#THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SHORT I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE

[deathbypixelz]

Screenshotting my original tags because there's some thoughts I want to get out.

I stopped watching the show in season one because I wanted this to happen so badly but I was so afraid I was just gonna get burned again. Or that it wasn't going to be good, though that was a much lesser fear. If anything knowing how well Fortiche could animate this made the first fear worse.

So yes I was watching the tags from the sidelines waiting to see if what I wanted so fucking badly would happen. I'd settle for a kiss, because even that is too much for most shows, and I was hoping for a sex scene on top of that. And then when it did, and then AGAIN, I wasn't ecstatic like I thought I'd be. I was just kind of... sad. And it took me until this morning to figure out why.

This is really, really good. It's short but it's really good. This is what lesbian intimacy and lesbian sex looks like. And I have never. in my life. seen it done so well.

And I have no idea when I will ever see it done so well again.

Animating characters touching AT ALL is EXTREMELY hard to get right, so I've heard. Let alone intimate touch. I mean fucking DRAWING IT is a struggle at times. And seeing just how fucking well Arcane does physicality and touch is, again, what made that first fear of mine worse.

I'm sad because I know now this is all we're getting of them. Even if there's a season three, why would they spend the time on a second sex scene? You know?

I wanted to see people like me loving like me and I got it. And I'm almost certainly going to cry over it later today. This is all I've wanted for years. And to an older lesbian who's seen the lack of real depiction for longer than I have, I can't imagine how this might feel.

When will I ever see it done in so beautiful a show, so honestly, with so much care, and with so much respect ever again? I don't know. And that's what's making this hurt in a weird way. It sounds shallow in a vacuum but I wish we could see them like this again, and again, and again, and again. Or any other pair of lesbians in this show. It really doesn’t matter to me.

I just want to see people like me -- really like me. It's all I've wanted for years. And I saw myself in these gifs. I have never seen myself reflected back like this. I have never felt this way before in my life. And as I'm typing this, I'm crying now.

...

I just wanted to say this and get it out of my brain. I'm going to channel this ache for more into art of my own. I hope the next time isn't too far away.

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LESBIANS: 2x08 - “Killing is a Cycle”

[animationiscoolasfrick]

Delivery at Dawn | THE LINE

[steelthroat]

I think the perfect man is actually the weird mix between Spencer Reid and Patrick Jane, with a hint of Castle playfullness.

Yes.

[bunnyhugs77]

Valentine Vixen

★Pairing: Stripper! Reader x Rich! Jungkook

★Happy Valentine's Day, Mwah

★WC: 3k

★Content: some fluff, clubbing, jk is so cute, he gets flustered, teasing, mutual pining, ft player! tae, reader is so hot, mentions of break ups, lap dances, double life, suggestive themes, a smidge of angst, brief psychology talk, mentions of boobs.

Other Content: desperate kisses, domme reader, hand jobs, grinding, almost cumming in pants, oral sex (m! receiving), subby jk. handcuffs, desperate jk, reader is a tease, nicknames, manhandling

"Look, that's her." With a subtle jut of his head, Jungkook directs Taehyung's line of sight about twenty meters off into the distance where you step up on the step ladder to shelve more novels.

Tae's eyes widen ever so slightly before his face relaxes into an all-knowing smirk, "So this is what's got you spending so much time at the library lately?" Jungkook shoves him in the side and you pretend not to notice the two of them obviously staring at you.

Letting your short acrylics graze over the spines of the paperbacks, pinpointing where the book in your hand should go. "I can't see her face from here, but I know a nice ass when I see one," Tae states obnoxiously and it makes Jungkook's face turn sour.

"C'mon, Tae." The elder rolls his eyes, "Lighten up. It's just a joke. Hopefully, tomorrow will help you chill out a bit." With an arched brow, Jungkook turns to face his best friend. "Tomorrow?"

"It's Valentine's Day, and I think it's about time you got some ass, Kook. Seriously, when's the last time you had a nice pair of tits in your face, huh?" Jungkook's cheeks flush but he does think about Tae's question.

After no more than a second had passed Tae interrupted his thoughts, "See. You can't even remember, don't worry. That's why I'm here. You're bound to get your dick wet at Red Haven tomorrow, the dancers there are next level." Tae raves, hands waving around to express his eagerness.

Red Haven was the new club that opened not too far from campus but it attracted a lot more than just some touch-deprived university students. Men were ranging from the ages of twenty-one to sixty-five.

"But-" Jungkook was about to object but Tae had picked up a call, reassuring the person on the other end of the line, "Maria, you know you're the only girl in my life." He coos and his face freezes, "Oh shit, this is Jessica? Baby, I was just joking. I don't even know a Maria." Tae walks off trying to save himself from the deep hole he'd dug himself into.

Leaving Jungkook at the table by himself once again, his eyes naturally gliding back to where you once were but he couldn't see you. His feet guided his brain over to the bookshelves where you once stocked away hardcovers.

He stops in his tracks as he lays his eyes on a certain book that caught his eye. 

In your head

"That's a good choice." You startled him, the book slipping from his grasp and hitting the ground. The two of you reach down for it at the same time which in practicality wasn't a good idea. The impact of your heads colliding nearly knocked you to your feet.

"I'm so sorry," He apologizes, gaze checking in on you while you worked on picking up the novel off the floor. "I should be the one saying that. I didn't mean to scare you." You say, finally making eye contact and nothing could stop Jungkook from holding his breath.

You're breathtaking.

Beautiful dark brown eyes that held the most innocently seductive eye contact. The way your tan skin dimpled in your cheeks and the perfect formation of waves that your hair mimicked as it flowed down your shoulders.

"I've seen you around here a few times but I never got your name." Jungkook does his best to be subtle as he fishes for your name. It wasn't exactly the most discreet but you think it was a cute effort.

"I'm Y/n," You smile, handing him the book back and he just about collapses inside. Anything you wanted he would give it to you, and he's rich, he could make it happen. God, he would make sure you never had to lift a finger around him.

"I'm J-" It seems he didn't need to introduce himself because you already seemed to know him. "-Jungkook, right? The Dean's son." He sighs, of course.

That's how everyone knew him.

Being the son of the dean at the most prestigious university in the country wasn't something easy to escape. It continued to precede him anywhere he went. "Have you read it?" Your perfectly manicured finger points towards the book now in his possession and he nods.

"It's incredible, the way it examines the interplay between conscious and unconscious desires. I think it's pretty amazing." You blink once, then twice. "Don't pin me for the reading type, right?"

"Honestly, no, but trust me, I'm the last person who should be judging based on first impressions." He smiles at the sound of your soft chuckle. "Do you like psychology?" Your gaze now focused back to the shelves, "I hope so, I wouldn't want to be taking that major and not like it." You turn to him.

"You're a psychology major?" The tone of your voice gave away your disbelief but he wanted to know why this was so shocking.

"Yeah?"

"Weird. Usually, we would've had at least one class together if we shared the same major." He swallows thickly, briefly zoning out because he realizes he is talking to you. Finally, after months of watching you from a distance, trying to work up the nerve to approach you.

Getting too stuck in his thoughts, he loses his ability to speak. Settling for a hum of agreement. You sigh, disappointed. "What a shame. I would've liked having a cutie in my class like you." Your finger gently traces along his jaw and it feels like fire against his skin.

Before he could blink you were strutting away. Hips swaying like you were on a runway, he licks his lips. He'd never fumbled so badly before, but your beauty was something entirely different. It made him disoriented. He needed to get a grip.

Who would've thought the cute library assistant was so...tempting?

★★★

"Hey, Kook! I don't know If I'll be able to stay with you much longer. The bartender is giving crazy fuck me eyes and I can't leave her disappointed now can I?" Tae grabs his friends by the shoulder amidst the crowd of moving bodies.

"What about Maria?" Jungkook questions, referring to the woman Tae had spent all day before this one buttering up in hopes she would forgive him. Tae shrugs, "She'll forgive me again." Jungkook scoffs as he watches the silver-haired man travel through the sea of bodies.

Sometimes he couldn't believe that was his best friend, but he had to remember he wasn't always like this. This was just some terrible hoe phase he was going through.

He had gotten out of a 3-year-long relationship with Yara no more than 3 months ago and he's been on some sort of fucking spree ever since. He claims he feels so 'free' but deep down he was hurting and Jungkook knew that, but Tae refused to admit it.

But what could he do? It was a canon event and he couldn't interfere, even though he tried to once. Didn't end well. Tae was on a hunt for as many women as he could get, and he knew that eventually he would get sick of it and regain his senses.

His mind was pulled out of his thoughts once the entire venue went black for a few moments and the music was shut off. Jungkook was confused, maybe even a bit scared but it seemed there was no need to be as the crowd roared to life.

It seems they knew something he didn't.

"Introducing Red Haven's Vixens!" The announcer's voice rang through the speakers but the crowd was so much louder.

Jungkook was deep into the middle section of the audience so it was hard for him to get a clear view of the stage but he could see eight beautiful women walking onto the stage, in outfits he could probably use to floss.

There were so many colours on the stage. It was as if he'd died and been brought to the end of the rainbow where the sexiest guardian angels waited to bring him to heaven. Although there was one that piqued his interest.

All the girls were wearing some form of unique face paint that was accessorized with rhinestones, each one matching the general colour scheme of their outfits. There was something about the girl in the hot pink two-piece.

Jungkook fought to make his way to the front, face now up close to the base of the stage, looking up to the woman with hearts in his eyes. The way her hips swayed with the music, and her ass jiggled with each sharp movement.

She was a natural, with one hand on the pole she leaned back, looking right into the crowd. Her eyes scanned for a target before they landed on Jungkook as she began to grind your hips down onto it, making such a lewd expression.

She bit her lip and furrowed her brows just like one would as if they were close to- A shock ran through his body. It was you. Even with the gems and the paint around your eyes, he knew it was you, and by the slight smirk that crept up your lips, you knew he recognized you.

Once the performance was over Jungkook had found his way back to the front counter, eyes desperately scanning over the list of private sessions they offered. "How much would it cost for a room with the girl in pink?"

The clerk reminds Jungkook, "A private session grants you a private dance from one of our vixens. No touching of any kind is permitted unless granted by the Vixen, you must-" The rest of the rules were no brainers and Jungkook desperately wished he could fast forward the long speech.

"Got it. How much?"

"Well, Destiny is our Vixen of the highest demand, a 10-minute session could cost you up to five hundre-" Jungkook couldn't take it anymore. "I'll give you a thousand." He interrupts and the woman's jaw drops. She promptly hands him the key, "Third door on your left."

He'd been sitting in the nicely decorated room for the last five minutes. He was sitting on the chair that faced the door, his right leg bouncing uncontrollably. He was so nervous, and if he was being honest, he was already sporting a semi just from the thought of you walking through that door any second now.

The lights in the room flickered from the bright blue as it strobed to a gentle purple before a deep pink. The door opened, and there you were. In the same outfit you'd worn on stage except this time the music had changed to Wild Side.

"It is you." Jungkook gasps cutely as you take confident strides towards him. "Right, you are." Your heels made you tower over him once you stood before him.

"B-But- why?" You laugh, "The same reason why billions of other people have jobs. I've got an expensive tuition that won't pay for itself." He frowns, speaking before thinking. "I'll pay for it." You give him a playful roll of your eyes before you bend at the waist, bringing your face close to his.

"You're lucky you're so cute." The mere proximity was making Jungkook's brain get mushy and hazy with lust. He wanted you so badly, would do absolutely anything to have to, anything you said.

