‘Ts been tempting to kill you too. But hey, looks like you hit the jackpot. I’m having too much fun to drain you dry.”

Her warm breath fanned across the shell of your ear as your chest heaved up and down, blurry vision finally adjusting back into focus within the span of a split second as you realized she was right behind you, hands dug into your leather coat as the fun blue and pink of her nails contrasted the gloomy black. She wasn’t wearing her usual clothes. It was more..formal. A white button up and black pants like you initially thought vampires dressed when you were a child.

“See? Told ya’ I wanted to dress nice. I wanna see how your blood looks all over this shirt.” She muses, gesturing to the clean white fabric clinging to her stature.

Cringing at the thought of deep red stains dirtying the white shirt without even a speck of dust, you couldn’t even have a moment to yourself in thought as Jinx slowly walked in front of you, lengthy braids trailing behind her like streaks of blue lightning emanating off of the vampire before you. Her eyes transfixed onto your fear laced pupils momentarily flickering down to her muted lips before losing yourself in the deep pools of violet red.

The silence of her staring dead through the window to your soul overtook the clearing, the only noise being the little squeaks of mice, or the howl of air fostered in the tension of the clearing.

Was this it? Was she actually going to kill you now-?

“Catch me if you can.”

Her whisper hushed past her her pointed fangs barely registered through your cloudy thoughts as she disappeared into the engulfing shadows surrounding you, gaze shifting over periodically to every time you saw the small pinkish glow faintly peeking through the void.

You fired a bullet.

Nothing.

Three rounds left.

You held your hitching breath as you frantically scanned the clearing for any hint of Jinx appearing in any way shape or form. Setting your aim against the little glow once more, you could make out the slight outline of a person’s silhouette, firing your pistol once more. Only to be met with a drawn out clatter of metal rolling along the floor.

Two rounds.

“Too slow.”

God, you wanted to shut her up. As pretty as she fucking looked, as excited as she made you with the chase each time. As absolutely ravishing as she was whenever her slender fingers ran along the small of your back whenever she sped past you.

You clicked the trigger again in a chain of a loud bang, resulting in a worse shot than the last as the bullet couldn’t even penetrate whatever you shot at, fearful gaze running across the nugget of silver rolling in an echo of your trepidation before ceasing its momentum at your feet.

One round. One shot.

“Come on, (Name). What was all that blabbing about you ripping my heart out? Shooting me in the head with a silver bullet?”

Carefully, your fingers coiled against the brass handle once more, teeth grit together as you took full focus on the sights of the vampire flashing in rapid movements through you.

Bang.

A choking noise suddenly rang in your ears, accompanied by the oozing squelch of a substance dripping onto the floor. Your eyes widened at the sight of the little stream of red pooling from the shadows to trickle in a branched line to the tips of your feet, your heavy breathing more ecstatic at the realization that you have in fact, finally killed Jinx. Elated, you slowly slid your now empty pistol back into the respective loop of your utility belt, a maniac grin crossing your face.

Seriously, did you think it would be that easy?

A hand suddenly brushed along you from behind, a wash of despair, enveloping you as the familar strands of blue tickling your cheek hummed alongside the familiar cracking veins sprouted from her eyelids resided behind you.

Fuck. Had you shot a bloodbag instead? Her cheap trick of fake choking playing out?

“Gotcha.”

It was too quick before you could even think. All you could feel was the side of your neck breaking under the pressure of her fangs abruptly sinking into your throat as a splatter of crimson adorned your cheek, seeping in little red tears along the two holes Jinx had just stabbed into your skin. The messy streaks of her usual sloppy eating habits were evident as you caught sight of the vermillion splatters panned out across the once perfectly clean white of her shirt—you swore you felt her smile against your throat while keeping those fangs buried inside you to lap up the saccharine of your blood.

“Hah. What do you know? Your blood does look pretty all over my shirt.”

—

A/N: oh my fucking goodness you don’t know how much fun I had writing this giggling kicking my feet crawling up the wall I apologize for the excessive foul language I don’t want to be a vivziepop episode

Also, part 2 is going to be nsfw and I contemplated putting nsfw for this one, but that would be like tumblr clickbait so i didn’t BUT I entrust my collab monkey (friend guys I can call her a monkey) to feed you guys the nsfw.

ANYWAY YIPPEE part 2 is pending because of this goldfish sooo @kadriss-loves-gifflars

I want to save hex with her.

…I mean save the hextech gemstone from going back to piltover.

[luvingarisu]

oh my GOD!? GWI NAM😫😫 i’m grasping on to any post about my babe

i beg for some like maybe just relationship headcanons or anything to do with him pretty much!! xx

i love ur writing too it’s so good🤤🫦 pretty please x

i’m glad u like my writing! anything for u gorgeous <3

♡ he’s stupid. i’m so sorry but he is </3

♡ he knows that people don’t actually ‘like’ him, and that they just tolerate him, laugh when he bothers someone, because they’re intimidated by him, after all who wouldn’t be? bro literally stood on a kids head and near about crush their skill.

♡ so because of this, he knows he can’t approach you normally, or at least he thinks he can’t

♡ so instead, he kicks your chair, tugs your hair a little harshly as he walks past, purposefully does that annoying thing where he stands on the back of your shoe to make it come off a little

♡ it’s a little odd though, because at times, it seems more like friendly teasing rather than malicious, and you get confused

♡ you’ve seen him treat other people far worse, like eun-ji, so why is he almost joking in his teasing with you?

♡ maybe you feel a little brave one day as ask him what his deal is, or maybe he realises teasing is getting him nowhere with you, but one day, he really fucking reluctantly tells you why he’s being such a little shit

♡ ears red, avoiding eye contact, slouched against a wall with hands in his pocket, tongue poking at his inner cheek after he asks you out on a little date!

♡ genuinely terrified you’re gonna say no

♡ but you don’t! you say yes! aw how cute <3

♡ he’s not overly sweet, or romantic, but as i’ve said in other posts, he does live to please his s/o. not because he’s a gentleman, but to make sure you won’t leave :(

♡ so, keeping it simple for the first date i honestly just think you guys would go to the cinema :)

♡ it’s cheap, gives you guys something to do, and sometimes to talk about after :)

♡ i really can’t see him being very affectionate on your first few dates, not that he doesn’t want to, but i really think he’d be uncharacteristically timid around someone he actually likes

♡ after a few dates he would just assume you’re a couple.

♡ he wouldn’t ask, why does he need to?? you like him, he likes you, you guys have hugged and kissed, isn’t that enough to seal the deal?

♡ only asks when he realises you’re sad he hasn’t😭

♡ “am i not already your boyfriend though??? :/“

♡ “fine, i’ll ask.”

♡ because he likes you, he’s happy to do so, he just really doesn’t understand why it’s needed

♡ he isn’t timid forever though, once he’s sure you’re together for real he’s a cocky asshole.

♡ ruffles your hair, bites your cheek or shoulder, draws on your hand in class, if you’re a smoker will blow smoke into your face when you guys sneak away for a cigarette during lunch

♡ not super publicly affectionate but doesn’t mind slinging an arm around your shoulder

♡ LOVESSS when you hug his bicep instead of holding his hand. makes him feel all big n’ strong

♡ also makes you light his cigarettes for him, something about it is just so hot and he fucking loves it

♡ goes over to your place a lot more than you go to his. honestly, you’ve probably only met his parents once and he likes it that way

♡ i dont think his parents are terrible or anything, but i think he can tell they’re disappointed in him, with his grades and behaviour, so he doesn’t enjoy being at home much

♡ SLEEPSS every time he’s at yours. your bed is his.

♡ runs hot, like furnace hot. the boy is an incinerator so the moment he’s at yours, his shirt is off, he’s changed into joggers and he’s sleeping on top of the covers.

♡ because he runs so hot, no cuddling in bed. he’ll have you on his chest or an arm around you watching a movie, or talking, but as soon as you guys sleep you’re on opposite ends of the bed because he just gets uncomfortably warm😭

♡ if your parents are cool with him sleeping over you’re late for school every time because you just cannot get him out of bed

♡ at school, you’re getting pulled away for the sloppiest make out sessions

♡ he’s such a perv for you, the moment he gets the chance, you’re being dragged to the construction site, pushed against a wall with his tongue licking into your hot, wet, open mouth, one hand in your hair and one on your ass

♡ passes lewd, dirty notes to you in class

♡ once he’s comfortable he’s just horny all the time i fear

♡ draws on your hands in class too, but it isn’t cute stuff, he’ll probably draw a penis or something

♡ special occasions!!!

♡ he doesn’t really go all out, and he doesn’t want you to either

♡ for his birthday he’d really just prefer some convenience store food and a casual date or sitting in your house😭

♡ doesn’t want too many presents, just a few small things, maybe a new jacket or cologne

♡ asks for birthday head

♡ for your birthday, again, the presents are small, but little things he’d know you’d like

♡ they aren’t wrapped, probably just shoved in his backpack or maybe a gift bag

♡ why buy wrapping paper if you’re jus’ gonna tear it open anyway???

♡ doesn’t really care for valentines day, but he will buy you little things like your favourite sweets if you care about it, but he will NOT give them to you at school because that’s embarrassing!

♡ doesn’t buy cheesy shit like heart shaped chocolates or whatever, if he’s buying you something he wants you to actually like it, and he thinks those little stuffed valentines bears look stupid

♡ is ODDLY sweet when he meets your parents

♡ similar to the scene in the principal’s office when he and his group were being questioned about bullying eun-ji, jin-su, and cheol-su, he’s a terrifyingly good actor

♡ “thank you for having me :)”

♡ “the food was lovely, thank you so much :)”

♡ OSCAR winning performance honestly

♡ will ask u to do his homework </3

♡ not really huge on pet names, he usually calls you mean shit to tease you, and actually enjoys when you do it back

♡ he wants someone he can joke and mess about with

♡ but if he does use little pet names it’s probably something simply like baby, and honestly only really uses it in private or when you’re making out

♡ or fucking

♡ lowkey, a surprisingly decent boyfriend, just not super romantic or anything

♡ but he’s loyal, because as i’ve said, he wouldn’t even consider dating someone unless he was super sure about them

[enha-stars]

oh my gosh. this was so freaking beautiful, i can't. chels, you already know just what i think of this but my god did you knock it out of the park.

from the found family to the he attention to detail and the way you’ve so clearly painted a picture and the way you’ve added everyones opinions and the dialogue? absolutely fucking amazing.

one of the best pieces of writing ever and i am SO excited for part 2 (in a month, because you love me so much).

ssv hoon will go down in history because why was i giggling and squealing and slapping my thigh HES SO SWEET I CANNOT

𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐫 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐦 (𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞) - 𝐩𝐬𝐡

𝐩𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧 / '𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲'𝐬 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐫 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐦

synopsis: you were never one to take the high road... until you met someone who made your body burn like rubber on asphalt.

street racer! hoon x street racer!maneater! reader

wc: 16.9k holy fuck honestly this hoe might be a 3-parter lowk

a/n: hi sorry i disappeared... but enjoy LOL and happy one year to my blog! i met so many cool people over this past year. reblogs are appreciated and i will astral project into your room and hug you ≽ܫ≼

banner by @karinasbaby i love you this one's for you big dawg. year in the making, let's go

“Didn’t think you were going to grace us with your presence tonight, Miss Probation,” Jaeyun smirks as you get out of your car, swinging both of your legs out closed like a lady so as to not flash anyone with the black miniskirt you’re wearing. He greets you with an air-kiss to your cheek, to which you roll your eyes—although you bask in the way the other girls stare at the two of you. If only they knew how annoying your best friend actually was.

“It’s Jungwonie’s turn to race for us, so who am I to deprive my brother and the team of our good luck charm? We need all the luck we can get tonight,” you reply, taking a seat on the hood of your baby pink Supra. “We’re on a good win streak. Might even take this season’s cup without me.”

The other racers from different teams have started to arrive, many of them making their way over to say hello to you. You give your girls—Jimin, who races for Razor; Aeri, the beloved race girl; and Soyeon, a member of the AZ team—air-kisses from across the parking lot. You aren’t feeling like walking over to the groups they’re mingling with. (And because you don’t feel like being near Hwang Hyunjin right now.)

“Fair enough,” he acquiesces, sitting beside you when you pat the spot next to him. “But you know, Wonie is better than you think—”

“Hey, you never let me sit on your car,” Wonbin says, striding over to you with a smirk. You glance up at him, and he looks like he’s expecting you to either push Jaeyun off or scoot over yourself—either way, he wants a turn.

Basically everyone in your little racing scene does, but you think it’s more fun to work them like dogs than to give in to anyone. Especially not after what happened with— “You’re not even in Enigma, Wonbin. Privilege is for teammates only, get lost,” Jaeyun says condescendingly.

He looks at you again, like an expectant puppy—which only works if it’s Jaeyun doing it to you— waiting for you to reach into your purse. You sigh and reach in and feel around for a particular wrapper. “Here. Go away.”

The Australian snickers as Wonbin walks away dejectedly. “The grandma coffee candy, huh?”

“He was too cocky, that's all he deserves tonight. Even if he’s cute. He’s lucky I gave him anything at all.”

“What about me? I’m cuter,” Jaeyun asks, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear with his signature cheeky grin, batting his eyelashes at you the way you do to him. You’re used to flirting with him; it’s more of a way to keep both your skills and his sharp than anything romantic or suggestive. After all, you grew up with Jaeyun, and you know all his embarrassing secrets just like he knows yours. One time in high school, the two of you fake-dated for a week to get some girl too obsessed with him for her own good to leave him alone. It’s safe to say she didn’t buy it, not one bit. You and him bickered too much for it to be believable, and you accidentally screamed when he kissed you on the forehead. 

“Hmm…” Playfully, you pretend to be deep in thought, hand digging in your purse again. “Here.”

His face lights up in innocent delight, a huge contrast to his outfit of baggy cargo pants, oversized hoodie, and sneakers, complete with a thick, iced-out Cuban-link chain around his neck. “Ooh, yum! Grape Hi-Chew!”

You roll your eyes. “I only carry that for you, loser. Everyone knows the mango one is the best.”

“You just say that because grape was—”

“Hey, Y/N! Nice wrap,” Riki says, waving his long arms at you like he’s drowning. The tall, newly-turned 21-year-old bounds towards you before tackling you in a hug that sends you almost crashing into the ground, your hands flying to tug the hem of your skirt down lest your protective younger brother scold you about not dressing for the weather. It’s a cold spring night, as proven by Riki who’s in a loose, knitted navy blue sweater and destroyed light wash jeans.

“Jeez, Riki, I just saw you yesterday, no need to suffocate me,” you grumble affectionately, reaching up to muss his black-and-silver hair before sitting back down on the hood of your car. You’ve been fond of the boy since Jungwon brought him over one day, his first new friend since losing his best friend (and one of yours, honestly) in a betrayal that still hurts to speak of to this day. Riki clings onto you like you’re his older sister, too, and you reckon it probably has something to do with missing his own sister back home. “You saw me finish the wrap on the car, too, remember? Jimin and Soyeon were there.”

“Yeah, yeah, but it looks good even at night! Very professional. Maybe you can wrap the GTR next?” he says, to which you side-eye him, and he adds, “I can pay you.”

“You can pay for my meals every time we go out to eat for the next three months and I’ll call it even.”

He laughs. “Okay, deal. You eat less than Jungwon hyung, anyways.”

“Why are you talking shit about me to my sister again, freak?” your younger brother demands, making his way up to the small crowd that’s starting to form around you, Riki, and Jaeyun. He looks taller today, you think to yourself, and when he comes into full view, you see that he’s riding on the back of an unfamiliar person, a tall man with a sharp jawline and a pretty nose, whose bangs droop over his eyes. He’s wearing a white tank top and jeans, with a black and blue leather racing jacket covering his torso from the chilly Seoul air. 

“Well, did I fucking lie?” Riki snaps back, arms crossed. You hide your laugh in the crook of your arm, eyes locking with the man who’s got your brother draped over his broad shoulders like a backpack. He looks at you intensely, in a way that makes you feel like he’s got x-ray vision or something. You feel like your insides are turning into lava. What’s his deal?

“Whatever, cricket legs.” Jungwon jumps off the man’s back, shaking his hair out of his eyes. You notice that he’s yet again stolen one of your oversized hoodies. “Oh, hyung! This is my sister, by the way. Noona, this is Sunghoon hyung. He’s joining Enigma.”

He’s cute, pretty, even, and you like that. You’ve always preferred pretty boys. And up until about five seconds ago, you would have said that—even though your ex-boyfriend is a cheating bastard who deserves nothing but suffering—he was still the prettiest man you’ve come across. 

But this one, this one in front of you right now, this one takes the cake. He’s got full, thick brows that frame dark almond eyes, and his cheekbones flow into his jawline in a way that makes you think his face has probably stopped traffic at least once in his life. Before you stare at him for way too long, you reach into your purse and pull out one of your mango-flavored Hi-Chews (from your personal stash) to give him. 

“Hi, Sunghoon. Nice to meet you. Welcome to Enigma.”

