#Opportunities in Bottled Water Industry

[priyankap0018]

Charting Growth Trajectories: Bottled Water Market Revenue and Growth Rate

The bottled water market trends continues to witness significant growth, driven by increasing health consciousness and the convenience factor. Consumers are gravitating towards enhanced hydration options, such as flavored and functional waters, while sustainability concerns are fostering demand for eco-friendly packaging solutions. Premiumization and innovation remain key trends shaping the market landscape.

[bottlewatersblog]

The Future of Bottled Water: Market Forecast and Growth Opportunities in 2024

The bottled water industry continues to grow robustly, driven by rising consumer awareness about health, an increasing preference for convenience, and a growing distrust of tap water quality in many regions. As we look toward 2024 and beyond, the bottled water market is expected to see substantial growth, shaped by several key trends and factors. This article delves into the latest market forecasts, providing detailed insights for market research firms and industry stakeholders.

Market Overview

The global bottled water market was valued at approximately USD 230 billion in 2022, with expectations to surpass USD 310 billion by 2027, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 6.5% during the forecast period. The demand is driven by increasing urbanization, rising disposable incomes, and the perceived health benefits of bottled water over sugary beverages.

Key Drivers of Market Growth

Health and Wellness Trends: Consumers are increasingly shifting towards healthier beverage options. Bottled water is perceived as a healthier alternative to carbonated drinks and juices laden with sugars and artificial additives.

Urbanization and Lifestyle Changes: Rapid urbanization and the busy lifestyles of urban dwellers are driving the demand for convenient and portable hydration solutions. Bottled water fits perfectly into this fast-paced lifestyle.

Environmental Concerns and Sustainability: While plastic pollution remains a significant concern, the industry is witnessing a shift towards sustainable practices. Eco-friendly packaging, such as biodegradable bottles and increased recycling efforts, are gaining traction, appealing to environmentally conscious consumers.

Technological Advancements: Innovations in water purification and bottling technologies are improving the quality and shelf-life of bottled water. Enhanced filtration systems and mineral additions are becoming common, catering to premium segments.

Regional Insights

North America: The North American bottled water market is expected to maintain steady growth, driven by high per capita consumption and strong health consciousness among consumers. The U.S. remains the largest market in this region.

Europe: Europe shows a mature market with moderate growth, heavily influenced by environmental regulations and a strong emphasis on sustainability. Countries like Germany and France are leading in both consumption and innovation in eco-friendly packaging.

Asia-Pacific: The Asia-Pacific region is projected to experience the fastest growth. Rapid urbanization, rising disposable incomes, and increasing awareness about health and hygiene are key factors. China and India are the major growth drivers in this region.

Latin America and Middle East & Africa: These regions are also witnessing significant growth due to improving economic conditions and a growing middle class. Bottled water is often seen as a safer alternative to local tap water.

Market Segmentation

The bottled water market can be segmented based on product type, distribution channel, and packaging type.

By Product Type:

Still Water: Dominates the market due to its widespread availability and affordability.

Sparkling Water: Gaining popularity, particularly among younger consumers and those seeking an alternative to sugary carbonated drinks.

Functional Water: Includes added vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients, catering to health-conscious consumers.

By Distribution Channel:

Supermarkets and Hypermarkets: Remain the largest sales channels, offering a wide variety of brands and types.

Convenience Stores: Important for on-the-go purchases.

Online Retail: Rapidly growing, especially post-pandemic, with consumers preferring the convenience of home delivery.

By Packaging Type:

Plastic Bottles: Continue to dominate despite environmental concerns. However, there is a notable shift towards recycled and biodegradable plastics.

Glass Bottles: Seen as premium and eco-friendly, gaining popularity among high-end consumers.

Cans: Emerging as a sustainable alternative, especially for sparkling water.

Competitive Landscape

The bottled water market is highly competitive, with numerous global and regional players. Key players include Nestlé Waters, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Danone, and Keurig Dr Pepper. These companies are focusing on expanding their product portfolios, improving sustainability practices, and enhancing distribution networks to maintain and grow their market share.

Future Outlook

The future of the bottled water market looks promising, with sustained growth expected across all regions. Key trends likely to shape the market include:

Sustainability Initiatives: Companies will continue to innovate in eco-friendly packaging and sustainable production processes to meet consumer demand and regulatory requirements.

Premiumization: The demand for premium and functional bottled water is set to rise, driven by health-conscious and affluent consumers.

Technological Innovations: Advanced filtration technologies and smart packaging solutions (e.g., packaging that tracks hydration levels) will become more prevalent.

Emerging Markets: Significant growth opportunities exist in emerging markets where bottled water consumption is still on the rise.

Mergers and Acquisitions: Industry consolidation through mergers and acquisitions will continue as companies seek to expand their market presence and leverage synergies.

Conclusion

The bottled water market is poised for substantial growth in the coming years, driven by health trends, urbanization, and technological advancements. Market research firms should closely monitor these dynamics to provide actionable insights for businesses operating in or entering the bottled water industry. Sustainability and innovation will be key differentiators for companies aiming to capture a larger share of this lucrative market.

[someonegoood]

I’m not a kid! pt. 1 ✫ jeon jungkook

in which you’ve always had a hopeless crush on your brother’s best friend, Jungkook, who’s made it painfully clear he doesn’t feel the same—until a family vacation forces buried emotions to the surface.

CONTAINS: brother’s best friend troop, angst & fluff ! idolverse, age gap, arguments, jungkook is an ass with reader, making out…

NOTE: i’ll upload part 2 later… someday!! this work is not revised and english is not my first language :)

part 1, part 2.

my masterlist!

The salty breeze of Busan’s coastline always carried the scent of the ocean and the faint cries of seagulls circling above. The city was alive with contrasts: the bustling fish markets that lined the shore and the quiet charm of the winding streets that climbed up the hills.

For Jungkook, Busan had always been home. The neighbourhood where he grew up wasn’t particularly special, but it was familiar—a place where kids spent endless summers playing soccer at the nearby park. That’s where he first met Minho.

Minho, your older brother, was the kind of boy everyone gravitated towards. He was a social butterfly while Jungkook was a shy eight-year-old, reluctant to join in but unable to resist Minho’s easygoing charisma.

“You’re on my team, Jeon,” Minho had declared one afternoon, tossing a worn-out soccer ball to Jungkook without waiting for a response.

From that day on, the two were inseparable. They shared everything: snacks bought from corner stores, secrets whispered during sleepovers, and dreams about what they wanted to be when they grew up.

That’s how you came into the picture.

You were Minho’s little sister, always tagging along, much to Jungkook’s annoyance. You were the sunshine to Minho’s confident energy, with an eternal optimism that made everyone crack a smile. But to him, you were just Minho’s sister—someone to tolerate because you came with the package.

Instead, over the years, your bubbly nature and obvious admiration for Jungkook became harder for him to ignore. You lingered on the sidelines of their soccer matches, offering water bottles and clapping too enthusiastically when he scored a goal. You laughed at his jokes even when they weren’t funny and gave him small, thoughtful gifts on his birthday—things like handmade keychains or little notes tucked into envelopes.

And while Minho teased you endlessly about your obvious crush, Jungkook’s reaction was always more severe. He hated it—not because he didn’t like you, but because he didn’t know how to like you. That made everything infinitely more complicated.

So, he did what he thought was best: he pushed you away.

NINE YEARS AGO…

The evening had the magic that only Busan nights could conjure: warm, salty air and the soft glow of lanterns strung along the bustling street-side restaurant.

Your family and the Jeons had planned this dinner weeks ago, a casual gathering to catch up and enjoy good food before Jungkook left for another training session in Seoul.

“I’m moving to Seoul,” he announced some years ago at your family’s barbecue, his tone casual, as if he hadn’t just shattered your world.

Your heart sank.

“For what?” your brother asked, genuinely curious.

Jungkook’s lips curled into the smallest of smiles. “To be a trainee. BigHit is giving me a shot.”

You froze, the words hitting you harder than you expected. He hadn’t told you. He hadn’t even hinted at it. That night, you cried alone in your room. You felt betrayed: that was your only dream since childhood. Eventually he left Busan to become a trainee, which had made you wonder if you’ll ever have an opportunity in the industry.

The long, wooden table was nestled under a canopy of fairy lights, with plates of grilled fish, spicy tteokbokki, and steaming bowls of jjigae scattered across its surface. You sat beside Jungkook, not by choice but because the seating arrangement had worked out that way. Your mother was chatting animatedly with Mrs. Jeon, and your brother Minho was in a heated debate with Jungkook’s older brother about which soccer team was superior.

You couldn’t focus. Not with Jungkook so close, his presence filling the air between you. He was dressed casually in a black hoodie and jeans, his dark hair slightly messy from the seaside breeze. He was scrolling through his phone, barely acknowledging you, but you could feel the heat radiating from his shoulder whenever it brushed yours.

As the clock neared midnight, the temperature dropped. You rubbed your arms, the thin pink cardigan you’d worn doing little to ward off the chill. You tried to focus on the conversation, but your shivering gave you away.

“Are you cold?” your mom asked from across the table, concern in her eyes.

“I’m fine,” you lied quickly, forcing a smile.

But you weren’t fine, and Jungkook noticed your trembling.

Later, when the two families were chatting, you hesitated for a moment and then glanced at him. “Can I… borrow your hoodie?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

He blinked, clearly caught off guard. “What?”

“Your hoodie,” you repeated, trying to sound casual. “I’m freezing here.”

He stared at you for a second longer than necessary, his lips pressing into a thin line. Then, without a word, he pulled the hoodie over his head, his black t-shirt riding up slightly to reveal a toned stomach. You quickly looked away, heat rushing to your cheeks.

“Here,” he muttered, holding it out to you.

You slipped it on, the fabric warm and smelling faintly of his cologne—a mix of citrus and vanilla. It was far too big on you, the sleeves hanging past your fingertips, but it was comforting nonetheless.

“Thanks,” you said softly, stealing a glance at him.

He shrugged, his expression unreadable. “It’s just a hoodie.”

But as the night went on, you noticed little things. How he subtly shifted closer when the breeze picked up. How his knee brushed against yours under the table, and he didn’t pull away. How, when he thought no one was looking, his gaze lingered on you a second too long.

And maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t just a hoodie after all.

That dinner had stirred something in you. Maybe it was the way Jungkook had handed you his hoodie without hesitation or the bubble gum scent on it. Whatever it was, the feelings swirling inside you.

SEVEN YEARS AGO…

It all started at one of Minho’s infamous parties. The room was crowded, music pumping, and you tried your best to enjoy yourself but the thought of being there just because you were Minho's sister made you cringe. That was until you saw Jungkook laughing in the corner with his friends. He had got back from Seoul a few days ago because his company gave him some free days.

Your chest tightened as you saw him. It was impossible to ignore how Jungkook’s carefree laughter carried across the room, pulling you into a spiral of softness. You retreated to the kitchen, determined to drown your emotions in a cup of punch. That’s where Juwon found you, one of your brother's friends.

"Stop pouting," he teased, ruffling your hair. "What’s wrong, kid?"

You shrink at the thought of being called a "kid". "I’m not a kid," you snapped, pulling away. "And nothing’s wrong."

Juwon didn’t believe you, but before he could pry further, Jungkook walked in. His sharp jawline, dark eyes, and smirk made your heart skip a beat.

"Juwon-ah," Jungkook greeted casually before his gaze flicked to you. "What’s with the long face? Did someone steal your crayons?"

Your jaw tightened, and Juwon chuckled. "She’s sulking about something. Probably got dumped." You glared at him, but Jungkook’s smirk only widened.

"Dumped?" Jungkook tilted his head mockingly. "You’d have to date someone for that to happen, kid."

That was the last straw.

"Stop, I’m not a kid!" you snapped, slamming your cup onto the counter. "I’m not some little girl you can just mock whenever you feel like it, Jungkook!"

The room went silent, tension crackling between you. Jungkook’s smirk faltered, replaced by something unreadable. Juwon shifted uncomfortably, sensing he’d made a mistake by staying.

"Alright..." Juwon muttered. "I’m leaving you two to... whatever this is." When he left, Jungkook leaned against the counter, his eyes narrowing as he studied you.

"You’re really something, aren’t you?" he said, his voice low. "Always so desperate to prove yourself. What are you trying to prove this time? That you’re all grown up?"

You felt the sting of his words but refused to back down.

His jaw tightened, and for a moment, you thought he might actually apologize. Instead, he muttered, "You’re too young to understand."

"Stop using that excuse!" you shot back. "I’m not a kid anymore, and you don’t get to decide how I feel!" The argument hung in the air like a storm ready to break. Jungkook opened his mouth to respond but closed it again, his expression darkened immediately. He went closer to you, his height suddenly making the space between you feel even smaller.

“Are you kidding right now?” he asked, his tone cold. Your noses were almost touching.

Your heart sank and you closed your eyes. “I… I just want to be serious. For once.”

“Serious?” His voice rose, sharp and cutting. “Kid, you'll never be.”

The words hit you like a slap. You blinked rapidly, trying to process the sudden shift in his demeanour.

“I don’t need this,” he continued, his frustration spilling out. “I don’t need you trying to play house or whatever weird crush you’ve got going on. Stop wasting your time on me. You’re just a little kid.”

Your chest tightened the sting of his words bringing tears to your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, your voice trembling. The cup you were holding was long forgotten.

"You’re... impossible, stubborn, and way too good for someone like me." Your breath hitched as his hand brushed against yours.

"Kook..."

He pulled back suddenly, as if afraid of what might happen next. "We can’t," he muttered, more to himself than to you. But before he could walk away, you grabbed his wrist.

"You’re an idiot," you said, tears pricking your eyes. "But if you walk away now, you’re proving me right."

Jungkook froze, his expression conflicted. Then, in one swift motion, he closed the distance between you, his lips crashing onto yours. He began to kiss you, gently biting on your lower lip trying to make you open your mouth. You had never, in your whole life, thought Jungkook would be kissing you.

The kiss was messy, desperate, and everything you’d imagined it would be. One hand on your waist gripping you tightly, rubbing circles with his thumb as his other hand is gently holding the side of your face.

Jungkook began to press kisses along the length of your neck, stopping just above your jawline.

“That feels nice,” you blushed.

He chuckled as he leant in towards you, brushing his hand against your cheek. When he pulled away, his forehead rested against yours, his voice shaky.

“We can’t… You know we can’t.”

Once again, his eyes travelled to your lips but before he could kiss you he turned quickly, rushing back into the living room before you broke down completely.

Or so he thought. That was the first time Jeon Jungkook kissed you.

That night, sitting alone in your room with tear-streaked cheeks and a heart that felt both shattered and strangely free, you made a decision: it was time to focus on yourself.

Becoming an idol had always been your dream. You remembered the exact moment you decided this was what you wanted—a moment of clarity during a school talent show when the cheers of the crowd and the spotlight on you felt like home.

But dreaming of something and pursuing it were two entirely different things.

When you told your family you wanted to audition, they smiled indulgently, thinking it was a phase. Your brother, ever protective, had scoffed, telling you to "be realistic." Jungkook, who was still part of your life, had smirked and asked, "Are you trying to be me? Do you even know how hard life my is?"

And he was right.

Auditioning for agencies was gruelling. There were days when you faced rejection after rejection, each one feeling like a crack in the foundation of your confidence. You’d wake up at 5 a.m. for practice sessions, juggling school, part-time jobs, and long hours of singing and dancing in a cramped studio. Every week, you had to convince yourself to keep going when everything in you screamed to quit.

The hardest part, though, wasn’t the physical exhaustion—it was the emotional toll.

Friendships began to slip away, you missed birthdays, family dinners, and countless moments that made your hometown feel like home. Moving to Seoul for training was bittersweet. You were chasing your dream, but it felt like leaving behind pieces of yourself.

Training wasn’t glamorous, either. There were days when your trainers yelled at you for missing a note or a beat, and you’d spend nights in the dorm crying into your pillow, wondering if you’d ever be good enough. Some trainees around you gave up, packing their bags and leaving without a word. But you stayed because deep down, you knew this was what you were meant to do.

And then, one day, after years of relentless hard work, you got a call from BigHit. You had been selected to debut. You and the four other girls you’d grown close to over endless practice hours were going to be idols.

But with gaining fame came him.

Jungkook had debuted first, of course, with BTS. And every time you crossed paths at the company, at award shows or music programs, he made it clear he wasn’t thrilled about it.

It was a surreal moment as you and your group—Mimi, Sky, Nari, and Yunjin—stepped into the large studio for the BigHit family photoshoot. The air buzzed with energy as staff members rushed to set up lighting and cameras. You were dressed in coordinating white outfits, your makeup and hair perfected to the last detail, but none of it stopped the nervous flutter in your stomach.

The nerves only intensified when you saw BTS already gathered near the set, their laughter and chatter filling the room. It wasn’t the first time you’d seen them; in fact, you’d met the members long before they became global sensations, back when Jungkook was still a trainee.

Taehyung and Jin had always been the most welcoming, making an effort to befriend you during those early, uncertain days of training. You had countless memories of Taehyung showing you silly tricks to lighten your mood and Jin bringing snacks to share after practice sessions. Even now, they greeted you with warm smiles, as if no time had passed at all.

Taehyung waved enthusiastically as you approached. "Look at you! All grown up now."

You laughed, cheeks flushing. "And you haven’t changed a bit, Tae."

But the moment your eyes landed on Jungkook, your breath hitched. He stood near the backdrop, hands tucked in his pockets, looking impossibly good in his fitted suit. His gaze met yours briefly, and he gave a small nod, his expression unreadable.

You had seen him a few weeks ago at a family lunch back in Busan, but every encounter still carried a weight you couldn’t quite shake.

"Alright, everyone!" The photographer clapped his hands, gathering everyone’s attention. "We’re starting with the full group shots. BTS and our newest girl group, together."

Your heart sank. You weren’t sure you could survive being this close to Jungkook, especially under the teasing gaze of your members and his.

As the groups began to arrange themselves, chaos ensued. Jin insisted on being in the middle, Taehyung joked about needing his best angle, and your leader, Mimi, declared she wouldn’t stand anywhere near Namjoon because he was too tall. Amid the commotion, you somehow ended up right next to Jungkook.

You tried not to panic as you felt his body press against your back in the cramped arrangement, and you swore you could feel the heat radiating off him.

"Y/N," Sky whispered, barely containing her laughter. "You’re blushing."

"Shut up," you hissed back, but your cheeks betrayed you, turning even redder.

"Look at them," Jimin teased loudly, his voice drawing everyone’s attention. "Our maknaes! Should we make room for you two?"

"Jimin," you groaned, burying your face in your hands.

Sky and Nari joined in, giggling as they exchanged knowing looks with BTS’s members. Even Yoongi couldn’t resist chiming in. "Let’s make a maknae photo. Everyone else, move aside!"

The teasing only worsened as the photographer tried to get everyone to focus. Jungkook remained quiet through it all, his expression unreadable, but you were hyper-aware of his proximity.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally spoke.

"Enough," Jungkook said, his voice firm but not harsh. The room fell silent, and all eyes turned to him.

He looked down at you, his expression softening. "Let’s just take the photo, okay?"