"Now, let me see those hands." You order and just like a dog to its owner, he follows instructions immediately, his hands out in front of you and you slowly walk around him, taking one hand then the other and handcuffing them behind his back.

He doesn't even remember seeing you walk in with handcuffs then again there was a lot about tonight that he didn't see coming. Like how smoothly you were able to straddle his lap and begin a slow, deep grind.

"So I really can't touch you at all?" Your heart skipped a beat at the way he was almost pouting when he said it. "You can try, but it's so much more fun this way. Watching you struggle to touch me." Your voice is as gentle as a whisper that should've been lost over the music but it was spoken right into his ear.

The feeling of your breath against the shell of his ear sends the hairs on the back of his hair to stand, and goosebumps to raise. He was rock solid in his jeans, although you already knew that. You could feel it. With every sensual roll of your hips, the man beneath you became a little more whiny.

"Do you think about me touching you?" Whipping your hair to the side as you leaned down intentionally close to his neck, making sure he felt your presence all over. His hips stutter under your set pace and it caused you to jolt slightly, "Fuck yes- Every day." He answers. Voice empty and high-pitched.

"Yeah?" You slowly slide off him, and let your knees hit the soft cushioned floor. You weren't doing anything, simply resting your arms on his knees and letting your head rest innocently on your hands.

How dare you look up at him like such an angel while you tempted him with a world of sin.

"Tell me, what do I do to you?" He sucks in a sharp breath as he feels your hand slowly glide up the inseam of his jeans. "You-" He gets distracted, losing his train of thought the moment your hand gently squeezes the thick muscle of his thigh, "Shit. You take my cock in your mouth and you suck me off until-" you squeeze his thigh once again, a little tighter this time.

"Hm? Until what? Until you cum in my mouth? Or on my chest?" Leaning back up, making an intimidating eye contact that Jungkook was unable to hold. "Look at me, Kookie." God. That nickname was so belittling, made him feel like he was being teased, but oh how he loved it.

"Until What? Say it." You grit, your hand holding his face, just firm enough for your middle finger and thumb to press into his cheeks. "Until I cum in your mouth and you swallow it." He looked so ashamed to say it, but it only caused you to grin bigger.

"Can I touch you, Kookie?"

He nods, nods and nods. "Please." His voice was a mere whisper, and at a certain pause during the music, you could hear him fighting against his restraints.

Back on your knees, your hands worked skillfully on getting him out of his pants and pulling how his briefs, just low enough for his throbbing dick to be released. Already budding with precum, some of it sticking to the base of his shirt as it rests against his abdomen.

"Nice cock." You almost wanted to laugh at the cliché, but it was true. Jungkook really had the prettiest dick you'd ever laid your eyes on, and he was big too.

He doesn't respond, eyes focused on your every move while his cheeks tinted red. He was anticipating for the contact between your hand and his length, but he still wasn't prepared.

Sucking in a sharp breath as he watched you spit on it and proceed to flash him the most charming smile he'd ever seen. You wanted to kill him, and Jungkook was afraid you'd succeed.

Your hand languidly rose from base to tip, working him up but he didn't need that, he wanted to last. His hips bucked up with every motion of your hands, "Relax," You coo, hand continuing its ministrations while Jungkook's head fell back. Hands still fighting against the cuffs desperately.

"a-ah." he moans so sweetly as your lips unexpectedly place a chaste kiss on his tip. Eyes shooting wide open, "Shit- 'm not gonna last." He warns but you continue anyway. Letting your tongue swirl around his tip like your favourite popsicle.

"Y/n-" His groans became more breathless and frequent, "Oh shit- Y/n-" Being ambitious you relaxed your throat and took deep breaths through your nose as you deepthroated his length. Fondling his balls in your left hand as you continued to work the base that you couldn't fit with your right.

That was it for him.

Jungkook's hot cum was filling your mouth with no further warning and the sound of the clashing metal rang in your ears, you grin. Looking up at the man who you've just ruined.

He blinks down at you with no thoughts behind his eyes, you maintain eye contact and swallow. He groans; and just to make sure you made his dreams come true, you stick out your tongue when you're done.

You stand, and the song changes once more, now playing sex with me.

How fitting, you think.

You uncuff Jungkook's wrists and with all the strength in his body, he tugs you back down to his lap. "Let me kiss you," A big strong man like him had just manhandled you to his will yet here he was still asking for your permission.

Good boys deserve treats.

You lean in, tilting your head to the side as your lips meet in a lustful exchange of saliva and desperation. This was all Jungkook needed. His hands unconsciously roamed down your backside until they found comfort on the soft flesh of your ass. Giving it a confident grip, you moaned into the kiss.

The two of you hardly pulled away, kissing like you wanted to become one. The way your body rolled against his and he pushed up into you.

"Can I fuck you?" He looked up to you with stars in his eyes and he was just the cutest thing, just as you wanted to answer, the lights strobe back to their default blue colour.

Slowly, you dismount him. Pretending that you weren't soaking through your costume. "Next time," You leaned down to drop a kiss on his cheek and begin to make your way out, "Happy Valentine's Day." You flash him one last wink and walk out of sight.

Happy Valentine's Day ♡

[asahicore]

real me, real you - psh

pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader (ft. jay... sorry)

synopsis. You’re your school’s popular pretty smart girl, but with a twist - you lead a completely different life at home, where you are messy, lazy and foul-mouthed. Only your family and best friend Sumin know about this, until Park Sunghoon, of all people, finds out. The resident cold and arrogant heartbreaker of your school decides to blackmail you into doing his biddings - but you can’t say no, not even when he asks you to be his fake girlfriend, otherwise he’ll ruin your reputation. But as you and Sunghoon get closer, you realize that maybe he’s not so bad after all, and you may be more similar than you'd originally though - all while your old childhood friend Jay watches from the sidelines.

genre. fake dating, high school au, very slight love triangle action, fluff and angst

warnings. this is the first thing i ever wrote so there may be slightly cringe and awkward things but i didn't wanna change anything lol, hoon is a meanie at some point and everything is dramatic and very fanfic-y, mild childhood trauma for both of them <3

word count. 22.9k

author's note. @end-hyphen genie this one is for you... i hope you still like this fic after all this time lol ! as i said in the warnings i only changed a few typos and punctuation from the original but i decided to not make any major changes bc i think it's nice to see what my writing was like when i had just started out!! hopefully i've improved lol, also this was not inspired by true beauty!! i've never seen the show nor read the webtoon. i was inspired by two mangas called switch girl and kare kano (or his and her circumstances) which have this plot of a girl being two different people at school and at home. anyways hope u guys enjoy this and if u do pls lmk <333

Nobody was supposed to find out.

You were the most popular girl in school, known for your looks, good grades, and kind personality. You had a nice group of friends and the whole school at your feet, students and staff alike. As the student representative, you had an image to keep up and needed everyone to think you were perfect; and they did. So you always wore a smile on your face, kept your head up and made sure your uniform was creaseless, all while maintaining the highest scores in your year. Always being friendly to your peers and helping them out prevented anyone from thinking you were a stuck-up goody-two-shoes. You made high school look like a breeze.

But such a life didn’t exist. Who was happy waking up at 6 a.m. every day and dedicating all of their time to schoolwork and student life? You certainly weren’t. What you thrived off of was having everyone think you were. Hearing whispers in the corridor of, “She’s so pulled together!” or “I wish I had her life”, now, those skyrocketed you to heaven. The cherry on top was a nod of approval from a teacher or an “outstanding job again, Y/N” as they handed you back your graded paper. Your favorite color had become the red of the pens your teachers used to write A+ at the top of the page. 

You’d always been academically gifted, but as you heard those words more and more, you’d started craving them and doing everything to hear them again until they started controlling you instead of the other way around. Everything you did needed to be perfect. And that was how you had created this persona of the perfect girl who had it all together at the ripe age of 17. But that’s exactly what it was; a persona. 

As soon as you stepped off the bus and waved goodbye to your friends, you became another person. Or more accurately, you reverted back to your natural self. You weren’t an evil person by any means; it wasn’t your intention to actively deceive everyone at school, it was more of a side effect of keeping up appearances. Only your family and your closest friend Sumin knew what you were truly like: greedy, messy, short-tempered, self-centered, and sometimes downright insufferable. Your younger siblings, Sunoo and Yeeun, liked to joke that you had a button you switched on and off whenever you left the house. When on, you were the sweetest girl ever, but when off, all your vices crept up and let themselves known to the world, or rather to your family. You didn’t mean to make them suffer, but after a long day of being perfect, you needed to blow off some steam; if they had to be your metaphorical punching bag, so be it. 

When Sunoo entered high school, you made him swear he wouldn’t say a thing to anyone. You trusted him and knew he wouldn’t let your secret out - it was too entertaining for him to see you act perfect at school and reveal your true self at home. There was no risk of anyone finding out - you were so intent on keeping the act up that nothing ever slipped you. It had been that way since middle school, and your senior year of high school was going to be no different.

Nobody was supposed to find out, so what was Park Sunghoon doing right in front of you in the frozen aisle of the corner convenience store, just when you happened to be bare-faced, with thick glasses on and a pimple bright red from just having been popped, in your comfiest pajamas, and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s in hand?

“Kim Y/N? Y/N, is that you?”

You froze in place, not knowing how to react. There was no way this, your worst nightmare, was actually happening.

When you regained your senses, flight seemed the best way out of this. You avoided Sunghoon’s curious gaze and curtly replied, “No, sorry, I don’t know who that is,” before walking away, iron grip on the ice cream.

But the boy was quicker than you and grabbed you by the wrist, forcing you to turn around. “It is you! Come on, Y/N, aren’t we friends? Do you not recognize me or something?”

If it wasn’t for the panic coursing through your veins at that moment, you might’ve laughed at his question. How could you not recognize the Park Sunghoon? Along with Park Jongseong and Sim Jaeyun, or Jay and Jake as they liked to be called, he was only the most popular guy in your year - hell, in the whole school. The three of them had gained attention from freshman year as the three handsome soccer players. Jake and Sunghoon had been attached at the hip since kindergarten, Jay joining them sometime in middle school when he came back from his year abroad in Seattle. 

Your parents and Jay’s had been college best friends and you two had therefore grown up together, and even used to be quite close. You’d grown apart when he joined Jake and Sunghoon’s friend group, and although you still got on well, there was always a bit of an awkward atmosphere when you caught up with each other.

The three friends had quite different personalities but their complicity and shared history made them stick together. Jake was known for his academic achievements, rivaling yours, and his friendly personality; Jay, for his surprisingly funny antics once you got past the somewhat menacing appearance (which he blames on his resting bitch face). Sunghoon, on the other hand, was as cold as ice, so much that he’d earned the nickname of ice prince, but girls continued to swoon over him due to his incredibly handsome features. When turning down girls, Jake and Jay always tried to let them down gently, but Sunghoon wasn’t one to hold back: he’d laugh in their face or straight up say no, staring them right in the eyes. Most confessions ended in tears (not his, obviously), but girls kept on testing their luck, thinking they might be the one to melt the ice prince’s cold, dead heart.

Clearly, you weren’t Sunghoon’s biggest fan.