He repeats his own version of your greeting a bit too curtly for your liking, but you don’t care either way, he’ll be under your thumb in no time, just like everyone else, just the way you like. Rolling the wrapped cube in his hand, he asks, “What’s this for?”

To which you reply, “Oh, nothing. I just like candy.”

“I feel like ‘like’ is an understatement,” Riki snorts, sticking his hand in your purse for something he can snack on. You sigh and hand him your purse for him to rummage around more freely. 

Sunghoon raises an eyebrow at that, but turns to you anyways. “Do you race, too? I don’t want to assume or anything.”

You give him a coy smile, translucent bubblegum-pink-manicured fingernails clicking against the hood of your car as you drum your fingers against it. “Yeah, I do. I’m banned from racing right now, though, until the end of the season at least.”

He cocks his head like a curious puppy, blinking slowly at you. Oh, no. He’s cute and probably doesn’t know it, but he’s definitely dressed like he knows he’s hot. “Why’s that?”

Your smile turns into a smug smirk as you answer, “Because I go too fast.”

“Fourth-gen Supra,” he muses, glancing between your bare legs at the titanium Toyota emblem on the hood that you’d had imported from Japan. For some reason, you have to resist the urge to squeeze your thighs together. “Cute.”

“Oh? And what’s your ride?”

“Beamer M8 Comp,” Sunghoon says, an air of nonchalance about the answer like it’s nothing special. It kind of pisses you off. You’re pretty certain he didn’t win that car by racing for the pink slip like you did with your Supra. Before you got that car, Jungwon’s 350Z was yours, and you’d only had it because you salvaged it from a junkyard and rebuilt the whole damn thing yourself when you weren’t working or sleeping.

If there’s one thing you might hate more in this life than cheaters, it’s people who come from money, people who didn’t understand or couldn’t comprehend that they were playing life on easy mode. People who never had to suffer, because, to you, they never learned anything.

Sure, you had a hard life. Sure, your parents kicked you and Jungwon to the curb when the both of you refused to take over the family business. Sure, you worked hundreds or, more likely, thousands of hours just to make ends meet and take care of your brother while the two of you finished school. Sure, you wished you could have enjoyed your youth more instead of having to worry about money.

But instead, you had to pay the price for your freedom. Part of you still wonders if it was all worth it. If you should have stayed in your hometown. If you should have just went along with the arranged marriage your parents were proposing with someone you didn’t even know instead of running away with your ex and dragging Jungwon to hell with you.

Okay, maybe it really pisses you off. 

“Ooh, rich boy,” you deadpan, your long nails preventing you from balling your hands into fists. You deny him the pleasure of seeing you roll your eyes back into your head. “Daddy must have spent a lot on you.”

“That’s not very welcoming to say,” he shoots back, although his voice is just as flat, his eyes narrowed at you.

You pout mockingly at him. “I’m just teasing our newest member—don’t worry, silver spoon. It’ll be over for you sooner if you decide to quit while you’re ahead.”

“You scared you won’t be the best racer on the team anymore or something, princess?”

“Just wait for me to get off probation and I’ll make you eat my brake dust, Daddy’s Money.”

“You’re already calling me daddy, even though we just met? Because it was my money that bought the car, for the record.”

You’re a little embarrassed and also slightly turned on, neither of which you would ever admit to even Jaeyun, and he knows you just about as well as he knows every single Fortnite map. “Tell someone who cares.”

The back-and-forth between the two of you is thankfully cut short as everyone hears the roar of a particular engine, marking the arrival of Enigma’s leader. You could just kiss him for his impeccable timing—if it weren’t for the fact that neither of you saw each other that way. You reckon both of you would rather eat a jean jacket than get more intimate than the platonic skinship that marks your friendship with him and the other Enigma boys.

People move aside as he puts the metallic, slime green Lamborghini Huracan in reverse and backs up into the parking spot next to you. The ostentatious exotic car belonging to Jay was gifted to him by one of his first clients, a filthy rich businessman who respected and admired Jay’s hard work and dedication to his job despite Jay being a corporate grunt in those days. During this period in your lives, Jay never once showed up late to a meeting with Mr. Big—even when his old Mitsubishi Lancer finally gave up on him after years of being pushed to its limit, even if it meant he had to wake up at three in the morning to start walking from his old apartment in Ahyeon-dong to Gangnam to make the scheduled 6 AM meetings—since the subways unfortunately didn’t operate until 5:30.

After Old Moneybags found out about Jay’s struggle, it was safe to say your best friend wasn’t on hard times for very long after that.

“Jay!” you call out, playing up your role as the only girl in Enigma just to assert dominance over the racer groupies in attendance tonight. You haven’t seen him since the last race, on account of the both of you being too busy with your work schedules to hang out properly. You immediately nudge past everyone—including Sunghoon, who you intentionally brush up against, your ass against his leg—to be the first to greet him.

“Hey, sweets, missed you,” he says, pulling you into a hug. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah, been just fine. You know me, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself,” you assure him with a smile. He pinches your cheek. “What about you?”

“Oh, same shit, different day. Hoping I finally clutch this huge promotion at work. Head of an entire department,” he answers, protective hand on your waist as he guides you back to the rest of the Enigma boys. Along the way, he daps up some of the other racers who say hi to him, before giving Sunghoon, Jungwon, and Riki a dap and that weird side hug that guys who are close friends do. “Have you met Sunghoon yet?”

“Yeah, I have.” Your lips form into a slight pout, even though you know everyone but Riki is immune to your occasional petulance. “No one told me we were getting a new member. I thought we agreed to vote if it ever happened again? And… I thought it was never going to happen again?”

“You weren’t answering your phone when we voted, so Riki and Wonie took your vote,” Jaeyun snickers, shaking Jay’s hand and giving him the one-armed, “definitely not gay, bro” hug. “Think you had the group chat muted again.”

“Well, that was for good reason,” you argue crossly. While you loved your boys, that didn’t stop them from getting on your nerves at least once a day. “I was mad at you guys for not wanting to go get milk tea with me. And then you got it without me, clearly.”

“Didn’t we bring you some that night, though?” Jay retorts, ever the level-headed one when his temper wasn’t getting the best of him.

“Yeah… but I wanted to come! We live in the same building, for fuck’s sake!”

“It was a boys’ night, silly. Are you a boy?” Jaeyun pats your head and you swat his hand away, grumbling under your breath at him to not to touch you and to fuck off. 

Your attention veers to Jungwon as he turns to Sunghoon, who’s standing with his arms crossed, watching you bicker with the boys from a distance. “Don’t mind her, she’s always like this. You ready to race?”

“Always like what, Yang Jungwon?” you ask mirthlessly, hands on your hips.

“A brat!” Jaeyun and Jay answer on his behalf, tugging you away so as to allow the racers on tonight’s card to drive up to the starting line, and everyone else can get behind them.

That’s how your scene’s races have worked since you were tasked with changing the rules two years ago; two drivers from each team participating would race, while the others would drive behind them as pace cars. They would also be ready to distract the police at a moment’s notice and keep the roads clear of civillians. It was as ethical as you could make it, and, honestly, it worked and kept everyone safe.

On this night, you’ve been roped into Jaeyun’s metallic blue Mustang Shelby GT500, with glimmering white racing stripes you added on yourself, huffing and muttering to yourself about how the boys were being “mean” to you in front of Sunghoon to try and impress him. Jay has gone ahead to wait at the finish line. He’d refused—again—to not “put the Huracan anywhere near any of these morons with driver’s licenses,” and so he’s there to note down the order in which the racers arrive, armed with several precisely-calibrated stopwatches. 

You yourself have refused to ride with any other driver even though many of them offered to bring you along as their “passenger princess”. You will only ever ride with one of your boys. Riki is in his blacked out R35 Nissan GT-R, the other seats occupied with the life-sized plastic skeletons that he “borrowed” from his school’s anatomy lab. He’s cruising beside Jungwon, and behind you and Jaeyun; Sunghoon is in his own car beside you two.

“How’d you even meet that guy, anyways?” you groan to your best friend, trying to shield your eyes with the way Riki’s obnoxiously bright, blue underglow on his car is blinding you in your side mirror. Your hand dangles out of the open window, fingertips tapping idly on the outside of the door. “He’s so unfriendly.”

“Actually, he’s pretty cool when you get to know him. Riki and I met him at the gym a few weeks ago. He asked if one of us could spot him on the bench press—for three plates, that’s fucking sick! But, uh, yeah. We started working out together after that.”

You scoff. “Oh, great. Another meathead like you two.”

“Y/N, that’s not nice,” Jaeyun chides, glancing at you with the same affection of an older brother, even though you’re both 24 years old. “You’re not being very nice tonight.”

“Well, neither is he. He’s just some spoiled little rich boy who thinks he’s better than everyone.”

“Um… so am I, honestly… and so is Riki, honestly, but you don’t say anything about that, do you?”

You begin to reply, but you frown as Sunghoon speeds past the two of you in his pearly black BMW M8 Competition, the exhaust pipes screaming bloody murder, heading for the starting line just a hundred feet ahead. “Did he hear me say that about him?”

“Most likely.”

“Fuck.”

Part of you wants to apologize; maybe you’re being a little harsh on him, maybe you’re projecting your feelings towards this guy just because he reminds you of a certain someone, maybe you need to finally come to terms with what you’ve been denying for all these years.

Jaeyun pulls up to his spot behind the racers, right between Riki’s GT-R and Jungwon’s 350Z. You signal to the Nissan Boys, as you affectionately call your little brothers, to put their seatbelts on. They both pretend to sigh begrudgingly as they buckle themselves in.

The race girl is your good friend, Aeri, who every guy in your racing division is also obsessed with. Between the two of you, you think that she’s the truly adored one, because she is still as sweet as the day you met her—and you have an inclination to terrorize anyone of the opposite sex who rubs you the wrong way (due to your past). You can’t help it though, and, surprisingly, none of the boys who fall at your feet fault you for it.

But no one ever seemed to feel the need to prove you wrong, either, and that was your problem with them.

Aeri stands in between the middle two drivers, reaching under her top to unclip her bra. You take this as your cue to pull out the megaphone from where it sits waiting at your feet. Leaning out of the window, you announce, “First one to the base of Namsan Mountain wins! I expect a clean race, no funny business. Take no shit, but do no harm!”

“Isn’t that backwards?” Jaeyun whispers to you. You wave him off. He’s right, but you’re trying to emphasize your point about not dragging any innocent people into the racers’ mess.

You continue.“Tonight’s winner will receive the cash prize from me, personally, at a later time. Are we clear?”

A chorus of revved engines gives you your answer. “Alright. Aeri, count us down?”

She nods, pulling out her bra from her top and holding it up in the air. “‘Kay! You guys will go on 1! Ready? 3… 2… 1!” At the final number, she lets the hot pink satin garment drop to the ground, and everyone guns it, driving off in a flurry of exhaust smoke and burnt rubber.

“How much was the buy-in tonight, sweetie?” Jaeyun asks, using his own form of the sugar-derived nickname for you.

“Five million won apiece,” you answer. You scroll through Yun’s phone and play a song on his obnoxiously overpriced sound system. You’ve been joking to your friends that you’re in your “girl Future” era, citing your borderline toxic behavior towards the other racers who constantly slide in your DMs as proof that you’re literally the female version of the rapper. It doesn’t help that your coworker, Minjeong (who is also your self-appointed “work wife”), encourages you to torment men.

“‘I Serve the Base’? Really?” he snorts, leaning back in his seat. “You’re in a mood tonight, huh?”

“I dunno, it just fits the vibe,” you shrug. “Just quit yapping and drive, please.”

“Like I said, a mood.”

You sigh and physically turn away from him like a petulant girlfriend would—knees pointing towards the door and all—and stare out of the passenger window at the cars in front of you. You watch as Wonbin and Hyunjin duke it out on the road, trying to put each other in last place. The way they’re maneuvering their cars makes you a little uncomfortable, but also annoyed that they clearly didn’t listen to a word you said not two minutes ago. “Yunie, flash your high beams at them.”

“Say please.”

You look at him in confusion. Where’d he learn to say that?

“Sorry, Sunghoon does that to Riki and Jungwonie all the time.”

Yikes. Part of you hopes he doesn’t do it to girls, too… but you wouldn’t mind it if he were to do it to you. It’s high time someone really makes an effort to put you in your place, honestly. You reach behind you, to the back seat and grab the laptop you took from Riki, opening it up and typing furiously.

“What are you doing?”

“Accessing the street cameras,” you answer like it’s obvious. Being nefariously good at using the Internet was a perk that came with hanging out with your brother way too much. “I want to see what’s going on.”

“Well? Give me the rundown, then.”

“Jungwonie is in third place, it looks like. He’s gapped Hyunjin in front of us by at least a kilometer… and he’s approaching San and Wooyoung real quick. But—fuck, wait.” You click through a bunch of tabs, scanning the screen faster than when you’re reading twenty-six text message screenshots that Aeri sent you to dissect. “I can’t find Sunghoon anywhere.”

“What? What do you mean you can’t find him? Did he get pulled over or something?” he asks, lowering the volume of his speakers using the button on his steering wheel, eyes still trained on the road in front of him. He flashes his lights again, this time at just Wonbin to pick up the pace, urging him to pass Riki—who now has his underglow set to a stealthy dark red—up ahead.

“No… just… wait, give me a sec… oh, holy fuck.” You click through the camera footage, rewinding it and slowing down the playback. “Oh, my God.”

“Jesus Christ, what is it? You can’t just cliffhanger me like that!”

“I can’t see him because his lights are off.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think he has a mod on his car—you literally can’t see him unless he drives under a streetlight.”

“Wait, that’s what Riki imported for him?!”

“What the—oh shut the fuck up, it was me who imported that light system! That fucker said it was for a friend when I asked him why he was buying new bulbs, ‘cause I knew he just got those halo LEDs!” You take a deep breath before sticking your hand in the pocket of Jaeyun’s pants.

“Yo! I thought we agreed not to fuck in the car! And especially not while I’m driving—but I guess I shouldn’t turn down some road head…”

“God, shut up, you perv! I need to get your phone and call Sunghoon!” you cry out. “He needs to turn his lights on, what if he gets hit by someone?!”

Jaeyun laughs. He laughs. At your misery, or your panic, or at you. “So you do like him.”

“Shut the fuck up, seriously, Yun, I just don’t want anyone getting hurt. We’re already on thin ice with the cops as it is!”

“Shoutout San, though,” he chuckles, shifting gears so he can close the gap between him and Wonbin, who is starting to approach Hyunjin again. 

Your friend Choi San, also a racer on the AZ team, is from a family of high-ranking Seoul Police Department officials; he’d gotten pretty much everyone off the hook more than once for various traffic violations. You keep a stash of mint chocolates in your purse for whenever he’s around—even if they remind you of your ex-best friend—as your way of thanking him for keeping everyone’s records clean. It also helps that he absolutely loves your attention. 

“You’re so annoying, Sim Jaeyun. Let me call Sunghoon, seriously.”

“Dude, chill, look at the cams again. The gap between everyone is getting smaller.”

You check the laptop screen again, and he’s right. You see Jungwon overtake both San and Wooyoung, and while you’re still holding your breath in worry over your baby brother, another part of your heart soars with pride at how good he’s gotten. You’d like to think that he got his driving skills from you, even though it was your stupid prick of an ex-boyfriend who first put him behind the wheel of a car.

But when you look up, you notice that Jaeyun is distracted trying to change the song playing on his phone. And there’s a sharp turn coming up ahead. You feel sick, adrenaline immediately rushing through your bloodstream.

Instead of screaming nonsense, you slam the laptop shut, tossing it on the floor and practically crawling across the center console to grab the wheel with one hand and the e-brake with the other. You drive your knee into Jaeyun’s leg to floor the accelerator, and at the same time, you deploy the e-brake and turn the steering wheel hard. The car drifts around the turn with ease, thanks to him immediately springing into action, tossing his phone somewhere in the cupholders and countersteering as he shifts gears.

“Pay attention next time,” you mutter in annoyance, as if the two of you almost crashing was a slight inconvenience and nothing more.

“Sorry, Mommy,” he snorts, downshifting back to his cruising speed. You give him the middle finger as you watch the cars change formation in front of you. Hyunjin cuts off Wooyoung at the junction between two roads, and Wooyoung swerves in the opposite direction to avoid hitting San to his left. Wonbin approaches from behind San, flashing his lights, trying to get one of them to move over, but they both downshift, forcing Wonbin to brake, fall back, and move over to try and find another opening.

And then it happens.

You hear a distinct 8-liter engine roaring furiously somewhere in the vicinity, but you see nothing. You think for a second that it could be the sound of a police helicopter overhead, but you doubt it, not if San tipped off his family that there would be a race tonight, and he always does, because you remind him to do it. You think that he pretends to forget just so you’re forced to text him and he’ll have an excuse to talk to you, but you don’t really care because he’s sweet and always earns himself the best of your candy stash—although you’ll reluctantly admit that Sunghoon has been the first to get the candy that you carry for yourself. 