You nodded, too flustered to say anything. The teasing subsided after that, and the rest of the shoot went smoothly, though you couldn’t stop your heart from racing every time Jungkook shifted beside you.

As the session wrapped up, Taehyung leaned over and whispered in your ear, "He still cares, you know."

You didn’t respond, but the lingering warmth of Jungkook’s presence and the memory of his quiet defence stayed with you long after the photoshoot ended.

The photoshoot felt like a blur in your memory, but one moment lingered vividly—Jungkook standing beside you, his quiet presence both overwhelming and grounding. When he had stepped in to silence the teasing, you’d felt a warmth you couldn’t explain. It wasn’t just his defence but the softness in his eyes, the unspoken understanding that had stayed with you.

Since then, things between you have been… complicated. Jungkook was still distant most of the time, his words often cold, but there were cracks in his armour. Small, fleeting moments where his gaze softened or his words carried a hint of something deeper.

Now, backstage at the award show, the weight of his presence pressed on you like a phantom. You hadn’t exchanged more than a glance, but his impact lingered, just like it always did.

“Okay, so who’s the most nervous?” Nari teased, trying to break the tension as your group sat in a quiet corner.

“Not me,” Sky declared, though her knuckles were white around her water bottle.

“What about our maknae?” Mimi leaned closer to you. “You’ve been off all morning. Thinking about Jungkook again?”

You groaned, rolling your eyes as the others giggled. “I’m not,” you lied, though the heat rising to your cheeks betrayed you.

“You totally are,” Yunjin added, poking your side. “He’s got you all flustered, and he hasn’t even spoken to you yet.”

Before you could respond, Taehyung and Jin appeared, their easy smiles immediately lightening the mood.

“Ladies, looking stunning as always,” Taehyung greeted, his tone playful as ever.

Jin offered his signature kind smile. “Nervous? Don’t be. You’ll do great.”

Their presence was a welcome distraction, and you couldn’t help but laugh when Taehyung dramatically declared, “We’re here to protect you from Jungkook’s glaring.”

But the laughter was short-lived. Across the room, Jungkook leaned against the wall, his sharp gaze fixed on you. When Jin ruffled your hair, earning a bright laugh from you, Jungkook’s jaw tightened.

You swallowed the lump in your throat, forcing yourself to focus on the performance ahead. But just as you steadied yourself, he approached the group.

“Hey,” Jungkook called softly.

Everyone turned, surprised to see him standing next to you, his expression unreadable but his tone lacking its usual sharpness. He grabbed your wrist and pulled you inside your group's dressing room.

“Don’t let me ruin this for you,” he said, his voice so low you could bearly hear him. “You’re… good at this. Just do your thing.”

It wasn’t an apology for everything he had done, but it was something.

Your eyes searched his, looking for any trace of malice, but all you found was a flicker of uncertainty. For the first time in what felt like forever, his walls seemed to lower, if only slightly.

“Thanks,” you said quietly, unsure of what else to say.

As he walked out, Yunjin sidled up beside you, a knowing grin on her face. “What did Jungkook say?”

“Nothing important,” you lied, though your heart told a different story.

“Sure,” she teased.

The words stayed with you as you stepped onto the stage, ready to perform. Maybe Jungkook wasn’t the same boy you’d once known, but beneath the cold exterior, there was still something there. Something worth holding onto.

The night of your group’s single release party was supposed to be a celebration. The venue buzzed with excitement, filled with industry friends, labelmates, and staff. Your group were the stars of the evening, basking in the glow of your latest success. You’d worked tirelessly for months, and now, you deserved to let loose.

You flitted around the party, sharing laughs, clinking glasses, and posing for photos with everyone who came to congratulate you. But a familiar tension brewed in your chest, one you tried to ignore as much as you could.

It didn’t help when Jungkook and his members arrived.

You didn't expect him to come, even though he’d been the first on your personal list. Yet there he was, standing near the bar in a sleek dark outfit, grey jeans and a black oversized t-shirt that fitted him nicely. His gaze found yours almost instantly, but he didn’t approach. Instead, he stayed rooted in place, sipping his drink and chatting casually with Hoseok.

“Babes,” Sky called, tugging you out of your thoughts. “You good?”

“Yeah,” you lied, forcing a smile. “I’m fine.”

But the truth was, Jungkook’s presence threw you off. The history between you—complicated and unresolved—lingered like an unspoken storm. His quiet indifference always hurt more than it should have.

As the night wore on, you avoided him, focusing instead on celebrating with your group. You danced, laughed, and tried to push him out of your mind. But when you stepped outside for a moment of air, the cool breeze hit you, and so did the realization that he’d followed you.

“Couldn’t even last the whole party?” Jungkook’s voice carried a teasing edge, but there was a hesitation in his tone.

You scoffed, not turning to face him. “Why are you here, Jungkook?”

“To congratulate you,” he said, stepping closer. “Big night for you and the girls.”

You turned to find him standing a few feet away, hands tucked into his pockets. “Funny,” you muttered. “Didn’t think you cared.”

“I care,” Jungkook stepped closer, his gaze searching yours. “You’ve been avoiding me since the backstage moment.”

You laughed bitterly. “And you’ve been ignoring me for years. Why do you care now?”

His jaw tightened, and for a moment, neither of you spoke. The tension was palpable, years of unresolved feelings bubbling to the surface.

“I don’t ignore you, kid.” He said finally, his voice quieter.

“Could’ve fooled me,” you shot back, crossing your arms. “Every time I try to talk to you, you shut me out. Every time I think we’re okay, you push me away again.”

His gaze dropped to the ground, and for a moment, he looked almost guilty. “It’s not that simple.”

“Then make it simple,” you pressed, the frustration you’d bottled up for so long finally spilling out. “If you don’t want me in your life, just say so. Stop playing this game, Jungkook. I’m tired.”

His head snapped up, eyes locking onto yours with an intensity that made your breath catch. “Kid... I never wanted you out of my life.”

“Stop calling me 'kid'” you demanded, your voice breaking. “Why do you act like I don’t matter?”

“You matter,” he said, stepping closer. “You matter so much it scares the hell out of me.”

The admission hung in the air, heavy and raw. Your heart pounded as he closed the distance between you, his hand reaching up to brush a strand of hair from your face. You pulled away, tears brimming in your eyes.

“This doesn’t fix anything,” you whispered, your voice shaking.

“I know,” he said, his forehead resting against yours. “But I don’t know how to let you go.”

You stepped back, creating space between you. “You need to figure it out, Jungkook. Because I can’t keep doing this.”

The pain in his eyes mirrored your own, but neither of you said another word. You turned and walked back into the party, leaving him alone in the cold night.

"Let me take you home," he said. His tone was strong, not what you were used to. Still, the ride to your flat was silent, you sitting in the front with Jungkook while faint music played on the radio.

Jungkook’s jaw clenched, his knuckles turning white. “Did you really think you mean nothing to me?” You could only sob again, unable to answer him mainly because you were ashamed. When the car stopped, he unbuckled his seat belt and murmured that he would walk you to your door.

Jungkook rocked on his heels as he watched the moonlight highlight the tear-stained cheeks of his best friend's sister. He thought you looked beautiful that night even though you had been crying for the last half hour, your hair hadn't been brushed, and you were digging through your purse like crazy.

Although he would never admit it.

"I got them!" You laughed, waving your keys in the air before bumping your nose with the keychain. You paused as you pushed the key into the door, turning to look Jungkook in the eye for the first time since the party.

"Thank you," he didn't want to hear it. After all, you were just his best friend’s sister.

"It's no big deal."

After a moment, you dropped your bag to the floor and wrapped your arms around the boy's waist, your head resting on his chest as he quickly moved his hand and rubbed your back. He whispered, his chin resting on the top of your head.

"Goodnight."

It’s been two months since the party. When your mom first suggested a getaway, you thought it was the perfect idea to forget Jungkook’s situation. “You’ve been working too hard,” she had said over the phone, her voice tinged with concern. “A little break will do you good. Sunshine, good food, some family time—it’s exactly what you need.”

You’d been reluctant at first. The idea of slowing down felt foreign when your life had been moving at a breakneck pace for so long. But your mom’s persistence—and your own exhaustion—eventually won you over.

“We’ve already rented a villa by the beach,” she added, excitement in her tone. “Oh, and the Jeons will be joining us. It’ll be like the old days!”

The Jeons. You hadn’t heard that name in a while, but the memory of warm summer evenings spent with Jungkook’s family hit you like a wave. Your stomach sank as you considered the possibility of seeing him again.

“Do you mean the whole Jeon family?” you had asked hesitantly, trying to gauge just how much of a challenge this ‘relaxing’ trip would be.

“Of course!” your mom said brightly. “It’s been so long since we’ve all gotten together.”

You hadn’t been able to come up with a convincing excuse to avoid the trip, so you packed your bags, hoping the villa would be big enough to keep a comfortable distance between you and Jungkook.

But the moment you stepped onto the patio of the villa, you knew that hope was futile. He was there, leaning against the railing, staring out at the ocean like he belonged there. And when he turned and saw you, the atmosphere immediately shifted.

His dark eyes narrowed, his lips pressing into a thin line. You felt his gaze move over you briefly before he turned away, as if dismissing you altogether.

Your brother’s voice broke the tension. “Surprise! Kook managed to clean his schedule.”

You forced a smile, swallowing the lump in your throat. “Great,” you said, your voice flat.

“Hey kid,” he smirked.

“I’m not a kid!” You wanted to scream for help.

[mrsnishimuraaa]

chemistry

PAIRING: riki x fem!reader

SYNOPSIS: who knew a dance collab could create such a sweet bond between two idols?

GENRE: fluff , crack if u squint

this is not proofread (sorry) kind of short and a wee bit rushed but i have other works in the making i promise 😭

being in the idol industry was always going to be stressful why wouldent it be? but your worries almost always flush away when your able to dance. having met so many people that inspired you to get to where you are now enlightened you and encourages you to work hard. having danced ever since a young age and it being something you enjoy makes you love your job that extra bit more, and now you have the opportunity to work with nishimura riki who’s also known for his talent in dancing.

saying your excited is a understatement it’s so much more than that, but at the same time your nervous but you brush it off as you make your way into the HYBE building. the moment you make it upstairs to the practice rooms, your greeted by riki himself bowing and small hello’s fill the room as you both introduce yourselves. he leads you to the practice room where you assume your gonna be spending hours in for the next few weeks preparing for this award show, none the less you really don’t mind. the two of you sit in the middle of the room with a laptop, listening to songs and starting to think about what song your going to be performing. after what felt like a million years of search you had both come to terms with ‘been like this’ by doja cat. as it was already getting late, you decided to meet back in the morning to get a full day of choreographing together.

the following day your met in the same spot, having decided that you both wanted to work independently with each other , meaning there was no staff and no choreographer, just the two of you to figure it out on your own.

hours pass by and you have the basic of it all choreographed now you just have to add all the fine details and peice it all together. “your really a quick learner” riki shoots the complement at you, taking a sip out of his water bottle “ oh thank you, could say the same about you” letting out a breathy laugh. “god it’s so hot in here” you fan yourself as you scope the room for a fan or anything. “i know, hybe’s cooling system is broken at the moment” he laughs at the way you throw yourself onto the floor and sigh at his statement. “is this company not making millions” you sit up and he laughs, taking his hoodie off, leaving him in just a tank top and his baggy jeans.

whilst having your break you both snack and chat, cracking jokes and telling purposeless stories. the two of you have great chemistry not only in dance but in general. and when you get back to practicing the heat really gets to you “can i take my jumper off?” you ask purely just to make sure he’s comfortable with you being half naked “go for it, i would be barely surviving if i were you” he chuckles as he re sets the song back to the start over at the laptop. pulling your jumper over your head and throwing it over to pile with riki’s , leaving you in a provocatively small sports bra and your sweatpants.

riki can’t help but eye your figure down for a moment, admiring your flawless body as you adjust your pants to put them back in their original low rise position. but he quickly shoves those thoughts away when you speak “okay i’m ready” your bubbly giggle makes him smile. the playful side of the both of you starts to peek through as you get more comfortable with each other , but when explaining a small detail of the dance to you that you don’t get ends you up in a position of riki’s hands gently placed on your bare waist as he guides the movement, you watch in the mirror as he corrects your arm movement, yet still keeping his hand on your waist. (safe to say it took a while because you 100% were not focusing on the move at all-)

the ending of the dance finishes with body rolling against eachother, the synchronised movements are so satisfying to look at and especially as his hand snakes to rest on your waist as you move together. the song finishes and he immediately buries his face into your shoulder, hugging your waist as he practically collapses on you. “riki! your heavy” you joke, laughing as you try to scramble away but he only wraps his arms around you tighter, his tall frame encapsulating you.

he spins you to face him and you look up at his face, dark hair sticking to his forehead as his face shines slightly due to the sweat, the heat generated between the two bodies doubles as he brushes your hair behind your ear. “so pretty” he smiles at you and you can feel your cheeks grow redder. he slowly rocks you both side to side, it stifles a giggle from you, causing him to smile at you, god why are you so cute.

you manage to break free from his hold, laying down on the cold floor, he eyes you down whilst smirking “what” you laugh and look at him in question “nothing im just admiring you is that illegal” he jokes, pulling your legs to spin you on the floor, your laugh echoes through the room “help me up” you pretend to lay helpless infront of him, he rolls his eyes and offers his hand to you, as he grips your hand pulling you up, he wraps his arms around you once more. but this time when you go to look up at him he takes the chance and presses a soft kiss against your lips, the suprised yet flustered look on your face as your heart beats like it wants out of your chest. you pull him back into a soft, slow and intimate kiss.

his hands draw circles on your lower back as yours find themselves in his hair, soft and wet kisses being pressed against eachothers mouths as the sound of kissing fills the room. you have to stand on your tippy toes as he’s far to tall compared to you before pulling away to make eye contact with eachother and smile. he presses a kiss to your forehead, the intamacy of the moment immediately recharges your energy, but makes the room a hundred times hotter.

luckily (even after all the distractions) you were able to both go home with an award 2 weeks later, the hard work paying off and fans adoring the interaction of their favourite dancers, begging for more collaborations.

[muzansfangs]

Can you make a Kokushibou x AFAB reader scenario where Reader and Koku are at a bar because she somehow convinced Koku into coming with her

He decides to have a few shots...and that ends up pretty bad with reader practically having to carry him back home..

When they both get home, Kokushibou tackles her onto the floor and smut from there pls😍😍🥰🥰🥰

You can make it Modern AU if that'd make more sense, just do anything you can pls🙇‍♀️

Alcoholic kisses.

Starring: Kokushibo x f!reader; mention to Muzan Kibutsuji, Douma, Akaza, Nakime, Daki, Tamayo;

Warnings: nsfw, modern au, everyone is a human, spoiler for Kokushibo’s name as a human, drinking, slightly reckless behavior, drunk sex (everything is consensual), vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, choking, unprotected sex, dom!kukushibo, sub!reader;

Plot: Working for the Kibutsuji Industry left you little time to enjoy your life. Social events? You hardly had the chance to slack off and attend them. Douma’s birthday party, however, was one of those days you looked up for in trepidation. Still, you needed someone to be your knight for the exclusive event. When your stolid colleague Michikatsu announced he was not going to take part to the grand soirée, you made it your goal to convince him it was worth a shot. He begrudgingly complied to your request, eventually, even going to the extent to become your drinking buddy for the night. It was supposed to be just a cordiality from his behalf and a friendly reminder he could let loose, sometimes, from yours. How did you end up being folded in half by him in your apartment, then?

﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

“I can’t believe he had the guts to invite Mr. Kibutsuji too. He truly is as bold as brass” Akaza, the intern of the third floor, commenced the daily ‘gossip session’ at the work canteen, aggressively uncapping his bottle of water. You had long stopped defending Douma and his grotesque antics. How did he even consider the idea of inviting your perfidious boss to his birthday party? You had to agree with Akaza on that. This had been downright a terrific idea. Your devilish colleague had spoiled a night you had been looking up to for months.

Nakime shrugged “You are short-sighted. It was actually a winning strategy. — she pondered, tilting her head to the side pensively — No one ever invited Mr. Kibutsuji to a party. Guess who is going to win the promotion now”.

You nodded your head, disinterestedly nibbling at the salad in front of you, as you listened to your friends commenting the last stunt of your eccentric coworker. You barely had any chances to hang out and slack off. Mr. Kibutsuji behaved like a tyrant at work. His appalling talent to showcase cordiality, when navigating through crowds of important people to make deals, was something not reserved to any of you. Occasionally, he asked his female subordinates to be his sidekick during those special nights in luxurious hotels, or at the Opera. You had had the opportunity to accompany him to a gala, too. If you had not witnessed with your own eyes to the saccharine smiles and gentlemanly ways to win his clients’ hearts, you would have said he was not the same man who slammed doors and made you overexert yourselves at the Industry. You had to admit he possessed a special ability to conceal his brusque charcater for the sake of his Company. However, now you were worried that Douma’s birthday party was going to be a complete disaster. No one was going to relax, when Mr. Kibutsuji was around. Why? Because you were not potential clients. You were not politicians. You were his subordinates. He was not going to act differently just because you were at a bar.

“And what do you think about the ‘you can bring a date’ part? — you asked then, reaching your hand into your purse to grab the invitation — I mean, do you guys even have a date?” you inquired, clearing your throat nervously as you slided the lilac card, decorated with flashy baroque doodles, over the table and tapped on black key words in italics with your index.

Akaza snorted, shaking his head vigorously “No way I’m bringing my girl with me. That sleaze has already tried to flirt with her. I can’t risk making him choke on his teeth in front of Mr. Kibutsuji” he replied, grimacing to emphasize his categorical refusal to comply to the birthday boy’s request.

You smiled faintly at that, eyes darting on the woman at your right, prompting her to express her opinion on the matter. Nakime never mentioned having a partner. However, you were curious to find out more about her and if, given the fact you were single, you had to throw the card into the wastepaper basket and forgo the opportunity to slack off for a night once and for all.

“I do. — she admitted — I don’t think we’re a couple yet, but I’m seeing someone” she vaguely said, your jaw dropping in stupor and genuine curiosity that gnawed at your stomach in the unbridled desire to pry more informations about her relationship.

You bumped her arm, grinning “Huh? When were you going to tell me about it? And, well, are you inviting him?”.

“She has already been invited” she cooed, your eyes flitting to a perplexed Akaza who furrowed his brows in bewilderment to the unexpected disclosure of your friend’s love interest. You had not seen it coming.

“Nakime! Who’s she?” you quipped, shifting on your seat to totally occupy her view and sending her the clear message she had to provide you an answer, if she keened to go back to her duties. Her date was decidedly a colloegue and tons of familiar faces began to pop in your restless mind, accurately discerning which women could could keep up with your secretive friend. Not many, if you had to summarize your research for a possible candidate to fit the scenario.

“Tamayo” the brunette evenly cooed, tapping at her mouth with a tissue before unhurriedly grabbing her tray and standing from her seat, as if she had not just dropped a bomb at her shellshocked commensals.