His behavior had always made you wonder why Jay and Jake were friends with a person like him. They went back a long time, but how did Sunghoon not become a nice and approachable person like his two best friends? They both seemed so genuine, but he looked like he was hiding something. This was what had made you weary of him; you knew all too well how easily an image that was the opposite of reality could be created. So on one hand, you sort of felt for him, thinking he might be in a similar situation as you. But on the other hand, you couldn’t help but feel some kind of jealousy: if you acted the way he did, you wouldn’t receive half the admiration you did. Hell, you’d probably be hated for it - no one likes a girl that’s both successful and bitchy about it. 

One thing was sure, though, and that was that you wouldn’t call the two of you friends, as he just had.

“Y/N? You okay?”

The pure panic in your eyes must’ve made Sunghoon realize something was wrong. He released you and looked you up and down, trying to take your appearance in. The Y/N he was seeing right then was worlds away from the one he was accustomed to at school. 

You realized there was no ignoring him, so you collected yourself and faced Sunghoon. “Uh, yeah, hi, Sunghoon. Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting to see anyone I knew here.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, no wonder. You look quite… different from what you usually do,” he said, voice laced with sarcasm.

This whole situation got you dumbfounded. You usually knew exactly what to retort when somebody messed with you, your friend or a classmate, but this time, you were completely speechless. You just wanted to escape.

“Well, it was nice seeing you Sunghoon, but I need to get home.” You pivoted on your heels and started walking again, but Sunghoon had other plans.

“Aw, come on, so quickly? We barely got to chat!” He followed you through the aisles as you picked up the remaining ingredients on the list your mother had given you as quickly as you could.

“I didn’t know you needed glasses. Do you wear lenses at school?”

“Yes. I need them to see.”

“I figured.” You could hear the smirk in his voice, and your shock was slowly morphing into anger. Were teenage girls so blind that they’d have a crush on someone with such an abominable personality, no matter how angelic his face was? 

“I really like your outfit, by the way. Looks super comfy.” And as if your embarrassment couldn’t grow any bigger, he added: “Too bad you got a stain on the shirt.”

You looked down at yourself and noticed a huge grease stain on the collar of your shirt. Admittedly, you didn’t always have the best table manners. 

You swore under your breath. It was quiet for a couple minutes as you arrived at the register and paid for your items, Sunghoon still on your tail. He had apparently given up his purchases to focus solely on tormenting you. When you walked out of the store, you thought he might finally be done. But of course, he wasn’t.

“You know, my sister has this really effective pimple cream she uses. Do you want me to ask her what brand it is?”

That was it. You sighed deeply. “Alright, Park. What do you want?”

When you turned to face him fully, arms crossing over your chest and an obviously tired expression on your face, the mischievous glint in his eyes made you realize something. That idiot was enjoying this. 

Indeed, he beamed down at you. You had probably never seen him smiling so widely. “Wow, Y/N, didn’t know you could have such an attitude.”

You stayed silent and continued staring at him, waiting for an answer. He mirrored your pose, out of instinct or to irritate you, you weren’t sure.

“You know, when I moved to this neighborhood before the start of school, I was definitely not expecting to see Perfect Miss Y/N out in her pajamas buying ice cream. I thought you were more into, I don’t know, rescuing puppies from fires or something. That sounds like something you’d do in your free time.”

“Well, is there anything wrong with what I’m doing?”

“Oh, absolutely not! Just a surprising sight. Makes me wonder what the rest of the school would say…” He looked intently at you, clearly waiting for a reaction. You weren’t about to give him one, though.

You chuckled and rolled your eyes, shifting your weight on your right foot. “Yeah, like anyone would believe you if you said you saw me looking anything else other than perfect.” It might’ve sounded arrogant, but that was the image people had of you. Even your friends asked you how you did it - if only they knew the truth.

At that, his smile got even brighter. “Don’t worry about that, I won’t need to tell anyone. I’ll just show them!” He pulled out his phone, showing you a picture of you in your god-awful pajamas searching for your favorite flavor of ice cream.

He watched as your face fell, taking your silence as an opportunity to go on. “You were so engrossed in the tubs of ice cream that you didn’t notice a dashingly handsome and tall young man very obviously taking pictures of you.”

This put you into panic mode again. It might have seemed foolish, but you hadn’t worked for years to create a perfect version of yourself only for a stupid boy to destroy it all with one picture. 

You sighed and lowered your head, taking a moment to think. You didn’t know Sunghoon that well, but you didn’t put it past him to send that picture to everyone and ruin your image in the process. You opted for honesty instead of bluff. You took your glasses off and looked back up at him; even if you couldn’t see him as well without them, maybe he’d see the despair in your eyes better.

“Park. I mean, Sunghoon. You can’t show that picture to anyone, okay? You have no idea how bad I need to keep up appearances. It’s really important to me, so just delete the picture and let’s never talk about this again, yeah?”

You tried smiling at him, but his expression infuriated you. You could tell he had something else up his sleeve. “Now, Y/N, why would I do that? If I’m gonna do something for you, you should do something for me.”

You weren’t sure if you wanted to hear the rest of his thoughts, but you needed to know. Eyeing him suspiciously, you told him to go on.

“Well, I can’t think of anything right now, but I’ll let you know when I do, okay? I’ll see you around, Y/N.” He flashed another one of his smiles, patted your head, and walked away, just like that, leaving you standing outside the convenience store on your own, a melting tub of ice cream in your plastic bag. At least for now, you were safe.

Right?

—

“You saw Park Sunghoon? As in, the Park Sunghoon?” your little sister Yeeun asked, looking at you with huge eyes. You two and Sunoo were sitting on your bed, sharing the ice cream by eating it directly from the tub.

“Yes, that’s literally what I’ve been saying this whole time. How do you know him anyway? You’re still in middle school…”

“Are you crazy? He’s famous in our whole school district! I wish we had cute boys in my school as well,” she sulked, pouting.

“That’s not the point, Yeeun,” Sunoo chimed in, then turned to you. “Well, this is either bad news or the start of a beautiful romance.”

“Sunoo! Take this seriously! I’m in a huge dilemma right now.”

Your siblings shared a knowing glance and snickered.

“Hey! I’m right here. I’m not overreacting, you know. If he does send those pictures around, I’m done for.”

“Oh, come on, Y/N, you’d be so much better off if you could be yourself at school. I see you there almost everyday, and the way you laugh always sounds so fake. Nobody would care if you forgot to put makeup on one day or had a crease in your shirt. If anything, it’d make you look more human.”

You could see where Sunoo was coming from, but you chose to ignore it. You sighed deeply. “You guys just don’t get it. They all see me as this perfect, put-together girl. If I showed them even a glimpse of the truth, everything would shatter. It’s too late to go back now.” You ignored their pitying looks and took another big spoonful of ice cream.

It was their turn to sigh. As always, it was impossible to reason with you. Deep in your thoughts, you added: “You know, there was something really off about him today. I’d never seen him act that way before.”

Your siblings looked at you questioningly. “He’s always so cold and distant towards everyone. I’ve only seen him smile when he’s laughing with Jake and Jay or when he makes fun of someone. But just now, he kept smiling at me like he was having fun. He even patted my head when he left.”

At that, Yeeun swooned dramatically, hands over her heart. You looked over at her and said, “I’d be swooning too if it was any other guy than Park Sunghoon. I’m more confused than anything right now, he was a completely different person from when I see him at school.”

They exchanged another look. “You guys stop doing that!”

“Well, it’s just that that sounds an awful lot like someone I know,” Sunoo replied. Realization hit you and you scoffed, mildly offended. At least you were nice to others at school and didn’t act like an asshole with a superiority complex.

“Anyway,” he continued, “what will you do about Sunghoon?”

“I’m not too sure. I guess all I can do is wait and see whatever it is he could want from me.”

“Yeah, do that, and then date him, please. If I can’t have him as my boyfriend, then I’ll have him as my brother-in-law,” Yeeun joked. You didn’t have it in you to retort anything back and started laughing along with her. 

If everything did shatter, at least you’d have your siblings to make you laugh.

— 

The next day, you made your way to the bus stop after your daily morning routine: jogging, showering, eating a filling breakfast, choosing the perfect accessories for your school uniform, applying just the right amount of makeup and going over your subjects and tasks of the day. As always, efficiency is the key. You had become so used to this routine that your body did it on its own, which let your mind wander wherever it pleased. Usually, you’d use this time to prepare yourself for the day ahead, but today, the only thing on your mind was Park Sunghoon. What was that boy up to? Was he up to anything, or did you completely imagine his mischievousness yesterday? In any case, you hoped it would all be over soon. 

You got on the bus and sat down next to Sumin. Your close friend group at school consisted of her, Park Sieun, Lee Heeseung and Choi Jiung, but she was the only one who knew about your secret. You had been friends for so long that you hadn’t even been able to hide it: she’d seen you from all angles, both before, during and after your transformation to who you were now. It was nice having someone else than your siblings to rely on and tell everything to. 

“Minie, you’ll never guess what happened yesterday. I ran into Park Sunghoon at the convenience store next to our apartment unit.”

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, but her reaction wasn’t as big as you thought it’d be. She smiled and said, “Huh! I knew he’d moved to our neighborhood, but I wouldn’t have thought he’d live so close to you that you’d even shop at the same place.”

She registered your confused expression and continued. “Didn’t you hear? He moved out of his parents’ house at the end of summer. Something about a huge fight with them that made him move out. But there are always so many rumors about him and his group that I don’t know what to believe.”

“Oh,” you mumbled, unsure what to say. Now that you thought about it, Sunghoon had mentioned moving in your conversation yesterday, but you were so preoccupied with him seeing you in your wild state that you hadn’t paid much attention to his comment.

“Wait, did he do something? Your face is telling me he did something.”

You got closer to her face and gestured for her to do the same. With lowered heads and in hushed tones, you said, “He saw me on off-mode.”

She gasped and jolted back in surprise, eyes wide and eyebrows shooting straight up. “What?”

You shushed her and pulled her in by her shoulders. “He even took pictures.” Your grip tight, you held her from jumping again. “That’s not even it. You know how he's always really cold and distant?”

“You mean how he’s always being a douchebag?” She scoffed. “Yeah, I know.”

You remembered that Sumin had been one of the first of many girls who shot their shot with Park Sunghoon, only to get rejected. You both grimaced at the memory that always left a bad taste in your mouth.

“He was completely different yesterday. Kept following me around the store and, I’m not sure, teasing me? Like trying to get a reaction out of me? In a weird half-friendly half-bully way.”

“Hm, you’re right, that doesn’t sound like him,” she mused. “It does sound like a stupid teenage boy though, which I guess he is, no matter how hard he tries to pretend he’s not.”

This is what you loved about Sumin. She could see right through people, and never hesitated to say what she thought of them, especially when they acted the way Sunghoon did. Sure, there were some personal feelings attached there, but she had quickly gotten over them when she realized how much of a douche he was towards everyone else.

When the bus stopped to pick up some more students, Heeseung hopped on. You quickly told Sumin to keep it a secret, at which she smiled and made a motion as if zipping her lips and throwing the key. If you told your friends about Sunghoon, you’d have to tell them the truth about how he had dirt on you, but you wanted to keep your friendship clean. You chatted the rest of the bus ride away and tried not to worry over Park Sunghoon too much.

When you finally got to school, you, Heeseung, and Sumin made your way to your classroom to join Jiung and Sieun. Before you could get there, however, Jungwon, an underclassman you had talked to a couple times for student council meetings, called out your name. You told your friends to go on without you and turned to the younger boy.

“Jungwon! Hi, what’s up?”