Because you’re not allowed to smoke inside Jaeyun’s car, you unwrap another mango Hi-Chew and wonder if Sunghoon would taste like you if you kissed him. Sure, you don’t like him all that much so far, but he’s hot, so maybe you could just hook up with him and dip—

Oh, who are you kidding? You haven’t slept with anyone since your ex, even though everyone thinks otherwise. You’ve made out with San and Hyunjin a few times, much to the amusement of Jaeyun and Jay, but you never let it get past that. You just go home and use your vibrator to finish the job. Sex is too intimate, feels too much like baring your soul to someone else and you don’t want anyone to get too close like that any time soon.

Too close, too close, too close just like the sound of that engine, and it snaps you out of your thoughts. Sunghoon finally turns his lights on, and reveals his location for everyone to see. He’s at the front, way ahead of even Jungwon, who is currently trying to keep Hyunjin off his tail.

No one but Sunghoon ever had a chance to win.

The race ends before you can truly even register this fact, and everyone parks at the base of Namsan Mountain to congratulate the winner, who seems insanely put-off by all the attention.

“Jay,” you say, approaching the Huracan driver quietly, your shoes crunching the gravel beneath you.

He looks up from his phone at you, jawline illuminated by the screen. The way he slightly tilts his phone away from you signals that he’s texting Aeri. You laugh inwardly; he doesn’t know that you know about them secretly hooking up. “Mm?”

“What was Sunghoon’s time?” you ask. Your bottom lip is tucked under your teeth, and you don’t even realize how hard you’re biting down.

“Eight minutes, twenty three seconds.”

You gulp. Like actually, visibly gulp, as if you’re swallowing a hard-boiled egg whole like some cartoon character. “Oh. That’s—”

“Almost a whole minute faster than your record. He told me he took a detour somewhere at the halfway point.”

“He’s good,” you admit. “Just like—”

Jay interrupts you again, pocketing his phone. “Don’t say his name, sweets. They’re nothing alike.”

You turn to him, eyes searching for answers. He simply puts a hand on your shoulder before pulling you into the hug he knows you need right now. “It’s been two years,” you mutter into the fibers of his cashmere sweater, hoping that the knit is dense enough that it drowns out the sound of your voice. “Why do I still bring him up?”

“He was a big part of your life. And ours, too. It’s okay. You’re going to have to accept that none of it was your fault eventually.”

“And stop taking it out on anyone else that comes after him, huh?”

Jay pats you on the back. “Bingo.”

“Wait, no one ever gave me a real answer, but why do Jaeyun and Riki live together? And Jay and Jungwonie?” Sunghoon asks. He’s sitting across from you in the former pair’s living room, letting your younger brother lean against him as the alcohol takes over Jungwon’s weak tolerance.

You raise your glass like it’s an extension of your hand, leaning against the bottom of Jay’s leather couch where you sit beside him. “That was my idea, when I was moving out of my old apartment. I lived there with my ex, until I kicked him out. When my lease was ending, all of us decided to move to a new building—this one—and I figured that each of the two young ones should have a hyung to look after them. But also, I didn’t want anyone living with me.”

The last part leaves everyone silent, and you laugh, adding, “Why do you guys look surprised? I told you that when we were signing our leases.”

Sunghoon looks at Riki to his right, who is trying to make a soju bomb with more soju and less beer, and then across from Riki at Jaeyun, who is egging him on to just drink straight from the soju bottle, and back at Riki, who listens to the Australian intently, like he’s some sort of genius. “Are you sure that was a good idea?”

You wave him off. “Oh, yeah. They’re just off the clock right now. You know, can’t be serious all the time.” Oops, another dig at him.

Your phone chimes with notification after notification, and it’s not just updates from Candy Crush. It’s text messages, and not the good kind from Aeri or Soyeon telling you which racer they’ve gone home with tonight.

Before you can silence your phone, though, Jaeyun, who’s on your other side, picks up your phone, laughing exaggeratedly as he waves your glowing screen in the air. “Guys, look! I told you it was gonna happen!”

“What?” Sunghoon asks, eyebrows knitted together in confusion. You shake your head at him and mouth the words “don’t listen to him”.

But then Jay starts cackling, catching your phone over your head when Jaeyun throws it to him in order to read the messages out loud. You don’t even bother fighting their teasing anymore; in fact, you’re a little excited, because you know your boys are about to go in on whoever’s hitting you up. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here! From Wonbin: ‘it was nice seeing you tonight, do you want to hang out this week?’”

“Ewww, gross,” Jaeyun groans with a mouthful of fries. “He was literally trying to sit on the Supra when Y/N pulled up!”

His revelation is met with a chorus of laughs and jeers as your boys mock Wonbin for his transgression, for being so stupid and arrogant to think that you would have just given him a free pass. After all, that car is your baby. You suffered a lot for it, and not just anyone could come up and touch it. In fact, one time, Jungwon was banned from riding in your car for a month because he got his fingerprints on your side mirrors.

“Did San-hyung text noona?” Riki’s nosy ass asks, running up behind the couch and diving onto it to look over Jay’s shoulder. Jay pushes his head away. “Oh, shit, he did!”

Jungwon sighs, slumping further even against Sunghoon. “God, just read it and put me out of my misery. He’s so down bad for her, it’s disgusting.”

Jaeyun giggles, and kicks his sock-covered feet like a schoolgirl. “He’s probably gonna ask her on another date and make her bike along the Han River again.”

This makes you choke on your drink, and it almost comes out of your nose. “Hey, I thought we we agreed not to bring that up.”

“It’s not every day I open my Instagram and see your stupid ass fighting for your life getting hard-launched on his story,” he snorts. “Watching you trying to ride that bike gave me second-hand embarrassment.”

“Yeah, it’s like he didn’t even care that you looked stupid, he was really trying to let everyone know that he was out with you,” Jay adds. “Way to keep it lowkey, or whatever.” Your face burns hot with embarrassment as you realize that Yunie has taken out his own phone to pull up the screen recording of San’s Instagram story to show Sunghoon. Now you actually want to smack the phone out of his hand, but you figure it’s fine, you don’t care if he sees you like that. It shouldn’t matter, he’s just one of the guys now. He could join in the teasing for all you care.

Right?

“Yo, hold the fuck up, Y/N, I thought you and Hyunjin were done?” Jay says, scrolling through your notifications.

Your eyes flick up to Sunghoon, who is currently trying to busy himself with separating the perilla leaves—that no one has so much as breathed in the direction of tonight—as he seems to not pay attention to the video, or to what Jay is saying. Either that, or he really doesn’t find it funny. “Put it away, Yunie,” he says quietly, one hand gently pushing back Jaeyun’s phone towards him. “That’s too much. You’re embarrassing her.”

“I thought so, too,” you sigh at Jay, trying not to acknowledge the fact that Sunghoon may or may not have just stood up for you against your best friend. “He ignored my texts for, like, four days, and you guys know how much I absolutely hate that. I know I lag, too, but never that long. At least I’d tell you that I’m busy or whatever. Fuck’s sake.”

“What did Hyunjin hyung say?” Jungwon mumbles. He’s now using Sunghoon’s lap as a pillow, and the sight makes you feel a little soft. You love your younger brother to bits and pieces, and seeing him like this reminds you of the times he’d come home really tired from school and fall asleep at your dining table while you prepared dinner for the two of you. You often yearn for that period in your life, when things were much simpler and the only thing you were sad about was missing your family.

Now you have a new family, but another part of your heart is broken, and time hasn’t healed it—at least, not completely.

“He’s asking if she’s busy this week,” Riki answers. Part of you wants to drag him by the hair and put him on a one-way flight back to Japan. “Oh, Jay hyung is checking her calendar. Yikes, hyung… You’re still pushing that agenda?”

“What agenda?” Sunghoon pipes up after gulping down the last of his beer, his lips glossy from the liquor.

“Oh, he just thinks they’d be cute together,” the freakishly tall boy rambles, making a gesture out of Jay’s line of sight that signals to Sunghoon that Jay is crazy. The alcohol has made you basically nonverbal at this point, and you just let Riki explain your lore to the hot new member of your racing crew. Hopefully Sunghoon doesn’t remember any of it in the morning.“It’s kind of about time that noona gets a new boyfriend. Personally, though, me and Yunie-hyung are on Team San.”

“Isn’t that up to her though?” Sunghoon muses. “Like, why does it matter if she’s single or dating around?”

“Because she’s not that type of person who actually can do anything casual,” Jaeyun interjects, putting a hand over Riki’s mouth, only to pull away in disgust when Riki licks his palm. He wipes the drool off on Jay’s arm. “She just does it because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone who isn’t us. So it’s a vicious cycle. She says she’s healing, but she can’t fully heal the part of her that was wounded because she needs to be in a relationship with someone who will be patient with her and prove her wrong. Someone who will help her finally get over… him.”

“I figured, from what you told me before,” Sunghoon says quietly to your supposed best friend. He’s not really being much of a best friend now, you think, even though everything he’s said is both correct and true.

This piques your interest. Your index finger circles around the rim of the open bottle of soju that you’d confiscated from Riki. “What do you know?”

“Ey, Hoon, watch what you say, I don’t want her throwing her drink at me!”

You roll your eyes and look back at Sunghoon. “Don’t listen to him. Tell me what Jaeyunie told you, and I’ll decide if I throw it at him or not.”

“Well—”

“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” Jay says, setting down his now-empty glass of beer with a smug, victorious grin. “Well, actually, I’m not, but I texted Hyunjin back and said you’d meet him at that new fancy Italian restaurant in Gangnam on Wednesday at 7. And before you say anything, yes, you’re free that day. I checked your calendar and your emails.”

You flaked on your date with Hyunjin. To teach him a lesson, of course.

But you do start seeing more and more of Park Sunghoon as the weeks pass, what with him being a full-fledged, initiated member of Enigma now. And you hate to admit it, but he’s starting to grow on you, even though you still think he’s kind of stoic—mostly towards you. You can tell he’s softening a bit, though.

Because, truth be told, you’ve also observed him to be honest and kind and genuine, the latter the rarest thing you see amongst the racers involved in your second life who throw themselves at you like moths to a flame. He’s sincere, but he also doesn’t mince his words, so you have no choice but to take them at face value. You like watching him get along with the other boys in your life, the only ones you truly love, the ones who have done nothing but love you like a family could and couldn’t.

Riki, for one, loves to pester Sunghoon when he’s around and makes you sit and keep score for them while they play table tennis in the game room of your apartment complex. They’re both extremely competitive, and you think to yourself that Sunghoon is such a good sport even when Riki’s elaborate, well-choreographed victory dance gets too annoying even for you to tolerate. You’re pretty sure he adds a new move every single time he does it.

They go to the gym on days where Riki’s done with class early enough to beat rush-hour, and they bring you along for dinner afterwards if you feel like coming. Riki’s now got a debt to pay to you, on account of you wrapping his GT-R in a metallic oil-slick color. You and Sunghoon chose it together, because no one else was replying to you in the group chat. Sunghoon even helped you install it, if helping you meant feeding you dumplings from a takeout container because your hands were full with the heat gun in one and a felt-edge squeegee in the other. 

For an entire weekend, he sat in your garage with you quietly, making idle conversation when the white noise would get too much for even him. He asked you about yourself, and you told him about how you met Jake in third grade, when his family moved to your hometown all the way from Australia, and how you became friends with him only because you were the only one in your class who knew how to speak decent English. (You watched a lot of American TV shows on illegal streaming sites.) In turn, you asked him if he likes his job as an investment banker, and he tells you that he wanted to be an automotive engineer when he was younger, but every man in his family works in finance and expected him to do the same.

This admission prompts you to share that you were supposed to step up and run your family’s successful chain of restaurants, but you refused to do so, choosing instead to run away with your boyfriend at the time and follow him to Seoul for the two of you to go to college. Jungwon even came with you, and you let him. Sunghoon asks you if you regret it. You say no, because, really, you don’t. But you do still have trouble sometimes trying to understand why some of the people you loved the most in this life—your mother, your father, and later on, your boyfriend—did not care if you were happy. 

They only really cared that you did as you were told.

And Jay, much to your amusement, happens to be at the butt of most of Sunghoon’s teasing—whenever he’s in his extroverted mood, that is. They bicker much like Tom and Jerry, but you can tell that they get along just fine deep down. After all, Sunghoon’s been helping Jay decorate his and Jungwon’s apartment, listening (more like tolerating, if anyone were to ask you) to Jay ramble on and on about Herman Miller chairs and Noguchi lamps, and no one else can be in the same room as him when he gets like that, and that’s saying something because your apartment is also decorated in the mid-century modern style. 

Jungwon sometimes tags along with them to furniture showrooms, strictly on the condition that they treat him to a meal afterwards. Sunghoon, not so surprisingly, is always the one who invites you along with them as well, ever since that first night when you complained about the boys getting milk tea without you. You wonder if it’s a pity invite, but you don’t really care much if it is, because he doesn’t seem like the type who does things he doesn’t want to do.

There was this one time two weeks ago that you came along with them to go pick out a new rug—first mistake. Your second mistake was forgetting to eat before leaving your apartment. You sat on a chair clutching your stomach with one hand, scrolling through your phone looking at the drink menus of nearby cafes with the other. Little did you know that Sunghoon, who was standing right beside you, was nosily peeking over your shoulder while also on his phone, typing in the names of whatever menu item you would pause on.

He disappeared for a few minutes after telling you he forgot something in his car. This left you to decompose in your (very cushy) chair while you listened to Jay and Jungwon argue about low-pile versus high-pile rugs. You contemplated how long it would take for them to notice that you’d passed out from hypoglycemia. But then Sunghoon returned, holding a bag from the food delivery app you all like to use. He’d nonchalantly and wordlessly taken out a peach iced tea and a sandwich to hand to you, but you looked up at him like he was God coming down to earth to save you. You thanked him profusely and he actually smiled at you, eyes crinkling up at the corners and turning into pretty crescent moon shapes. 

If you didn’t already know that Jaeyun loves women, you’d think that he has a crush on Sunghoon. You seem to have lost your pet best friend to his new pet rich boy. Jaeyun loves to spend time with Sunghoon, even though he’s not at all very talkative. Regardless, every single time you come over to Yun’s apartment, Sunghoon is either already there or five or ten minutes away, depending on the day of the week and the time at which your best friend invites you over to his and Riki’s apartment. 

Then the three of you, with the occasional addition of any or all of the three other Enigma boys, will inevitably order some takeout delivery and watch a film—”Not a movie,” you insist—until you inevitably start crying at the plot and say you have to go home before the boys really start making fun of you. Sunghoon always walks you to your door, even though you live just down the hall. You always tell him he doesn’t have to, but he always brushes you off and tells you to get your things so you can leave. 

And one time, about a week ago, you heard him scold the other guys for being mean to you, reminding them that even though you’re technically one of the boys, you’re still a girl at heart, and they should make some effort to be nicer to you. You heard him really dig in to Jungwon in particular, and while you kind of felt the urge to come back into the room and defend him, Sunghoon told your brother to show some respect and think about all the things you’d done for him in the past seven years. So you stayed back, still in shock that Sunghoon had spoken up for you so vehemently.

Speaking of your younger brother, your precious baby all grown up, the only family you have left: Jungwon adores Sunghoon, viewing him as the older brother you wished you could have been for him. Yes, Jay and Jaeyun are literally right there, but you can tell that the connection between Jungwon and Sunghoon is different. Jaeyun is good for keeping both Jungwon and Riki out of your hair when you’re busy, and Jay indulges your brother, spoiling him every chance he can get, having no siblings of his own. 

Somehow Sunghoon has gotten through to your brother in terms of his life and his career; after all, he’s close to finishing college soon and doesn’t know what he wants to do just yet. You would kill for a chance to help Jungwon, but you reckon he hasn’t come to you because he doesn't want to add to your stress and you could cry at how considerate he can be when he isn’t teasing you. You promise yourself that one of these days you’ll thank Sunghoon for his help, maybe some time after you finally admit to yourself that you were wrong about him being a prick. And maybe you’ll apologize for making assumptions about him in the first place.

Yes, you’ve been observing the way Sunghoon gets along with everyone, and you’re happy, you really are, but something is gnawing at you. While the arrival of new racers in your scene is nothing new, Enigma itself hasn’t been disrupted since Jungwon met Riki and all of that other shit went down. 

More importantly, you haven't been disrupted for so long. Two years, to be exact. It’s been two years since you got your heart broken twice, and you’ve spent so long holding everyone at arm’s length away from you because you’re not too keen on ever experiencing that again. Sure, you date around, but like Jaeyun said, they don’t mean anything to you. You know what they want and it’s what you refuse to give them. And then this guy, this fucking guy with pretty brown eyes who is soft-spoken and quiet and has the most beautiful face you’ve ever seen in real life… this fucking guy comes in with the audacity to make you feel like he simultaneously likes you and wants nothing to do with you.