You did not bother replying. You watched her leave silently, struggling to process the fact Nakime was dating one of Muzan’s closest assistants. Tamayo was a reserved woman, who had recently recovered form a difficult divorce. Due to your position, you rarely interacted with her but, when you did, you left her office in a joyful mood. She smiled a lot, she did not bark orders around like your hellish superior, she offered you candies, or tea, whilst you discussed the matter at hand. Nakime, on the other hand, was not a bad person. She was intuitive and taciturn. Yet, she was sneaky. You had lost the count of how many times she had her own subordinates fired over insignificant mishaps. Looking at them as a duo was going to be hard to process. Still, if they were happy, you were no one to oppose that.

“Oi, are you still with me? — Akaza snapped you out of your stream of consciousness — Did you hear what I’ve said?” he asked quizzically you, leaning back on the chair, arms folded against his chest as he squarely looked at you.

You gaped, mortified you had zoned out in the middle of the conversation “Actually, I didn’t…” you trailed off, refocusing on him, flashing an awkward smile at your patient. He was a gentleman with women, you had to admit it.

Akaza sighed, lolling his head back “I said you haven’t told us if you got yourself a date. Who is the lucky guy, then?” he interrogated you casually.

Well, you did not have a date yet. Now, knowing your closest friends had a date, you felt miserable. You were not desperate or anything, but you actually felt kind of discouraged to attend the party, if it meant being surrounded by a bunch of couples slow-dancing at the bar. You enjoyed playing the role of the cool aunt, the independent woman, a wild spirit drinking at the bar and flirting with bartender to kill the time, but it would have been nice to spend the night with someone you got along with for once.

“Ugh, well, there is no lucky guy…” you grumbled, frantically collecting your stuff, eyes rapidly flitting to your wristwatch to check the hour. Your lunch break was over. It was time to go back to your office and weep on piles of documents until your boss dismissed you for the day.

Your friend stood up as well, hands shoved in the pockets of his slacks, eyebrow arched inquisitively “The Hell are you waiting for then? Go ahead and ask someone out”.

“You make it sound so easy”.

“Because it’s easy! You don’t have to pick someone you are dying after and beg them to accompany you, you know? — Akaza instructed you, as you two stepped back into the busy hallway, feet leading you to the elevators automatically — Ask a friend who doesn’t have a date. Like, ‘hey, buddy, I heard you got no date for the party. Wanna go together?’. I mean, I’d find it hot if a girl took the initiative and asked me out” he winked at you, before patting on your shoulder encouragingly and jogging towards the staircase, as he always did. He really did not like elevators, did he?

You smiled softly, gaze following him until he disappeared from your sight and you could finally enter the cubicle leading you up to the pit of vipers residing at the fifth floor. You were glad Akaza had given you something to mull over for a while. The hours you were going to spend glued to your desk were going to be a tad more bearable. This and your handsome co-worker you undeniably had a crush on. Glancing at him, from time to time, fingers furiously tapping on the keys of the worn-out keyboard of your laptop, was calming. He was a placebo, a professional, handsome man who made life easier by helping you out when he realized you were on the verge of a breakdown. Michikatsu Tsugikuni, the same man who always made sure to come back with a spare coffee for you, when he took a small break for himself.

You were lost in your thoughts again, daydreaming about that tall adonis, hurriedly marching to your work position, and too distracted to realize you were on a collision course with someone. Inevitably, you bumped against a firm chest. Your bag and folders tumbling down and drawing judgemental gazes from your colleagues engrossed in their works signaled your downfall . You apologetically flicked your gaze up, ready to profusely excuse yourself, when your eyes met a pair of ruby red ones. Oh, the world stopped revolving for a second. How ironic was it? You spoke of the actual devil and he manifested himself before you in all his glory.

“Are you alright?” he asked you, chivalrously helping you to pick your stuff back up.

Your mouth felt like chalk, but you forced yourself to spit out a response “Yeah, I’m fine! Don’t worry about me… If anything, it’s my fault” you said defeatedly, fingers curling around the heavy folder he handed you so tightly your knuckles turned white. You were about to explode. Probably, he could tell you were not quite close to be fine. Your body language spoke volumes.

Michikatsu inspected your face, hooded eyes masterly catching the signs of your discomfort “I don’t think you are doing good. If you need to go home, I can tell Mr. Kibutsuji you were sick” he offered, as if the mere mention of that monster’s name did not cause people to turn pale. Michkatsu had no problem in speaking to your boss. He was his right hand man, after all. They were close, indeed. You knew that Mr. Kibutsuji would have believed anything he said without questioning the authenticity of the informations reported.

You faintly smiled and shook your head “I promise, I’m fine. I’m probably just a little stressed out. The last thing I needed to worry about was Douma’s party. I think I will have to turn down the invitation anyway, so… Yeah, I’m ready to immerge myself in emailing the interns the new projects” you rambled, shrugging as you tried to walk off and lock yourself in your small angle of paradise for the rest of the day.

You were surprised to hear Michikatsu calling your name, though, causing you to halt and reluctantly turn your head to the side to look back at him “Is there a specific reason why you are not going? I thought you were looking out for it”.

You stiffened, heart thrumming against your ribcage violently, his sudden interest in you both flattering and eating you alive. Why pretending, though? He was nothing but a polite man. He probably even had a date to escort to the fancy rooftop, a girl to spoil and undress later in the privacy of his bedroom, after lingering touch and scorching kisses stolen in the car.

“I was, right. Unfortunately, I don’t have a date” you confessed, ready to receive yet another suggestion to go ahead and ask someone to be your safe haven for the night. Too bad you were wrong, because the next words coming out of his mouth made you see the light at the end of the tunnel and you had to bite the insides of your cheeks not to squeal on the spot.

Michikatsu fixed his necktie heedlessly, probably just out of habit “By sheer coincidence, I don’t have a date as well. I was on my way to tell Douma I won’t join him tomorrow” he declared, your eyes gradually widening as Akaza’s words echoed in your mind like a mantra. You could ask him to come with you. You could. You had to have the guts to do that.

What was the worst thing that could have happened? That you were going to embarrass yourself in front of the entire team of coworkers? The Hell with that. It was time to spread your wings and show your teeth.

You cleared your throat, holding the folder to your chest protectively “Oh, well, in that case… How about we go together? We both don’t have a date and it’d be depressing working overtime to digest the fact we didn’t attend the party everyone went to” you blurted out way too quickly than you liked. The damage was done, though. You had thrown your decency out of the window, baring your tender neck to a potentially categorical refusal.

Michikatsu stared at you in silence for a few seconds, brows furrowing, as he contrived to make up his mind and provide you a response. Burgundy hues shimmering under the artificial, bleached lights of the spotlights lined up for the entire length of the corridor, he looked back at you in determination “Would you be satisfied with such an arrangement?”.

“Of course! I think it’d be beneficial for the both of us. I want to attend the party and you decidedly need a small break from all of this” you pointed out, your confidence exponentially boosted by the time he sighed and nodded his head in a silent agreement. He was an irreprensive hard-worker. Mr. Kibutsuji acknowledged his dedication to the Industry and, occasionally, he made sure to either surprising him with a wage rise, or let him escort him to a couple of the fancy dinners he was frequently invited at.

However, he never granted him a vacation and anybody could tell Michikatsu was beyond exhausted.

“Then, I guess you got yourself a deal. Would you like me to pick you up?” he asked, ignoring the way your stupid heart began to run a marathon in your chest. If only he knew how ecstatic you were to know him better. With a firm nod of your head, you accepted his offer and, on your way to your office, you mentally thanked Akaza for his brazen suggestion to break the mould and get what you wanted.

The following day you were way too excited to focus on the dreadful morning reunion with your boss. You did not listen to a single word coming out of his mouth and, to be honest, you were pretty sure he had noticed the way you were doodling on the papers instead of taking notes. To save the day, though, was Daki who walked in the room unannounced to show Mr. Kibutsuji some alarming news. You watched him flee in a hurry, hands gesturing for you all to leave and factually giving up on his chance to let his snippy comments ruin your mood. For once, you were glad his competitor was determined to bring him war.

Soon enough, you were back home, dolled up and waiting in the living room for your date to show up at your door. You were not surprised you had taken extra care of yourself, meticulously styling your hair with a silver hairpin, following a professional tutorial for the make up and even wearing that daring red dress you had never had the occasion to wear since you had bought it three months ago. You had a plunging neckline, the fabric hugging your curves and exalting the shape of your body in a extremely eye-catching way that could draw a lot of attention. Still, you could blame it on the dress code required by the host. Douma just had an inclination for contemplating beautiful women and having them fawning on him like lapdogs.

The unmistakable buzz of your phone indicated your date had arrived. Taking a deep breath, you left your flat in a frenzy. Waiting for you in a shiny black car, Michikatsu was impeccable. Upon spotting you approaching his car, he unlocked the car door and swiftly got out of the vehicle to open it for you.

“You look ravishing” he said, subtly and respectfully checking you out. You felt his gaze, intense, yet not too intrusive, on your body. Surely, he was not used to see you in anything else besides pastel shirts and tight trousers. He seemed genuinely amazed by the effort you had made to he his date.

You courteously bowed your head, a small smile curling your red-painted lips “Thanks! You will probably have to thank Douma for that, though. — you said, before entering the car — By the way, you are sticking up to the stereotypical gentleman date any girl dreams about” you joked, spotting the pale imitation of a smile creep on his lips.

“We better be on our way”.

The rooftop of The Blue Spider Lily Grand Hotel radiated opulence. You did not expect less from the scion of a millionaire family financing Mr. Kibutsuji’s Industry. You were also not disappointed by the extravagant suit Douma was ostentatiously showing off. The man at your right grimaced imperceptibly at the red texture embellished with golden arabesques. Proceeding, in an angle of the rooftop, wearing a lowcut crimson red dress, you recognized Nakime. Next to her, a timid Tamayo sipped on cocktail. She was wearing an elegant white tailleur, styled with some red details to blend in the theme chosen by the eclectic host. Now, you had to admit the pair looked good together. They were balanced, not the types to make people talk about them.

A warm hand resting delicately on the small of your back got your attention “Would you like something to drink?” Michikatsu asked you, glad to lead you off to the counter and order something for you.

“Yes, please. I don’t think I could stand the sight of that peacock any longer without some alcohol in my bloodstream” you jested, sitting on the leather stool as he slided on the one next to yours. A moment of needed intimacy to start the night was needed. The music was still low, allowing people to interact without having to scream at the top of their lungs. You could go with the flow until it started to look like a circus.

Two flûtes of champagne were the first drink you two shared. You gazed up at Michikatsu, squinting inquisitively over the rim of the glass to observe your date inspecting the yellowish alcoholic substance in the glass with repugnance. You almost found it amusing, albeit a little out of place.

“Is the champagne’s quality low?” you asked, quirking your eyebrow up.

“Not quite. — Michikatsu cleared your doubts — I don’t particularly like drinking” he admitted, eyes meeting your fleetingly. He seemed tensed, for the first time ever since you had arrived. He was hiding something.

You took a sip of your drink “Well, it’s a party. Maybe you should try to open your horizons a little more. It’s Friday, which means no work tomorrow…” you hazardously played the part of the she-devil alluring him in the depths of perdition. You were tired of pretending you did not wish for you two to grow closer. A new drinking buddy, a new close friend could not harm you in any way. Even if you were irrevocably falling for him a little more with every passing minute.

Michikatsu hummed, eyeing you torn between not letting this rare opportunity to cast his inhibitions away go wasted and remaining the composed version of himself everybody knew.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. — Michikatsu replied, leaving the real reasons behind his reluctance undiscovered — I need to drive you back home safely. What man would I be, if I called you a uber?” he pondered, settling the flûte back on the polished counter in front of him.

Your cheeks heated up at that declaration, eyes glittering in admitation and driven by the romantic scanarios you were illuding yourself to experience in a few hours. There you were, the old back delusional girl who loved so easily. However, you were not having it. Calling out the bartender, you whispered an order in his ear and looked back at your drinking buddy for the night.

“And what a man would you be, if you did not share some drinks with your date? A woman’s whim, you know? I’m pretty sure you don’t want to let me down like that” you confidently countered back, winking at him as the young man behind the counter slided six shots of whiskey in front of you two.

You saw the jaw of the man besides you clench, eyes darting away from the glasses to your grinning face. You were impressively stubborn. And he liked it. You were stunning that night like every other day at work. You were strong-willed, cunning, enthralling. Mentally cursing himself, he therefore grabbed a shot and, raising a toast, he downed it. Your proud smile burned his heart more than the alcohol did to his throat.

You were not expecting you two you stumble back into your home, Mr. Kibutsuji shooting vitriolic glares at you two on his way out of your flat. You two were in no conditions to drive back home. Swaying around, you had barely made it to your car until Mr. Kibutsuji spotted you two attempting to open Michikatsu’s car. There was no way he could lose his right hand man and even you over car accident. He kindly drove you two to your house with his own car, ordering his chauffeur to take the lead of Michikatsu’s Audi.

“Oh, he is never going to forgive us. Damn it, did you see his face?” Michikatsu’s drawled out, tossing his jacket over your sofa, barely standing on his feet. He was disheveled, his necktie loosened around his neck, gilet unbuttoned, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his elbows. He was hot. Way too hot to handle in your condition.

You chortled, unable to take the whole ordeal seriously “What’s the worst he can do? Fire us? We’ll good for him! I wanna see him go bald from promoting Douma and confiding on his lame skills!” you quipped, tossing your heels off and walking up to him.

Michikatsu snorted, before chuckling under his breath. He could not contain himself any longer. The room seemed to spin around him, the sensation reminding him of when he was a kid and he used to ride on a local carousel with his brother… Until his eyes landed on you. The center of his gravity, his hands gripping your forearms, firmly but not enough to harm you. He had to stabilize himself, but you were unsteady yourself. Before you knew it, you were flattened against the floor with your hot coworker hovering over you.

His hot breath fanned your lips, parted in the pleasant surprise to feel his muscular body crashing yours.

“I’m so fucking sorry” he murmured, large hands on each side of your head making it impossible for your eyes to stray away from him.

“For what?” you meekly asked, chest heaving, your breathing rhythm almost bordering the line of hyperventilation.

“For this… — he started, closing his eyes, before brushing his nose against yours — But not for this” he continued, lips molding against yours in a slow, mind-blowing kiss sending your mind blank. Was it real? Were you so drunk you were having episodes? No. It was real, it was happening and your arms looping around his board shoulders were the unconfutable proof you were welcoming this sudden kiss like a starving man accpeting a burger from a stranger.

His tongue swept over your bottom lip, delving into your mouth to coax you to whimper out against his lips. The temperature was raising exponentially, his hands were gliding down the curves of your body, shamelessly groping you through the fabric of your dress.

“Bloody Hell, what am I doing…” he muttered, still not stopping, when his nimble fingers began to fumble with the elastic band of your underwear beneath the skirt of your dress. You flinched when you heard some seams ripping, but your own heart was bursting in your chest that very moment.

The pads of his fingers, cool against your boiling skin, sent frissons over the skin of your thighs. You were both out of your minds, but still somehow able to get a grip of yourselves. The only issue was that nor you, neither him felt like stopping. The flame fueled by your hunger was growing strong, like a wild incendio. You exhaled through your nostrils, biting on your lower lip, intently watching Michikatsu discard your torn underwear away, eagerly parting your thighs and running his fingers over your already clammy slit in fascination. You wondered how he even managed to keep a mostly serious expression while clearly tipsy and involved in such unprofessional activities.

“You rambled about wanting to act like a man back at the party. I’ll be damned, if that’s not what you’re doing” you chimed, mouth parting and taking the shape of a ‘o’, when he plunged his fingers into your sappy cunt.

He flicked his gaze up to lock eyes with you, dipping his mouth down to plant another kiss to your lips, effectively smudging your lipstick “I don’t have condoms, though… If you wish to stop at this, it’s understandable” he warned you, curling his fingers into you to stimulate your spongy sweet spot.

You panted, spine arching, head shaking to express your wanton “I want it. Don’t deprive me of this” you pleaded him, before he deliberately splayed his hand over your cleavage and let it slide up to your neck. You gasped, breath hitching in your throat, when he wrapped his fingers over your windpipe. Your head felt light, the pleasure engulfing your lower abdomen building up, amplified by the breath-play, until you melted under his touch.

You were barely able to collect yourself, clumsily remove your dress, that you had not registered him undressing himself. The mouth watering sight of his sculpted abdomen, of his pectorals and the impressive length slapping against his navel caused you to feel so petite compared to him.

Michikatsu did not waste any more time. He grabbed your ankles, pushing your legs against your chest, before lining up to your entrance. You were trembling in anticipation, the bulbuous head of his cock teasing your weeping hole.

“Will you be a woman for me? Can you take me in? Can I fuck you raw on this carpet, Y/N?” he rasped out, making sure to push and pull back a few times before finally sheathing himself deep into you.

“Yes! Yes, fuck—” you choked out, the stretch painful at first. Your walls spasmed around his length, sucking him in as they adjusted to the intrusion. Folded in half, you submitted to your stolid coworker, to the kind man who checked on you during rough days, to the very man who was now grunting deeply above you as he thrusted into you aggressively.

Your toes curled, high-pitched moans falling from your lips, as you felt him fill you up repeatedly. The sound of his balls slapping against your ass was embarrassing. The way juices were oozing out of you made you feel so dirty. And the way he spurted his warm seed over your belly was the sign he still acted responsible even when he was out of his mind.

“I ought you another date” he groaned out, collapsing besides you. Yeah, he definitely had to treat you a dinner now.

AUTHOR NOTE.

Hi there! I am slowly trying to take care of all the requests I had got and that are patiently waiting in my inbox to be done! I think this one had been marinating in my drafts for over a year and it was a shame to leave it half-finished. I have missed writing for Demon Slayer, sigh. Also, the exam season has officially begun! Bear with me!

Likes, comments and re-posts are greatly appreciated.

Until next,

Luce

[writtenbyjeanofarc]

‎ ‎‎Honor Among Thieves

Captain Hook x Fem! Reader | 2.5k

⎯⎯ summary ‣‣‣ “On an ordinary summer day my friends and I are having fun at the beach when suddenly Captain Hook and his pirates come seemingly out of nowhere and attack, causing chaos. I try to escape, even so much as to reach the car my friends and I used to get there, but I get caught and by one of the pirates and taken.”

⎯⎯ content warnings & tags ‣‣‣ dubcon, penis in vagina sex, creampie, fem! oral receiving, dom! Hook, body worship, fingering, breast kink, praise, dirty talk and pet names.

⎯⎯ requested by ‣‣‣ the wonderful @disney-girl67.

⎯⎯ banner credits ‣‣‣ the lovely @cafekitsune.

The intensifying heat of the sun today was rather unbearable for my liking—I had to make sure the amount of sunscreen I applied was just right for my skin in regards to basking in the summer heat. Thankfully, my best friends had some spare bottles of lotion perfect for our trip to the beach. We’ve packed just the best meals suitable for our picnic date; it’s been a while since we’ve taken a week off of an exhausting day of work, and an opportunity arose when we were given a discount to a beach getaway!

I drew a satisfying breath, taking in the fresh breeze that blew from the east side of the coast. Apart from the overwhelming heat of the sun, it was quite refreshing to take a time off of the monotonous city where industries and businesses collided in chaos. The palm trees danced lively by the breathtaking view, the birds chirping happily as we booked a stay at the chalet nearby.