He seemed flattered that you had remembered his name but quickly got on with his business. “Um, I’m not sure why, but Sunghoon told me to come and get you? I’ve never talked to him, I think he just picked me randomly and assigned me a task…”

You sighed. Park Sunghoon truly was something. “Thanks for telling me, Jungwon. I’ll make sure he gets an earful for this, he has no right to boss students around like that.”

Jungwon’s eyes doubled in size as he frantically waved his hands in dismissal. “No! No need to do that, I don’t want to get in trouble with him. I’m just here to relay the message.” At that, he scurried off, and you headed towards Sunghoon’s homeroom. 

When you walked in, a few people were in the room, some girls gossiping with each other, a couple students doing some last-minute revision for a test. You found Sunghoon sitting at his desk, snickering with Jay and Jake and hoped that the subject of their laughter wasn’t you. They noticed you approaching and the two decent boys greeted you; the other one eyed you, that mischievous glint back in his eyes. What could he possibly have in mind?

“Hi, guys.” You smiled at Jay and Jake and reflexively stood closer to Jay. “Sunghoon, Jungwon said you wanted to see me?” you asked, trying to keep your impatience at bay.

“Oh, was that his name? Well, thank heavens for him, ‘cause I forgot my lunch at home. Would you be a sweetheart and go buy me something at the cafeteria? You know how everything runs out as soon as lunch period starts, and I get really cranky when I’m hungry.”

You stared at him, wide-eyed. His two friends’ reaction wasn’t very different from yours. Go buy him lunch? That’s what he wanted you to do?

“What? You don’t want to? That’s too bad, cause there’s a picture I think everybo-”

You cut him off before he could finish. “No! Of course I’ll do it! Can’t have our star player go hungry, now can we?” You cringed at your own words and Jay eyed you suspiciously. Sunghoon beamed, and Jake’s eyes darted back and forth between the two of you in pure confusion. “Um, any preferences?”

His smile got wider. “A tuna mayo would be amazing. Thanks, Y/N! You’re the best!”

“Sure…” you mumbled and quickly walked away, more bemused than ever. You checked your watch. You had 10 minutes before the first bell rang, and you could not be late for class, which meant you needed to hurry. 

You got back to Sunghoon’s classroom just a minute before the first bell. To your dismay, the class was almost full, and girls had gathered around him, trying to get his attention, but he seemed unbothered by their presence. You braced yourself and walked towards him. As your presence rarely went by unnoticed, most eyes were on you and Sunghoon. Not only were you two some of the most popular kids in school, you also happened to be handing him his lunch, a never-seen-before sight between the two of you. 

“I also got you banana milk, for good measure…” 

What had seemed like a great idea a few minutes ago, something to appease the devil in him, now felt like the biggest mistake of your life. The girls around him started whispering left and right and you weren’t sure whether they felt bad for you, sensing an incoming rejection, or wanted to tear you to shreds for even trying. 

The whispers grew even louder when Sunghoon took the sandwich and milk from your hands, thanking you with a smile. You’d be lying if you said your heart hadn’t done a small jump in your chest at that moment. As much as you hated to admit it, if looks were the sole factor for popularity, then you could definitely understand why Park Sunghoon was so loved. His face looked like it had been carved by the gods themselves. When his eyebrows weren’t turned in a frown, his eyes looked almost sweet, especially when he laughed. His two moles gave him so much charm, the curve of his nose was so delicate and his pink lips looked so, so soft… 

You cleared your throat and smiled back at him before turning around to walk to your own classroom.

“Wait, Y/N!”

You turned back around, all eyes on you. You could feel Jay’s eyes burning holes into you. Sunghoon was still smiling. You thought you’d seen him smile more in the past two days than you had in all the years you’d known him.

“I’ll see you later.”

—

And indeed see him later you did. You always hung back a bit after classes ended to get homework done or work out student council issues. Being in an empty classroom brought you some peace and quiet, very different from the busyness and noise of your home. You couldn’t even focus in your own room, your siblings or parents always barging in to disturb you. The after-school janitors now knew you by name and saved cleaning the classroom you were sitting in for last. 

You had been barely sitting there for 5 minutes, nose buried in a math problem, when Park Sunghoon graciously strode in, swung the chair in front of you around and sat on it, arms crossed over its back as he peered at you. You didn’t even bother to look up at him as you spoke. “What, Park?”

“Oh no, back to last name basis already?” he joked. You didn’t laugh. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Wow, tough crowd. Anyways, thanks for the sandwich today.”

This made you look at him. Or rather, shoot daggers at him. “Yeah, what the hell was that all about? Did you have to pull that little stunt in front of everybody? You know what our school is like! Rumors are gonna start spreading like wildfire.”

“I already told you,” he said with a defensive tone. “Forgot my lunch, everything was gonna run out, didn’t want to get hungry later,” he said as he shrugged, completely ignoring the latter part of your complaint.

“And you couldn’t have gone and gotten it yourself?”

He beamed. If it wasn’t so damn beautiful, you probably would have started getting tired of his stupid smile already. “Why would I do that when I could get you to do it?”

You sighed. “I knew you weren’t the nicest guy, but I didn’t know you could be such an asshole, Park.”

If you hadn’t been staring him down so intently, you might not have noticed the falter in his smile, so quick it was.

“Oh, come on, Y/N. If anything, I’m doing you a favor by not sending out to everyone that picture you so desperately want to keep secret. Thing is, doing that wouldn’t benefit me in any way, except for getting the satisfaction of seeing everybody realize you’re not as perfect as they think you are. Whereas holding it over your head allows me to do basically anything I want with you. And that, that is just so much fun,” he beams, lowering his voice into a whisper for the last sentence.

What a psycho, you thought. You just sighed once more and returned to your textbook, too weirded out to say anything back. You hoped the silence would make Sunghoon realize how creepy what he had just said was. 

It was quiet in the room, only the sound of your pencil scratching your notebook could be heard. Sunghoon sat in the same position and watched you working. He often saw you like this, focused and benched over a desk, in the library or walking past your classroom. But it was always in passing, and looking at you so closely made all the world’s difference. He could see how you scrunched your nose when the problem got particularly difficult, or how your smirk as you solved another one made your left dimple appear. He also liked the annoyed looks you gave him every once in a while, as if his presence was disturbing your focus. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something about seeing someone who always went about their way with such purpose sitting in such silence.

He decided to break that silence. “You know, Jay was asking about you earlier.”

You kept your eyes trained on your notebook but abruptly stopped writing, your pencil leaving a small scratch on the paper. This didn’t go unnoticed by Sunghoon. “Did he?” you said, trying to sound as uninterested as possible, although you couldn’t help but be curious. Ever since Jay and you had grown apart, there was always a part of you wondering what he was up to, how he was doing, if he thought of you once in a while or reminisced about the good old times as you sometimes did. 

“Yeah. I mean, everyone did, but I didn’t really care,” he answers simply, and even though you’re itching to push him to say more, you stay quiet. “You’re right, by the way, I do know the people in our school. The rumors have already started spreading. Up to you whether you wanna deny them or not, though,” he said with a smirk.

“Don’t even think about it, Park. There’s not a chance in hell I’ll let them think we have a thing going on. I have a reputation to uphold, you know.”

He chuckled. “Trust me, I know. Anyway, he wanted to know why you did that for me. Guess he was jealous you didn’t do it for him, too.”

“Why would he be?” you asked, trying to make the question sound as innocent as possible. 

“Well, you two go a long way back, right?” he asked tentatively, as if testing the waters.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Then it was probably weird for him to see his childhood best friend and his best bro interacting out of nowhere, even though we’ve both seen each other around a lot and nothing has ever come out of that. Don’t you think?”

A beat passed as you thought about it. “Yeah, I guess that’d look weird to him,” you replied, trying to keep the disappointment out of your voice.

You quickly wrote down your last answer, packed up your things, and stood up. “Well, I’m off now. I’ll see you around, unfortunately.”

Sunghoon, surprised at your quick departure, scrambled to get off his chair and chased after you. “Do you want me to drop you off? I’ve got a car, you know. Much more glamorous than the bus.”

You turned around and looked at him. “I’d rather get hit by said bus than get in your car, Park.”

He stood there, watching you walk away with a smirk on his face as your ponytail swayed from side to side. This was going to be a challenge. You were going to be a challenge. 

Thing is, he loved a good challenge.

—

Back home, you flopped down on your bed and buried your face in your pillow. You laid there for a few minutes, taking some time to gather your thoughts and try to understand Sunghoon’s actions. It was of no use; you weren’t a mind-reader, and he seemed impossible to figure out. He could make you do basically whatever he wanted to, and he decided to make you get him lunch, creating rumors along the way? What could he possibly get out of that?

Your reflexions were quickly interrupted, however, by a flurry of incoming messages on your phone. Someone had posted a photo of you handing his banana milk to Sunghoon on your school’s Instagram account - because apparently, your school was so obsessed with gossip that they had created an Instagram page just for it. The photo had blown up among your peers and it made you wonder if people really were that bored with their lives.

People you barely knew but that felt entitled to knowing your relationship status were DMing you, asking about today’s events. You quickly got tired of it, so you texted your worried and confused friends that you didn’t feel like talking tonight and would catch up with them tomorrow. You opened your textbook, deciding that studying would be the best and most efficient distraction.

When your parents called you and your siblings for dinner, you still weren’t feeling great. Your family quickly registered your annoyed expression and could only hope for the best. You already weren’t the easiest to live with, but when you were tired, you just got a hundred times worse.

“So, how was everyone’s day?” your mom asked cheerily.

Yeeun’s eyes lit up instantly. “Mine was great! I met a really cute boy. His name is Nishimura Riki and he just transferred from Japan.”

“Oh, that’s nice!”

“You’re too young to be thinking about boys, Yeeun.”

Your mom and dad had replied at the same time, then gave each other a stern look.

“I’m not thinking about him, Dad, just looking,” your sister replied, earning a chuckle from your concerned father. 

“Mine was alright. I guess the start-of-a-new-year excitement has already worn off. After a week,” Sunoo said with a sigh. 

Your mom turned to you. “What about you, Y/N?”

“It was fine.”

The sharpness of your tone changed the atmosphere in the room at once. You ignored the looks your family exchanged and continued eating your food, eyes not leaving your plate.

For some reason, Sunoo thought it’d be a great idea to chime in. “She’s not happy because she had to buy Park Sunghoon his lunch and everybody went crazy over it.”

“Sunoo!” you protested. Your parents didn’t need to know about this sort of stuff.

“Park Sunghoon? Is that someone we’re supposed to know?” your dad questioned.

Yeeun scoffed. “Uh, he’s only the most popular and handsome guy at Y/N and Sunoo’s school, dad. Duh.”

“Right. Duh,” your dad said, imitating your sister’s tone.

“And why did you have to buy his lunch, Y/N?” your mom asked.

“Because he saw what she looks like when she’s not at school,” Sunoo said, not even giving you the chance to reply yourself.

“Sunoo!” you scolded again.

“And now I guess he’s using that against her to get her to do what he wants? Right, Y/N?”

You glared at your brother and let a beat pass. “Right,” you reluctantly admitted.

“Lucky…” your sister mused, expression like she was daydreaming about being Sunghoon’s personal assistant.

Your dad ignored your sister and looked straight at you. “That’s inadmissible, Y/N. You can’t let him do that.”

“Your father’s right, sweetie. It’s not right,” your mom added when you stayed silent.

With everybody’s eyes on you, you felt obligated to reply. “It’s fine. It’s not like he asked me to do anything crazy. I’m sure he’ll stop soon enough.”