Although you think the latter is just a defense mechanism on your part. You’d tried to convince yourself that he only cares about you so that the boys don’t kick him out of Enigma, because if the two of you didn’t get along, there would be no way he could stay on the team. After all, you’re still their best racer, and more importantly, their best friend. But that can’t be all true, because you fight with the boys sometimes, sometimes real petty fights that end in everyone crying, and you’re still an Enigma member through and through. So telling yourself that Sunghoon secretly hates you because of your ways is a lie on your part.

Because right now, about three months after you’ve first met, when you’re at the club with the boys, there’s no way Sunghoon truly doesn’t like you. The rational part of your brain can recognize that; after all, you’ve watched him countless times coldly brush off the advances of random girls in public who see his credit card and try to take advantage of his generosity. 

And you saw with your own two eyes the way he looked at you when you’d asked him if what you were wearing (a white mesh mini dress with baby pink kitten heels) was actually “too much,” and if you should go change like the others had said. You heard with your own two ears when he told you, “It is a bit much, but you look good. If there’s any trouble, don’t worry, I got you.”

It’s a good thing your face was already pink from the makeup you’d dolled yourself up with.

You never have to pay for drinks when you go out. The boys know this. You always tell them to not waste their hard-earned money—or in Jungwon’s case, your hard-earned money—on you when you can get some rich loser to buy you a bottle of Clase Azul if you bat your eyelashes at them and say you want to ring the bell.

Tonight is different, though. Usually you can score some of the top shelf shit without so much as lifting a finger, but because Sunghoon went with you to the bar, you can sense that the men in the club are not willing to put your dirty Shirley Temple on their tab. He doesn’t even have his hand around your waist, but you assume it’s the malevolent energy radiating off him in waves of expensive cologne that have people socially distancing from you like you’ve got the plague.

“Something wrong, Hoon?” you ask him innocently, swapping cocktails with him as you’ve often found yourself doing whenever the two of you are out together. It’s been a running occurrence since you’ve started joining him and the boys on their hangouts. He’ll order whatever you want to try, be it pasta or a coffee, and you can order something else you like. You sip on his Jack and Coke before making a face and taking your tequila sunrise from him.

“Do you want to wear my jacket?” he says, leaning in close so that you can hear him over the thrum of the bass-boosted music. “These creeps are staring at you too hard. It’s freaking me out. Pissing me off, really.”

You shrug. The buzz is starting to really hit you, thanks to your pregaming session at Jaeyun’s before you left for the club. “Doesn’t bother me, I’m used to it. It’s not like any of them have a chance.” You reach over and brush off invisible lint off Sunghoon’s shoulder, lingering a little longer just to feel the hard muscles underneath his clothes. “You do, though.”

He looks at you with his lips pursed in a flat line, a look he often gives Jay when Jay won’t stop pestering him. Then he takes his jacket off and drapes it over you. “Just put this on. I’ll be right back, I have to take a call.” He shows you the glowing screen of his phone, and you can read the contact name. It’s one of his bosses, and you only know this from the time he invited you to have dinner with them (and they’d pestered Sunghoon into bringing a date, since all of them are married).

You nod in understanding and nestle yourself snugly in his leather jacket, the same black-blue-white combination that he’d worn the night you first met. Idly, you sip on your drink, watching the crowd of swaying bodies underneath the colored strobe lights. In the distance, you can spot Jaeyun’s freshly bleached head of wavy hair next to Jay and Wonie, and that’s only thanks to Riki’s freakishly tall frame standing out like a cell phone tower beside them. They’re dancing with a group of girls, and you try not to gag when you see your younger brother let a girl grind up against him.

“Hey, why don’t you take this off? It’s hot enough in here because of you,” someone yells out right beside you, trying to make himself heard over the music. You turn to him, already pissed off because who the fuck says that?

“No thanks,” you say flatly. “I’m good.”

Even if you are feeling a bit hot inside the packed club, there’s something in you that wants to respect Sunghoon’s wishes while he’s gone, because you know behind his cold exterior he means well and it’s his own roundabout way of looking out for you. Either that, or he’s possessive, your delusional brain thinks, catching a whiff of his cologne in the lining of it.

“Well—”

You’re not paying attention to the douchebag beside you. You look back to the crowd and your boys have disappeared, no giant, Oreo-haired Riki to mark where they are. Suddenly, your tequila sunrise threatens to show itself in your throat. You’ve been hit on before, of course, but not like this, not this insistently. You keep your poker face on, trying to figure out how to get away from him but also avoid getting sucked in and trampled on in the giant crowd that just seems to keep doubling in size.

“Is he bothering you, sweetheart?” another voice asks.

You look to your side and he’s there, he’s back, stone-faced and radiating what you would call actual bloodlust. You nod, giving him a look that you hope Sunghoon interprets as get him the fuck away from me.

“You heard her. You’re bothering the lady,” Sunghoon says flatly to the man beside you, in such a manner that leaves no room for argument. “And not just any lady, either. That’s my girl you’re bothering. Get lost.”

You yourself shiver at his tone. You’ve gotten used to seeing the icy but gentle side of him, so this shift startles you, making goosebumps raise on your back in fear and your core clench in need. You decide not to correct Sunghoon, either. The sooner you get out of this bust of a club, the better.

An hour later, you find yourself at one of your favorite restaurants, a little barbecue spot near your apartment building that serves the best marinated galbi you’ve ever had. You’ve taken the boys there countless times, enough for them to make a joke out of it. The place is supposed to be closed right now, on account of it being one-thirty in the morning but when you were in the taxi with Jay and Sunghoon, you overheard the latter on the phone, telling the other person on the line that he’d pay triple to have the place opened for three hours past closing time of midnight.

While Jungwon talks animatedly about the girl in his class who was at the club and how he somehow managed to get her number, Sunghoon serves you before everyone else, putting the strips of grilled meat on your plate. The other boys groan at him, telling him not to indulge you too much or you’ll get used to it and always expect it, just like you’ve done to them. They don’t really mean it, because you know them well enough that they—just like Sunghoon—don’t ever really do things they don’t want to do, but deep down you still hope he doesn’t take their words seriously.

“What’s so bad about that? Ladies first,” is all he replies to them, and you feel warm inside and it’s not just the double shot of peach soju making its way through your body.

“Okay, me next,” Jaeyun says. He’s still got sweat dripping down his forehead from chasing  tequila-drunk Riki and Jungwon down and dragging them both by the collars of their shirts into another taxi. 

Sunghoon looks at him before passing the tongs to him. “Do it yourself.”

“Jackass.”

This makes your smile widen, giggling to yourself uncontrollably. You take delight in messing with Jaeyun, and seeing the always-stone-faced Sunghoon take part in it brings a certain joy to you that’s both unfamiliar and welcomed. You catch his eye and he sends you a wink, so fast you wouldn’t have caught it if you didn’t have the habit of staring at him when you think he isn’t paying attention to you.

“Dickhead,” Sunghoon shoots back, bushy brows furrowed so cutely that you have the tipsy urge to kiss the peachy skin between them.

“Oh, well, at least if I liked a girl, I’d tell her, so I think that makes you the dickhead and not me.” Jaeyun rolls his eyes and takes a piece of meat out of your bowl, popping it into his mouth and seemingly swallowing it whole.

You frown. “What? Sunghoon likes someone? Is it Jimin? It’s Jimin, isn’t it?”

Jungwon and Riki groan. “Great, another idiot.”

Jay points his chopsticks at your younger brothers. “Shut up and eat your food already.”

“Yes, mother,” they say in unison, digging into their bowls of kimchi fried rice. You look down at your own plate, suddenly losing your appetite. You even consider going outside for a smoke break, but that’s how the boys disappeared at the club a while ago, and it’s too late for you to be going outside alone—at least, that’s what you’re very well aware that they’d argue. Your stomach hurts at the thought of Sunghoon liking another girl, and because you’re you, because you’re almost so self-aware to the point that it could put your therapist out of a job, you know it’s because you want him to like you, and only you.

And it’s not even because you want the same control over him that you have over the likes of San and Hyunjin and Wonbin and whoever else claims to be on your sad excuse of a “roster”. It’s because you like him, and it’s to the point that the only other being who knows this for a fact is your pet cat, because only she wouldn’t accidentally tell him the truth. She’s a cat, for fuck’s sake, a cat you unfortunately named after the girl you think Sunghoon might like.

Maybe the boys have noticed. But you doubt it, because if they did, they would have teased you so mercilessly about it that it would be considered bullying that could be punishable under law. It would be so severe that you’d have no choice but to leave the country if they knew.

What they actually do though, that you’ve picked up on in recent weeks, is their new nasty habit of dropping hints about how you should be with a guy who’s cold to everyone but you. Someone who’s both pragmatic yet thoughtful, someone who always tells the truth but can do so in a way that will spare your feelings because he makes an honest effort to not sound so harsh. Someone who can both protect you and yet also be able to get you to stop when you become… “irrational” was how they put it. Someone you’re attracted to, not just physically, but emotionally, as well.

You’re not stupid, no matter how often you think you are. You know they’re talking about Sunghoon. You know Jungwon and Riki will make plans with you and him and then flake at the last minute so that you two are forced to go out together, alone. They’ve done it enough times that you know it’s bullshit that they have a school assignment due at some random time in the evening. You know Jaeyun will loudly ask Sunghoon what he thinks of a certain girl when he knows you’re within earshot. It pleases you every time Sunghoon flatly replies “What about her? I don’t know her like that.” 

And you most definitely know Jay let Sunghoon take you on out to the racetrack to drive his Lamborghini for a few laps, under the guise that you’ve always wanted to go and Jay finally managed to get a slot booked on a day that he “isn’t able to make it” because of a “meeting”. Who the fuck even works on a Sunday? 

You fixate on this memory for a while. You can truthfully say it was one of the happiest days of your life.

“You’re telling me you’ve never used paddle shifters before?” Sunghoon asked with a lopsided grin, pulling into the paddock of the race track. Your leg bounces in your seat, not out of anxiety like usual, but out of impatience and excitement.

“I drive stick, why the hell would I use paddle shifters? Sorry not all of us drive M Comps,” you retort, rolling your eyes. “V8 bi-turbo headass. Can’t believe you run an automatic transmission.”

“I’m ignoring that. I’ll track it first.”

“What? No way, I’ve known Jay longer!”

“You’re going to drive it like it’s a city bus. I’m going to drive it like I stole it. You can sit there and look pretty first, then you can have a turn.”

“Sunghoon, if you’re just going to stare at me, you’re going to crash us into a wall.”

“Nah, my peripheral vision’s pretty good. Why, you don’t trust me?”

You sighed. You do trust him, that’s what bothers you.

Ultimately, the idea of Sunghoon liking another girl makes you a little… irritated. That’s actually a gross understatement, if you’re being honest. You can feel the dragon’s head of your jealous streak rise up from the ashes where it had once laid dormant, asleep. It wants to breathe fire. It wants to get a rise out of him. It wants to see his reaction.

Luckily, or unluckily, depending on whose side you’re on, your best friend knows you too well.

“Y/N, can you pass the salt?” Jaeyun, who is sitting to your left, asks. The salt pot is right next to Riki, who is sitting to your right.

Taking this as your opportunity, you look at him, tilting your head before you say the exact line that, by now, everyone knows that Sunghoon likes to use. “Say please.”

Jaeyun is too intoxicated to fight back, but he knows you well enough even in his inebriated state that he knows exactly what you’re doing. “Please?”

“Okay,” you answer, reaching across Riki’s plate to grab the salt. When you hand it to Jaeyun, his fingers linger on yours way too long to be respectable. There’s nothing there, of course. It just feels normal, no spark, no giddy, lovesick warmth. He’s just being outright obvious.

Picking up on your scheme, Jay chimes in, a malicious glint in his eye that only comes out after you can smell the alcohol on his breath. You see him elbow Jungwon at the end of the table—quite subtly, to his credit. “Ew, what are you two doing? That’s gross, get a room.”

Jaeyun rolls his eyes, giving Jay the middle finger. Oh, he’s playing up the dramatics of your ploy to see if Sunghoon cares or not. This is what being friends with him for pretty much your entire life is all about. “Can’t a guy and a girl be best friends? Chill, bro.”

“Guys and girls can’t just be best friends,” Jungwon adds, his mouth full of rice and barbecue. “That’s such a lie. You don’t see me with a girl best friend, because if I had one, I’d be fu—”

Sunghoon’s knee hits the bottom of the table, causing everyone to jump back in surprise. “Sorry, guys.” He looks at you, staring at him wide-eyed. “And lady. Leg cramp.” He gets up from the table and excuses himself to go pay the bill, talking with the older woman who runs the restaurant and who you know is madly in love with him (much to everyone’s amusement).

“Alright, what’s going on here?” Jay asks in a hushed tone, dropping his smirk and leaning forward. “What are we doing to him?”

“Forcing Sunghoon to confess,” Jaeyun answers back, switching to English so only the three of you can understand. 

You look at him quizzically, but you speak to him and Jay in English anyways. “Wait, what? I just wanted to make him jealous, what are you talking about—”

“Alright!” Sunghoon says loudly from behind you. “Time to go.”

Exchanging looks with your best friends, you collect your things from where they rest on the worn leather seats of the booth. “I’m gonna take a walk first,” you say. “Anyone wanna join?”

“Nah,” Jaeyun answers. “I’m beat. Gonna take the little ones home.”

“Whoooo the fuck are y-you… callin’ little,” Riki slurs, slumped over a sleepy Jungwon’s shoulder. You know your brother is in a food-and-alcohol-induced coma, since he says nothing about the drool Riki’s getting all over his unbuttoned shirt. “Fuckin’ Oompa Loompa.”

“Riks,” you sigh, getting up on your tip-toes to push his sweat-soaked hair from his face. “Be nice to your Yunie hyung.”

“S-sorry noona,” he hiccups, putting more of his weight on Jungwon, who yelps. “I’ll be nice.”

You shoot Jaeyun a warning look, telling him not to egg on the poor boy who looks like he might throw up in his sleep later. “You guys gonna be okay going home?”

“Yeah, bro, it’s only like a block away,” Jay interjects, prying Riki off of Jungwon and hoisting him onto his own back. Jaeyun takes your brother in his hold, grimacing at the skin-to-skin contact of Jungwon’s bare chest on his fingers. “Go take your little walk. Text us when you’re back.”

“Yes, mother, I promise.” You can feel Sunghoon looming over you like a skyscraper. Without turning to him, you ask, “Are you coming with me?”

“Well,” he answers, his huffed breath blowing over your head in cigarette smoke. “Obviously. I’m not letting you go alone.”

“Okay, I guess,” you mutter with the same tone, shivering to yourself. The air is surprisingly cold for the beginning of June, and you’re dejectedly starting to regret your outfit.

And of course, like clockwork, Park Sunghoon notices your discomfort and quietly puts his jacket over you for the second time that night.

“Thank you.” Your voice comes out in a whisper. He acknowledges you with a soft hum, matching your stride as you cross the empty road to the little park nestled behind the flowering trees.

You continue to walk, trying to think, but it’s difficult to burn off the rest of the alcohol and gain some clarity when the man you’re thinking about is right beside you. You would kill to read his mind. You could just ask him, straight up. It shouldn’t be too hard, right? What’s the worst thing he could say? That he doesn’t have feelings for you? That he sees you as a sister? That he actually does like Jimin like that?

Fuck.

You finally admit to yourself that you do like him. You do like him, you do want him, you do feel those things genuinely and not out of greed, not out of wanting to make him one of your trained dogs, not out of wanting to punish your ex through him. 

You… you fucking like him, and it pisses you off. Him, of all people. Liking Jaeyun seems less complicated than this. You know for a fact that Sunghoon is quite possibly the king of hard-to-get. Kazuha and Yunjin, the race girls from AZ, both made a move on him and ended up fighting over him for nothing (which your own girlfriends clowned on them mercilessly for, while you sat back and watched rather smugly). He didn’t even give them the time of day, let alone his phone number. 

Minjeong, your beloved work wife, wanted to test that theory and when you’d left them during dinner one time to go use the restroom, she tried to flirt with him. She ended up meeting you in the restroom with a smirk, telling you that he’s impossible to break. She’d even asked you if you considered the fact that maybe he likes men.

Intrigued, you’d “innocently” asked Jaeyun and Riki, of all people, to get you the answer. Eager to please, and glad that they had some new bullshit to do, they came back to you after three hours of pestering Sunghoon at the gym during their workout. They’d reported that they annoyed him so bad he left them at the gym, forcing them to take the train back home.

That night, he texted the group chat “Not gay. Waiting for my wife” and nothing else.

A big shock to the rest of you, to say the least. The boys were busy laughing at the first sentence, while you were fixated on the latter half of his text. His wife. What a strong choice of words, you’d thought. But it was a good thing, too, that he knows what he wants. At least one of you does. A wife. That’s more definite than just wishing to feel safe and secure around other people.

“Did you eat well?” Sunghoon pipes up, finally breaking the chilly silence between the two of you.

“I did,” you reply curtly, now doing your best to match his pace. It’s hard. His legs are so long, with equally long strides, but you push yourself in your heels anyways. “Did you?”

“Yeah. Why do you always flirt back?” Sunghoon asks. He sounds like he’s been holding that in for a while.