“So, Ashley, what do you think of this spot so far?” I asked.

“It’s perfect,” my friend smiled. “Summer is a godsend, especially these days. The weather may be humid, but other than that their services are properly managed. I can’t stand always having to work under our boss lately. So I’ve decided to take a leave!”

“May I add that this particular sea stands out because there’s lots of treasure underneath.” my other friend commended. “Rumors say there used to be pirates here, but I believe they’re long dead after getting shipwrecked.”

“Pirates?” I asked, sitting upright, fixing my bikini. “Wait, are you saying, this place isn’t safe for visitors like us?”

“Relax, friend,” my other friend spoke, laughing. “It’s just a scary story spread all across this village. I’m sure that with all the legal authorities becoming more aware of the troubles they cause, they're probably thrown into prison by now.”

“Good, good.” I replied. 

“Anyways, I think now is the right time to go in for a dive! The deeper, the better!” 

“Wait, guys, but-“ 

My friends ignored me this time. They left me without any explanation to stay, leaving me to rot in my own thoughts of whether there were potential thieves roaming around the place. But I’ve decided I won’t back down. I left the patio, without any other reason to make excuses for why I refused to go in for a swim. Out of guilt, I just kept on going, leaving all my worries behind.

My friends and I ran towards the seaside, happy and carefree of the world’s stressors. We even threw some handfuls of sand at each other and splashed some seawater the moment we went for a swim. 

I found it difficult to keep up with my friends this time, the way they swam around the beach and took pictures of the glittering waters. But I dared not to be a killjoy as of this moment, I complied with their requests to have fun regardless.

As we swam recklessly by the sea, I noticed the sight of a large, wooden ship approaching from a distance, seemingly approaching towards us. I felt all along that my gut instinct was right. I tried my best to not falter at first, but knowing they could kill if we didn’t surrender our belongings was something I was truly terrified of. 

“Ashley! Lottie! Mary!” I called out. “There’s a ship approaching! Let’s gather around and leave!”

“[Name], you’re being incredibly ridiculous.” my friend Mary laughed. “Those can’t be pirates! It looks like a normal ship!”

“But-“

My friends ignored my pleas, so I had no other choice but to leave the seaside. I was deathly worried about their wellbeing since pirates aren’t to be trusted regardless, but I started to give less fucks about others and focus on my own needs. This is it. I left my friends and made my way back to the beach house, running half naked and sweaty from the intense blanket of heat that filled the air.

“Take a closer look, Murphy,” scoffed a pirate from the ship as he used his binoculars to zoom into the sight of my friends swimming. “We eating good tonight, aren’t we?”

“Damn right. Nothing more than a bunch of bombshells worth taking in for the night.” Black Murphy laughed loudly. “James will surely be having fun by the end of the day. From what I understand, he’s already by the shore holding some random bitch hostage.”

“Right! Hah. The Captain should consider himself lucky.”

And there I was. I finally arrived at the beach house, surprised to find the door to our room locked. Pleas of someone could be heard from inside, and I didn’t know what to do other than bang the door from outside. The voice was muffled, which made me realize that whoever the captor was turned out to be someone not to be messed with.

My heart raced upon this discovery. Who could have possibly thought there was someone else inside the compound? I tried using all of my strength to open the door. I tried, and tried, and tried…..

And with all my brute force, I managed to successfully pry the door open. I was then met with an unexpected scene.

There in the corner of the room stood a tall, dark figure dressed in red, while his other hand was replaced with some sort of hook. He apparently was holding some sort of knife with his other hand, and it turned out that the identity of who he just killed was the manager of the beach house me and my friends stayed in. The figure took a step forward, revealing himself to be none other than a pirate captain.

I tried to leave, but another one of his pirates grabbed me by the wrists from behind, pushing me to the ground and swiftly locking the door from outside. It was unknown as to how this happened, but I knew from the bottom of my heart that this was coming. 

“Looking as gorgeous as you always were, lovely stranger.” the pirate spoke softly. “Say, are you perhaps here for a trip?”

“Um, yes?” I hesitantly replied. “Who could you be?”

“That doesn’t matter, my dear. In fact, your name doesn’t matter to me either. Say, what are your thoughts about a relationship of give and take? Worry not, for I won’t harm you, as long as you do exactly as I say.”

“Huh????”

“I came here to claim five million bucks from this entire resort. Provided you and your friends do exactly as we please, your lives shall be spared.”

“What???!!!” I protested, attempting to get up and reach for the door behind me. “No, I must have known…!! You-you must be the captain!!! Please, captain, spare our lives!!!”

“Why, if it isn’t the right answer, hm? My name is Captain Hook, I also go by the name James. Though this info won’t matter by the time I’m done with you.”

I froze, unsure of how to react in the face of such a threat. I attempted to stand up, only for the captain to kneel on one knee and unfasten my bikini straps. 

“Please…..” I begged. “Let me go! I’ll do anything!!!”

“Is that so? Why then, don’t resist.” Captain Hook smirked.

I frankly hated how this was turning me on.

He moved his hook down my breasts, groping it with the thin piece of metal while his other hand caressed my cheek. 

“Such a beautiful, sensitive little thing.” he cooed. “Gods must have sent you to serve as my personal pet.”

Tears formed in my eyes as I disobeyed his request and resisted the captain’s touch, only for him to pull me inward. He kneaded on my breasts gently and leaned closer to suckle on my nipples, which was already hard at the sight of his tall stature. He swirled his tongue around it, moaning gently as the sounds of sloppy slurps filled the room.

I hated how good it made me feel. I shivered at the thought of a random stranger’s face up my breasts, but there was no denying that he was extremely good at it. A part of my mind wandered on the scenario where he claimed a number of bodies. From the charm of his facial hair surrounding his features, to his enigmatic smile, it left me with chills—and they weren’t exactly that of the bad type.

He didn’t stop, oh, he didn’t. The more I held back a moan, he just kept sucking in long slurps that left me soaking in my arousal. My breath hitched at the sight of his unshaved face lapping and salivating against my breasts, carefully caressing it as he pulled away.

“Mmmmmhhhh~”, I groaned in frustration.

“What a cute, desperate pet.” Captain Hook whispered. “If all it takes for you to grow wet is to have someone suckle on those stress balls, then you must be a really needy whore after all.”

“Please……I need it….I need it so bad!!!” I protested, desperate for release.

“Eager for my cock?” Captain Hook asked. “Well, you might want to exercise a little patience, my dear. Good things don’t always come in easy packages. Now, let’s take this off from you, shall we?”

With that, he tore my panties off with a clenched fist, leaving my naked form to sulk in hopelessness and frustration. He wasn’t the type to give warnings, for he was quite straight up with what he wanted to do. He was all powerful. That only gave way for me to feel worthless and pathetically needy for his touch.

“Mmmmmm……already this wet? Hah. How pathetic.”

He didn’t give warnings, indeed. I knew he had it in him when he dove into my cunt, kissing the nub gently as he rubbed his finger against it. I felt as if I was about to squirt too early, but I held it in. Then comes the hard part. The fingers. He stuck two fingers in me, forcing his way in without any form of lube or prep. With the burning pain slowly melting away into pleasure, I let him swirl his tongue around my clit without any form of inhibitions after all. The captain yapped and lapped at my vaginal fluids, overflowing to an extent of it streaming down my cunt. It felt warm, pleasurable, and on top of all that, I felt like I was about to catch feelings for the man.

His digits began curling upward, making me wince at the length of his fingers, yet still aroused. The slight curve didn’t bother me in the slightest. It felt so good, and I for once didn’t mind squirting and cumming all over his face for all I cared.

“Ahhhh, I’m close,” I moaned. Captain Hook drove his mouth deeper, giving my clit a rough suck before pulling away. Leaving my entrance gaping with fluid, he chuckled smugly.

“You taste divine, pet. Hmmm….I think you’re ready to take all of me now. Just relax.”

Captain Hook let go of my figure, turning to his pants as he pulled the upper section down. I wasn’t expecting the sight of at least ten inches of trouser action, and I grew hopelessly frustrated by the fact that it still wasn’t shoved deep in me. 

“Now, now, dear.” Captain Hook spoke. “This won’t be lasting quite long. After all, you’re already this close.”

Spreading my legs wider, the captain rubbed my clit with his cock, enabling me to make use of my energy in humping right back. I held the throbbing length, and felt its texture before he slipped it right inside me with force.

”AGH!!” I squealed.

“What, don’t you like it?” Captain Hook asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Keep going….It burns, but, keep….going!”

“I see. Well, then who am I to deny you what you want.” 

With one thrust, he drove his cock inside me and started to slowly rock in and out of my cunt. It felt euphoric, really, the way he handled me roughly and recklessly without any filter. To compensate for his efforts of ramming through my walls, I fucked him back.

My breasts wobbled as my body grew used to the pleasure judging from the growing speed of his thrusts. He was brutal, violent, just like any other pirate would be when faced with an incoming threat. Gripping my cheeks tightly, Captain Hook used his superior strength to lift my limbs upward to gain a better access towards my core. He kept hitting, and hitting the spot, so much that I could feel myself cumming in less than five whole minutes. I arched and mewled against his grasp, the sounds of skin slapping against skin becoming more apparent. I began to develop no care for whoever overheard our little affair going on. All I needed was to reach completion at the hands of this charming stranger.

Captain Hook was also growing desperate over time. His moans grew more animalistic, muttering a ‘yes’ repeatedly as he was about to lose composure. When I felt a tinge of pleasure spark from within my heated core, that was when he chose to pick up speed. He then leaned closer to feel my neck with his face, leaving hickeys all over as he continued to bite down the layers of thin skin. I yelped in pain for a moment as the sensation slowly turned into pleasure the way he bit on the right spots. 

If only he could see my face right then and there, I would have been humiliated from that point onward. Then he did.

“Ah, ah, ah, no looking elsewhere.” Captain Hook muttered under his breath, panting hard. “Eyes on me. Show me how much you crave this feeling.”

“I—Mmmmmmhhhh….!!! Please, I’m….I’m gonna…..”

“Hold it off, little one. Have your master do all the work.”

With all his strength, Captain Hook grabbed my hips tightly, the hilt of his cock ramming in and out of my heat. The slaps against my ass were wet and loud, our moans matching each other like a symphony. 

“Agh!!!! Captain!!!” I trembled in excitement. “Ahhhhh~”

I wailed his name (James) as Captain Hook thrusted so deep into my core. My walls fluttered and throbbed hard that it was almost a crime for him to pull out of me. I shook against him, crying like a bitch in heat as I felt like the whole world had just shattered before my eyes. Captain Hook spurted his seed balls deep in me, his cum surrounding itself all over my dripping cunt. I let out a deep sigh, realizing the whole mess I’ve been engaging with in the company of a complete stranger.

“Hah……Hahhhhh……..”

Captain Hook didn’t even budge, his cock already retreating from my walls in a slow, yet steady fashion. 

“Such a filthy, disgusting little mutt.” he said, putting his cock back in and leaving me to sulk by the edge of the doorstep. “Get up.”

Captain Hook grabbed my cute, pink bikini, tossing it before my face.

“What is your name?”

“[Name].”

“You did well, [Name],” he said. “Judging by the looks of it, you owe me several nights of complete entertainment. Come outside when you’re ready. I’m more than willing to bring you into my ship.”

[captainsarahscratches]

Can we get some head cannons with Kenny omega x younger gf reader. Like reader is 27 and AEW womens champ. Something about protective Kenny

Kenny constantly hears jokes about him babysitting his girl, but he doesn't care because he's happier than he's ever been

You constantly hear comments from the other girls that you only have the title because you fuck the EVP.

Kenny hates these comments and wants to put them in their place but you calm him down and tell him it doesn't bother you. It does, but you tell him otherwise, because deep down you know he didn't have anything to do with your title.

They make jokes about him robbing the cradle, and you having daddy issues. But the two of you just laugh along, because you both know it's nothing of the nature. You two just click, and in your industry, with your scheduleds, it's rare when two people understand each other and blend the way you and Kenny do.

Kenny trains with you and it brings a smile to your face because to you it's like getting paid to be with your favorite person.

He loves it because he gets to be close to you and share something that he loves with the one he loves, even though he hasn't told you yet.

He tends to get a little more handsy when he's training with youm but you never seem to mind.

To throw him off his game, you tend to whisper "harder, daddy" when he has you in a choke hold. This gets him flustered, and gives you a n opportunity to counter him when he wasn't intending that to happen. He can't help but be a little proud when you pull that one.

When you go home, Kenny always makes sure you get into your apartment safely, but on days you've been teasing him in the ring. He tends to stay a little longer.

At your fridge you bend over to grab a cold bottle of water, and you feel him behind you. His waist against yours, his hands tracing up your back and into your hair.

"What baby, I thought you said harder?" you cant help but moan in delight, "Oh still not hard enough?" he says as he smack your ass.

In seconds, your legs are wrapped around his waist as he carries you to the edge of your own bed. Throwing you roughly onto the mattress.

"You think you can be a tease all damn day and think I'm not going to do anything about it, huh? You're lucky I didn't fuck you right there in front of everyone in the gym. Let them all see how good of a little slut you can be."

You giggle, knowing you're getting under his skin, "yeah, and then prove to him that i really am the old man's good little girl." The growl that leaves him sets you a blaze, and you don;'t even have time to react as he pounds into your body. Not a care towards your own pleasure, just his own release. but you didn't care, because the animalistic fucking he's giving you brings you over the edge twice over before he even begins to unravel inside you.

"Fuck, FUCK Y/N God damnit your going to make me cum!"

"Cum for me daddy, please. I need it Kenny I need you to-"

"FUCKKK" He floods your body as he continues to thrust inside you until he can't take it any longer.

Rolling over onto the opposite side of the bed, You rolling to meet him, head on his chest.

"God babe, fuck. I love when you let me take over like that." " I love it too."

"I love you, too" he said, kissing your forehead.

You pick up your head look him the eye, he looks nervous, not meaning to let that slip in this setting. He searches your face for a hint of anger, or remorse.

You grin uncontrollably, kissing him deeply. Rolling ontop of him, straddling his lap. "I love you too, Kenny."

He smiles, and kisses you passionately. Flipping you over onto your back, his cock hard against your body again, his mouth firmly on your neck.

Trailing kisses up to your ear, in a low gravely voice

"Let's see how many times, this 'old man' can make you cum in a day. What's my record again, five? Child's play, you better cancel whatever you had planned this week. You won't be able to walk anywhere"

[bbybhr]

You know what?since this is a safe place and I read a comic with shrunken in size deadpool than I can give you this

Logan howlett x shrunken reader

"Careful bub, you eat it like that than you'll shrunk your life span as well"

He whispered but to your ears it felt as loud as a concert.

"Well pardon me. let me just get a pair of silverware that aren't 1,5 times my body...oh wait...I can't!"

You voiced with an annoyed expression as you throw the one singular popcorn in the size of your head away. You turned towards him in your seat, which was a stack of bottle caps

"This makes me exhausted...I swear to god even the hours are longger this way!"

"What was that? Someone is unhappy with their consequences of their own action? Funny how somethings still doesn't fail to surprise me after two decades"

He said nonchalantly biting at the sandwich in his hand afterwards. He wasn't showing it but you getting in trouble after not listening to him kinda robbed him on in a good way. Specially if the trouble made you this dependent on him afterwards.

"It was for science"

You tried to defend yourself before hiding your face in your palms.

"Nope. Pym did it for science you did it because you can't say no to a puppy or a blue beast or a kitten...I think you have an unresolved mental bond with fur?"

You rolled your eyes as you stand up raising your hands in the air.

"I think you should teach psychology instead of history. now Come on I want to see if hank is done."

"Well as a professor in time industry,I can guarantee, he hasn't done anything since 20 minutes ago."

"Logan james howlett pick me up. Now"

You said as you narrowed your eyes.

"And there's something that the particles didn't manage to shrunk"

He placed the rest of his sandwich on the table putting his palms infront of you so you could climb up and when you did he started walking towards the hallway pass the clases up the stairs and pass the lab...pass the lab?

"I think you missed a turn"

You remarked. your head turning towards the door gaining a grin from him.

"You know sweetheart when you're my age and you have healing factor, there wouldn't be a lot of new things to try...so I tend to get the opportunities that I have very seriously"

He arrived to your shared room opening the door while continuing his speech

"And I might have gotten an idea"

Please ask me to elaborate cause I really want to but I'm afraid that no one's gonna match my freak also reader is shrunken to the hight of a water bottle so it is possible use your imagination or let me use mine on you tehee

Love ya

[sgiandubh]

Whisky, gin and beer

It was always going to be about beer, too - not only whisky and gin. And it was probably designed to be a simultaneous project, that might have been postponed for various reasons: funny how all those intelligent people across the street forget everything about COVID, when it does not fit their agendas. And by COVID, I do not mean only the prolonged lockdowns, but first and foremost the worldwide logistics crisis, with compromised supply chains and overall a huge blow on the transports' sector.

In fact, looking at those trademark websites, it becomes evident that first (now abandoned) trademark application for beer was filed in at the same time as the one for whisky, on December 28, 2018:

Separate categories, as per US regulations, need separate filings, of course. And beer is a brilliant, simple idea, with high quality local ingredients (it's really barley, water, hops and yeast) relatively easy to source. Well, spare perhaps for the hops, but that is not really a problem, anymore:

(Source: the James Hutton Institute's booklet Hops in Scotland, 2018 - well, then. The institute is based in Dundee, by the way, so I think they know exactly what they are talking about, especially after a four year long feasibility study with encouraging results: https://www.hutton.ac.uk/news/scottish-hops-viable-commercial-crop-hutton-research-finds)

As I always make a point of reminding anyone, this page does not deal in fantasy and empty, meaningless scouring of social media accounts. And cackle to your heart's content, Mordor, but S seems to have a genuine, informed interest in the industry, as shown above.

This is a different business plan and a different marketing model, based on affordable production costs and yield/volume (as compared to successive, 'limited batches' of tequila or whisky, where the accent is placed on the excellence of the product and know-how, as reflected in the final price tag). You can bottle that beer or you can sell it on tap, partnering with local bars and pubs first, then progressively extending that network. And I bet the farm it is going to be a premium, artisanal beer first, with options open for a more democratic product, once brand awareness is properly built: beer is versatile, like that.

Whisky and gin were expensive, carefully curated pet projects. Beer is a fun, easy and lucrative one, with a wider clientele and fast growing potential. And this is how that unknown, struggling Scottish actor who once was the face of Tennent's has a fair opportunity to strike it big. To be followed, which I might do. And this is also how his products could cover the entire price range, from luxury to affordable.

It is also always disheartening to see how all those bitter women congregating on certain Tumblr pages feel the need to dismiss anything he does. As I always said and I always will, many of them have no idea about the very basics of business and trade, no exposure to that world and, to be honest, no particular intellectual acuity. Plus I bet the farm many of them lie about their own circumstances: it's easy to pretend, on the Internet and always sexier (and lame, of course) to introduce yourself as a corporate whatever than a secretary. But I wonder how would they feel, in the unlikely situation they would be running their own lemonade stand, if passers by started cackling and bitching about their trade, out of the blue.