“You know, boys that age, they’ll do anything to get a girl’s attention,” your dad warned. “Just ignore him and he’ll go away.”

“If she ignores him, he’ll tell everyone what she’s really like,” your brother explained.

“And what’s so bad about that? I’m sure it’d be easier if you stopped lying to everyone.”

Everyone suddenly stopped in their motions, wondering why your mom would say something so true yet so controversial. You looked up at her. “What’s so bad about that? What’s so bad? I don’t know, maybe the fact that I’ve worked so hard all these years for everybody to like me and look up to me only for a stupid picture taken by a stupid boy to ruin everything,” you said all in one breath, voice coming out harsh. You were tired of having to explain the same thing over and over again - your parents just didn’t understand why you did what you did.

Your mom opened and closed her mouth again, knowing it was useless trying to talk sense into you. It never ended well when you had this conversation.

“Who put mushrooms in this anyway? You know I hate mushrooms,” you said before filling up your bowl and taking it to eat in your room, making sure you’d slammed your door behind you.

—

On the bus the next day, you tried to explain the events of the previous day to your friends.

“There’s nothing really to it. He just asked me to get him lunch so I did, and when I handed it to him, his whole class was there and saw everything.”

“I get that, but I just don’t understand why he made you do it in the first place, or why you agreed,” Heeseung said, “it’s so unlike the both of you to do something like that.”

You hadn’t even thought to come up with an excuse for your and Sunghoon’s yesterday - your friends were definitely super confused, but you didn’t want to tell them the truth, so you had to quickly find something to say that was somewhat believable, and change the subject.

“I have no idea why he did what he did, but I didn’t want to cause a scene so I just agreed. I don’t really care, to be honest, I just wish it didn’t have such consequences. People seem to think we’re characters on a stupid Netflix coming-of-age series or something, when we literally just go to their school.”

As soon as you’d turned your phone back on this morning, it started pinging with all the messages that had flown in since last night. People were talking about it everywhere: Kim Y/N, highly sought-after bachelorette, had offered Park Sunghoon, notorious rejecter of girls and breaker of hearts, a sandwich and a banana milk, and he had taken them. What’s more, he had been seen at lunch heartily eating them. This was serious.

You didn’t think things could get any worse until you got to school. You were used to random people coming up to you in the hallways or in class for help, except today they weren’t asking for help at all - they were asking what was up between you and Sunghoon, as though handing him a tuna mayo was like asking for his hand in marriage. Most of them were just curious, but some, especially his fanclub members, had an aggressive tone to their voice, which you weren’t used to. If people started liking you less because of Sunghoon, you were going to kill him.

But you had to hold onto that thought, because an all too familiar voice had suddenly called out to you on your way to class. You took a deep breath and turned around, watching him take long strides towards you. You immediately became aware of the amount of people in the hallway and realized you couldn’t talk to him like you had the previous day in front of everybody. You mustered the fakest smile you could and greeted him.

“Hi, Sunghoon. What can I help you with today?”

He smiled, obviously enjoying the fact that you had to be nice to him. “I’ve got my sports bag because of practice later tonight. Mind holding onto that for me for the day?”

Your fake smile turned a bit crazy as your eyes widened in disbelief. "Don’t you have a locker for that, Sunghoon?”

“Yeah, but it’s so much more fun if you’re the one to hold it.” And with that, he threw the bag in your direction, leaving approximately 0.5 seconds to catch it. “I’ll need that later today. Meet me in front of the locker rooms after school, yeah?”

He didn’t bother to wait for your answer and walked away, Jake and Jay following closely behind. Jay sent you a questioning look, to which you could only reply with a shrug. If it wasn’t for all the students in the hallway, you would’ve been yelling Sunghoon’s ear off at that point. Unfortunately, that wasn’t a possibility, so you just smiled to your friends who were looking more confused than ever.

“Let’s just go to class, guys.”

—

Throughout the whole day, you could feel people staring at you, then at the bag you were holding, then starting to whisper among themselves. You tried your best to concentrate in class so you could momentarily stop pondering over what Sunghoon’s evil master plan might be, but everyone seemed bent on making that usually simple feat impossible. When 3:30 p.m. finally came around, you bid your friends goodbye and headed to the boys’ locker room. Every boy walking in eyed you suspiciously, unsure as to what you could be doing there. Of course, Sunghoon had to take his sweet time to get there. 

Staring at the opposite wall and planning Sunghoon’s murder in your head, you hadn’t noticed Jay and Jake arriving. Jay signaled for his friend to go inside the locker room and told him he’d join him in a minute. He waved his hand in front of you to get your attention, a smile on his face. You sighed in relief at the familiar sight of your friend.

“Hey, Jay. Sorry I didn’t see you.”

“You okay, Y/N? You look like you’re about to murder someone,” he said, slightly amused.

“If only you knew,” you mumbled.

He noticed the bag in your hand. “You waiting for Sunghoon?”

“Yeah. If only he could hurry up a little bit. I’ve got stuff to do.”

There was something about Jay that made it impossible to lie to him. Maybe it was the fact that you had known each other for so long, way before you’d turned into what you were now, that made you feel as though showing a side of you that gets annoyed and impatient and doesn’t smile all the time was okay.

Jay looked at his feet before looking back up at you. You were still staring at the wall but your murderous thoughts had somewhat calmed. “Mind telling me what this whole thing with Sunghoon is about?”

You turned to him and were about to fumble for an answer when someone interrupted you. “What whole thing with me?”

Whew. Saved by Sunghoon. You didn’t like that it was thanks to him that you could get out of answering Jay, but at least you didn’t have to come up with yet another stupid excuse.

Jay turned his attention to his friend and stood up straighter. “You know, making her get you lunch or hold your bag all day. There’s dozens of girls who’d be more than happy to do that for you, so why Y/N? She doesn’t have time for this stuff.”

You looked at Jay with surprise. Sure, you were friends, but you hadn’t thought he’d defend you like that in front of Sunghoon.

“Well, Y/N’s just such a nice, reliable person. No one better to ask to do those things.” What a reason, you thought. He turned to you and took the bag from your hands. “Thanks, Y/N. I’ll see you outside in a couple minutes.”

“Huh? What do you mean? I’m leaving,” you said, body already headed towards the other direction.

“What? You can’t leave before practice has even started. Go to the benches outside, we’ll be out in a few.”

You were about to open your mouth to protest, but he cut you off. “You don’t want to?” He started pulling out his phone. “That’s funny, because there’s a pict-”

“I’ll be on the benches! See you soon!” you quickly said, pushing the two boys inside the locker room, Sunghoon smirking, Jay looking at you in utter confusion.

Girls sat in a few different groups in the bleachers. You recognized the girls in one of those groups, so you decided to sit with them. As you approached, they quickly looked at each other and then back at you, expressions half-friendly, half-what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here. 

“Hi guys! Mind if I join?”

“Hi Y/N! No, of course not, come sit,” Jake’s girlfriend, Yujin, said. 

“Are you guys here to watch practice?”

“Yeah! I’m here on girlfriend duties for Jake. These two are just here for the eye candy and to keep me company,” Yujin explained.

“Yeah, but mostly for the eye candy,” added her friend Wonyoung. 

“What about you, Y/N? I’ve never seen you here,” asked the last girl, Gaeul.

“Oh, um, Sunghoon asked me to come, actually.” You regretted your words as soon as you’d let them out. They all ooh-ed at your response, making you blush, which just egged them on. This was nothing to blush about, Y/N. You’d just made the rumors get a hundred times worse with one sentence.

“The whole school’s been talking about you two, you know. Anything you wanna share? Don’t worry, we can keep a secret,” said Wonyoung with a wink. You chuckled awkwardly.

“Oh my gosh, yes, tell us!”

“Guys, don’t make her uncomfortable,” Yujin chimed in, smiling at you. You returned her smile, grateful, once again, that you didn’t have to explain your new link to Sunghoon. “Look, practice is starting.”

You turned your head towards the field as the soccer players started doing laps as per the coach’s instructions. Your eyes immediately drifted towards Sunghoon without you even realizing it. His lean figure hypnotized you. The last time you had had PE with him was in freshman year, and puberty had hit him like a fine, fine truck. You couldn’t take your eyes off of him as he lightly jogged next to his friends, chatting like it was nothing. You weren’t being very subtle with your stare and he eventually noticed you, sending a wink your way. This made you snap out of your reverie and you scowled at him, as if he could make out your annoyed expression from such a distance. You turned back to the girls, who were giggling at you.

“Wow, those were some serious heart eyes you were giving him, Y/N,” Gaeul giggled.

You opened your mouth in mild shock. “Was not!”

“Sure, whatever you say,” she replied knowingly. “Well, look all you want. Warm-up is the best part. It gets boring when they actually start playing.”

“No way! Watching them play is my favorite part,” Yujin disagreed.

“Yeah, that’s cause you’ve got someone to root for,” retorted Wonyoung. She looked at you slyly. “Well, I guess Y/N does, too.”

You scoffed. “Believe me, I will not be rooting for him.”

You started staring at him again, this time with a glare in your eyes. From their silence, you deduced the girls must’ve judged it a better idea to not question you too much. After the boys were done with running exercises and stretching (which you had enjoyed watching a bit too much, if you spoke truthfully), they started playing. The coach split the boys into two teams, Jay leading one and Sunghoon the other. It was a very close game. You could never tell who was leading, although that might have been due to your extensive lack of knowledge in the sport. All you knew was that you desperately wanted to see Sunghoon lose; that might put him down a peg. What you told yourself, however, was that you wanted Jay to win. So when he scored a goal, you surprised the girls next to you, the boys on the field and yourself as you jumped up and down, cheering for him. Realizing what you were doing, you quickly sat down and sent him an awkward thumbs up.

Jay tried to hide it, but he was blushing. Hard. Truth be told, he had noticed your little eye contact moment with Sunghoon during warm-up and hadn’t particularly enjoyed it. So seeing you cheer for him like that made him swell with pride, which only grew when Sunghoon scored and you barely reacted. 

When the game was over, you thought you might be able to finally go home and start studying. But Sunghoon had other plans for you, as always these past couple days. Heading towards the showers, he motioned for you to come down from the benches. As you did, Jay walked past, and you smiled at each other.

“Good game.”

“Thanks, Y/N.” He continued walking as Sunghoon reached you.

“What about me? I scored a goal, too.”

“Oh, did you? Didn’t even notice," you said, looking at your nails. The polish was starting to chip - you’d need to reapply a layer tonight.

“Whatever. Wait for me, yeah?”

“What? No! I gotta go home!” But your protests were in vain, as he completely ignored you. 

You waited outside the school with Yujin, Wonyoung and Gaeul. After a little while, Jake, Jay and Sunghoon joined you guys, having successfully showered and not smelling of sweat and dirt, thank God. Yujin was dropping her boyfriend and her friends off, so they bid their goodbyes and headed towards her car. Sunghoon and Jay also started to walk towards the parking lot, leaving you standing alone, not sure what to do. Sunghoon turned around and looked at you with a frown.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t know, what are you doing?”

“I’m dropping you and Jay off.”

“Oh,” you mumbled, taken aback. “Didn’t know I was just supposed to guess that.”

As soon as Sunghoon started to drive, you noticed the awkward air between the three of you. Luckily, after years of being a people-pleaser, you had become somewhat of an expert in making small talk, which helped prevent a silent ride. You don’t think you could’ve gone through that without a mental breakdown.