“What? Are you talking about Jaeyunie?”

He grimaces. “No. I know that was just him being him. I’m talking about the others. That Wonbin guy. San hyung. Hyunjin hyung. Whoever the fuck. Them.”

You stop walking, and so does he. He turns around to face you as you incredulously ask, “So suddenly? Why? Does it matter?”

Sunghoon rolls his eyes at you. That’s the first time you’ve ever elicited that reaction from him, and it hurts a little. “Yeah, it does. You’re making them think they have a chance with you.”

“Okay, so what?” you say harshly. Really, why does it matter to him? He likes Jimin, doesn’t he? Why is what you do any of his business?

“Well, do they?”

“No!” you snap, hands on your hips. The sound of your voice, echoing through the deserted metal playground, startles the both of you. “None of it is ever serious with them! Men are dogs, anyways!”

“Meow.”

You look at the tall man in disbelief. Under the glow of the lampposts, he looks both sinful and heavenly. Even if he’s pissing you off like never before. Blinking—too shocked to laugh—you ask, “Did you just meow at me, Park Sunghoon?”

“Yeah. Because I’m not a dog, and I’ll prove it to you,” he answers, thick arms crossed over his broad, sturdy chest.

“Why bother doing that? Why does my opinion of you matter to you? It’s none of your business what I think. So why?”

He scoffs. But he can’t seem to meet your eyes. “You’re a smart girl. You’ll figure it out.”

Oh, you’re so annoyed. Why now, of all times, can he not be direct with you? Or is this how he actually is? Has he been pretending to be genuine this whole time? No, that can’t be. People usually can’t keep a facade up for that long without slipping up in between, unless they're sociopaths, serial killers, or both. “No, tell me why. I want to hear it from you. You and your stupid… your stupid… stupid, pretty mouth.”

“Did you just call my mouth pretty?”

“Answer the question, Park Sunghoon!”

He glares at you, but it’s not menacing. After what seems like hours, he sighs, turning away. Then he quietly says, “I love the way you love.”

You realize now that the entire time you’ve been watching Sunghoon, he’s been watching you, too.

“What… what do you mean?”

“The way you care about them. The others… The way you look out for them. For Jungwonie and Riki, always making sure they’ve eaten and they rest enough for school, and that they’re on top of their studies. Jay, you always scold him for working too much. And Jaeyunie, you get worried when he’s not home by a certain time… I realize now that you might not have space in your heart for me. And I should accept that no matter what I do, I’ll always just be another one of your dogs.”

“Sunghoon, what—”

He shakes his head, which hangs low in something you think must be shame. His bangs cover his eyes, so you can’t get a read on him unless you brush them out of his face. And with what he’s just said, you don’t think that now is the best time to touch him. “No. We’re not going to talk about this tonight. Or ever again. I can promise you that. Now come on. I’ll walk you home and we can pretend like this never happened.”

Back in your apartment, you lay in bed, wishing that there was still enough alcohol in your system to put your restless mind to sleep. But there isn’t, not after you walked it all off with an awkwardly silent Sunghoon escorting you back to your apartment. You’d offered your couch for him to sleep on—not out of pity, you’d told him. Out of worry. The trains had stopped running and there were no taxis coming to your side of town anytime soon.

He looked like he really wanted to stay. But for whatever reason, he shook his head at you again, told you it was okay, and said he’d walk home.

You’d texted him to keep you updated on where he was. He didn’t reply. You just got a single notification that “Park Sunghoon has started sharing locations with you,” and that was that. No actual message from him. You share yours right back, telling yourself that it’s fine, all the other Enigma boys had your location, too. But you know the truth.

Sitting up, you reach for your phone and your purse, fishing out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, both of which you’d stolen from Jaeyun. He would steal them back from you very soon, anyways, what with him sharing one singular, pitiful peach blueberry ice-flavored vape between himself, Jungwon, and Riki.

Your cat follows you curiously as you walk into the living room and slide the glass door to the balcony open. She curls up in your lap when you sit down on the rocking chair, just as she always does when you come out to smoke.

“You know this is bad for you, right?” you joke quietly, scratching her head with the hand not holding a cigarette. “You should be inside, breathing the purified air I pay good money for.”

Mrrow.

“Yeah, yeah, I know I should stop. But you should be proud of me. I don’t even do it that often.” That’s actually the truth. You and the boys all say that drunk cigarettes don’t count, and you can’t call yourself a smoker if you only go through one pack every two weeks at the very least. By Seoul nightlife standards, your lungs are healthy. “You can hiss about it to your Jaeyunie-oppa.”

Meow.

“Okay, Jiji. Whatever you say.” You take a long drag before pulling away, flicking the ash onto the ceramic tray that Riki brought back for you as a souvenir the last time he went home to Japan. “Fuck, I really do like him. Sunghoon. Not Yunie, ew.”

Mah?

“Because… because… I just do. He’s so… he’s so not like… you know. Heeseung.”

Your cat stiffens on your lap at the mention of your ex’s name. You laugh to yourself, knowing that there’s no one in this world she despises more than him.

“He’s not… he actually cares about me. He doesn’t have to tell me; I don’t even have to ask him if he does. I see it now. And it’s different from how he cares about the boys. I know it’s not just because I’m the only girl. I’ve seen the way he treats other girls. So… he probably doesn’t like Jimin, huh?”

Jiji perks up at the mention of her full government name, but then looks at you as if to say, are you fucking stupid?

“Yeah, I am, haven’t you noticed? I talk to you all the fucking time.”

Aaow.

“No, I don’t just like him because I get preferential treatment. I just—he never does anything to stress me out. I know he considers my feelings, I mean, fuck, he always tells Jaeyunie and Jungwonie to stop making fun of me when we’re hanging out, and, like, he’s always doing shit for me without me having to ask him or even hint at it. He just… he does it because he wants to? And being around him makes me calm. And he’s strong. And he’s kind, and he doesn’t brag about all the nice fucking things he does for everyone, for me… And… and…”

You lose your momentum as your face begins to sting, tears welling up in your eyes. You can hear the pain in Sunghoon’s voice when he said he’d “always just be one of your dogs” echoing in your head. 

“And he doesn’t lie.”

Lying is something you’ve always had a hard time stomaching. As a child, you were taught that it was better to tell the truth and be punished once than to get caught in a lie and get punished twice. You don’t feel good when you lie. Not even when they’re little white lies, like the one you told Hyunjin about Jungwon being sick when you’d flaked on your date with him.

So when you’d found out that Kim Sunoo, Jungwon’s best friend since literal birth, had been helping Heeseung hide his secret relationship with Sunoo’s own cousin, Chaewon—and had been accepting money from Heeseung to help him keep that secret—you lost your fucking mind.

You’d been through everything with your boyfriend. You abandoned your family for him. You moved to a new city with him. You slept on the floor of a shitty apartment for months with him, while Jungwon was stuck in the dorms of his university with three other roommates. You took home leftovers from the restaurant you worked at all throughout college to feed yourself and your brother.

All of that which you endured, just to find out that everything was a lie.

Heeseung didn’t love you as much as he said he did. Because if he did, he would never have gone behind your back with someone else for months and had the nerve to kiss you with the same mouth he used to lie to you.

Sunghoon doesn’t lie, you tell yourself.

He’s not him, he’s not him, he’s not him.

And it’s a good thing. It’s a very good thing.

Sunghoon, for as long as you’ve known him, always keeps his promises. But you also hope that he breaks that last promise he made to you.

You don’t make any appearance at the next race, which is a week later. You purposefully ignore the group chat when they ask you where you are, if you’re coming to watch Riki beat Shotaro and get his revenge for the last time they’d raced against each other.

They get the message—or lack thereof—loud and clear, and leave you alone. You’re grateful that they don’t pry, although Jaeyun texts you separately to scold you about “making Hoonie sad”. You reply to him with the middle finger emoji, even though you know he’s right. For once, at least.

You get texts from Jimin, Soyeon, and Aeri in the racer girls’ group chat, all of them pouting about how you’re not going to see Jimin and Soyeon race against each other in their newly-modified cars. You apologize and wire Aeri a million Won, telling her to place a bet on your behalf for Riki to win in his race. You stop replying when Jimin and Soyeon get on your ass for not being able to choose between who between the two of them would win.

Minjeong had said something to you at work a couple days ago that made your stomach not be able to stop hurting since. Because she’s the most neutral-territory friend you have, you told her exactly what happened between you and Sunghoon, not sparing any detail—not even the thing he’d said to you that made you feel like a monster.

“You can’t build a new house with the bricks from the last one and expect it to be different.”

She’d said it so casually, like she’d read it off the subject line off the first email in her inbox, but it struck you so hard, hammering in what Jay told you the first night you met Sunghoon. To stop taking out your pain on every man that tried to come your way after Heeseung.

In your defense, again, it wasn’t like they were truly serious about you, anyways. Except Sunghoon, who refused to play your games and refused to flirt back with you whenever you’d try to make a pass at him.

It was your automatic distrust of him that brought you here, sulking at home, feeling helpless beyond your control. What made it worse was that Sunghoon definitely knew why you are the way you are, what with Jaeyun’s big fat ginormous mouth being unable to stop itself from spilling all the gory details of your past to him before you two had even met.

There’s a knock at your door. You find that odd; everyone should be out on the road right about now. You check your friends’ locations on your phone to see who could possibly be in your building right now.

You see Sunghoon’s contact photo right above the glowing blue dot that signifies where you are.

“Fuck,” you mutter.

“Y/N?” he calls out, muffled by the thick wood of your front door. You turn to Jji, who is looking at you curiously.

“Go, bedroom.”

Obediently, your cat runs to your room, and you can tell she uses her back legs to kick it shut behind her by the way it closes softly. It’s a trick that Jungwon and Riki spent an entire week of their summer vacation last year teaching her to do, and this is the first time it’s ever been useful.

You check yourself in the mirror in the entryway to make sure you look at least somewhat presentable. You’re wearing Aeri’s light pink sweatpants and a massive white t-shirt you’re pretty sure Riki left in your car once and completely forgot about. You shrug. It’ll have to do.

You open the door. Your voice comes out harsher than you intend it to. “What are you doing here, Sunghoon?”

The man flinches almost imperceptably, but the glimpse of it still has your heart twisting in your chest. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry I hurt you. It’s not a question of if I hurt you or not with what I said, because I know I did.”

You purse your lips, trying to process the fact that he’s apologizing to you without you having to prompt him for it. “Oh…”

He continues shakily. “I realized that I didn’t tell you the truth. The full truth. I like you, I really do. Like, not just as a friend, you know. I like you like… that. Fuck, sorry, I’ve never had to do this before.”

You smile at him softly, looking up at him. The light in the hallway illuminates the crown of his head like a halo, making him look more ethereal than he usually is. “Never?”

“Yeah, never. It’s usually the other way around, but I caved this time.” He sighs. “You’re a special girl. You don’t know what you’ve done to me.”

You shrug. “Oh, I think I have some idea.”

“Meaning?”

“I thawed you out, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you really did. So—”

“Just come in,” you say, stepping aside to make room for him. “Sorry, I don’t have anything to offer you besides water or strawberry milk, but we can go raid Jay’s fridge. I have a key.”

He laughs. “That’s okay. I can order takeout for us.”

“What’s behind your back?”

He holds up a bundle wrapped in clean white paper. “I brought these for you. They’re not, um… they’re not really ‘I’m sorry’ flowers so much as they are ‘will you go out on a date with me?’ flowers.”

“Roses,” you muse, taking the bouquet from him. The arrangement is simple yet stunning, with various shades of muted pink that you realize are quite similar to the color of your Supra. “How original.” You pause, your voice softening. “But thank you, though, really. They’re beautiful.”

Sunghoon chuckles. “I wanted to get you lilies, but I learned that they’re toxic to cats.”

You stare at him for a moment, dumbfounded. He’s so considerate, he even thought of that. Is there anything that he doesn’t think about? Is this what he does when he zones out? “Who told you that I have a cat?”

“You mentioned it a few times,” he answers softly, like he’s reminding you to breathe. “Like that one time Riki made us take him to the arcade and spent too much money trying to win the stuffed… whatever that was from the claw machine.”

“Hm. I did, huh?”

“Yeah... So can I see it?”

“My cat? That’s a little forward, don’t you think? Aren’t we moving too fast?”

“Your pet cat, you brat.” His grin is wide, though, as he looks down at you adoringly. 

“Oh! Oh, yeah, duh.” You take your phone out and swipe through your camera roll until you come across a picture of your white ragdoll cat, her pretty blue eyes staring at you much in the same manner that Sunghoon is right now. “This is her. Her name’s Jimin… erm, yeah, like the one we know… but I call her Jiji.”

“She’s cute… she kinda looks like you, hm? Is she not here right now?” he asks, scanning your living room. “Is she okay?”

“Oh, I sent her to my room before I answered the door—she doesn’t really like guys except for Wonie and Riki but I think it’s because she thinks they’re her servants. And, uh, also, I don't know if you're okay with cats.”

“Ah. I like cats, don’t worry. I’d love to meet her if that’s okay with you.”

“She might scratch you, though. Just a warning.”

“Yeah, that’s okay. You’d bandage me up, though, right?” When he smiles at you reassuringly, your heart thrums. You don't hear any innuendo in his voice, nothing that suggests that he expects something more from you. Turning away to hide your blushing face, you mumble a “yes” and make a beeline to your room to retrieve Jiji.

You get to the door and open it. She’s standing right in front of you, looking at you expectantly, as if she's asking you where Sunghoon is. 

“In the living room,” you answer. You’re talking to your fucking cat. What’s new? Jiji struts right past you, her tail flicking against your ankles, and trots to the living room. 

You follow her from a distance and watch as she pauses in front of Sunghoon, who extends a hand down for her to sniff at. 

“Hello, Jiji,” he says softly. “Nice to meet you.”

The cat chirps at him, and your eyes widen. Usually, she greets males (mostly your ex and his friend) other than your boys with something akin to a hiss that sounds like slicing someone’s tires open. Sometimes she swats at them, claws out and everything. But she hesitates for a second before butting her little head into Sunghoon’s palm, eyes closed and purring up a storm much like the way she does when she wants you to give her a treat. 

“Wow,” you remark. “She likes you. A lot.”

Sunghoon hums in agreement before saying, “Yeah. Wonder what her mommy thinks of me, though. And if she’ll go on a date with me.”

You blush yet again. He’s certainly dialing up the charm tonight. Mustering up the courage to flirt back, you reply, “I think… yeah, her mommy likes you too. And I think she will go out with you.”

“Mm.” He pets Jiji’s head, scratching between her ears which prompts your cat to roll over and expose her soft belly to him for him to rub. Whore, you think to yourself, as if you wouldn’t have done the same thing. “That’s good. I’m glad. Actually—scratch that. I’m relieved.”

By now you’re very well-acquainted to the way he speaks, straight to the point without very much embellishing in his sentences. At least it’s not hard to guess what he’s thinking. He doesn’t talk with the intent to deceive or play games, and, quite frankly, you adore that about him.

“I don’t just want you to care about me. I want you to let me care about you,” he says suddenly, looking up at you with round, sparkling eyes. He’s being forthcoming and earnest. Enthusiasm suits him well, you think. It makes his face look younger, softer, happier. “I want to earn your trust. I want you to feel safe with me.”

“I already do, though,” you reply, voice quiet as if you don’t want to jinx it somehow.

He gives you a nod of acknowledgement. “I know. But I want to be the one you come to for everything. For anything at all.”

“But—”

“You’d never be a burden to me,” he adds. “You couldn’t, even if you tried.”

There’s still enough time for you to go watch the final event of tonight’s race, the showdown between Riki and Shotaro. You hurriedly fix your hair and throw on a jacket, not caring about how your outfit looks because, frankly, you’re not interested in showing off tonight. You know for certain now that the only person whose attention you’ve wanted has been yours all along.

When you arrive, you can see that the Enigma boys are all circled around what you assume is Riki’s GT-R, only because you can see the underglow bouncing off everyone’s shoes. Leave it to your youngest to be annoying as usual.

You get out of Sunghoon’s car and head over to them, him following closely behind you. You pinch Jaeyun’s forearm and he immediately steps to the side to let you through so you can see what’s going on.

The engine hood is up, and you can see someone’s legs sticking out from under the car.

“What’s going on?” you ask no one in particular.

“Well… Riki fucking forgot to change his oil today, and the jack broke halfway, so none of us can fit under there… except Ning,” Jungwon answers.

“Ning?” you repeat.

“Yeah. The girl I’ve been seeing…” he mumbles. “You know, the one from school.”

Your heart drops at the idea that you’ve been so caught up in your own angst that you haven’t bothered to keep up with anyone else’s life, especially your own brother’s. “Oh. I see. She knows cars, huh?”

“Well,” Riki shrugs. “I guess. Jungwonie-hyung gave her the worst instructions on how to change this shitbox’s oil, and she’s doing it just fine, so she must be smart.”

Before Jungwon can even reach Riki, Sunghoon grabs him by the collar of his shirt, holding him back. “Chill out, bro.”