So, all in all, we seem to be dealing with some careful preparation, portfolio diversification and yes, taking much needed strides away from McGrandma. To be continued, of course...

PS: FMN Gin, still crickets? Ahhh...

[priyankap0018]

Bottle by Bottle: Unraveling the Size of the Global Bottled Water Market

The Bottled Water Sector encompasses the production, packaging, and distribution of bottled drinking water. It addresses the growing demand for convenient and portable hydration solutions. With a focus on quality, safety, and sustainability, the sector plays a crucial role in meeting consumer preferences for clean and accessible water sources.

[birdfriend-theband]

SOMEWHERE YOU DID, SOMEWHERE YOU WILL: Bird Friend's Our Gods at 10; or, Last Thoughts on the Albuquerque House Show Scene

Author’s note:

Okay - bear with me on this one. Ten years have passed since the events in this piece occurred. In those ten years I’d like to think I’ve picked up a few scraps of wisdom here and there, and while our culture has built an industry around depictions of untamed youth, I’m inclined to believe that those years aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be. I was far from perfect as a young man, and this memoir is not designed to suggest any differently. It is, however, partly an attempt to express gratitude towards those folks who gave me the opportunity to live something like the rich life of an artist. If this work has found its way to you, I will say this: my inbox is always open.

G. Himsel

Funeral Hill, Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Autumn 2024

I. 

Halfway through the last-ever show at the old Vassar house, someone called the cops.

Cheap Time was playing in the living room when the police banged on the door, and when the hostess took over the mic to warn the crowd, the whole place fell apart. The music shambled to a halt, and the living room - which was painted floor-to-ceiling in graffiti - became the scene of a mad scramble for the exits. Young punks spilled into the backyard, clambering over the cinderblock walls and into the alleyways, or sprinting drunkenly past the squad cars blocking the driveways. Underage kids tossed bottles and dime bags onto the neighbors’ side of the fence before disappearing into the darkness themselves. The band stood around, dumbfounded, as the room cleared, their audience disappeared, and a pair of tired-looking cops wandered into the house with their hands on their hips. The night was over, prematurely - and while the old house’s closing ceremonies were supposed to have some sort of significance, the chaos of the evening was befitting of the chaos of its era. The street was full of wasted kids, running from the cop lights. With three beers in my body, I ran, too - into the cool bronze night of the neighborhood, past the bungalows and pueblo revivals, holding my half-empty pack of cigarettes in the breast pocket of my flannel shirt. It was the fall of 2013 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I was nineteen years old, and it was the first house show I’d ever attended. 

II.

Albuquerque is about a day’s drive from anything; eight hours east of Las Vegas, seven hours out from Phoenix. Denver lies six miles to the north, and Mexico five hours south. The city rests on a massive alluvial plain and straddles the Rio Grande at its midpoint, where droughts and water-rights battles often reduce the river to a trickle. It’s bright: the sun shines four out of every five days, and at a mile above sea level, the sun can feel intimately close. Isolated by miles of Southwestern desert, it’s nonetheless a city of intersections - intersections of North American cultures, of rivers and railroads, and of highways. I-40 and I-25 collide here at the “Big I,” an engineering feat that doubles as a towering monument to the car culture of the American West. Nearly thirty percent of residents speak Spanish, and another significant portion speaks Navajo or Vietnamese. In the last hundred and fifty years, it’s grown from a railroad depot to nearly two-hundred miles of low-density urban sprawl - and many parts retain an odd 1960s or ‘70s feel. Outside of the city, they make movies and television, and test weapons for the military. Passenger trains still clatter through downtown, and bands play under gazebos in the historic district. In Barelas, Chicano pride shines. In Rio Rancho, suburban tract homes bump up against the stark, high desert. But while the city glows with a sort of mid-century American-ness, it more often feels far, far away from the mainstream culture and customs of the rest of the U.S. It’s a weird place, especially if you - like me - grew up amidst the urban renewal and suburban gloom of post-industrial New England. Out in New Mexico, you sort of get the feeling that you’ve traveled off the map.

I lived in Albuquerque from 2012 to 2016. I wanted to make art and play my guitar, and I got my wish; I spent most of those years submerged in the city’s weird subculture of underground house shows. Our neighborhood of University Heights - more generally known as the Student Ghetto, due to its huge population of off-campus UNM students - was the kind of starving-artist paradise peculiar to college towns. The neighborhood was made up of cheap, low-density rental housing. Landlords and neighbors were generally tolerant of the 18-25 crowd and whatever noise and chaos it generated. Homes were usually single-unit, with spacious yards and a sense of relative privacy. Rents were in the high hundreds, and we often had more space than we needed. The infrastructure supported public transit and cyclists and the whole area was anchored by a commercial strip with cheap food and plenty of intellectual resources.

But while while the Student Ghetto was typical of any neighborhood near a big college campus, the fact that the college campus happened to be located right in the middle of a major city - a city that, in turn, was an isolated stop on the way to the rest of the world - meant that a disproportionate amount of creative energy was funneled directly into the laps of the people living there. In 2014-15 a five-block stretch of Gold Avenue alone boasted five house venues, each with distinct programming, that sometimes threw shows on the same nights. The most important of them, Gold House, changed hands countless times but survived for over a decade as a magnet for nationally-recognized punk and indie acts. I saw Kid Congo play at Gold House, in the living room; I saw Kimya Dawson play on the porch. The loudest show I’ve ever seen in my life was at Gold House: the Cosmonauts blew my eardrums there, on a Sunday night in the summer of 2014.

A culture existed around these places. Different houses were home to different sub-families of the city’s greater punk community, and often had one or two of their own house bands in addition to a few touring favorites. My immediate neighbors hosted murky, reverb-washed psych rock bands like L.A. Witch, while the legendary Bungalow was something like a fraternal organization for strange, outer-limits outsider punk. 

Beyond that, different houses had different philosophies about live music, different levels of permissiveness surrounding drugs and drinking, and varying levels of preparedness for interactions with the police. At some venues, “rules” were looked upon suspiciously. At one Fourth of July show in 2015, the entertainment options were split between outdoor American flag-burning and a basement set by a band that played completely naked. But there were more often attempts to establish some order. At the Bungalow, there was generally a volunteer at the door who checked IDs and marked hands accordingly; this protected the house and its inhabitants when the cops were called, as they were during the second Mountain Blood Fest when one hardcore punk vocalist ended up on the roof. 

My Albuquerque experience eventually reached its zenith at the Bungalow, where Bird Friend recorded Cibola and I probably attended more shows than anywhere else, but it was Wagon Wheel - a miniscule pueblo house on Stanford Drive - where I first found my footing as a writer and musician. 

III. 

Wagon Wheel’s house band was Arroyo Deathmatch, an insane hardcore/folk-punk band that played a weird assemblage of uncommon and handmade instruments and acted as the essential masthead for the local Goathead Record Collective. Besides being the band that I most closely identify with this space, they were the first group I encountered in the Southwest who really completely embodied a DIY ethic. A lot of people coming into music feel as if they need to gather a certain amount of abstract necessities in order to reach a performance level - things like promotional materials, or a clear idea of genre, style, influence, etc. These guys didn’t even need proper instruments. They played a kind of shambling punk on a frankenstein lineup of homemade drums, bass guitars, flutes and ukuleles that was nonetheless really literary and challenging and rousingly political. They hand-printed their own CD jackets, did all their own distribution, and created their own music network before Spotify was a thing and when social media as we now know it was in its infancy. 

The first time I caught them was at Wagon Wheel, on their own turf - in the sweaty, postage-stamp sized living room that felt like it was ready to burst with bodies dancing, jumping, singing along. I have no idea how long they had been a band before I encountered them, but the scene that I wandered into felt completely fully-formed by the time I arrived. Folks knew the words to their songs, knew the breaks, wore the fashion and participated fully in the music. The audience was committed to this local band in a way that I had never considered, let alone encountered, in the fragile, decentralized, conservative and suburban music community back home in New England.

Seeing Arroyo Deathmatch for the first time completely reordered my idea of what was possible as a performer - instead of meeting the expectations of an entrenched music scene, as most fledgling musicians attempt to do, they created their own scene, with its own internal logic and set of rules. Obviously this wasn’t the first time this had ever happened in punk history, but to see it happening on such a grassroots level - and with an audience that was so ready to be a part of their thing - was incalculably influential on my soft, teenage brain. I sent them an email, asking how to be a part of that thing, and they set me up with my first show in town. It was the first Bird Friend show - a last-minute addition to the opening ceremonies of the first-ever Mountain Blood Fest. I banged my way through six or seven solo songs, completely unamplified, met our lifelong friend and collaborator Nikki Barva, and was at a Goathead Collective meeting two weeks later.

IV.

Goathead Record Collective was an non-hierarchical affiliation of artists and musicians that organized gear shares, music promotion, and operated a sort of mobile recording studio whose equipment was free to use amongst collective members. They organized a weekly meeting - on Wednesday nights - where participants drew up show schedules and local promo stuff and organized workshops on everything from tour booking and zine-making to discussions about scene politics and self-policing. The location rotated, sometimes taking place at the Bungalow, sometimes at my own place, Coffee House, and most often at Wagon Wheel. A ton of stuff came out of the GRC: an organized network of merch sales, three iterations of Mountain Blood Fest, countless shows at venues ranging from living rooms to warehouses, clubs, and karate studios. That’s not to mention the recorded output: GRC was involved in early releases by bands like Days ‘N’ Daze, and a distinguished list of Albuquerque artists like the Leaky Faces, Manuka Piglet, the Vassar Bastards, and Arroyo Deathmatch themselves. Using the DIY studio setup and a refurbished 10-CD duplicator from the flea market, the collective did hand-made CD releases and promoted them in local newspapers. 

If it sounds utopic, it was - and the collective disbanded after a few years. But when I stumbled into it, it was in its halcyon days. At Wagon Wheel and the other houses it felt as though there was an endless parade of bands who, although now fading into history, left a permanent impression on us. Far from the cultural centers of the country, and far even from the curated, “professional” music community of Albuquerque, the weirdest bands in the world summoned magic, effortlessly, night after night. These houses glowed with creative energy, and the more music they contained, the more their myths assumed legendary proportions.

V. 

I hoped that some of that magic would rub off when Alexster, of Arroyo Deathmatch, invited Bird Friend to record an album at Wagon Wheel. Our band was - as it’s always been - a pretty loose unit. I had one record out already, a self-titled release that I’d cobbled together with my high school band. It was a gloomy, navel-gazing collection of bummers and breakup songs that nevertheless featured “Parting Gifts,” a song that’d soon become a singalong staple of our years in Albuquerque. I’d been playing solo shows in the city for about six months, and had recruited Cody and Peach of the Leaky Faces to play with me when they were available. My then-roomate (now wife) Carson would sit in on harmony vocals every now and then. 

I booked a weekend at Wagon Wheel to bang out some songs I’d been working on; I’d recently read Hesiod’s Theogony & Works and Days and some of Edith Hamilton’s classic Mythology and become really interested in the weird, flawed gods and heroes of ancient Greece. I was a young dude, very far from home and trying to figure things out pretty much completely on my own; I was very aware that I was going through a transitional period, twenty years old and particularly susceptible to self-mythologizing. I began to think of myself as entering a new epoch of my life, and through my involvement in the Collective and the music community I felt as if I were making a full break from the expectations and orthodoxies of my “old life” in New England. It became very important to me to write down what I was seeing unfold all around me.

Reading the ancient stories - which really feel so contemporary at times - pushed me to mythologize what I was living through. The writers, artists, strangers and cities of the Southwest lived on one hand, with the folks I left back in New England on the other. I started to try and fit them into the contours of very, very old stories. I may have been trying to make some sense of the weird new world I found myself in. But I was more certainly writing to my older self; caught in that present utopia, I had the bright idea to create a sort of Myth of Ages that would elevate that fleeting moment to the status of folklore. After all, the excitement of the music community back then felt so much bigger than the sum of its parts. If this radical moment of mass self-actualization was, in its essence, just a bunch of people hanging out in living rooms, it felt huge, important, essential. That meant the only way to write about it was mythologically. 

Once again, it’s not like this idea was itself a radical development. Storytelling and tall tales are as old as anything in the folk tradition. But if Bird Friend’s love for the folk tradition has often pitted us against the prevailing currents of popular music, it was - in this instant - the most appropriate vessel.

We only had two days to record the material that would become Our Gods. Some elements of my music life never change, and the matter of scheduling is one of them. Alexster had a day job, a venue to run, and other groups to record; Cody had his other band, Carson was still in school, and I worked nights at the 66 Diner. Peach, who at that point had already played shows with us, may have been out of town or otherwise occupied, and didn’t get to join us at all. As it were, we had two days back-to-back in mid-October to crank out whatever songs we could. We planned a double release with the Leaky Faces in December, so the feeling was that whatever we committed to tape that weekend would pretty much be the album. The “the studio” was set up in the empty living room, and was limited to two microphones and a dining room chair. Alexster’s bedroom served as the control booth.

VI.

A few days before the release, the Collective got together in the basement of the Bungalow, and we had a CD-making party for Our Gods and the Leaky Faces’ Freak Tree. We burned blank discs ten at a time on the duplicator, and cut album covers that we’d printed for free with someone’s UNM library card. We did some beers and carefully glued the covers onto plain black CD jackets, each one stamped with the Goathead Records logo. It was December, and it was cold; in photos from that night, everyone’s wearing jackets and sweaters indoors. I wonder now if the heat was on, or if it was ever on in that house. 

We did the show at Wagon Wheel a few nights later - something like eight bands played, and our resident videographer Isaac “Boose” Vallejos got the whole evening on film. That night was Wagon Wheel as I remember it: packed, sweaty, and electric with creative energy. In those days, getting a show at all felt like a blessing - every single performance felt vital, essential, and to attach a whole album to it felt triumphant. I have the videos of the Bird Friend set, and we’re loose, sloppy, full of humor, and backed against the wall by a big crowd of happy people.

The Goathead thing began to splinter apart a few months after Our Gods. Social friction amidst the growing proportions of the scene, not to mention the exhausting undertaking of Mountain Blood Fest II, contributed to a slow drift towards other projects. The atmosphere of idealism was hard to sustain as more people joined the fold, and the collective itself felt more beholden to a sense of expectation and accountability that quickly overwhelmed it.

It was tough to let it all go. It’s not like the shows and the bands simply vanished, but a growing sense of dislocation and disunity began to take over. The essential loss of a mutual support network returned the music scene back to a landscape of unfocused cliques. At this point, I was 21 years old, totally untethered and spinning my wheels. I started drinking a lot, and entered a dark stretch, turning out songs that were long, desperate, and heavy with a sense of doom. I fell down for a while. Eventually I left Albuquerque, in order to hit the reset button before I went too far down an ugly path.

A friend of mine once said that writing is a selfish act. Before he passed away, I often thought about asking him what he meant - and now that I don’t have the chance, I meditate on it often. And writing down these memories so long after the fact, I find myself meditating on it all over again. Maybe it’s selfish to attach too much significance to this brief period of my life. Or maybe it’s selfish to view something that touched so many people through the narrow window of my own, meager experience. After all, the world of New Mexican music was so much bigger than the record collective. Or perhaps it’s selfish to talk about those days like they belonged to some perfect, unspoiled era; for they most certainly did not. All of this history took place against the confused, chaotic backdrop of about a thousand peoples’ early twenties - not generally known as a peaceful or self-assured time in life. Not everyone got out in one piece, or even alive.

Yet I’ve been playing my guitar in front of people for a long time now, and Bird Friend has been around in some form for over a decade. And though I’ve started to suspect that we’re not going to be famous (not that that’s the point), in navigating a whole range of music scenes I’ve started to double back to the questions leftover from the days of Goathead. How do we celebrate each other, and our art? How do we inhabit the role of audience, critic, and creator all with the same grace? And now, in a world whose modernity is more disenfranchising than ever, how do we do it all with dignity?

As musicians, we’re constantly being assaulted by statistics: our plays, our listeners, and their level of engagement is constantly being tracked in extreme, granular detail. Promoters use these numbers to gauge your marketability, an important task in a world where the profitability of a music venue is considered life-or-death. Less people are going to shows, less people are consuming physical media, and the network of music discovery is essentially in the hands of algorithms and AI. The context of a piece of music is often lost when a “user” only spends a few seconds with it on a reel or social media post. The act of creation is its own reward, yet I sometimes find myself asking the most frightening question: what’s the fucking point?

What are we supposed to do as artists? Why do we make music? Who’s it for? In a perfect world, it’s one pathway to building a shared philosophy. That’s what the Goathead era was for me: a forum in which a little music scene was foundational to ideas about culture, community, and mutual support. But what’s the benefit of creating a shared philosophy, if it only exists in a digital space? The town I live in now is supposedly full of artists - and I don’t see a united front against the behemoth of corporate development that’s shuttered a frightening number of venues these last few years. Art as content, art as corporate culture, art supposedly made “accessible” by an internet machine designed primarily to make money are all more dominant than ever - and I sometimes wonder if the concept of an art community actually stands a chance. When I worry, I think of the extremely unlikely success we had in Albuquerque. If it warms me just a little, I also remember that it was all a very long time ago.

Our Gods is not the greatest album ever made. It’s not even the best album Bird Friend ever made. But for myself, and my own personal history (here comes the selfish act again), it represents a little glory that we got to participate in, if only for a while. I wonder if I’ll ever experience that intensity again, but if your time is still yet to come, hear this: somewhere you did, somewhere you will - somewhere you are all together still.

VII. Belated Liner Notes

Listen to “OUR GODS” on Spotify or Bandcamp.

Overture (Muses)

The idea with “Overture” was to start the record with a reference to Greek poetry and to Hesiod’s work by including a rip-off of the kind of invocation that would commonly begin a piece of ancient literature. This little prayer was meant, in the old days, to set the tone and context of a piece and to assure the audience that a storyteller knew what they were talking about.  Performed a cappella in one take, I don’t think this song was ever performed again. I still like the concept, and still think it’s clever to flip this old convention on its head by admitting in the first line of the album that the writer of these songs is an unreliable narrator.

Where Are You?

I spent a lot of my younger years wandering around the woods of New England. This is the oldest part of the country, and if a historical site isn’t preserved, it’s quickly swallowed up by nature. The area I grew up in was clear-cut in the 19th century for sheep grazing, and by the early 1900s was completely forested again. There are really no such thing as historical ruins out here, and if you do find something abandoned out in the forest, it’s probably only a few decades old.  I saw some coincidence in the idea that, in both the Mediterranean and the Southwest, researchers are constantly finding throwaway evidence of really old civilizations - potsherds, petroglyphs, architectural stuff that’s all just been sitting out in the desert for hundreds or thousands of years that gives you an idea of the everyday lives of people who lived and died generations ago. You can actually just wander out into the desert and see this stuff. It doesn’t get washed away by the rain or the ocean or torn up by a tree root after fifty years. That’s the idea behind “Where Are You?,” a song that supposes what will be left of our lives a thousand years from now. When you’re young, you feel things so, so intensely - how much of that intensity lives in the objects we leave behind? What kind of half-life does it have?