Because you and Sunghoon lived closer to each other (and we all know the consequences of that), Jay was dropped off before you. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow at school,” he said before giving you a last glance.

“Bye, Jay.”

“See you, bro.”

Thankfully, you only lived a couple minutes by car from Jay’s and hoped the rest of the car ride would be peaceful. Which was really stupid of you to hope for, because you were in the car with Park Sunghoon.

“So, Park Jongseong, huh?” he said, eyes trained on the road in front of him. Even though he was trying to keep his tone light, you thought you detected a slight harshness to his gaze.

“What about him?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

“There’s nothing to say. We’ve just been friends for a long time.”

It was silent for about five seconds. “You really feasted your eyes during warm-up, huh?”

“Shut up, Park.”

“No, it’s alright, I get it. I’d do the same.” He laughed at his own joke that wasn’t really a joke. Why was he laughing, anyway? 

You looked at him. His face was so different from all those times you’d seen it at school. His eyes, rid of the harshness you’d seen earlier, crinkled at the edges and had an amused glint in them. His smile dug pretty dimples into his cheeks and you let your gaze linger long enough to notice he had sharp, vampire-like canines, which were surprisingly cute. You didn’t know why he was showing you a side of him he never showed anyone, except for his close friends, you assumed. You weren’t sure what overcame you, but you chuckled with him. 

“So, do you already know what task you’re gonna give me tomorrow?” you asked, genuinely curious.

“Hmm, haven’t really thought about it yet. I’d rather keep it a surprise, anyway. Keep you on your toes.”

“Pfft. What a great surprise.” He laughed again, and you couldn’t help but join him. He was unusually giddy that day, but you didn’t want to complain. This was a thousand times better than the arrogant Sunghoon with his I’m-better-than-all-of-you facade. What you didn’t know was that he, too, liked your snarky, no-nonsense side infinitely more than the model student, pretty girl persona you had created for yourself.

Finally at your house, you got out of the car and headed to your house after waving goodbye to Sunghoon. He rolled his window down and leaned out of it.

“Y/N?”

You turned around. “Yeah?”

“About your task tomorrow…”

“…Yeah?”

“I’m sure you’ll love it.” He gave you an umpteenth wink, rolled his window back up and drove off.

You weren’t so awful to your parents and siblings that evening.

—

The next day at school, you were wondering why Sunghoon had said you would love your task. Because you were, in fact, quite loathing it. He had found you studying during your free period after lunch and dragged you to the part of the library where it was okay to talk a bit over whisper level. You were currently going over a scene in The Tempest which you had seen in AP English Lit last year and clearly had no time for. But obviously, that wasn’t a problem to Sunghoon, who just wanted to get a passing grade on his English essay without putting in too much effort. 

After twenty minutes of going over the same five lines, you were about to give up. “Look, Sunghoon, I don’t mind helping you. I’ve tutored dozens of students before so I’m used to it. But you’re not making any effort! If you want to get it, you need to at least try.”

“But it’s so boring,” he whined, not unlike a child. “How am I supposed to find any meaning in this? It’s just stupid people doing stupid stuff on a stupid island.” You cringed at his words and hoped Shakespeare wasn’t listening in on this conversation. 

“It’s not stupid. It’s about power, and being punished for chasing it, and it’s a metaphor fo-”

“Ugh!” he groaned loudly. “You know what, I don’t care enough about this. Just write the essay for me, okay?” He got up and left, again not waiting for your answer. You wanted to protest, but you know what would happen if you said no to any of his requests, so you just quickly got to work.

Everyday over the next couple of weeks, Sunghoon would find something for you to do. Most days, he’d just get you to buy him lunch (although he thankfully had started paying you back) or carry his stuff around like the first two times. He didn’t ask you again to tutor him, however, so you had gotten used to sitting in an empty class together after class, you doing his homework for him and attempting (and failing) to explain it to him, and him alternating between playing on his phone and looking at you. Although it’d flustered you at first, not used to having someone stare at you while you were trying to concentrate, you’d grown somewhat okay with it - all of your complaints were ignored anyway. One time, he even got you to work on his science project with him, a weirdly-shaped volcano he needed to paint and decorate before actually putting the chemicals in. You’d be lying if you said it hadn’t been fun painting it together, occasionally ‘accidentally’ getting paint on the other’s hand or cheek instead of the volcano. 

You went to see him at practice two to three times a week, although you weren’t sure what use that had for him. If anything, you were probably the one who enjoyed yourself more. Perhaps, after being forced to spend so much time with him, you had started to soften up to him. And, perhaps, that made you appreciate his good looks even more. You couldn’t deny the effect his damp hair, stuck to his forehead with sweat, had on you. 

The rumors hadn’t died down, but people had started getting used to seeing the two of you together around, so they didn’t ogle their eyes at you everytime you and Sunghoon had some kind of interaction. Not liking that you couldn’t control people’s opinion of you anymore, you were still a bit bothered by them, but Sunghoon’s little posse of fangirls didn’t seem to be. They’d been the one to question you the most, and you got a few nasty looks in the hallway, but the gossip around school hadn’t stopped them from keeping on following him around, harassing him from morning to afternoon by going to his homeroom at breaks, sitting at a table near him at lunch, and going to see him at practice. Their group had dwindled down, though; most likely, some of them thought you two might be dating and had finally realized they didn’t stand a chance with the one and only Park Sunghoon. Thank God you had your friends and now sometimes Yujin, Wonyoung and Gaeul around you during those times, otherwise, you’d probably have been jumped. Spending so much time with him had kept you a couple times from your friends, which they’d complained about, but sensing that they couldn’t do much about it, they let you be, even though they hadn’t gotten a satisfactory explanation yet.

One person who didn’t want to, or rather couldn’t let it go, though, was Jay. He still couldn’t figure out why you’d started spending so much time with Sunghoon, seemingly overnight, and it created an unpleasant, sour pit in his stomach. Out of all the people you could’ve decided to form a new friendship with, why’d it have to be his best friend, meaning he saw you more often now than before, but not because he was the one you had come to see? Why did you never get him banana milk for lunch, and why’d you only start coming to soccer practice because Sunghoon had asked you to? He’d tried to ask both of you about it, but you always gave him half-assed excuses that didn’t make much sense. 

He realized what he was feeling was jealousy the day you came into their homeroom before the first bell rang and asked Sunghoon how his science project had gone. You’d never asked him how his science project, or any of his projects or tests, for that matter, had gone. He recognized it as the same feeling he had harbored when he had come back from the US in middle school and saw you dating Choi Soobin, or when Lee Heeseung had joined your tight-knit group of friends in freshman year. You and Soobin had only dated for three weeks and a half because you had a relationship-terminating argument over mint chocolate ice cream, and you and Heeseung had never become more than friends, nor had the intention to. But Jay didn’t care about that; all he saw was that there were boys around you that weren’t him. He had never acted upon those feelings, dismissing them as over-protectiveness for someone he had known since forever, but seeing Sunghoon and you laughing together hit too close to home. He couldn’t ignore how he felt because he was reminded of it everyday, but he didn’t know what to do with these newfound emotions.

And what’s the best thing to do whenever you don’t know what to do? Talk to your friends. Or well, in this case, your friend. He didn’t wanna talk about you to Sunghoon. He was a firm believer of bro code, but he didn’t wanna bottle up his feelings like he had all these years. So he went to Jake and told him everything, from your childhood friendship to Soobin, Heeseung and now Sunghoon.

“I know it’s stupid. It’s this whole cliché of, you only realize what you have when you lose it.”

“Well, you haven’t really lost Y/N, you know. It’s not like Sunghoon and her are dating.”

“I guess not, but he clearly likes her. It’d be a dick move to go after her now that they’ve got something going on.”

Jake hesitated for a second, debating whether he should say what he was thinking, but ultimately deciding it might be better to do it. “You know, I’m not sure that he does. You know what Sunghoon’s like. He’s never very honest about his intentions. I don’t wanna bring the subject up with him, cause I don’t wanna cause any drama, but it’s so suspicious to me that he’s suddenly spending time with Y/N when he’s never mentioned her all those years and when he rejects all these girls all the time.”

“I think it’s weird, too,” agreed Jay. “I just can’t seem to figure it out. And I’m a bit scared for Y/N, to be honest. Remember that girl in freshman year? They’d gotten along really well when he suddenly dropped her. I still remember his cold-ass stare when he turned her down. It even chilled me, man.”

“God, yeah, I always forget about that. He may be a jackass to all those girls, but when you know what he’s really like like we do, it seems so unlikely that he’d do something like that.”

Jay sighed and looked out into the distance. “I just hope he doesn’t hurt Y/N.”

Jake looked at his friend, thinking how to phrase his next sentence. “Like I said, I don’t wanna cause any drama… but, man, if you don’t want him to hurt Y/N, just don’t let him. If you make a move on her, you might get to her before he does. Better to do that now than to have to pick up the pieces, don’t you think?”

Jay mentally thanked the heavens for gifting him with a friend like Sim Jaeyun. “Yes, that is much, much better.”

He was going to stop sitting on his feelings and finally let them see the light.

—

But before that, Sunghoon had another one of his requests for you. You were sitting together in an empty classroom after school as you often did these past weeks. For you, today was an ordinary day, but the boy in front of you had something else in mind. He wasn’t saying anything but you could feel his nervousness and it was starting to make you feel anxious as well.

You lifted your head from your notes and looked at Sunghoon who seemed lost in his thoughts. “What is it, Sunghoon?”

This made him snap out of his reverie. “Um, nothing.”

“Well, seeing how you’ve been tapping your foot at the speed of lightning ever since we got here, it doesn’t seem like nothing.” You crossed your arms over the table and looked at him more intently, eyes asking him to tell you what was on his mind.

He sighed, giving in. “I was just thinking… there’s something I wanna tell you.”

“Go on. “

“I need you to date me.”

Your breath caught in your throat. Park Sunghoon… needed you… to date him? Was he asking you out? The way he’d worded it was a bit odd, but you didn’t put it past him.

Taking in your silence and wide eyes, he quickly added: “Not in that way! I, um, need you to be my fake girlfriend.”

Oh.

So he wasn’t asking you out. You weren’t sure why that made you so upset, but you tried to keep the disappointment out of your eyes and voice.

“Right,” you said, tone a bit harsher than you’d meant it to, “and why would I do that?”

Sunghoon smirked lightly. “Well, first of all, you don’t have much of a choice.” You rolled your eyes at that. It’d been a few days since the reason why you had started hanging out in the first place had come up, and you didn’t like to be reminded of that god-forsaken picture. 

“And second of all… I guess I should be completely honest with you.” This piqued your interest, and you leaned back on your chair to listen to him. 

“When I saw you at the store and took pictures of you, I wasn’t really thinking of doing anything. Maybe just get a laugh or two and tease you about it. I even told you outside the store that I didn’t know what I was gonna do. To be honest, I didn’t really think there was anything you could do for me that I’d need to force you to do. So I thought about it all night. And I asked myself, what’s the thing that pisses me off the most at school that you could change?” he looked at you expectantly, as if you could figure it out. You just shrugged.

“It’s those girls that keep following me around. All these years, I’ve acted like a giant asshole with them and still they think they have a crush on me or whatever. And I’ve never liked any of them, they’re all so superficial and ask me out without having ever talked to me before. So I thought, hey, maybe if I have a girlfriend, they’ll leave me alone. Which is why I made you do all those things for me.”