Jungwon glares at the taller man. “Hey, just because my sister thinks you’re hot doesn’t mean—”

“Good lord,” Jay groans. “Can we please have five minutes of peace so I can start this race? I want to go home already. I can feel my bed calling me.”

“Yeah,” Sunghoon snickers. “It’s calling you to wash the damn sheets, you slob.”

You bite your lip to keep yourself from laughing. Shaking your head, you approach Ning, who’s just rolled out from underneath the GT-R.

“Surprised you didn’t go blind in there,” you say, helping her up. “Riki’s lights are no joke.”

She smiles at you, shaking her head. “Actually, it helped, I could barely see anything down there, it was all covered in brake dust.”

This makes everyone burst out into laughter, mocking Riki for poorly maintaining his car. You roll your eyes, taking the wrench from Ning. You turn to Sunghoon.

“Hoon, can you help me with this? I think we’re gonna need more than an oil change to win tonight.”

“Hey!” Riki exclaims. “The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“Language, young man,” you snap back at him before looking at Sunghoon. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Headlight air intake?” he asks, a smile forming on his plush lips.

You grin. “Headlight air intake.”

“Oh, you guys are officially fucking crazy,” Jay whistles, admiring your handiwork when you’re done. With Sunghoon’s help, you’d removed one of Riki’s precious LED headlights to allow more airflow into the engine, enabling him to push the car harder without fear of overheating. “Poor Taro isn’t gonna know what hit him.”

“This is legitimately worse than the time Y/N Viper-swapped her Supra,” Jaeyun giggles, clapping his hands together in glee. “Ooh, everyone’s so fucked. They’re lucky she doesn’t drive with a missing headlight, too.”

“Don’t give her any ideas,” Sunghoon jokes. “She can barely see at night as it is.”

“Oh,” you flirt back, “Is that why I think you’re more handsome in the daytime?”

Riki and Jungwon fake gagging noises behind you, but you smile.

“We’re making it out of the hood tonight, boys!” Riki hollers from his position at the finish line. Jungwon is beside him, at the wheel of his 350z. To Jungwon’s other side is Shotaro, looking annoyed. You can see him glare a hole into the back of Riki’s head as he walks behind your brother and his friend.

“Since when was Itaewon considered the hood?” you call back at him. Everyone laughs.

You see Jaeyun whisper something into Jimin’s ear, and she giggles. Meanwhile, Jay, awkward as he can be sometimes, plants a kiss on Aeri’s forehead. “Is it fucking cuffing season or something?” you mutter under your breath, thinking it was low enough that no one hears your annoyance.

“Us next,” Sunghoon responds cooly from behind you, draping an arm over your shoulder. “How’s that sound?”

“Holy shit,” Riki gasps, dramatically putting a hand over his mouth. “Sunghoon-hyung’s—”

“Got some serious rizz,” Jungwon finishes. “And if it weren’t directed towards noona, I’d cheer him on.”

Jay rolls his eyes. “Shut up, Won, you act like you haven’t wanted them together since you first met him.”

Jungwon pouts cutely and shrugs. “Yeah, yeah. It’s more fun to pretend to be an opp, though.”

You glare at your brother. “Wanna see a real opp? I’ll tell Ning that you like to—”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” He turns to Sunghoon. “Hyung, did you know that noona sometimes drools in her sleep?”

“I do.”

“WHAT?” the boys chorus like they’re in a cartoon.

Sunghoon looks at them with pure curiosity. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I know? She fell asleep and drooled all over my arm when we watched Interstellar for the fifth time.”

“Sunghoon!” you squeal. “You’re not supposed to tell them that happened!”

“Wait, fifth?” Jaeyun asks, hands sassily placed on his hips. “We’ve only watched it four times.”

You and Sunghoon exchange a look, your face heating up. “Well, uh…”

“Nevermind that,” Jay interrupts, his arm around Aeri’s waist. “We know you two hang out without us. Jaeyunie’s just fucking with you.”

“Yeah,” Riki agrees. “In fact, we want you guys to hang out without us.”

You look at Ning, rolling your eyes. “See what you’re getting into?”

She gives you a warm smile. “I don’t mind.”

park sunghoon: We’re still on for our date tonight, yes?

you: yeah! what are we doing?? i can pick a spot if you don’t have anything in mind

park sunghoon: None of that from you, princess. Just be ready by 7, I’ll pick you up. Our reservation is at 7:30. I already made sure you’d like the restaurant and you can wear that black dress you bought last week.

… Princess?

you: how…?

park sunghoon: Well, I know what food you like because we’ve gone out to eat so many times. And also, I saw you post the dress on your story when you tried it on in the fitting room, so I figured you got it. 

park sunghoon: Before you get upset thinking I’m controlling what you wear, I’m not. I know you have a hard time choosing your outfits (even though they’re all very nice) and the dress looked lovely on you.

He’s trying to make your life easier. You smile to yourself, face going hot. You bite your knuckles to keep yourself from screaming at your desk.

you: oh… okay!

you: i’ll see you later hoon :)

park sunghoon: Can’t wait. Have a great day at work, beautiful.

God, you want to throw your phone across the office with how giddy you are. You finish work early by skipping your lunch break, and you go home at 2:30 in the afternoon, thanks to Minjeong excitedly whisper-yelling at you that she’ll cover for you and to “Go get some dick, girl!” and smacking your ass as you scurried to the elevator. When you arrive home, you immediately run to your bathroom and turn on the shower. You’ve got music blasting from your speaker while you wash your hair and shave and scrub down your entire body. You’re smiling at yourself in the mirror while you dry your hair and do your skincare routine, and you’ve still got a good four hours to get all dressed up for your first real, official date in years.

taglist: @enha-stars @karinasbaby @venomhee @lilifiedeans @sngleehee @hoonfr @seuomo @en-verse @starfallia @eloelooo @lhspeachie @idkdykilr @seochannnn @moon368 @capri-cuntz @p-d1ddy @xxbluestrifexx @p4ranormaluv @laurradoesloveu

[belit0]

Can you write about the uchiha men's reaction to their s/o being nerdy and know it all kind of brat who always tries to rationalize their emotions......if no then it's ok, I really love your work btw🫂🫶

Thank u so much darling, love u! (ngl i love how Indra's turned out ajsdhasdj)

Indra

(Y/N) is halfway through her latest attempt at psychoanalyzing him when Indra, quite suddenly, holds up a single, elegant hand.

-Enough.

She pauses, mouth half-open, momentarily caught off guard. -I—

-You presume to understand me,- he continues, tone light, almost amused. -yet you fail to acknowledge a simple, irrefutable fact.-

(Y/N) crosses her arms, raising a brow. -And what’s that?-

Indra leans in, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

-I am always right.-

(Y/N) gapes at him. -That’s not—THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS.-

-It is when you’re me.- He straightens, smug, enjoying this far too much. -And I am me, therefore...-.

-I swear I will THROW this book at your head—

Indra smirks, tutting, shaking his head. -Temper, temper. And you call me emotionally repressed.-

(Y/N) groans, throwing her head back in frustration. -You are the most insufferable man alive.-

-And yet, you keep trying.-

Her eye twitches. One day, she swears. One day, she will win.

…But today is not that day.

Madara

Madara listens, arms folded, expression flat as (Y/N) launches into her latest thesis on emotional suppression. She speaks as if she’s discovered some great universal truth, voice full of certainty, hands gesturing in that obnoxiously confident way she does when she thinks she’s right.

-it’s basic psychology,- she explains, pushing her glasses up her nose. -You bottle everything up because processing emotions makes you feel vulnerable. That’s why you’re so emotionally stunted.-

Madara blinks once. Then twice. Then, in the most deadpan voice imaginable, he asks:

-Have you considered, perhaps, that I am simply built different?

(Y/N) falters. -That’s—what? That’s not how psychology works—

-And yet,- he gestures at himself vaguely, -here I stand. Defying all your little theories.-

She squints. -You’re just proving my point.-

-And you’re proving mine,- he counters smoothly, stepping closer, looming over her. -That some things, no matter how much you study, are beyond your understanding.-

(Y/N) opens her mouth to argue, but Madara lifts a single brow, daring her to continue.

She scowls. Smug bastard.

Madara smirks. Checkmate.

Izuna

-Are you serious right now?- Izuna throws his hands in the air, pacing as (Y/N) calmly lists every single reason why his anger issues stem from childhood insecurity.

-Stop using big words to tell me I have issues!- he snaps, pointing an accusatory finger at her. -You don’t know everything—hell, you don’t even know me!-

-I know you project your emotions outward because internalizing them feels like weakness,- she counters smoothly, adjusting her glasses (because, of course, she wears glasses). -and that you always seek external validation, which is why you’re so affected when someone doesn’t take you seriously.-

Izuna gapes. Stunned. Offended.

-What the fuck—

(Y/N) smirks, triumphant.

-Oh my fucking- you’re unendurable.- Izuna groans, pinching the bridge of his nose before turning away. -And wrong, by the way! Just—so wrong.-

He storms off, muttering curses under his breath. Ten minutes later, he’s definitely looking up the psychological terms she used.

Obito

-THAT’S NOT TRUE.- Obito practically yells before she even finishes her sentence.

(Y/N) blinks. -I haven’t even—

-I AM NOT INSECURE!

She crosses her arms, unimpressed. -I never said you were.-

Obito freezes.

-…Oh.

(Y/N) smirks. -Interesting reaction, though.-

His entire face goes red. -SHUT UP.-

Shisui

Shisui leans against a wall, arms crossed, smirking as (Y/N) rants about why his constant deflection and humor are just coping mechanisms to avoid deeper issues.

-I mean, obviously,- he says, grinning -But it works, so why fix what isn’t broken?-

(Y/N) groans. -That’s not— God, you’re impossible.-

-Mm. But you love it.- He winks.

(Y/N) glares. -Your humor is a mask.-

-And your intelligence is a shield.- He raises a brow, tilting his head. -We all wear armor, sweetheart.-

(Y/N) falters, lips parting slightly.

Shisui grins, victorious. -Now, that is how you win an argument.-

Itachi

Itachi listens. He does not interrupt. He does not argue. He does not react.

(Y/N) talks, and talks, and talks. She dissects his every action, his every calculated move, until she is certain she has him figured out.

And then, just as she finishes and prepares for some inevitable debate, he tilts his head, watching her, silent.

She shifts.

-…You’re not gonna say anything?-

He hums, as if considering. -Would it matter?-

(Y/N) hesitates. -…Yes?-

A soft exhale, almost a laugh, but not quite. Itachi’s lips barely curve, a ghost of a smirk. -Then I will say nothing.-

And just like that, he wins.

[baekhyunsbestie]

omfg have you seen that post from a girl who moaned "more" during sex but her boyfriend heard "roar" so he roared like a BEAST with zero hesitation and the girl was like o_o lol that man loves her fr fr but can you pleasssseeee write something based on this with baekhyun pleaseee it makes me laugh so hard every time i think about it asgufdyvbfhiujn thank u and ilyyyy so much mwah

im fucking sobbing omg bc imagine this happening with baekhyun and tell me why it would be the funniest fucking thing ever 😭

“roar.”

that’s what baekhyun thinks he hears.

and here’s the thing—this man? he has no hesitation, no doubts, no critical thinking skills in this moment. just pure, unfiltered, primal instinct.

without a shred of second guessing, he leans in, body pressed against yours, breath hot on your skin. his hands tighten around your thighs, and his voice drops into something dark, something deep, something hungry. you feel the tension in his muscles, the heat rolling off him in waves, the anticipation thick between you.

and then—

he roars.

“ROOOOAAAARRRRRRR!!!”

loud. guttural. from the very depths of his soul.

the bedframe trembles. the walls might have shaken. you swear the air itself vibrates with the force of his voice. somewhere in the distance, a dog starts barking. you wouldn't be surprised if the neighbors are calling animal control right now.

and you? you just—

freeze.

every nerve in your body goes rigid as your brain slams the emergency brakes. your lips part, eyes wide, mind struggling to process the sheer audacity of what just happened.

did this man… did this fully grown man… just.

roar??????

you blink, slow and deliberate, trying to convince yourself that maybe you hallucinated it, that maybe the pleasure was so good it just fried your last functioning brain cell. but no—baekhyun is still there, hovering over you, his bare-ass chest rising and falling with exhilaration, eyes glittering with nothing but triumph.

he looks proud.

like he just unlocked a forbidden sex move.

like he’s waiting for praise.

“…baekhyun.”

his smirk is downright smug. “what is it, baby?”

you keep staring at him. he stares back.

the room is so silent, you swear you can hear the clock ticking in the hallway.

and then—

you lose it.

a wheeze punches out of your chest so violently, you nearly choke. your stomach caves in from the sheer force of your laughter, hands scrambling to grip at anything—his arms, the sheets, the very fabric of reality—to keep yourself grounded. you’re gasping for air, body convulsing as you kick at the blankets like a dying fish, legs flailing uselessly in the air.

baekhyun’s expression shatters. the confidence drains from his face like someone just pulled the plug on his entire existence.

“wait.” his voice cracks. “d-did you not—”

you barely manage to choke out between gasping laughs, “baekhyun. i said ‘more.’”

silence.

absolute horrible, horrible silence.

and then—

baekhyun dies.

not literally. but spiritually? emotionally? he has simply passed away.

all the tension in his body vanishes. his entire frame deflates like a popped balloon, his once-hard posture turning into dead weight. he collapses onto you in slow motion, forehead thunking against your shoulder as a single, whispered plea falls from his lips—

“oh my FUCKING god.”

and then he just… slides.

like a glitching video game character, his body slips off you, rolls over, and falls limp beside you. his arms flop uselessly to the side, his eyes staring at the ceiling, hollow and glassy like he’s just been betrayed by the universe itself.

and then, without a word, he grabs the blanket, yanks it over his head, and disappears.

“baekhyun—”

“no. don't look at me.”

you’re still wheezing, clutching your stomach, your entire existence shaking with laughter. you try to reach for him, but he rolls away, cocooning himself deeper into the blankets.

“baek, come on—”

“no.” his voice is muffled beneath the fabric, thick with shame and regret. “don't talk to me. we’re breaking up.”

you snort. “be so fucking for real right now—”

“it’s over. delete me from your memory.”

by now, tears are streaming down your face. you wipe at them, struggling to breathe as you shift closer, poking at the lump of blanket currently housing your mortified boyfriend.

“baby, seriously—”

“i can't fucking believe i just did that.” his voice cracks again, pure self-loathing dripping from every word. “i— i thought—” he lets out a strangled noise. “oh my god... i just ended my own bloodline."

you press your face into the pillow to stifle another fit of laughter, your entire body trembling with the effort to hold it in.

baekhyun kicks his legs wildly beneath the blankets, like a tantrum throwing child. “’m never having sex again. this is it. i’m officially fucking celibate.”

you roll onto your side, grinning at the pathetic little ball of shame he’s curled into. “it was kinda cute, though.”

the blanket stiffens.

you smirk, eyes twinkling. “you really put your whole lionussy into that, huh?”

the blanket erupts.

baekhyun lunges out of his shame-cocoon just to strangle you with the same blanket he was hiding in.

[hulloitsdani]

Fighting for your life with heroes against brand new ones that sweep your team. Henrietta lore? That power she must keep in check? Summoner just won't die. Only in some timelines. and badly. Sharena. Ragnorok?!?! Loki's shenanigans.

Thank you stranger! In no particular order, let’s go through these

First off, OH I LOVEEEEEE BEING IMMEDIATELY PROVEN WRONG ABOUT LOKI. FINALLY. THANK FUCK. The validation I felt when the question of her motives was IMMEDIATELY brought up this book. I don’t care that my read was wrong— what I truly wanted more than anything was something of more substance to read into. As for actual predictions, my bets are that her aims are on bringing about Ragnorok and the end of the gods. For fun. As a treat. For the silly.

As for the actual state of the game, idk man, I play this game weird. I’m both free to play and entirely causal, so it’s entirely up to luck if I ever have any relevant units. In my many years of playing this game, I have never managed to +10 merge a unit that wasn’t a grail unit. So I don’t tend to play game modes where that matters much, with the exception of aether raids sometimes. I like clearing the challenge maps and making the story mode levels really difficult by using strictly Askr trio.

For events outside of that, I have a lot of fun using about one team per six months and trying to creatively use them and their base skills to solve whatever new bullshit is added. The game is clearly not built for you to do that, but I like the challenge it poses. I got really lucky on the CYL7 banner and got all four of the guys from that event. Brave Robin, Corrin, Soren and Gullvieg was my go to team for wayyyy longer than it should have, especially with zero changes to their kits and no merges. Hell I didn’t even have dragon flowers on half of them because Askr Trio building has long stolen most of flower supply. But god was it fun. I know how that group of units play off each other like the back of my hand. And considering how most people tend to just be frustrated with this game’s gameplay, it feels like I must be doing something right. I am constantly broke tho, so rip.