Oh, Pilgrim!

This is a pretty straightforward song, message-wise. It was most likely written before I began to fixate on the “concept” of this album, and it’s more of a clear-cut celebration of my independence and my Big Desert Adventure than anything else. It’s very important in our catalog, however, as the first-ever recorded Carson performance. Her natural gift for harmony is obvious here, and I remember Alexster being somewhat stunned that she pulled her part off in one take.  Recording vocals can be the most nerve-wracking element of the studio experience, and her fearlessness in performance and ability to write complex vocal harmonies is as stunning now as it was then. 

The Wheel

I haven’t talked much about the dominance of folk punk in the Albuquerque scene of those days. It had already been around for years by that time, and the blank-canvas nature of the genre was well-suited to the limited resources of our little scene. For a while, it felt like folk punk was all there was in the neighborhood, since it could be played convincingly on cheap instruments, by folks with limited chops, and didn’t require anything as burdensome as an amplifier. The minor-key inertia of “The Wheel” owes something to the prevailing folk punk conventions of the day, and seems to be particularly indebted to The Leaky Faces’ “Steam,” even if it doesn’t match the energy of that band. 

The Road (Forever Returns to the Heart)

“The Road” flirts with bluegrass, a style whose strict conventions and average level of musicianship are completely foreign to a band as ramshackle and inconsistent as Bird Friend. This was one of the songs that was supposed to include percussion, which is blasphemous in the bluegrass world, and there are live recordings out there that include Peach on the drums. Nevertheless, any listener of “The Road” can probably tell that I’d discovered Ralph Stanley by this point.  This is one of the songs from Our Gods that I vividly remember working on; I recall flipping through Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume as quietly as I possibly could while Cody recorded the freewheeling banjo parts. “The Road” is probably only second to “Parting Gifts” when it comes to its popularity, as well as the number of times it was caught on video during this era. It’s featured in the Before You Burn documentary and on the Mountain Blood Fest II compilation. 

Granite & Gold

This is an interesting track. I don’t remember much of what motivated me to write this one, although it strikes me now as some hand-wringing over the future legacy of the Goathead scene. Ten years later, Goathead is long gone, and the artists that are still active have completely evolved. Looking back at that time in such depth feels like going back to a place you used to live in; everything’s different, and a lot of people are gone, but the light still falls in the same way. An uncanny feeling, I guess. Like visiting your old elementary school. 

The Fear, The Fear

“The Fear” is a weird composite of a lot of my influences at the time of recording. The title is, of course, ripped from the Defiance, Ohio album of the same name. The guitar part is totally indebted to Bob Dylan’s version of “House Carpenter,” which I played often back when I spent my Sundays busking in Santa Fe. I’m not entirely sure where we got the idea to attempt the weird, sitar-like banjo part, but I suspect it was from Mark Fry’s “The Witch,” which was on heavy rotation at Coffee House. I do also remember Cody joking that the banjo part came out “sounding like Donovan.” Our Gods is a pretty spare record, and I think this is the most ambitious we got during those recording sessions. It’s another comment on the fleeting nature of the community and the anxieties and social pressures that motivate people to choose a life of convention over a life of art. 

Our Gods

The title track features Kylee Jo on fiddle. Kylee was staying overnight at Wagon Wheel during the Our Gods sessions; it wasn’t uncommon for house venues to host traveling musicians (or just travelers) even if they weren’t performing there, and Kylee was just on the way to somewhere else when we met. Having never met us before, and certainly never hearing of our band, she agreed to play fiddle on “Our Gods.” I played the song once through to teach the changes, we recorded one fiddle track, I wrote her name down on a piece of receipt paper for the album credits, and we never saw each other again.  Some of the most intimate exchanges of ideas happen in your own home, far from performance spaces, and Carson and I have always tried to keep our home open to other artists. It’s a tough world out there, and a little sanctuary can go a long way. Sometimes you even make new friends, or collaborators. 

Sucker & St. Joan

Sometimes you look back at a song you wrote and surprise yourself, and in revisiting Our Gods after so many years, this song seems to stand taller among the others. The intent behind this album is clearer here than anywhere else, and the composition, harmony, and structure are all about as highly-developed as I was capable of at age 20. The playing’s good, too; but what really strikes me on “Sucker” is its clarity. Hearing the chorus again, recognizing that even a decade ago we were aware of our community as a temporary junction of lives, is awfully moving - and revisiting this song is what encouraged me to write this piece in the first place. When listening to this song, I can feel my present self looking back, my past self looking forward - and we meet each other somewhere in the middle.  I do my best to catch up with people from the old scene, engage with their art, listen to their bands and see what’s going on in their lives. Some folks are still permanent fixtures in the Bird Friend family, while some are like distant relatives. Still others I check in with once a year or so, or catch their shows when they’re in town. Others just cross my mind from time to time, or pass by in the social media parade. 

IIX. 

Spotify, music streaming, and social media all belonged to a very different landscape a decade ago. Many bands of the Albuquerque community never made it to Spotify for logistical or philosophical reasons; others never recorded much at all, or produced anything that sounded like their live performances. Practically none of the bands of those days are still active - although most of the artists involved are still working, the vast majority of them have moved onto other projects. Much of the Goathead Record Collective’s web presence has been lost over time.

Below, I’ve listed a few songs that are representative of Bird Friend’s world during the 2013-2016 era. Some of it comes from bands we played with, and most of it comes from Albuquerque. All of the bands featured were, in some significant way, affiliated with the house show scene. Bandcamp is still the best way to listen to these artists. If you have the paper edition of this piece, the QR code on the bottom will take you to the web version where you can listen to the music.

If you want the authentic experience, you can download these songs as mp3s, drag them into an iTunes playlist, load them onto an iPod Mini with a cracked screen and listen to them on a skateboard.

The Leaky Faces - Steam 

Arroyo Deathmatch - Swimming the Witch

Bella Trout - Coffee Stains

Human Behavior - Crag

Smoke & Mirrors - The Godslayer

Manuka Piglet - Mr. Kelp

Crushed!? - Ethereal Horizon

Soviet Science Fair - Toast (Live 2014)

lemurtween - pee van/no one understands me

Lindy Vision - Bad Things

The Vassar Bastards - Dead Cat

Nobody Particular - Cage Wreck

Colour Me Once - 10,000 Miles to Graceland

Marissa. - Running For The Gates

Klondykes - BTSD

[painted-bees]

Okay so, I'm more intrigued by the journey of sexual discovery when it comes to OCs. Like how did Raf come to find his preferences? I'm sure Margie and Raf regard sex differently, but how about Tess? Sure it's gotta be *different* but. Ig I'm curious about the respective povs and the individual learning curves. Significant moments, internal rationalizing and the like

oh, fun questions! I don't think Raf ever settles into a full understanding of what his preferences are...Every time he thinks he has a handle on it, something new throws him for a loop about it hahaha But his first relationship was with a boy that he had kinda grown up with who discovered his sexuality pretty early, and was remarkably unapologetic about it for his own reasons. And that attracted more folks like him into Raf's friend circles. And I think it was via this guy that Raf didn't find his own queerness to be so othering. Raf has never had a "coming out" moment--to anyone, really. Even if he was straight, it wouldn't be something he'd talk about or refer to often, if at all. It was, at least, very easy for Raf to internalize that he's bisexual. And in the entertainment/music industry (incl. classical), even in the 90's...he wasn't an odd one out for it. The realization that his attraction to people is not actually (and never had been) sexual in the way other people describe it--is pretty new, and he's not super convinced about asexuality as a valid thing. It's kind of funny that it was so easy for him to adopt a progressive attitude about gay/bi sexuality, yet is heavily bogged down by skepticism over the idea of asexuality's validity as an identity. Likely, it's because he's never seen or heard of asexuality in his life, be it through people he's met or in the media. Asexual visibility never really took off until very recently...By the 2010's, it was rarely heard of. The apparent "newness" of it is probably what's tripping him up.

Margie and Raf definitely have very different relationships to sex and what it represents lmao. For Margie, it's a fun activity you can do with anyone, you just gotta employ the correct safety equipment to ensure it remains a fun time for everyone. All she wishes is that it was more culturally accepted as a casual activity. Whereas Raf really doesn't see the appeal unless it's with someone he genuinely wants to show love to. Sex with friends or acquaintances just comes with too much emotional baggage, too much risk, and too much opportunity to be extremely, deeply humiliating. And it's kind of gross...like...picking up a half-empty water bottle off the ground at a bus stop and drinking from it. Who's water bottle is this??? Where else has it been??? What's in it???? Nasty. Nah, sex is an enormous gesture of love and trust, a really vulnerable short hand to communicate the relationship's value to him, as well as outlining how important their enjoyment and comfort is to him as a personal responsibility/desire. Tess's idea of sex is similar to Margie's...but on a vastly more...meta scale lmaooo It's a critical aspect of life, just as much as sleeping and eating--and thusly is an important activity to engage in if her goal is to experience the terrifying ordeal of living as closely as she is capable of doing! (and--if Raf wasn't shooting blanks, or if Margie didn't seem so abjectly terrified about the very idea of viable reproduction, Tess would absolutely parent children with one of them lmao. Kinda a let-down that she can't. Oh well, maybe on the next adventure.)

[this-game-has-themes]

MISERY LOVES COMPANY: chapter 6

as abe goes through a bit of an existential crisis, howler plays her 4d glukkon chess in her mind over everyone around her.

chapter cw for: sexual harrassment, mentions of sexual assault, substance abuse and sexual content

[first]|[prev]

Among the bent backs and shifty, downward cast eyes among the scrub stock, Howler held her head up high.

She ignored the wayward glances, the rubbernecking done by scrubs affected by the base, instinctual fascination that came with being exposed to a female the first time. If these workers were natural in any way, this would have led to drone-heat. They would never have the opportunity to become emergent drones in their lifetime, so their interest in Howler remained almost chaste in comparison. Too timid to approach with intent, too ignorant to know what that intent would even be.

Howler currently worked with a small team for one of the massive industrial grinders on the processing floor. A foul job with an understandably high death count. The workers looked out for each other there; making sure the meat they were shredding remained only animal meat. Bones caught in the machinery would often cause problems, but it was riskier to think you could reach in just in time to pull it out. Some of these muds had stubby or completely absent fingers to prove it. 

As soon as she arrived at her station, one of her co-workers slipped her a paramite pie, mumbling something about the ration paste being especially thin today. Of course, the only solid food to be found here were the rejected meat products swiped off the conveyor belt. Howler took it, and gave him a smile that made the mud blush deeply. A couple of his peers, not wanting to be overshadowed, offered their own tributes: another snack, a bottle of water, a cigarette that was noticeably withered from being passed around. 

Most of the scrubs that gave her ‘gifts’ probably had no idea why they wanted to in the first place. With their natural social instincts repressed, they never had a ‘queen’ to care for, until now. Regardless of whether Howler counted as one.

A brief fondle here, a coy touch there, a measured smile; Howler was used to having to do much more to get her way, before. These scrubs were almost too easy compared to the correctives, who already had a queen that was taken from them. Their instincts wouldn’t imprint on Howler, while she remained ‘unsettled’. Only settled queens were the ones laying eggs. The scrubs, of course, wouldn’t know the difference; their natural instincts and roles in a colony were just as disrupted as hers were.

But it was novel, indulging these enamored muds. She kept them at arm’s length, even when her own base instincts reared their head, and their attention felt almost a little too good. They were scrubs, but they also weren’t Glukkons, or Sligs, or Vykkers. They weren’t asking for a piece of her in return. So far.

Howler was careful to keep their hands from wandering, since they were the boys she spent the better part of a day with and they didn’t need to be getting bold. She established the no-touching boundary gently, at first, and firmly, the second time around. The third time would be something more permanent to remind them. A hand that so casually slipped a cigarette into her pocket quickly reached around to grab her ass, and she froze.

Before the worker could subtly turn away, Howler grabbed him by the wrist. The sudden movement was jarring; her touch wasn’t soft and inviting, like it was before. She dug her nails into his wrist, pulled him close, and grabbed his narrow neck. She held up the offending hand in front of his face accusingly.

The scrub went pale. “I-I uh, it- it was an accident, miss-”

Howler manhandled him, grabbing him by the overalls and pulling him closer to the machine. She didn’t need to have it turned on for it to make an overwhelmingly convincing argument, as she made sure to turn his head towards it to drive the threat home. The scrub struggled. A couple of his peers joined in not to save him, but to hold him still.

“I-I- I- I won’t do it again, I promise!!”

The tattooed woman huffed, and gave him a cold look. She nodded to another of her scrubs, and almost intuitively he pulled the lever that would kick the machinery to life. Did he promise? Howler, aided by her sycophants, bent him a little closer to the whirling blades. The Mudokon screamed, and just as his cries became loud enough to be heard over the machinery, she abruptly pulled him back.

The guilty scrub was hyperventilating, soaked through with sweat before the day had even begun. He looked at her with a fear that was usually reserved for their masters. Howler wasn’t his master, and she took steps to establish that; straightening out his shirt collar, wiping the sweat and/or tear stains from his cheek. A gentle touch that made his eyelids flutter despite his fear. He looked at her with a reestablished resolve, a newfound acknowledgment. An understanding that had been made between them.

Howler gave him a light pat on the shoulder, and clicked her tongue as she pointed to their usual stations at the machine. The scrub and his peers went back to work with renewed fervor.

The bottom line of this establishment was controlled by quota and productivity, so Howler made sure the muds around her didn’t falter from distraction. It kept the guards off her back. That, and the extra cigarettes she would slip the Slig that passed their workstation on his route. He pretended not to hear the commotion before; though when he passed, he gave the woman a knowing look behind his visor with a chuckle. She handed him all but one of her collected cigarettes, and he thanked her in passing with a much bolder swat on the behind.

Howler didn’t flinch, or react in any way. Whatever spark of rage it enkindled within her was snuffed out by years of learning how to keep composure, to retain control in whatever ways she still could. Let them touch her; let them make their petty power plays, and lord over her in their own insignificant domains. They were just men, and they were nothing.

When the first break of the day hit, Howler strolled past muds quickly trying to hit up the bathrooms and the water fountains with her unlit cigarette in her mouth. It wasn’t long before a scrub offered a light, rewarded by a cheeky wink that made him titter nervously. Howler stopped at a vantage point where she could look up the dizzying layers of zulag walkways and pipelines. Not towards an unseen moon, but towards the lofty, panoptic rows of windows that marked the office levels. The highest row with the tallest windows held the largest and most impressive office.

Howler took a long drag of her cigarette, and stared fixedly at that office. She imagined the Glukkon that was up there, though the glare of the factory lighting and the ever-present haze of industry hid him from view. She knew he was up there. Living his life. Conducting his business. Making his own power plays, lording over his own domain over all of them. Molluck, he was just a man. Any man can be killed, and that was the certainty that kept Howler going through more than enough days.

You are just a man. Howler’s breath felt like fire in her throat. The scar tissue around her voicebox stung, that ever-present lump in her throat reminding her of her enforced silence. You are just a man, and men can be killed.

She didn’t expect Abe to have some latent need for the kind of violent vengeance she held in her own heart. But he needed to hear those words, before Molluck could grind away at what was left of his. That kindness he extended to her, asking for nothing, refusing her body even when offered. A man she couldn’t bargain with, or seek leverage over.

Out of the three hundred or so Mudokons that worked in this hellhole, only one of them was unaffected by Howler’s charms. A rare mercy - and a source of aggravation - because usually her silence didn’t matter when she could communicate her intentions with her body. It wasn't even a matter of trading favors for her anymore; the more Abe rebuffed her, the more it stuck in her craw, and kept him on her mind. 

Abe, too, was just a man. Or rather, he was scrub stock - something made to work mindlessly, and exist simply as cogs in industrial machines. He wasn’t a cog, though, as much as he seemed to try to be. Howler would have persisted with her suspicion that he had been captured too, if he hadn’t admitted to not even knowing of the Mudokon Moon.

The concept of going a lifetime never seeing the night sky was a horror in itself; everything about the lives of these scrubs was horrific, and Howler would have to spend the remainder of her life in this hell. For however long that would last.

By the time Howler finished her cigarette, her scarred throat throbbed with pain. The agony reminded her she was alive, for now, and she would cling to that life for as long as she could. She had to. She survived this long for a reason, her pain had to have reason.

Howler flicked the cigarette to the ground and smashed it under a calloused heel. She made it two steps only to stop, remember Abe’s gentle admonishments in the past over littering, and pick it up again.

-

Quota and filled shifts were more important than the individuals fulfilling either, so Howler quickly figured out how to unload the bulk of her work onto anybody willing to take it. Just a sweet smile here, a careful grope there, and soon she had an extra lunch break courtesy of some very generous muds. 

There was an air of decline and desperation about this place. Product was dwindling, corners were being cut. They were putting correctives in factory uniforms - a decision that still baffled Howler, who thought she understood the reasoning of a business-minded Glukkon. If they were running out of product, why would they need more workers…

Howler was frankly so used to being called a ‘premium product’, she may as well have been bought for her meat. It would have been Molluck’s loss all the same; ever since she was shipped to this hole, the sparse diet of a scrub meant to live off scraps made her feel like she was wasting away. By the time they stuff her into a processor, she’ll probably be as skinny as Abe.

Entertaining the idea of being the next processed meat product was darkly humorous for one minute, and incredibly depressing the next. There were deeper connotations to the concept, and it tied into the prevalence of engineered worker stock and the dwindling reliance on corrective labor. As native Mudokon populations dwindled in central and western Mudos, the industrialists opted to simply breed their ideal workforce. Would it be so far-fetched to imagine meat stock Mudokons as well?

With how they treated scrubs, they may as well have been cattle. With how they milled about in their short lives of endless, unceasing work, they may as well have been livestock. Beasts of burden. Walking meat.

Surrounded by them, Howler struggled to see herself as more than just meat, herself. Well. a different kind of meat than these muds would be familiar with. Though with how her presence awakened their repressed desires and instincts, it wouldn’t be long before they sought more from her than a brief touch or a smile. The touch of the scrub from earlier still burned on her skin; though it had been a long time since she felt genuinely humiliated by unwanted advances. This time had been no different, but it would set an unfavorable precedent. These scrubs didn’t need to realize they could simply outnumber her, overpower her, take what they wanted from her.

It was a mercy that most of them would never really figure out what they wanted from her in the first place. Howler preferred to keep it that way.

There were some who did know what they wanted, of course. When Howler made her near-daily pilgrimage to the bar, the lanky bartender straightened up, snapping to attention. He squared his shoulders a little too consciously, and straightened out his hat.

“Heya toots- ah, Howler - what’s your poison of the day?”

Alf was… painfully drone-minded, though he lacked the aggression of a budding, virginal drone in heat. He was just horny. Howler could work with that, and she needed to, because there was no fucking way she was getting through the days in this hole sober.

It was easier when she could just sneak a few sips out of Kwalia’s liquor cabinet throughout the day. Here, she actually had to work for any sort of substance to lend her some brief respite, which frankly reminded her of old times. Times when she would paw off a guard through the fence, or be snuck around the back or to a storage closet. All for a lungbuster, or a hit of some cheap stimulants. Sometimes, even a genuine orgasm. Odd forbid.