“So that they’d think we were dating?” you asked, trying to take all this information in. You’d sort of known it this entire time, but Sunghoon blatantly admitting he’d been using you hurt nonetheless.

“Yeah. But obviously, you always denied the rumors, so it hasn’t worked as well as I thought it would. It still did a bit though. So I think, if we take it the next step, and actually pretend we’re dating, it should really work. But I need your full cooperation on this, okay?” He looked at you, hopeful eyes and hands in prayer.

You sighed. As he said, it wasn’t like you had much of a choice.

“Please, Y/N? I really want them off my back.”

“Fine, Park, I’ll do it. But this better be the last thing you make me do.” You couldn’t help but sound cold. This made you rethink these past few weeks’ events. Were you the only one actually enjoying spending time together?

“Thanks, Y/N. And yeah, of course. You won’t have to carry my bag or get my lunch anymore if you want. Maybe it’ll be more believable if I do that for you.”

You had focused your attention back to your homework, wanting this conversation to be over as soon as possible.

“I’ll also pick you up in the morning, so you don’t need to take the bus.”

You hummed in response.

“Um, and I’ll also drop you off after school and after practice…” Sunghoon trailed, troubled by your silence. You hadn’t been so cold since the first couple times you two had talked, and he hated the idea that that might be because of what he had just said. So he took a chance.

“You know, Y/N, this doesn’t change anything. I wouldn’t have made you do all those things if I didn’t like spending time with you. You’re really nice to be around,” he admitted shyly.

You were far too flustered to lift your head and let him see your face. You just grinned and murmured, “Whatever, Park.”

—

Sunghoon kept his promise and picked you up in the morning. He called you at exactly 7:55 a.m., saying he was waiting outside and you rushed out of your house, piece of toast still in your mouth. In the car, you two went over what being in a fake relationship would involve.

“We just need to be seen around together, right?” you proposed, hoping your lack of experience wasn’t showing.

Thankfully, Sunghoon had no idea what being in a relationship, fake or not, entailed either. “Yeah, I think. And maybe…” he hesitated. 

“Maybe?” you prodded, hoping he wouldn’t (or actually would, but you’d never admit it) say what you thought he was about to say.

“I don’t know, like, hold hands, and… kiss.” The last part had barely been audible, but you’d still heard it.

“Kiss?” you echoed, voice almost a shriek. “I don’t think we need to go that far, Sunghoon.” A little voice in your head was saying that you’d really like to go that far but you made it shut up.

He was blushing profusely but didn’t want to drop the subject there. “At least on the cheek, or something. We do have to make it believable.”

And there it was. The little sentence, reminding you none of this was real. Seemed like that was a pattern in your life.

You looked out the window. Sunghoon glanced over at you, cursing himself for always saying the wrong thing. He was trying so hard to drown his blooming feelings for you that he kept on hurting you in the process. This whole fake-dating plan was the perfect excuse for him to spend more time with you without having to come to terms with his feelings. 

“C’mon, Y/N, it’ll be fun. Promise.” He nudged your arm playfully, making you look at him. His smile was contagious; you could never help yourself but start grinning when you saw his face light up like that. Maybe he’s right, you thought. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

When you arrived at school, Sunghoon told you to wait for a second. He got out of the car and quickly walked around to your side, opening the door for you. You hated how your heart fluttered at the sweet gesture, reminding yourself it was just for show. The important part was that it fooled everyone else, and it did - as you took Sunghoon’s hand, letting him help you out of the car, and walked with him hand in hand towards the school gates, you could feel all eyes on you. You could hear whispers of see, I told you they were dating! and defeated no ways. 

You realized you didn’t care about what anybody might be seeing, which was a first for you. You’d always made sure everybody saw you exactly the way you wanted to see them. As he was the most popular guy in school, dating Park Sunghoon at once helped your reputation and put you on many girls’ bad side. But holding his hand, you felt as though there was some kind of barrier protecting you. You’d never felt so exposed and so safe at the same time.

You noticed Jay standing next to the gates, looking particularly antsy. He’d texted you that morning, saying there was something he wanted to tell you. Usually, you’d have stayed up, overthinking what that could be, but what with today being the day you’d announce yourself to the world (your school) as Park Sunghoon’s (fake) girlfriend, you had had other things to worry about. You gestured at Sunghoon towards Jay. Your friend only saw you when you were calling his name, standing right in front of him.

“Oh, hi, Y/N! I-” 

He immediately cut himself off when he saw yours and Sunghoon’s interlaced fingers. Embarrassed, you took your hand out of your fake boyfriend’s, opting for holding onto his pinky instead, not realizing that it was a much cuter action that made one boy’s heart flutter and the other’s fill up with sadness.

“There was something you wanted to tell me?” you asked with a small smile.

“Uh- yeah, but it’s not important, actually. We can talk about it later.”

“Oh, you sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” He returned your smile, hoping to make the situation less awkward. It was very obvious he didn’t want to say whatever it was he needed to tell you in front of Sunghoon, which you had both understood.

Sunghoon spoke up. “Right, well I’ll see you in class, Jay. Y/N, I’ll walk you to yours.” And with that, he started walking, holding his friend’s gaze for a few steps. You turned back to look at Jay for a split second, trying to decipher what had just happened, but Sunghoon grabbed you by the waist, making you look up at him in surprise, and breaking Jay’s heart even further.

—

Once Sunghoon and you got to your class, you felt as though you were in one of those movies where the boy drops the girl off at her house after their first date. Except that this was in a crowded school hallway two minutes before the first bell rang. What you had in common with that girl from the movie, however, was that you were freaking out over what your boy was going to do next. In the car, you’d ended up agreeing to a kiss on the cheek, but you hadn’t realized it would be happening so soon.

As you two hovered around your classroom’s door, you looked at each other and giggled. Damn, you were selling this well. So well that if you could have ascended out of your body and looked at the scene as a third party, you’d probably have barfed all over yourself. 

You were still holding his pinky. You could tell he was too hesitant to do anything now that you had reached the classroom, and so you mustered all of your courage, stood on your tippy toes and softly pressed your lips to his cheeks. (You were pretty sure you’d heard gasps around you.) Your courage went as fast as it came, and as realization hit you, you quickly squeaked “bye, Sunghoon” and practically ran to your seat. The boy stood there for another second or two, hand going to his cheek where you had just kissed him. He walked happily to his own classroom, completely oblivious to the stares he was receiving.

Heeseung, Jiung and Sieun were looking at you in disbelief as you approached them. Sumin, on the other hand, looked like she had paid no attention whatsoever to the scene.

“Y/N,” Sieun teased in a sing-song voice. “Care to explain what just happened?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve actually managed to make the oh-so-great Park Sunghoon fall for you?” Jiung asked jokingly. 

You looked down in an attempt to hide your grin. You usually did that sort of stuff to appear humble when someone complimented you, but this time it was completely genuine. The mere thought of Sunghoon made you all giddy inside. “Um, yeah, he actually asked me to be his girlfriend last night.”

Your three friends gasped dramatically and Sieun pulled you into a hug, as if you’d just received an award of some kind. Heeseung and Jiung patted your shoulders, congratulating you.

“Sumin? Did you know about this?” Sieun enquired, turning to your friend.

“What? Oh, yeah, Y/N called me last night,” she answered, briefly looking at you before turning back to her phone. Sieun looked at you, surprised, not understanding Sumin’s reaction to what seemed like happy news.

You had indeed called Sumin the previous night, and the call had gone similarly to the way she was behaving this morning. Although you usually told her everything, this time, you didn’t want to share the fact that you and Sunghoon were only fake dating. You found yourself actually wanting it to be true - and you thought it’d be easier to believe it yourself if everyone, including your best friend, did too.

“Minie! I’ve got some news,” you’d said as soon as she picked out.

“Ooh! Hit me,” she’d replied with as much excitement in her voice as you.

“So…” you’d started, already giggling. “Sunghoon’s just asked me out. I haven’t told anyone else, I wanted you to be the first to know.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. After a while, you added, “Minie, you still there?”

“Huh? Yeah, um, that’s nice, Y/N, I’m happy for you,” she said, not sounding happy at all. There was no trace of excitement left in her voice.

“Yeah, thanks,” you replied, voice ten times smaller than a minute ago.

“I’m sorry Y/N, but I’ve got to go, my parents are calling me. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She hung up suddenly, giving you no time to say bye in return. You were completely confused. Was Sumin bothered by you and Sunghoon dating? Other than a reminder about his past behavior, she hadn’t said anything when you two were getting closer. So what was wrong? You’d hoped you’d find out the next day at school, but the way she was acting didn’t help at all.

You snapped out of your flashback when Heeseung nudged you, faking a pout. “Not fair! Why did she get to know before we did?”

You forced a smile and said you’d known you’d see them the next day and thought it was better to tell them in person, and that you had just wanted to rant to someone quickly. Your teacher came in as the bell rang and everyone went to their seat. During class, you tried getting her attention so you could ask her if she was okay but she kept her attention on the teacher the whole time. 

After that, as time went by, you kept up your charade of being the perfect student as usual, adding to that of being the perfect girlfriend to Sunghoon. Time with him passed by so quickly: you hadn’t realized you were more than halfway through the semester until you needed to wear a thicker jacket outside and the leaves had started falling, covering school grounds in shades of brown. The plan had worked: he was finally left alone by his admirers. Sumin had stopped being weird after a few days, saying she had had some problems with her parents but hadn’t gone into more detail. Everything was as great as it had ever been: good grades, good friends and a good boyfriend. Well, fake boyfriend, which you needed to remind yourself a bit too often, on the days Sunghoon didn’t do it himself. You felt a pinch in your heart every time he said something like, “there’s my fake girlfriend!” when it was just the two of you, or “great job today, Y/N” after dropping you off.

One day as you arrived home, Yeeun was waiting outside your house, trying to catch you red-handed. She dragged him inside by the arm and you panicked, not wanting him to see how you lived. But your messy room and invasive siblings didn’t scare him off at all; on the contrary, he smiled one of the biggest smiles you’d ever seen on him, canines and dimples on display. Your mom made him stay over for dinner and it was probably the happiest dinner you’d ever had. The idea of bringing someone home and having them see your habits and odd family dynamics had terrified you for the longest time, but you felt so comfortable around Sunghoon that it felt as if he was part of your home as soon as he’d stepped foot inside. You didn’t feel the need to hide anything from him.

After dinner, he helped your parents clear up the table and even washed the dishes, even though they kept insisting he didn’t have to do anything. He had completely won them over. They sat at the table and watched you two laugh together in the kitchen. They looked at each other, knowing they were thinking the exact same thing: their daughter hadn’t looked this happy in a while.

When you were done cleaning up, you two headed to your room under the pretense of needing to study. 

“Alright, but keep the door open!” your mom had yelled after you, making you groan and Sunghoon’s face turn crimson red.

You really had planned on studying - there was a big test coming up and you couldn’t afford to get a bad grade. When you got your physics textbook out, Sunghoon groaned in protest.

“What? You seriously want to study right now?”

You sighed. “I don’t necessarily want to, no, but I need to. And so do you, may I add.”

“We’re not even in the same physics class!”

“Yeah, but we both have Mr. Cho, so I know you’re gonna have a test as well.”

He rolled his eyes and dramatically flung himself on your bed. “Fine.”

When he didn’t move for a few minutes, you guessed what he had meant was that he’d let you study but wasn’t going to do it himself. But after ten minutes, he suddenly got up. “I’m bored to death, Y/N. The test isn’t in another week. Show me what you do for fun,” he said, on the verge of desperation. It had only been ten minutes, but you felt bad having him over and not entertaining him.