On the lore side, Henriette and Gustav are such a fascinating two for one package for me. Marketable plushies often bought together please don’t separate. The :) to his >:(. They’re both are great rulers and loving partners, but fumbled a bit in their parenting in ways that make total sense. For you see, I am a firm believer that everyone walks out of their childhood at least a little fucked up. Even the best parents are still human. And I adore Askr’s royal family unit, because it digs into that idea! Henriette and Gustav weren’t abusive or harboring malicious intent, but they were neglectful and lacking in ways that cannot be denied. Which is extremely cool! More of this please and thank you.

Looping back to the quote in question, to be perfectly honest, I would be pleasantly surprised if we ever got answers for her day of devotion alt voice lines. However, Gustav having a wife with the power to kill him easily would be so fucking funny. Like father, like son. If your romantically coded life partner can’t theoretically ensure your body is never found, what’s even the point. She doesn’t even need to be secretly divine or anything— I would be satisfied with her being something as simple as an abnormally strong mage. She can accidentally fold people like an omelet if she’s not being careful. Which, now that I’m putting that into writing, might contribute to her relationship with her kids.

Speaking of, Sharena!!! My best friend Sharena!!! I’ve got a multitude of thoughts cooking for her, but currently the one at the forefront is making home girl jacked as hell. Not joking. Dead ass. We all know the role she plays on a personality level— she’s the heart. The emotional glue that keeps these loner trickster types together and in check. But considering that this is the theater of war and everyone else has a role to play, I think it could be interesting if she was the beefiest fighter in the Askr trio. She’s able to dedicate the time fully to that craft, you know? She’s not balancing the responsibilities that arise from being the Order’s commander, tactician, or right hand man/history buff. Not to mention she was trained to fight by Bruno, who presumably played the role of group muscle before her. Therefore, when it comes to feats of physical strength, Sharena should be the Order’s go-to lady! I think it would be neat! She deserves the ability to easily carry her commanding officer and beat Alfonse’s nerdy ass in an arm wrestle.

Last but certainly not least, summoner bad ends! What could possibly go wrong? A lot, apparently. And it happens much more often than you’d expect.

See, I don’t think it’s that the summoner cannot die. Polar opposite, if anything. Each success is built upon the littered corpses of millions of failures. This idea loops back to the alternate version of Askr the group finds in book 3. In order to defeat Hel, they must loot the corpse of a dead world. By its very nature, not every summoner has an alternate corpse to loot. At least half of all realities where the summoner exists results in death and ruin by book 3 ALONE. This is saying nothing of all the dangerous odds they must beat from then to book 9. Just pulling one example off the dome, in order to defeat Gullveig, they had to die a truly eldritch and inconceivable amount of times. But we the audience don’t bear witness to that. We get to see the one world with the one summoner who is hitting those fraction of a fraction odds. The universe’s luckiest bastard. Others are not so lucky.

[thekittyokat]

you ever just have a lot, a LOT of feelings all at once about a character and not even remotely enough words or brainpower to FORM the words to describe everything you're feeling. so it feels like you may explode. yeah

[joejhang]

fanon neil vs canon neil

god i am so FUCKING done with the aftg fandom mischaracterising neil i'm literally writing fucking ESSAYS about it and pacing circles muttering about it under my breath it's driving me up the goddamn wall so i am going to word vomit brain dump yap about all of it in an incoherent tumblr text post. spoilers ahead continue at ur own risk

i've said it before and i'll say it again I HATE FANON NEIL. istg this fandom LOVES to mischaracterise neil and ykw i think i know why. they take the smallest most unnoticeable parts of his personality and then exaggerate them to disproportionate and unrealistic levels in order for him to fit their idea of a conventional, stereotypical and desirable main character. they smooth out his jagged edges and prick at his "insecurities" to make him more likeable, more acceptable and more conventional of a narrator/main character and in doing so erase so fucking much of his personality and draw as a character that he loses just about all of the flavour that made me love him in canon. and also especially within the andreil dynamic this fucking fandom just loves to tweak neil's character until he's basically unrecognisable just so they can cram andreil into some preconceived socially acceptable clichéd ship dynamic. because andrew is perceived as the typical mysterious, moody and grumpy love interest therefore neil just has to be the sunshiney smiley blushing cute softboy in exchange. yeah because all gay ships have to be grumpy-sunshine and black cat-golden retriever dynamic. i raise you: andreil's dynamic doesn't work because of their differences it works because of their similarities. if u think about it andrew and neil are honestly very similar people in the way they think and process emotions and events and that's what allows them to connect and understand each other. andreil would not work if neil was super sunshiney and a blushy soft mess and andrew was the stoic, never smiling, unemotional stone of a guy the fandom loves to make them. just accept they do not fit into the conventional boxes laid out by booktok for what gay ships look like. i fucking digress.

neil is also just insanely mischaracterised on his own. people love making him very jittery and insanely oblivious and easily flustered with a generous serving of self-esteem issues. i hate to break it to you guys: neil josten is not insecure. i don't think there's a single instant in the series where neil is actually insecure about anything. as a narrator, person and character, neil is very realistic, pragmatic and logical. ruthlessly so. i'd say on this, neil is even more cerebral and unemotional than andrew is. neil is very straightforward and realistic abt himself in his narration and i'd honestly say his opinion and views about himself are one of the only things in the story that isn't affected by his narrator bias. if neil is anything, it's self-aware. i'm now going to present all my fucking evidence.

neil doesn't have a sexuality crisis. literally in the entire series never once does he even question his fucking sexuality. it's implied he's already figured out he's aspec/demisexual from the moment nicky questions him about his sexuality. neil says "i don't swing" and follows up in his narration: it wasn't quite the truth, but it was close enough. and later when he starts his relationship with andrew he doesn't ever question the nature of his feelings towards andrew or even anyone else and is pretty clear about it when andrew breaches the topic: "kissing you doesn't make me look at them any differently" so yeah neil is pretty certain and aware of his sexuality.

neil isn't insecure about his appearance. i feel like this is gonna require a bit of work to explain but hear me out. it is mentioned several times that neil has a complicated relationship with his appearance because he looks so much like his father/abuser. this is obviously understandable; you wouldn't want to look into the mirror and see the man who gave u all ur scars. that being said, neil doesn't have a lot of strong emotions regarding his appearance. most of his feelings of panic tied to when r*ko dyed back his hair is because of how it would be a lot easier for his father to discover him now that he has his original colouring back. i'm also pretty sure neil knows that he's cute. like it's never explicitly stated but i've reread aftg maybe fifty times and trust me i can read between the lines. neil explicitly says that he has a "love-hate relationship with his reflection out of necessity" and while the "hate" part of that statement is obvious: he doesn't like that he resembles his father, i've sort of just accepted that the "love" part of it is that he knows he's kinda fine. it's not brought up by him at all bc neil as a person is not one to linger on people's appearances almost at all. i think the only people to get a decent amount of lines dedicated to their appearance in the narration are allison and andrew. but yeah i genuinely don't think neil thinks he's ugly or unattractive and he's probably definitely been told how cute he is by others enough that he doesn't harbour any delusions about how he looks. regarding his scars, he never expresses any insecurity towards them and how they look, he just doesn't like them on display understandably bc of how acutely they point to his past and childhood that he's trying to hide.

neil is actually very very confident in his own and other people's abilties. this is esp regarding exy. he knows he's good at the game. like he knows. the most distinct example i can think of for this point is when kevin tells neil that he was at castle evermore to try out for the perfect court when they were younger. neil doesn't even doubt for a fucking second that he would've made it onto the perfect court. never does. he skips over the second-guessing and doubt part and just straight up starts daydreaming about the future he could've had playing with kevin and r*ko. like that really got me bc it's easy to assume neil would be super unassuming and have low self-esteem but no like neil doesn't doubt for a fucking second that he deserves to be perfect court. it's just that he doesn't believe in r*ko's delusions enough to play along with it by the time he gets the tattoo. he's also insanely confident about the foxes and their abilities and also kevin by the end of the series. at the beginning he takes a pretty realistic vantage point and says that with the way things are, the foxes will never beat the ravens. but even with that pov he still has the gall to challenge r*ko on LIVE TV and i doubt he's lying when he declares so boldly to everyone that if the foxes were united they'd be an unstoppable force (and guess what he was fucking RIGHT). and by the end, when the foxes are united, he has no more room left for doubt at all. some guy tells neil to kick the ravens' asses and neil just replies with zero hesitation "that's the plan". like he's so fucking on board with it. and he never once doubts that kevin is the best striker in the game. like literally never. at first he considers r*ko and kevin on par with each other (possibly, it's never stated outright) but by the end he literally has no doubts when he says "kevin is the best striker" like goddamn the amount of confidence neil has is so underrated.

neil is a very unemotional narrator. it actually gets me all the time how logical and ruthlessly pragmatic neil's narration and inner monologue is. some of the only strong emotions portrayed in neil's narration are anger, irritation and occasionally grief, which is only ever triggered by major trauma-inducing events (e.g. dr*ke). almost all of his inner monologue is analytical and observing others and dissecting either other people or the situation he's in. and almost all of his decisions and actions are made based on impulse and instinct. neil is a very instinctive person. this is outright stated in the way he plays exy; in theory, he can't give u a lot, but in the heat of the moment he's at his best. this applies to practically all facets of neil's life. he never plans his moves or what he's gonna say (except like that one time when he planned out what half-truth he was gonna tell andrew post-columbia). he's super quick and on the ball and literally does whatever the fuck he wants at any given moment. he's also insanely good at compartmentalising. like it's difficult to explain but while his priorities are obv hilariously skewed, they're also very clear in his mind. things he considers unimportant he simply just doesn't think about. what others look like and what they think of him don't factor into his internal monologue or his thoughts at all he literally just files them away in the back of his mind until they do end up becoming useful or important to him. he barely comments on andrew's appearance at all until andrew becomes someone worth staring at and admiring for him. the only reason he describes allison and renee in the detail that he does is because it's important in understanding how and why he reacts to them the way he does. this man was literally about to lose his goddamn mind at the fall banquet but he specifically reserved his mental breakdown for after the banquet so he could spend his time roasting the fuck out of r*ko. bro fully locked in and was like "clock riko now break down later" and i respect it.

neil doesn't actually have a martyr complex. it's funny because almost all of aftg is him being the absolute fucking opposite of a martyr. he wilfully sticks around the foxes knowing he's putting himself and them in danger. he doesn't "sacrifice" himself until he's absolutely forced to by his father's people. by then, he's already told himself he can't and won't run and he's smart enough to know he'll never get away anyway. and going to evermore wasn't about self-sacrifice or martyrdom it was about protecting andrew and those two are pretty fucking different. he knew he was coming back from evermore and he knew that he wouldn't die there, despite all the shit he went through, so i don't think that can be counted as "self-sacrifice". he was doing what he had to do to protect andrew, the same as andrew would've done for neil or aaron or kevin or anyone else he'd sworn to protect. the kidnapping in baltimore was the culmination of neil's character arc, which isn't really about learning to be selfless and self-sacrificing, it's about learning to stand his ground and stop running. those things r crucially different: neil not running in baltimore wasn't about selflessness, it was about courage. yes, part of it was obviously inspired by the foxes and motivated by not wanting them to be hurt but i truly believe it ultimately was about neil learning to stand his own ground and make his own home and have it be something he's willing to die for. call it whatever u want honestly i just don't think neil is as much of a martyr/sacrificial lamb as the fandom makes him out to be.

[antigonesghosts]

What I loved about Cinderella's Castle is it is so entirely about Ella. We know starkid can handle a show with tons and tons of characters but I found it quite refreshing for it to be so wholly her story? I think it was a lovely choice for this show and man Bryce did such a perfect job of it, she is truly such a star

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Killua and the Power of Wishes

Okay going to try and make this coherent because the amount of wish association all through Killua's character development makes me want to chew plaster.

As a fair warning, this analysis ended up being long as hell, and I didn't even include everything I could've said. This is also just one lens to analyze Killua's story arc with, and I feel there are other valid interpretations of some of these moments. This is just one of mine, so keep that in mind please.

One last warning that this analysis does discuss emotional manipulation and abuse, as is par for Killua's background.

Let's set the stage with one important piece of info: Killua's birthday.

Killua's birthday is July 7th, the same day as Tanabata. Tanabata is a folklore-rich festival where according to legend, the two lovers, weaver Orihime and cowherd Hikoboshi, represented by the two stars, Vega and Altair, are allowed to reunite once a year after separation. A popular custom of Tanabata is to make wishes by writing them down on tanzaku, then hang it on a bamboo tree so that the wish might one day come true.

Tanabata is also known as the Star Festival. Please keep this in mind, because I'm going to come back to it.

To finish setting up the lens for this analysis, I'm going to need to dig into the game-changer scene for Killua's early characterization - his confrontation with Illumi at the end of the Hunter Exam, and specifically, the exact nature of Illumi's manipulation of him.

I say "game-changer" because it really is - up until this point, it's kind of fair to not fully know what to think about Killua. Certainly, he seems excited to hang out with Gon (he approached him first, after all) and he's friendly enough, but he's also arrogant and claims to be motivated mainly by boredom. For all intents and purposes, Killua seems set up to be Gon's dangerous yet charismatic rival... but then this scene happens and it completely turns it all on its head.

Because Killua may have mentioned his family was controlling before, but he seriously downplayed the severity of it - likely because he has no point of reference for how awful his situation actually is other than it makes him feel bad and trapped. Illumi's appearance immediately shifts our understanding of Killua from runaway murder kid with annoying murder family to straight-up victim of emotional abuse, and dissolves his cockiness instantly to terror.

What does all this have to do with wishes? Glad you asked. Let's look at some of Illumi's dialogue.

[ID: A screenshot from HxH episode 20 of the 2011 anime. Killua looks up, sweating and conflicted, as Illumi tells him "You don't want anything or wish for anything." End ID.]

This is the crux of Illumi's (and the family's) control. Killua's desires do not align with the family trade. They must be excised from him.

When Killua insists that he does have something that he really wants, Illumi says "Tell me what it is you want", in a mockery of a certain other sibling who would have helped fulfill this wish - Illumi asks only so he can completely dismantle it. And Killua isn't even really surprised at Illumi's words, just heartbroken. You can tell this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened.

Killua states his wish quite fervently; he really means it. But his words are not rebellious, nor cathartic. Instead, he answers Illumi quietly, as if fearful or ashamed, almost reminiscent of a sinner's confession.

[ID: Two screenshots from HxH episode 20 of the 2011 anime. In the first Killua looks down with a troubled expression, saying "I want to become friends with Gon...". In the second, his face is hidden as he stands with hands clenched at his sides with a spotlight on him. He says "I'm sick of killing people..." End ID.]

It's such an innocent, simple want.

And Illumi proceeds to make him feel like even something so simple is harmful and selfish of him... not to the family, but to Gon.

In a matter of a few minutes, Illumi breaks down Killua's wish by:

Acknowledging this desire, but twisting it into something that will inevitably fade over time, thereby causing Killua to doubt his own conviction and feelings -> "Gon is a novelty, a radiant presence who has piqued your curiosity. No more than that."

Acknowledging that Gon is someone important to Killua, and undermining this by telling him that by his very nature, he will eventually bring harm to Gon, which makes him feel as though Killua cannot trust himself to be a good friend -> "If you try to be friends with him, you will one day want to kill him... because you are, by nature, a murderer." (As a... delightful... bonus, this is also apparently how Silva and Illumi justify their treatment of Killua to him - "This is the essence of your existence and we taught you accordingly." Like they adapted to Killua's nature, instead of them molding Killua into who they wanted him to be.)

Delivering an ultimatum - to fight Illumi and win, or else Gon will die - that Killua is doomed to fail due to his upbringing and the needle in his head. Since Killua doesn't know about the needle, he assumes this is his own personal failure, something Illumi feeds into -> "You're just not qualified to make friends."

And it's the last point that breaks him. The first two shoot down Killua's present wish, but the last proceeds to shatter any hope he might've had of wishing for anything similar in the future - he has told him that his desires are weak, temporary, inherently dangerous to those around him, and worst of all, aren't enough on their own for him to deserve friendship and love from others. And the clincher: Killua feels like all of this is his own fault, that there is something inherently dangerous and wrong with him!

So, it doesn't even matter to Killua anymore if he fails the Hunter Exam. To him, he just failed the only test that mattered.

10/10 manipulation, Illumi. Fuck you, seriously.

Killua's character arc is mainly his quest and struggle to refute Illumi's arguments and to shake off the manipulation and the ways in which his family have molded and controlled him. And by far, the most difficult part of his conditioning to shake off is this idea that he is undeserving of anything more than what he is already given.

It's almost like the family has drilled it into him that wishes are dangerous. How interesting.

Thankfully, however, there are two parties to Killua's wish here - Gon, too, is a part of it, and it is not simply his reciprocated desire to be Killua's friend that saves him, but also his recognition of Killua's situation for what it is (notably, when no one else correctly identified the true issue).

"You know it wasn't his choice. You manipulated him, kidnapping his spirit!"

The ensuing Zoldyck family arc emphasizes that Gon is 100% correct: the main hold Killua's family has on him isn't physical - it's all emotional.