Alf could only really provide one of these things, and it definitely wasn’t going to be an orgasm. But, there was a certain charm about him that Howler begrudgingly acknowledged; he was kind, and not because he was scared, and only a little bit because he was horny.

Howler pointed to the whizkey behind him, among the bottles meant for Sligs and any other ‘higher-ups’. The kind of stuff that Alf would surely be punished for serving her, had he not had a knack for doing things behind the backs of any of the more sober Slig clientele. He was doing this long before Howler had arrived, because he was sneaking in a few swigs throughout the day himself.

Alf confirmed the bottle she pointed to, and she nodded. He looked around to make sure the coast was clear before grabbing it and swiftly, cleanly pouring it into a shot glass, making sure to turn his back to the closer guards that were on break. He flinched when Howler rapped her knuckles on the table, and held up two fingers.

Alf hesitated from her inferred request. “Uh, how ‘bout I just give you one, and we’ll see how you feel then, huh? It’s a little early in the day n’ all-”

He flinched harder when she hit the surface of the bar with a warning slap. The bottle sloshed in his hand. “O-okay, okay!”

Howler watched him pour a second shot, quickly down half of it, and top it off again. He turned to her with a renewed zeal in what he was sure was his most charming smile.

“It’s on the house, of course. For a, ah, lovely lady such as yourself.”

Howler watched him wink with an entirely blank expression, and took a pull from one of her glasses as quickly as it was set down. She could then face him with a renewed zeal of her own. She gave him a smile that made his ears turn pink, and made him wring his tattooed hands.

Alf leaned over the bar as closely as he could, and as discreetly as he could; resting his chin in his hand as he looked nothing short of adoringly at her. “So, how’s the factory life workin’ out for ya? Sligs givin’ you a hard time? Are the boys at the grinders behavin’?”

Howler shrugged, and flicked her hand to downplay the very real anxieties still stirring around in her head. She finished her second glass to quell them; which had the fortuitous side effect of making one-sided smalltalk less excruciatingly awkward.

“Yknow,” Alf lowered his voice, “if ya need anything you can’t find in commissary, I know a guy who drops in from Feeco in shipping; he can getchya anything you need short of gettin’ the hell outta here. I can pull some strings.”

Yes, he would like that kind of leverage over her, wouldn’t he? Howler gave him a measured smirk devoid of warmth, and slowly shook her head.

Alf shrugged. “Ah, well, offer’s on the table.”

He was a good sport, for a man who acted inches away from droning out on her. As he went back to serving other patrons, he kept an eye on her when he thought she wouldn’t be staring right back. Catching him in the act and making him pretend to mind his own business was entertaining, for a while.

Howler glanced around the shabby little one-room establishment, and found herself disappointed that she hadn’t seen a glimpse of blue amongst the uniformly green scrubs, or heard the telltale squeak of a custodian’s caddy being wheeled in. She had come to rely on the moments where her and Abe’s differing schedules lined up - with no small amount of effort by Howler shifting around borrowed break slots.

It wasn’t just because he had a fairly good grasp on her methods of communication, or had a grounding lack of tolerance for Alf’s bullshit. He was also… well. It was just nice to be around someone who didn’t want to fuck her. It was nice to be around someone who was… safe.

She really, really wanted him to be safe.

His absence gnawed at her, and she was both not drunk enough and unwilling to get drunk enough to think any deeper on why that might be. She got Alf’s attention with a whistle, and drew an X over her mouth with her finger. Alf, familiar with the sign, shrugged unhelpfully.

“Abe? I dunno… you know him, he’s usually takin’ overtime cleaning the offices, or somethin’ like that.”

Howler, despite herself, felt her heart drop as she was reminded of exactly why he usually was called up to the offices. She burned through that sickly feeling in the pit of her stomach until it festered into hate for the Glukkon who no doubt ordered it.

“... Why do you ask?” Alf’s question cut through the boiling resentment within her. She glanced at him to find a more serious look on his face than she was accustomed to.

Howler sighed, not in the mood to deal with some drone stock’s petty jealousy. Alf still approached her, that spark of adoration in his eye gone.

“Y’know, I see how you look at him; I ain’t stupid. I’ll just tell ya right now: he ain’t interested in what you’re sellin’, ya get me?” He went so far as to poke her in the shoulder in a sort of veiled threat. “I don’t wanna see my best bud wrapped around your little finger, ‘cos I know you’re doin’ that to eeeevery other scrub in the factory. Including me. So,”

His serious look faltered, as he found that her expression remained unchanged. “Just… leave him be, alright? He’s not interested.”

Howler gave him a slow nod, and reached for the notepad in her pocket. Her response was simple, and to the point:

‘Thats y i lyk him.’

When Alf gave her note a tight-lipped frown, she grabbed him by the hand to make him acknowledge her affirming, promising nod to him. He still had a look that was almost judgmental; temporarily seeing through her, and the hormones that her presence had no doubt stirred in him. His love for his friend was stronger, and that conviction was a pleasant surprise. Howler agreed with him, though he would never learn the details as to why.

Alf’s eyes flicked automatically to the door when he heard it open, and his face lit up in recognition. “Aw, speak of the - there he is.”

Howler hated that she felt elated to see this… solid three out of ten of a man shuffle tiredly over to take a seat beside her. It looked like he had another long day of doing… hopefully conventional janitorial tasks. There was no look in his eye that hinted to anything much worse than that, as they both silently acknowledged one another.

“...Long day in the rafters,” Abe explained, “they um… they wanted me to check the skylights.”

He gave Howler a subtly admonishing look that she pretended not to see; she was too busy comfortably going back to her aloof demeanor, now that she felt secure in his presence.

-

Upon returning to their sad, cramped little dorm, Abe watched incredulously as Howler emptied her pockets. The side of the shared wardrobe meant for her was slowly being filled with her acquisitions; mostly fresh water and solid food - basic things that were borderline luxury for a scrub. He watched her unwrap then tear into a meat pie ravenously, clearly unsated by the paltry gruel they were given in the mess hall.

Howler noticed him watching, and paused to offer him some food. Reflexively, Abe turned her down politely; only to be cut off by the low, desperate groan of his own stomach. He clutched an arm around his sunken middle as he reluctantly took the pie.

He expected her to hoard the food, like others would. Scrubs caught distributing packaging rejects were usually punished, even if it was perfectly good food destined for the garbage. The way Howler watched him take the offering, Abe suspected she wanted him to be indebted to her. Nothing was truly free here, and they didn’t even get paid in a substantial way. It was all favors and contraband, the latter of which Howler was apparently acquiring on the daily. Somehow.

Abe didn’t want to know what she had to do to get any of this, so he tried to appreciate the shared ‘wealth’ for what it was. His body craved solid food, even if it was substantially less nourishing than the scrub chow. Filling his stomach perked him up a little, after a long day. He noticed how Howler watched his gloomy expression soften.

The scrub mumbled his thanks as he crumpled the wrapper into a tight little ball to squeeze. He considered what he was saving for a quiet moment like this.

“They saw what we did with the skylight,” he mentioned finally, “we’re lucky Molluck just figured it was poor maintenance. I don’t want to know what he’d do if he thought we were trying to… escape.”

Just the word escape made his chest tighten and his heartbeat raise. A terrifying, impossible concept, far more risk without reward.

“We need to be more careful. You need to be more careful.” Abe gave Howler a pointed look, though the dire tone in his voice didn’t seem to affect her. She gave him a dismissive gesture, and he sighed.

“You’re already being watched out for. If he thinks you’re too much trouble to keep around… well, that’s it. You’re done for.” The scrub chewed on his stitches, concern flitting across his expression as he went over the worries that were always rotating in his mind. Howler added more than a few new ones.

Abe froze when Howler reached over to take his paw, and give it a reassuring squeeze. It didn’t necessarily make him feel any better. It just reminded him of her grabbing his paw that night, and how she held it up to the window to put his world into a new, terrifying perspective.

“Howler,” Abe lowered his voice into a cautious whisper, “what does that pawprint on the moon mean?”

Howler regarded the note of fear and ever-present anxiety in the Mudokon’s wide eyes. She took out her notepad, and wrote:

‘We are the chozen peepel’

“But- but what does that mean?”

Howler huffed, and shrugged. Her mildly annoyed expression belied some deeper sadness in her eyes she wasn’t quite able to express.

“Does anyone know?” Abe pressed. Howler frowned, and seemed reluctant to finally write:

‘All ded’

“... I thought as much.” The scrub sighed, looking down at her unfortunately unsatisfying answer. “I just- I don’t get it. If we were the ‘chosen people’ - whatever that means - then why are we…”

Abe gestured around him, to their prison cell of a dorm, and the rest of the factory beyond. Howler sighed before writing out her answer.

‘They wer afraid of us’

Howler was no lorekeeper, nor any shaman entrusted with the passed down legacy of her people. When she was taken away from her home she was a child, her knowledge of their history remained at a child’s understanding. It was still more than Abe could have possibly fathomed; a scrub who had never given thought to a world beyond the factory.

She watched the depressive mud squeeze the wrapper in his hand anxiously some more. His back bowed like a weight had been saddled on his shoulders, the burden of the enormity of what he was trying to understand pushing his head into his hands. He sat there in quiet terror for a good minute; not weeping, as Howler assumed, but thinking. Thinking about all that had been kept from him, depriving him of all but the saddest semblance of a slave’s life.

Howler considered comforting him; sidling up to him, drawing him into her arms to soak up the comfort she was equally deprived of. Securing his trust in her, and confirming that she could trust him in turn. But there was an opportunity here that she could take, and he was the only one she could count on to do it.

Abe looked up to watch her write out her next statement, freezing in anticipation. She ripped the paper out of the pad and handed it to him.

It said, ‘giv me my voys back and ill tell u evrything.’

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

What to Expect from the New Sassenach Member of Staff.

The decision to recruit an additional staff member always this new staff member has a responsible role to play too.

Ashley Hearn met new people recently, so she gave publicly her resume an introduction that no one asked for but here she goes anyway. You know her on IG by @spiritswithash despite her name being Ashley, some might call her - Ash, Smashley, Shley, and the list goes on.

She’s 36, but mentally She’s a 26-year-old -her words- (There is no room for debate, she has given evidence on this point) She’s a drinks devotee, (along SH’s path) workout fanatic (that remains to be seen), paddleboard enthusiast, and travel addicted, She was a math teacher in a public school and also coached volleyball and basketball.

Although she's not a professional photographer, she picked up her first camera in 2020 taking photos of friends in the bar industry, different spirits, and cocktails. Even though you see her drink a ton of gin whisky, and cocktails, She worked for Jägermeister the popular German Herbal Liqueur brand in the US.

As she said, She has been a jack of all trades for Jägermeister. In the 1980s, Jägermeister introduced the concept of the "Jägerette," who was essentially the embodiment of the Jägermeister spirit. As part of the brand's strategy to appeal to young party-goers, these attractive "shot girls" in distinct Jägermeister uniforms were tasked with visiting bars and distributing drinks to increase awareness of the brand. This initiative has since become a tradition in the Jägermeister market.

If that is the concept she has for The Sassenach market, It will be a tireless party mission, with outfits different and a program adapted to the respective party crowd at her friend’s bars.

Later on, as a PR and Culture Manager, she organised events. This opportunity in the Jägermeister gave her a start in the industry particularly enjoying an ice-cold shot. Remember that Jägermeister is best served straight from the freezer at -18⁰C.

However, she lacks the experience needed as a marketing manager within the spirits industry, as it is so competitive. In the meantime, she has been after SH until to get what she wanted to join Sassenach Spirits’ team.

If anyone is not sure about her interests: she has more interests than you can imagine, but not naturally, they are all planned. It seems like a good time to see her “friend' from the 90s, Chrissy Beaudette Tinelli probably knows Ashley's interests. Or not? 🤔

This means that her position in the SH business is essential for making herself known. She has clear ideas about what she wants to pursue with SH, not the brand itself. Is it fair to describe the situation as "ambitious" if you don't know how an ambitious person acts to achieve their goals? You're looking at one.

She travelled to Scotland around Tartan Day in April this year and then signed up for Hyrox America (NYC) held on June 1st, 2024, on Pier 76 in Hudson River Park to compete in Hyrox women's doubles. Who knows if she is interested in MPC? 💁‍♀️ She does everything she can to promote herself in front of SH, and since SH has lately been losing his head over several things, this decision could be one of them.

There are no individuals here for business meetings. This hire lacks good ideas, a portfolio of contacts, or a solid promotional plan for Sassenach spirits. She only has experience with one spirits brand, which is not sufficient for the whisky, gin, or tequila market. In Scotland, no one knows Miss Hearn from working closely with marketing colleagues.

Perhaps, She has a design on the top of her head quite different from her Sassenach duties like bringing water to the boss while he signs his bottles of whisky or gin and organising rows of SH’s fans, her job will be like Chrissy a sales promoter, she illustrates Sassenach drinks uses, offer free tastings and hand out flyers. She also approaches passers in a trade show area with a dedicated display where potential customers will see the Sassenach products, but it seems her idea in mind is quite different and this will be an impossible dream.

Looks like she has already started her job at the Bar Convent Brooklyn, (BCB) an international bar and beverage trade show in Industry City, NY at the beginning of last week.

Marketing managers represent the marketing team to cross-functional groups including product management, sales, and customer service. So, on her first day as Market Manager at Industry City, which groups did she collaborate with to create an offering message for Sassenach’s products? Additionally, what new channels did she identify to reach new customers in Brooklyn, New York?

Or is she just taking photos of Sassenach bottles for that job? SH already has a photographer with a free tourist guide included for that purpose in Scotland. Why are women around SH in this business so annoying?

The figurehead of the Sassenach brand is SH. The brand's success rests on him. Miss Hearn is not involved in public relations, but rather focuses on marketing and growing the company's sales by reaching customers. If Chrissy, who is backed by her family a beverage alcohol importer, and distributor, in New York not reach expectations, what can be expected from an unknown person in the alcoholic drinks market?

Ashley indicated her affiliation with Sassenach Spirit on her identification pass. She talks a lot about her position, and she seems to think it's very important.🙄 It appears that BCB included the promotion of the “Outlander Cocktails” book by James Shy Freeman and Rebeccah Marsters and the Foreword by Diana Gabaldon.

“Don’t mix business" is very appropriate in a trade show. Mixing business with a professional career can lead to conflicts of interest. One should maintain a clear boundary between work and personal business, as it can be beneficial for both. However, SH relies heavily on Outlander. How he’s going to cope once the series ends. What will happen to his business when his popularity ends and all fly the coop? 📉

Also, with OL ending, there are only a few months left until SH's popularity fades away. After that, she will have only her imagination. Photography will continue to pursue their Midsummer Night's Dream in Glencoe, Scotland.🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

“Outlander Cocktails” book by James Shy Freeman and Rebeccah Marsters and the Foreword by Diana Gabaldon.

Definitely in SH’s business, There is no worse blind person than the one who does not want to see.🤫

Posted 18th June 2024

[skzoologist]

Bumping into a fan in public

word count: 1.6k

warnings: none

genre: fluff

a/n: Here you go anon deary, the first of your asks now done at last 😄Hope you like it, since I felt like these two boys didn't get enough content on my blog. And as always, feel free to drop by anytime if an idea is tickling your mind, I'll get to it eventually!

Please let me know if I left a warning or anything out, I will add it in! Reblogs, likes and feedback are greatly appreciated!

!I don't condone anyone stealing my work and posting it anywhere without my permission, or feeding it to AI!

!This is just fiction, my interpretation of Stray Kids. By no means is this how they are and how they behave in real life!

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

It was another day of work and practice, something that only seemed hellish from an outsider’s perspective. Idols were more than used to it, the industry and their own pride demanding it endlessly. Bae had no problem with it, only when those he cared for overworked themselves and stepped over a line they shouldn’t have. 

That was why he’d been glad that day, his schedule overlapping with the others frequently, granting him the best opportunity to silently observe and care for them. This meant passing their towels and water bottles over to the members in each small break during dance practice, helping them execute a particularly tricky move, or just silently letting them cling to him when they had the chance. A comeback was breathing down their necks, the stress in the air basically palpable.

The perfect excuse for being lenient with the members and their shenanigans, caring for them silently.

Bae was watching Jeongin through the glass silently, his hands already working on mixing the sweet honey into some warm tea. Seungmin’d been enjoying the taste of his by then, only a few sips remaining in his mug as he was scrolling on his phone with an indifferent face.

The oldest member in the room’d been the first to have his singing practice, leaving Seungmin and Jeongin to have theirs later, providing their hyung ample time to get his hands on some tea and brew it up for the two. It wasn’t hard to do, since he kept some filters stashed away in the room for this exact occasion, being a regular there and all.

A little snort broke him out of his mindless stirring and staring ahead, a lit up phone entering his line of vision. It was a tiktok video, the edited face of his menace of a hyung greeting Bae back. He couldn’t help the quiet, strangled sound that left his throat, somewhere between a giggle and a cough. Nobody blamed him for it though, and certainly not Seungmin, the two quietly cackling at the short compilation.

The quiet giggles continued with every video, the two sitting next to each other, the younger letting all his weight fall onto the older.

It was peaceful, something rare amidst these chaotic days.

The door opened and both boys turned their heads towards the sound, watching their precious maknae exit the room and talk with their teacher. They only exchanged a few sentences, the young one soon joining them on the couch. Bae didn’t hesitate to gently push the still warm mug into his hands, gently smiling when he got a quiet thanks in return.

Bae went up to their teacher next, exchanging some quiet words and making plans for their next practice session. It was both a necessary and the most comfortable solution, since he could just convey the now modified plans to the young ones and let them take a small break at the same time.

Once he was done, he politely said goodbye to all the staff members, earning cheerful smiles and waves in return. He looked at the two on the couch, sat close to each other, probably watching a video from the same phone, not an unusual occurrence. The mugs were now empty and set to the side carefully, so no one would accidentally sit on them or push them onto the floor.

Just as Bae was about to go and get the mugs, fully intending to clean them, one of the staff members -a kind, middle aged lady, always willing to help- grabbed them and winked at him playfully. He froze in his spot, in disbelief, but soon he shook his head gently with a small smile dancing on his lips.

“Ready?” - his voice was quiet, yet the two young ones immediately heard it and looked up at him with a nod.

It didn’t take long for them to reach the bottom floor of the company, having made plans to eat an early dinner together at a nearby restaurant. A pleasant conversation was freely flowing between them, ranging from their just finished singing practice to movies they all enjoyed. Bae mostly watched the two in silence, only nodding and humming from behind the layers of his scarf and mask. 

He always enjoyed watching them animatedly talk about something they liked, a bright light shining in their eyes captivatingly. Even when the topic of the conversation eluded him, as if he was trying to catch water with his bare hands, that fond look never escaped his face.

“Hey, Dal hyung, you wanna come over and watch some marvel movies with me and Felix hyung?” - Jeongin asked and Bae knew he could never say no to those puppy eyes.