Killua breaks one of his shackles when Milluki threatens to have his new friends killed, but he only breaks the rest when Zeno tells him he's free to go. So, if Killua could break loose at any point, was this still a rescue like Gon said?

Well, yes - just because he absolutely could've broken out physically at any time, that does not mean he could just leave. That's the nature of situations such as this - it's not as simple as "just leaving". Support is necessary, as is actually having something tangible outside the situation to go to - otherwise there is little point to leaving at all. Gon (and Kurapika and Leorio) showing up to free Killua showed him that his wish was reciprocated and allowed him to break one cuff - this is the start of his journey, but he still has a long ways to go. Notably, he again hesitates and closes off when Silva asks what he wants.

[ID: Three panels from HxH chapter 42. In the first, Silva asks Killua "...would you like to see [Gon]?" Killua's expression is complicated in the next panel - he's closed off and uncertain. Silva continues "Be honest, Kil... what do you want?" End ID.]

Killua will backtalk and casually break his shackles and death glare his family... but he's too fearful to voice his wants aloud.

And once again, asked by his father what he wants, he is subtly set up to fail. His wish is granted, but made conditional - "Do not betray your friends", something Killua is regrettably set up to do by virtue of the needle in his head that he, again, doesn't know about. Silva fully expects him to fail and come back home, disillusioned, believing it's his own fault due to his "nature", and trusting in Silva still as a "reasonable" figure in his life.

This condition placed on his friendship is what drives much of Killua's fear and insecurity with regards to Gon for much of the series - the idea that Killua has to earn his right to friendship, and that if he doesn't, he will lose it, one way or another.

It really makes me wish that Killua had actually gotten to hear Gon's views on friendship from the beginning of the Zoldyck Family arc, because it entirely refutes this entire philosophy. He even outright refuses to go through the Testing Gates at first, purely because he thinks the sentiment of needing to prove yourself just to be friends is completely outrageous - he only relents because there is no other way.

[ID: Two screenshots from episodes 21 and 22 of the 2011 HxH anime adaptation. Gon looks up at Illumi and firmly states "[Killua] doesn't need to earn the right to be my friend!" In the second, Gon's face is seen in profile and close up as he asks "Why would you test your friends?" End ID.]

I doubt it would've truly prevented Killua's insecurity from manifesting even if he had heard this, to be honest - his issues with usefulness are very deep-rooted in his upbringing - but still, it would've been nice for him to hear, I think.

However, that's not to say that this exact sentiment doesn't come through in their interactions.

Gon, as Killua's friend, cares about what Killua actually wants and wants to make sure Killua knows that - and that's part of what makes the Whale Island conversation between them really important.

[ID: Two images, both of the same scene from HxH chapter 64, and episode 37 of the 2011 anime. In the manga panel, Gon has turned his head to look at Killua directly, who looks shocked and taken aback, to say "I like hanging out with you." In the anime screenshot, Gon has turned his whole body to face Killua, and says "I think it's fun to be with you." End ID.]

I see a lot of people chalk this up to just Gon being Gon, but it reads to me as much more deliberate than even his usual honesty. He's turned so he's looking directly at Killua, which is a sure way to make his words come across clearly. The lead up to this is Killua, again, not knowing or being able to vocalize what he wants. He doesn't have a goal to work towards like Gon, he only knows what he doesn't want - he's a mix of envious and admiring towards Gon, who knows what he wants and simply goes for it.

But this conversation makes it clear that they have a shared wish - they both want to be friends, and they'd both like to stay together. It's not about earning, to Gon, it's only about if they both want the same thing - mutual, not conditional. There's a nice almost call-and-response type dialogue here, where Gon asserts that he likes spending time with Killua (very directly lol), then shares that Killua is the first friend his age he's had. This prompts Killua to say that Gon is his first friend ever, and that he does have fun with him. And just like that, Gon replies "Then let's stay together!" and pointedly includes Killua's desire to find a goal in their, now shared, upcoming journey.

Overhead, a shooting star appears in the sky. A mutual wish is granted.

[ID: A panel from HxH chapter 64. The night sky is full of stars. In the centre is a shooting star. End ID.]

Hm. Stars. Remember how I told you to keep that in mind, all the way back at the beginning? Their association with Tanabata, making a wish on a shooting star, etc. etc.?

Well, buckle up because this star is going to make you experience so much sadness now.

[ID: Panels from HxH chapter 286. The first is a conversation between Killua and Meleoron where Killua asserts he intends to "go down in flames with [Gon]". When Meleoron looks concerned, Killua brushes off the declaration as a joke. In the second image, Killua is turned away, his outline pale, as Meleoron thinks "Why... did you looks so sad... back there?" The last image is a cloudy night sky filled with stars. At the centre of the panel is a shooting star. End ID.]

Yeah, it makes its reappearance directly after Killua has "jokingly" resolved to die with Gon if it comes down to it, after "since it means nothing to you".

I am assured, in Japanese, the word choice here is 心中 (shinjuu), the word for double suicide, where the intent is to die at the same time in the same manner in order to be reunited in the afterlife. The implication here is that Killua, having increasingly grown insecure in his place by Gon's side but unable to voice this, knowing that Gon is hurtling down the path of no return, thinks back to their conversation under the stars where they both mutually wished to stay together and, because he believes that it is no longer possible for him to help Gon, has resolved to stay by his side in death, and after it.

...holy shit, kid.

[ID: Two screenshots from the 4th ending of the 2011 anime. In the first, Gon and Killua stand back to back as meteors fall around them. In the second, they stand facing away from the audience towards a body of water under a night sky filled with stars - Gon throws a stone, which flashes in the air like a shooting star. End ID.]

And of course, here's the shooting star again in the 2011 anime's Nagareboshi Kirari ending, as well as it being the subject of the song itself and rather explicitly referencing that wish to go on a journey together, to stay together, because... Madhouse hates us. I guess. :'(

What started off as a simple wish for a friend deepened into a wish to always stay by Gon's side. This is largely good at first! Killua is able to explore and experience genuine friendship, to get a taste for freedom, and use the power of his fervent wish to protect his dear friend in order to rid himself of Illumi's needle. However, the more Killua wants, the more he traps these wishes in monologues within his own head and does not voice them aloud. Part of it is that he already feels he's been given much more than he deserves - seeing himself as a creature of darkness and Gon as light - but a greater part of the issue here is not that Killua is afraid to wish for things, but that he is afraid wishing without "compensation" will inevitably lead to horrible repercussions - namely, losing who he loves.

In order to feel worthy of staying with Gon, of earning his friendship, Killua works hard to help Gon achieve his goals, taking on the role of wish grantor, growing to do practically anything needed to support him for seemingly nothing in return - but that's not 100% true. Killua wants at least some appreciation, whether he admits it or not - it's a security thing, and it also clearly makes him happy, even if he's not great at accepting it. He insists in Chimera Ant arc that friends don't need to thank friends, but this declaration always read as very sudden to me or like a rationalization, and it's relevant to remember that this is at the peak of Gon isolating himself and self-destructing before his eyes, and Killua's own insecurity regarding his importance to him.

Killua might not mind doing things without thanks, but that doesn't mean he doesn't like to hear that Gon appreciates him. He clearly does appreciate verbal confirmation of their bond! We know this.

[ID: Two screenshots from the 2011 anime. The first is from episode 61. Killua smiles down at the ground with his hands in his pockets, the colours having gone soft and bright. The second is from episode 70 during the dodgeball match. Gon smiles determinedly in the foreground as Killua looks shocked next to him. End ID.]

Keeping all this in mind, Killua's story, or at least this part of it, couldn't have concluded in a better way than his rescue of Alluka, the wish grantor.

Now, I could probably write an entire other analysis on Alluka and Nanika alone, but for the sake of not making this any longer than I already have, I'm going to go through only a few points. Alluka is incomprehensible to her family because they make no attempt to understand her, with the exception of Killua. The only thing they do seem to understand, when explained to them, is the demands made after Nanika grants a wish - this, of course, fits neatly into their own predetermined views on "earning" and "punishment". However, beyond this, they make no attempt to understand her, and since her power is deemed dangerous and uncontrollable, she is locked away.

They are worried, first and foremost, that Alluka will bring harm to the family, and there's two ways in which this could be true:

As a function of failing to fulfill her requests, of course

Because she, just by existing, threatens the family's status quo

I stated at the beginning that Killua's desires do not align with those of the family business, and he's always apparently been more open to understanding others - he asks Alluka and Nanika questions to understand them, and treats them with respect, while his family are more so focused on subjugating anything that might be a threat. This is what Illumi tried to drill into Killua after all; never fight a superior opponent - everything is about assessments of relative strength, which leaves no room for open-mindedness or getting to know people.

Faced with a daughter who is clearly incomprehensibly powerful, and a son, the would-be inheritor of the family trade, who is showing a disturbing amount of willingness to befriend instead of retreat from her, the family made the decision to excise Alluka not just from where she could "harm" the family power-wise, but also likely to secure their control over Killua, who they then set about practically programming to not have any more wishes for himself, or at least to not be able to vocalize them without fear of loss or retribution.

The family's nickname for Killua is "Kil" or "Killu", which is deeply fascinating to me as a reader - nicknames are expressions of endearment, typically, and I actually don't doubt that here. Killua's family does love him, but their love comes with conditions. He must be molded into the perfect son, and every part of him that doesn't fit must be excised.

So: Killua's memories of Alluka are suppressed with the needle, and she is further cut from his life by dropping the "a" from his name (the Zoldyck children are named like a game of shiratori - Illumi -> Milluki -> Killua -> Alluka -> Kalluto). The nickname is also like a command or order "to kill", which is of course what they want him to do.

Saving Gon through saving Alluka and Nanika forces Killua to have to face down the last and hardest of Illumi's manipulations to shake, and that's the notion that a wish, that kindness and friendship and love, cannot be unconditional without severe repercussions - where the people he cares about get hurt because of him, something he cannot envision being forgiven for.

It's a little sad to me that after spending most of the series struggling against his family's teachings that they didn't lead to Killua betraying Gon at all, as he'd feared... but to him betraying Nanika, by sending her away.

Here is this little girl with a bloodstained past, incredibly powerful and dangerous and capable of amazing feats, treated as some evil thing by those who fear her. But she is kind at heart. Her true strength lies in healing, not killing. And she only takes commands from Killua.

Illumi thinks this is because Killua is the only one with control over her. Killua believes this is because she wants praise. They're both partially correct, but this is not the full reason Nanika does what Killua asks of her.

[ID: Two screenshots from episode 146 of the 2011 anime. In the first, Nanika smiles and says "I love Killua." In the second, Killua looks at her, stricken. End ID.]

Nanika loves him. Everyone has been trying to figure out all these complicated rules and conditions on her wish granting and why Killua is the one exception, but the answer is exceedingly simple. She loves him, and wants to do nice things for him so he can have his wishes granted. It's the only way she knows to get the love that she wants in turn.

Just like her brother, Nanika makes herself useful to earn love and appreciation from someone who accepted her when no one else did.

Even though he knows Nanika just wants to help, he still sees her presence as a danger to the person he sees as pure and innocent who must be protected. He sends her away because her "nature" is to be a threat to Alluka's safety, even if she doesn't intend to be. Killua's fear of Illumi and repercussions causes him to make a horrible mistake.

And Alluka tears into him for it.

[ID: A set of panels from HxH chapter 336. A furious Alluka glares and asks Killua if he made Nanika cry. When Killua stutters, she demands he apologize to her. End ID.]

You tell him, girl.

Oh hey, this looks a little familiar, huh?

"Apologize to Killua!" says Gon to Illumi after Illumi sends Killua away.

Nanika should not be the one punished for the actions of those trying to control her. She certainly shouldn't be forced to leave those she loves, or have to earn love from them.

And neither should Killua.

[ID: Three panels from HxH chapter 336. Alluka yells, tears in her eyes, "If you're going to protect me... you have to protect Nanika too!!" Killua looks shocked, then his eyes widen. End ID.]

It's interesting to me that this is the line that snaps Killua out of his fear enough for him to properly speak with Nanika and apologize. One party cannot receive all the protection, nor can the other only give and give limitlessly.

Killua makes it clear to Nanika when speaking with her that he will protect her, and that she doesn't need to earn affection from people by granting their wishes. He promises they will both be there for each other - Killua will praise her whenever she wants, and not just when she does something for him, but he also doesn't refuse Nanika's desire to grant his wishes. It's mutual, not conditional.

And on the heels of this "betrayal", Killua asks for what he never thought he could receive - forgiveness. And even though Nanika is clearly still very upset...

[ID: Two screenshots from episode 146. In the first, Nanika and Killua face each other, both of them teary. Nanika says "Kay." In the second, he has pulled her into a hug. Nanika is teary, her fingers gripping Killua's back tightly. End ID.]

...she doesn't even have to think about it.

I do think Killua still has a ways to go, but he is in a position right now to learn from his relationship with his sisters about balance - that love is not just selfless devotion, but also allowing those who love you to help you and make you happy too. I think that's what unconditional love is, in a way - supporting and working together with the people you love to make each other's wishes come true.

[evelynpr]

Lantern Rite Spoilers

It hit me like a truck realizing that Hu Tao is exactly that character trope of appearing social and carefree all the time but deliberately never attaches herself to anyone...because that is what got her father killed as a funeral director.

The irony of Hu Tao being mad at her father for being attached, when she's only this mad because she is attached to him in the first place, thus choosing to not attach to anyone else. Man.

[just-null]

i have come here to personally thank you for giving me more than i asked for 🙏🏻 i am utterly grateful like IDJFKDKKFODOD 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️ it made me so happy the last doodle has my heart he is so cute i will eat him

also there is a DROUGHT out there for us noritoshi fans like im living on CRUMBS its insane and omg dont even talk to me abt how it feels like to be a kashimo and ino lover (altho they are getting a bit more love now) my nori is still underrated :/ sooo hence im asking ur hand in friendship and in exchange i promise to share my hcs with you abt nori my sweet lil meow meow we're in this together 💪🏻💪🏻

also since its October, do you think he likes horror movies? i feel like he can withstand gory movies but its the jumpscares that get him and he wont tell u he's scared when u watch one with jumpscares owkfkdkd imagine him hiding his face against ur shoulder or something 😭😭😭 (i used to do that with my dad when we watched horror movies and i used to be like im not scared😤😤 when he asked if i was lmfao thats where this hc stemmed from)

N. NORITOSHI HIDING IN YOUR SHOULDER OR SUPPRESSING HIS REACTIONS TO THE JUMPSCARES....... WAS IT AN INVOLUNTARY REACTION TO USE YOU TO HIDE??????? WAS IT BUILT UP TRUST????? DID HE GROW USED TO HOLDING ONTO YOU WHEN HE GETS SURPRISED BECAUSE HE WANTS TO MAKE SURE HE HAS HIS VALUABLES SAFE????????? WAS IT A MOMENT WHERE HIS MIND JUST INSTINCTIVELY GRABBED THE FIRST THING HE WANTED TO PROTECT/BE PROTECTED BY???????? OH MY FUCK.

he's probably used to gore and gritty stuff like that since he sees it often being a jujutsu sorcerer and all. not to mention his technique is literally blood. maybe he's desensitized to gore films, the most you'll get from him is a disgusted scowl.

BUT DID YOU SEE HOW QUICK HIS EYE OPENED WHEN HANAMI SHOWED UP BEHIND HIM. YOURE SO FUCKING FR ABT JUMPSCARES. Noritoshi is that guy who wouldn't scream or yelp but gasp really loudly and jump out of his skin.

i feel like they get him most in horror because of the music building up anticipation. if its one of those fake outs where the jumpscare comes a bit after, he's fucked UP. It makes him instantly miffed, as he tries to regain his composure. He swears he's not usually like this, it got him by surprise is all..!

Noritoshi is the type that'd only watch a horror movie if the story is rich and complex. He's the type of guy to like open endings that make you think.. if it's a guilty pleasure movie where all the protags make stupid decisions, he gets annoyed right off the bat.

He's groaning and complaining about how imbecile the characters are, but would still watch it with you because you personally invited him. If he's lucky you could fall asleep on his shoulder or [insert movie cliche here] how could he pass that up? But Noritoshi wouldn't be able to focus on you if he gets twice as annoyed because its a bad movie + jumpscares. it still startles him, but the movie is so terrible, he's embarrassed it got him, especially in front of you!!!

if you get involved and you tell him to quiet down, Noritoshi would shift his focus towards you. like that awkward guy who thinks he's being smooth and lowkey about how he cuddles up next to you. He wants to be the tough guy who's shoulder you can hide in, and he is!! just not.. with jumpscares.......

[rugbuggk]

I’m MAD because we never get to see HOW VLADCARD AND INTEGRA MEEEETTT like OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU’RE TELLING ME DRAC THE OG GOT ON HIS DAMN KNEES FOR A WOMAN, CALLED HER MY LADY WHILE THE WORLD FELL APART???? AND WE NEVER GOT TO SEE THEM ACTUALLY MEETING?? I’m done

[apocalypticdemon]

why must intellectual tasks be so difficult. augh.