Seungmin merely snickered behind his hand -even though his mask muffled the sound already-, amused by the quick nod his hyung gave their maknae. The older playfully glared at the puppy, both knowing that the whole dorm would join in on the movie marathon anyway, if not the whole band, regardless of their own nightly plans and wishes. Nobody could say no to Jeongin, especially when he teamed up with Felix, creating an impossible challenge filled with puppy eyes and pouty lips.

While Jeongin celebrated his victory animatedly, Bae ruffled Seungmin’s hair, earning a whine from the boy. The older’s hand was batted away, but he could tell Seungmin was just pretending to be annoyed by the lightness of his expression, eyes still as bright as ever.

Just when the small restaurant came into view -it was slightly hidden away in a narrow street, its brightly lit sign the only indication of its existence-, a meek little voice stopped them in their tracks. 

Turning around, the three were met with a younger girl, form petite and small as she was anxiously fiddling with her sleeve covered hands. There was a faint dusting of pink on her cheeks, either from the chilly autumn wind, or her nervousness.

Even though he doubted there was a problem or danger, Bae still unconsciously stepped lightly before Seungmin and Jeongin, his voice soft as he prompted the girl to speak up.

“I- I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m a huge fan and, uh, I was wonderingifIcouldaskforapicture?” - her words were rushed together at the end, making it hard to understand them.

The three looked at the overly nervous girl, afraid she would worry herself sick at this rate. With a quick, shared glance, Bae stepped forward just a bit, careful not to startle her with their huge height difference.

“Sure, who did you have in mind?” - he asked as if he was talking to a startled animal, thankful that her shoulders slightly slumped down at that. “Ah, uhm, all three of you? If that wouldn’t burden you too much, of course! You’re my bias, Oppa, while Jeongin and Seungmin oppa are my bias wreckers!” - she replied, the faint colour now prominent on her faint skin.

Bae could only blink down at her with slightly widened eyes, a bit caught off-guard for a single second before he tamed his emotions and leveled his face. If he let his skin flush even a bit and showed how flustered he was, he knew his younger members would not let him live it down for at least a day or two.

Looking away from their excited fan, Jeongin and Seungmin nodded back at Bae, their eyes now crescent shaped. They all loved to meet with their fans, always glad to interact with them and take selfies with or give them an autograph. Usually those who approached them on the streets were kind and respectful, like this fan, making the experience all the more pleasant.

The four huddled together more, the petite STAY in the front, while the idols were behind her, with Bae in the middle. He was the tallest, so he was the one who took her phone and held it up, his height granting him the advantage for the perfect angle. Jeongin poked his dimples, Seungmin showed a V-sign, while Bae put up bunny ears for the puppy at the last second. His side was poked in annoyance, as subtle as Seungmin could be with the fan still in front of them.

Holding back a flinch, Bae lowered the phone and handed it back to the little STAY, watching with delight as her whole face lit up and she lightly jumped in place a few times. Catching herself, she pocketed the phone as if it was the most precious thing in her possession and bowed at them deeply, wishing them a good day and thanking them once again. The boys thanked her for her support, truly honoured to be her favourites, and waved at her leaving form.

“Did you really have to do that, Hyung?” - Seungmin’s annoyed voice could be heard, prompting Bae to step behind Jeongin and away from approaching hands.

Bae merely nodded, an unseen smile widening on his lips. Seungmin huffed, trying to circle around their confused baby bread to get to his hyung, yet to no avail.

‘Wait, what happened? Can you–” - Jeongin’s question was cut in half, the two around him too fast to follow. “Hyung, stop running away!” “Don’t want to.” “Then at least stop running around me and dragging me with you as if I’m your doll!” - Jeongin whined out desperately, having had enough of the two’s shenanigans.

Needless to say, Bae paid for the entire meal and carried the rightfully angry maknae back to their dorms. It was the only way to placate Jeongin, the ache in his muscles stronger than his dislike towards skinship.

[binnieaddict]

~Starboy is a work of my own mind~

Summary: you grew up in a small town in Malaysia, where the people were as beautiful as the country. You had a small group of friends who you graduated with and became successful in your studies. There was a boy you grew up with and you had the biggest crush on him, but he left shortly after summer break and nobody knew where he went. After you’d graduated college, you landed a huge opportunity as a choreographer for one of the biggest K-pop company’s JYPE….and you weren’t prepared for what was next.

|Warnings| smut , unprotected p in v, oral, angst, rough, biting, scratching, minors dni.

Word count: 3.3k

Beep beep beep

You subconsciously lift your hand up, fumbling around and wacking your hand into your nightstand trying to silence your alarm clock. As you fumbled around the beeping got louder, You let out a hmph when you eventually decided it was better to sit up and turn it off. You stretched, releasing all the sleepiness trapped in your muscles. Looking over at the alarm clock you’d just silenced, you smiled. Despite it being 3 am, you were excited. It’s your first day as a choreographer for one of the biggest K-pop labels in South Korea. JYP Entertainment, home of groups like Twice, Got7, Day6, and StrayKids. A group thats been out for about 6 years. You’d been choreographing and releasing your dances online through TikTok and instagram, receiving praise and thousands of followers. You’d never thought you would become known among the most powerful and talented dancers in the industry. You’d also never imagined the company would reach out and extend a job offer, but you most definitely took the opportunity in a heart beat. As you slide out of bed and make your way to the bathroom, you grab a pair of spandex leggings and a loose fitting tee. A shower was the first thing you wanted to do. You turn the handle over to hot. You’d never been much of a fan of cold showers…and if there isn’t steam bellowing out, you weren’t getting in. The water fell against your light skin you were blessed with. You lathered your peony scented body wash and began washing your body, reaching every crevice and spot you passively could. Rubbing out your muscles as you did and it felt so wonderful. Being a dancer, you found your muscles were sore after hours of practice and perfection. Sometimes you would practice for 6-7 hours so you always made sure to have those self care days whenever you could. After rinsing off your body you lathered your lavender body scrub, exfoliating your skin. Turning off the shower, you grabbed your towel and dried yourself off before slipping into your clothes you’d picked out previously. The black leggings hugged your body in the most perfect ways. The white tee was oversized and hung to your mid thigh, you decided to tie it into a small knot behind your back. You pulled your black medium length hair into a messy bun leaving two strands down by your ears. Your apartment wasn’t too big, and you were so grateful to Mrs. Choi for letting you rent on such a short notice. You’d only found out 3 weeks ago that you would be moving to Korea for this job, and she was very understanding and worked with you closely. Her husband and herself showed you around the beautiful city of Seoul and surrounding districts like Busan, Gwangju, and even took you Ilsan. Your apartment was a plethora of things you loved, the walls were a warm eggshell white, adorned with Malaysian tapestries, reminding you of home. You reminisced on the days of your early years often, even of the days in high school. You slid on your black pumas and grabbed your canvas bag before filling up your water bottle and making your way to the door. “Today’s the day.” You said, your voice steady and determined. You made your way through the silent streets of Seoul. You felt a cool breeze against your body as you walked. You wouldn’t have to walk very long, the JYP building wasn’t too far from your apartment. From what you’d seen in the first few nights being here, the night was quiet, and safe. You could walk out of your house at 3 am and not have to worry if someone would be following you. You were fishing through your canvas bag for your earbuds, wanting to listen to some music on your commute to work. That honestly felt strange to say, work. Your first day of work. Repeating it in your mind made you smile brightly. You felt so proud of yourself, you knew your dad would have been so proud of you. Since he passed you made it your mission to bring you mother happiness and joy. And you were doing just that. The sky was still full of stars, the streetlights shining brightly. You plugged in your earbuds, and pressing shuffle on your playlist.

Starboy- The Weekend, Daft Punk

The lyrics coursing through your mind as you walked. The feeling music brought you wasn’t explainable, the more you tried to explain it, the crazier you looked to people. You remember the story your mom had told you since you were in grade school, of you dancing to music before you learned to speak. It warmed your heart to know you were passionate even as a kid.You finally made it to the street where JYP’s building sat nestled among shops and restaurants. The occasional car drove past you as you made your way down the street. It wasn’t unusual to see a van or truck passing by as well. The building was as beautiful as you’d seen in the newsletters and papers. The doors were cool to the touch as you pulled the right side open, walking in to the beautifully lit interior. “Anyeonghaseyo.” You said to the receptionist behind the counter, removing your earbuds swiftly. She looked startled jumping up and bowing quickly. “Anyeonghaseyo, Ms. Y/n.” She stood upright just as quickly. “Welcome to JYP Entertainment.”she said coming from behind the counter to greet you. “Thank you for the warm welcome, it’s an honor to be here.” You added, clearly smiling through your mask. “Please, have a seat, I will let them know you are here.” She shuffles her way back behind the counter and dials on the landline. You take the moment to look around, the welcome desk was polished, the windows were cleaned perfectly and the floors were a nice marbled brown color. You sat down in one of the chairs, taking in the rest of the reception area. You hadn’t realized someone was walking up to you until he extended his hand. “O-oh I’m so sorry.” You gushed, standing up quickly accepting his hand. “Hello, welcome to JYP Entertainment, it’s great to have you on board. You must be Y/N.” The guy says. You bow your head, releasing his hand. “Thank you so much, yes, I’m Y/N. It’s a pleasure to meet you…?” You trail off, not knowing his name, hoping he would fill you in. But he didn’t, what made matters worse is he had a face mask on too. So you couldn’t determine who he was behind his mask. “Well, let’s get you set up in the practice room, the boys will be arriving soon.” He said, motioning for you to follow him. You grabbed your canvas bag and followed suit. He lead you down the hallway and the noises of phones ringing and computers humming hit you like a truck. It seemed to be a busy company. Well duh y/n. You mentally slapped yourself. As he lead you through the offices and down a flight of stairs, you couldn’t help but feel excited. You admired the artists pictures on the walls, signifying their achievements and some promotional posters. Even catching a few glimpses of members of groups in person already getting ready to put in work. You finally made it to the practice room where the manager turned and raised his arms as if saying this is it, this is what you’ve been waiting for. The manager left you after saying the boys would arrive one after the other, so you would have 1 on 1 time with each member to get to know them as dancers and artists. You walked over to the stereo equipment and get everything set up. As you set the playlist for your warm ups you missed the sound of the dance studios door opening. You started doing your stretches, making sure to stretch each muscle, isolating each area to ensure they were ready to dance. You were startled by someone clearing their throat. You snapped your head up and locked eyes with a familiar face. You recognized him immediately, and he recognized you too. A shocked expression shared between the two of you. “Long time no see…Y/N.”

Hearing your name fall out of his lips of honey startled you more. “Jisung…” you whispered as you stood up. A whirlwind of memories flooding your mind. You fought the urge to panic, remembering the feelings you’d had for him…you shoved them from your head. Also remembering how he left without word. A bitterness spreading on your tongue. “It has been a very long time.” You said, finally facing him. You stood there in front of each other, who knew you would find him…let alone be teaching him a dance you choreographed. “Why are you here?” You asked, a bit of venom seeping through your words. He looked a bit taken aback, shrugged his shoulders and smiled. God that smile…”Well for starters, I’m in Stray Kids, and I’m here to learn the choreography for our new song.” He said stepping forward. “Why are you here?” He said. His eyes traveling up and down your frame. “I- i uh I’m the new choreographer.” You said simply, not noticing how close he’d gotten. You mentally shook yourself and the look in his eyes didnt help. “Okay, you’re here to learn right? Then let’s get started.” You started teaching him step by step first, without the music. You had to admit, he was quite the dancer. His charisma was even better than when you were in school. He’d become even more handsome too. The high school heart throb…YOUR high school heart throb. You shook the thoughts from your mind once again. “Come on, take five, grab some water and well run it again.” You said, breathing heavy, looking at Jisung. His hair hanging, plastered on his forehead from sweat. His shirt clinging to certain parts of his chest. Little to be known he was watching you the whole time, the way your body moved as you danced, and to be honest it turned him on. He fought every urge in his body. You grabbed your water bottle and took a few sips. “So, how have you been Y/n?” He asked, his breathing heavy but steady. “Listen…” you began “…not to be rude, Jisung, But you don’t have the right to ask me how I have been. You disappeared. Without a word and had everyone worried…you left us, your friends and never looked back.” You said, tears threatening your vision. The anger boiled up inside of you. He took a breath as if he was going to speak but you beat him to the punch. “You could’ve said something you know? Your mom didn’t answer my texts…she won’t talk to any of us. We assumed you’d left home and forgotten about all of us.” You paused, tears streaming down your face but you didn’t care as you turned to face him. “That you had forgotten about me. Jisung, don’t you get it? I was so worried about you and you couldn’t give a fuck to say ‘Hey, sorry I left out of nowhere I really don’t care about you guys and I went to join a K-pop group.’ …Jisung i fucking cried every night.” You were sobbing at this point. The look on his face was nothing short of concern and sadness. He rushed forward, grabbing hold of you and pulling you into his arms. “Y/n…I’m so sorry…I couldn’t say anything.” He whispered against your neck. Stroking your hair as you cried into his shoulder. “Jisung…I loved you for so long…and you just left…” you whispered. Holding him closer to you. “You what…?” He asked pulling away from you.

His face blank, but his eyes were wide. “You heard me…” you said, shying away from him. Picking up your water bottle, wiping your eyes. “No, Y/N say it…again.” His voice got deeper as his head hung looking at the ground. “I said I loved you…” you whispered. The moment it fell from your lips Jisung rushed forwards taking your chin in his hand. He looked you in your swollen eyes and his own tears spilt over. Without anymore words your lips collided. The emotions from years of torment and being apart crashing down over you. Your tongues danced around each others, begging for more. You both pulled away, faces hot and breathless. “I’m so sorry…I’m sorry I left.” His voice quivering. He brushed your hair from your forehead, planting a small kiss there. “Please. Let me show you how sorry I am Y/N.” He pleaded. You were shocked at what was coming out of his mouth. “Jisung…what are you saying?” You questioned, your stomach flipping. His eyes pleaded with yours, in fact begging. “Let me show you…will you trust me?” He whispered, his hands finding your hips. You nodded slowly, feeling your core heat. With a swift motion he laid you on the practice room floor, his body between your legs. You felt his hands graze your thighs, rubbing them up and down, whispering sweet nothings. “You’re just as beautiful as I remember.” His braid shoulders expanse as he reached to cup your breast as he leaned in to kiss you. You hummed in nervousness as he massaged it softly. Your back arching as you felt your pussy getting wetter by the second. You reached your hands up pulling his face closer, your lips colliding with each other. His lips grazing yours, his grip tightening on your breasts, squeezing them which earned a moan from you. You felt yourself yearning to feel him inside you. “Please…” you whimpered begging with your eyes. “Please what baby?” His voice just barely above a whisper. “I need you.” You said, reaching your hands up into his shirt, feeling his body. His eyes fluttered shit for a moment. “You sure? Are you sure you want this?” He taunted, enjoying your flustered state. You knew he found this enjoyable, but he wanted you more than you even imagined. “Just fuck me already.” You groaned.

He found the hem of your leggings and pulled them down agonizingly slow, knowing you would squirm. And you did just that. “Fuck…look at how beautiful you are.” He said, tossing your leggings to the side, kissing the inside of your thighs. He dragged his tongue along the sensitive meat on your thigh. Sending shivers through your body. His tongue reached your panties, he paused, his head not moving but his eyes looking up at your erotic state. He took your underwear in his teeth, tugging at them as you lifted your ass up for him to slide them off. His breath caught as he stared at the sight before him, you instinctively shut your legs, blushing wildly. He put his hands between your knees forcing them open. “No.” He started breathlessly . “jangan sembunyikan dari saya sayang saya…” he leaned down kissing your abdomen, leaving little trails all the way down to the lips of your pussy. He licked a strip of your juices dripping out of you. His tongue shoveled deeper as you moaned. Your body reacting to each movement. “You taste so sweet.” He groaned, his mouth latching onto your sensitive bud, sucking as he inserted a finger inside of you. Your eyes closed as you threw your head back moaning from the warmth and feeling of his mouth against you. He pushed his finger in and out slowly at first, before lapping at your pussy, loving the sweet sounds of approval you gave. He slipped another finger inside as he picked up his pace, his tongue moving faster against your clit. You could barely breathe with how fucking good he was eating you. “F-fuck…Jisung oh my god.” Your voice broken up in moans. “Tell me how much you want it…tell me baby.” His voice vibrating against your pussy. You felt your insides tightening, pulsating against his fingers as her curved them just right. “Nnghh…fuck please. I’m gonna cum please.” You begged, moaning louder, bucking your hips agains his tongue earning a deeper groan from him. “Give it to me.” He said before you started writhing, your whole body shaking as your juices flows out, your pussy contracting against his fingers and he lapped up all your juices. He took one last lick before getting up and bringing his fingers to your lips. “Clean it up.” The tone of control was intense and ridged in his voice. His eyes hooded over as you took his fingers in your mouth, sucking them clean.

He stood up taking his sweat pants off, and your mouth watered at the sight before you. The print of his cock threatening his boxers. He pulled them off and it sprang free, precum dripping from his tip. He dropped to his knees and positioned himself between your legs again, rubbing his cock against your pussy. “You ready Y/N?” He whispered, his cock pressing against your entrance. You pushed yourself onto his cock, his groan echoing through the room. “Fuck…baby…you’re so damn tight.” He said pushing himself further into you as you moaned in pleasurable pain. His cock burying itself inside your walls. The pain subsided as he started moving. His body hovering over yours as he laid his face into your neck. His thrusts getting deeper and deeper as he whimpered. His sweet moans vibrated against your neck as the sounds of yours grew. “H-holy fuck…” you cried out, your nails digging into his back as he thrusted into you faster then before. The sound of skin slapping against each other echoed with sweet whimpers and moaning. The room filled with erotic sounds. He found himself licking your neck, before biting down softly earning a gasp as he pulled out and slammed back into you. “Fuck…don’t stop please Jisung.” Tears pricking your eyes as you felt your climax nearing again. He growled in response as he sat up pushing your legs over your shoulder holding them with one hand baring your ass upwards. The new sensation of him holding you this way felt amazing and you wanted more. He plowed into your pussy as you begged and whimpered. “Fuck…fuck Jisung I’m gonna-“ before you could finish your pussy was vacated. The cold air filling you up as he yanked you up and forcing you against the mirrors lining the walls. He took your right leg and held it up in one of his arms. Your face is was pressed against the glass, fogging it up as he slammed his cock back into you. He enjoyed this, seeing you disheveled and the erotic look on your face. “See, I told you, I’m sorry baby.” He groaned against your ear. You threw your head back against him as your eyes rolled back. He hit a spot you’d never felt before and damn it felt good. Your pussy started contracting against him again, without warning you felt a liquid forcing its way out. Your whole body shaking as he kept thrusting into you. “Fuck fuck oh my god.” You cried out, the over stimulation from whatever was happening sending him over the edge as he thrusted into you one last time. His cum filled you up, it’s warmth radiating inside of you.

You both had gotten dressed and were sitting there, cleaning up the liquids from the mirrors and floor. “Jesus Christ Y/N…” Jisung chuckled, reaching his arms around your waist hugging you from behind. “Hey don’t blame me…you’re the one that made me do it star boy.” You relished in the hug.

A/N: Yeah I hope yall enjoyed this because holy shit I struggled.

Taglist: @usoinked @dwarvenagenda