“Well, I do have a Switch…” Sunghoon’s eyes widened in awe. “I guess we can play Mario Kart.”

He almost squealed in joy at that. You just chuckled at him, not knowing he was such a fan of car video games. 

“I’m gonna crush you, Kim. Get ready,” he said, already looking victorious.

You smirked, not wanting him to get his hopes up. “Oh, it’s on, Park.”

As expected of a pro player like you (on non-schooldays, you could stay up all night playing this game), you won every single round. Sure, he gave you a run for your money, but you always came on top. He took it surprisingly well, congratulating you each time. After your fourth win in a row, you wiggled your face in front of his with a devilish smile, as you couldn’t help but torment him a little. But he wasn’t smiling. At first, you’d thought he was finally getting mad he kept on losing; but then the proximity between you two hit you. You noticed his eyes flicker momentarily to your lips and had backed off immediately.

“Um, if we go for another round, I’ll go easy on-”

He cut you off by putting his hand on your cheek, making you turn to look at him. You’d daydreamed about this moment before, but you hadn’t imagined your heart beating this fast or the butterflies eating away at your stomach. He was now fully staring at your lips, and you couldn’t look at anything else but his either. Too scared to move an inch, you felt him get closer and closer, so close that his lips were almost on-

“Y/N, mom says it’s late and Sunghoon needs to- AH!”

Sunoo had walked in, eyes riveted on his phone until he looked up and saw you and Sunghoon suspiciously close to each other. Sunghoon practically leaped off of your bed in surprise and you flung a pillow over your face, not believing you had almost kissed Park Sunghoon but that your stupid little brother had ruined everything.

“Sorry! I’m sorry!” the culprit squeaked before running away. You and Sunghoon looked at each other. It was awkward for two seconds, then you both erupted in laughter. 

“Alright, guess I should get going then. Um, thank you so much for tonight. I haven’t had a family dinner in a while, and… Well, it was really nice,” he admitted shyly after you’d calmed down.

“Of course, Sunghoon. I’m sure my parents would love to have you over any time.”

You walked him to your front door, where you exchanged goodbyes and I’ll see you tomorrows. You watched him take a few steps, then turn back and jog towards you. He stood in front of you for a second, then leaned down and placed a kiss on your forehead.

“Bye, Y/N.”

You were too stunned to say it back.

—

After the almost-kiss, it felt as though something had changed between you and Sunghoon. The event had somewhat revealed your feelings: you both knew you wanted to kiss each other. But since those feelings hadn’t been acted upon, the transition from fake-dating to real dating couldn’t happen as smoothly. Well, it could, if you two stopped acting like idiots and told each other how you felt. But the author wanted to get a couple more thousand words in, so it had to wait.

You’d gotten used to Sunghoon’s little requests at school, but you definitely hadn’t anticipated a phone call at past 11pm on a Wednesday night. 

“Sunghoon? Why are you calling me so late?” you asked, groggy voice because of sleep. Since you woke up so early to get ready in the morning, you always went to bed around 9:30 to 10 p.m. Sunghoon was making you lose precious minutes of slumber.

“Late? It’s barely midnight, Y/N.” You groaned. “Whatever, put on some clothes and come outside! I’m waiting for you.”

“You’re what?” you whisper-screamed, suddenly feeling very awake.

“I’m waiting for you! Hurry up!” 

As always, he hung up without waiting for your reply. You couldn’t really turn him down anyway; although you were somewhat obligated, you had stopped seeing it that way and started doing things for him out of your own volition. 

Not wanting to get out of your pajamas, you just threw on a warm sweater, a scarf, some socks, and headed down the hallway on your tiptoes. Your parents weren’t the strictest out there, but you still didn’t wanna get caught sneaking out, and with a boy, at that. After putting on your shoes, you left your house, closing the door behind you as quietly as you could.

The late October night was a bit chilly, but you had wrapped up warm enough. Sunghoon was indeed waiting for you outside, wearing a denim jacket over his gray sweatshirt and matching sweatpants. 

God, he looked good.

“Finally! Took you long enough.”

“Quit it, Sunghoon. Just tell me why you wanted to see me.”

“There’s a place I wanna show you. Come on,” he said, taking you by the hand. You felt tingles in your palm and fingers wherever his hand touched yours. How could something feel so natural yet make your heart race so at the same time?

“Are we walking there?” you asked.

“Yep, it’s not too far. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

Those five minutes felt like five seconds walking with Sunghoon. You chatted and joked around the whole way, not letting go of each other’s hand. You hadn’t even noticed you had reached your destination until he stopped walking.

“Here we are,” he said, facing the building, which made you turn in the direction he was looking.

“The ice rink? What are we doing here?” you asked, confused. It was 11:30 pm; surely, the rink would be closed.

“You’ll see!” he said, heading towards the entrance. To your surprise, he pulled out a key from his pockets and opened the doors.

“What? Sunghoon! How do you have a key to the ice rink?”

“I’m chummy with the janitor. I just need to let him know when I’ll be coming and he doesn’t tell anyone,” he replied, an easy smile on his face, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. He led you first to the shoe rack, helping you find skates your size, and then to the benches next to the rink’s entrance. He knelt in front of you and helped you put on your shoes, doing the laces for you. 

He looked up at you, a glint in his eyes. “I’ve never taken anyone here, Y/N. I know your secret, so I thought I’d show you mine.”

You didn’t know what to say, surprised at the sudden confession, so you just looked at him curiously as he took ice skates from his backpack and laced them up.

He stood up, turned to you and said, “Ready?”

You followed him to the doors leading to the ice. He stepped inside without a trace of hesitation, but you were much more doubtful about your ability to stand on the ice without falling instantly. He turned around and saw you looking helpless. He took your hand in his, helping you step onto the rink. 

“Don’t worry, Y/N. As long as I’ve got you, you won’t fall.”

“Don’t let go of my hand, then,” you said pointedly.

Too focused on not slipping, you didn’t see his smile. “I wasn’t planning to.”

He helped you get your footing, skating backwards in front of you and holding both of your hands. After a few minutes on the ice, you got brave enough to skate on your own, and you miraculously managed to stay on your feet. However, after a while, your bravery turned to hubris, and you dared attempt a spin, resulting in you miserably falling on the ice, butt first. Sunghoon was worried for a second until he saw you laughing uncontrollably. You looked at him, wide-eyed, and said, “This is so much fun, Hoon.” You were so exhilarated that you hadn’t noticed the nickname slipping from your lips but the boy’s cheeks and ears turned redder than the bruise you had surely just earned yourself. Thankfully, if you commented on it, he could just blame it on the cold. 

He helped you up, and you skated on as if nothing had happened. This went on for another thirty minutes, you skating hand in hand and occasionally falling together (but most of the time, just you falling on your own). Sunghoon had been so nervous before bringing you here; he was scared you’d think his hobby was unmanly or lame, as he’d been made to feel. But seeing you have the time of your life, all his worries dissipated. This place was like a second home to him, and bringing someone into your home was always nerve-wracking, but he thought you fit perfectly in it. 

When you told him you were getting tired and wanted to sit for a while, you skated back together to the benches and he gave you some water from his bag. You sat in silence for a while, waiting for your breathing to come back to a normal pace. 

You broke the silence first. “So, why’d you take me here? Not that I’m complaining.”

He hesitated a second before speaking. "I used to come here all the time as a kid.” He didn’t look at you when he answered, keeping his gaze on his hands. “My mom would take me. She left us for another man the summer before middle school started. She left me alone with my asshole father.”

You let out a small gasp, not expecting such a confession. You placed your hand on his back for comfort and said, “I’m sorry, Sunghoon.”

He quickly glanced at you, a half-smile on his face. “Don’t be. Anyways, he had to somewhat start taking care of me now that my mom wasn’t there to do it.” He chuckled darkly. “I guess his idea of taking care of his son was forbidding him from doing the one thing he loved. He thought it was a stupid sport for a boy. He stopped all of my lessons and made me sign up for soccer, even though I hadn’t ever said I wanted to do that. I still came here from time to time, but I didn’t wanna risk getting caught. God knows what he’d have done if he saw me here.”

You weren’t sure what to say. You felt as if no words would be enough to express how his story made you feel. “I- it’s awful, what he did to you. No parent should ever make their child feel as though their passion isn’t worth it. If it’s any comfort, even though you were mostly helping me, I thought you looked ten times better on that rink than scoring any goal. And that’s saying something.”

He finally looked at you and grinned. “Thanks, Y/N.” He seemed to be thinking for a few seconds, and then continued: “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and I think that’s why it’s hard for me to open up to people and make lots of friends. I only trust Jake because I’ve known him forever and I can’t really get rid of him now,” he said with a chuckle, “and Jay, well, Jake took to him instantly in middle school so I guess I didn’t have a choice there either, and he’s not so bad anyway. The more people I let in, the more likely I am to get hurt. It’s much easier pretending I don’t wanna have anything to do with anyone than try. 

“I guess it’s also why I talked to you on that day. Sure, I ended up thinking you could help me with all those girls. But at first, when I saw someone like you, who looks like they have it all together, who’s actually the opposite in real life - no offense - it reminded me of myself. And I thought, maybe she’d understand. Which is why it was so easy to be myself around you.”

You took his hand in yours and pressed it slightly. “I’m glad you were.” You didn’t feel the need to say anything else, hoping it was enough.

“Now, your turn. What made you the person you are today?” he asked with a grin, trying to approach lightheartedly this heavy subject, which you appreciated.

“It’s all about making people think you’re someone else, isn’t it? Because, depending on who you are, they’ll treat you differently. I found that out as a kid, because I, too, have a tragic childhood backstory.” He gasped jokingly.

“It’s not as bad as yours, so sorry about that. Back in primary school, I already had this… attitude that I have today. I had quite the ego, and I didn’t want anyone doing better than me at school. I didn’t care about how I looked, if I was the prettiest girl in class or had the cutest shoes. I was the smarty-pants of the class, basically, and a lot of the kids teased me for that. But I also didn’t let myself get trampled over, and fought back, quite aggressively at that, so I was somehow the nerd and the troublemaker at the same time. I didn’t have the best reputation, but I did have a friend. Jay. Or Jongseong, at the time, before he got too cool for his real name,” you joked. “The thing is, I didn’t see him as a friend. Sure, I was only eight or nine, but I really liked him. And the day I was planning on confessing, I saw him hold hands with the prettiest girl in our class. So I never told him, and then he left for the US a few months later.

“During the time he was gone, I had a complete makeover and actually started caring about my appearance, especially when middle school started. So now I had academic validation from teachers, which I had craved since forever, and both female and male validation from all the girls telling me how pretty I was and all the guys liking me. The people who were in my primary school and went to the same middle school told them how I used to be, but nobody believed them, and if they did, they didn’t care, so everybody just gradually forgot about it. And I just got addicted to the validation, which is why I always studied harder and tried to be prettier, even when it turned into a complete lie. I thought that if I could make everyone believe I was perfect, then it didn’t matter what I was like in real life, so at home, I just let myself completely go. And even now that I’m aware of all of this, I still can’t stop.”

Sunghoon looked at you like you had just slapped him. “So, you used to have a crush on Jay?”

You looked at him in exasperation. “Seriously, Hoon? That’s what you get from everything I just told you?”

He smiled shyly. “Sorry. Thank you for telling me.” You sat there in comfortable silence for another few minutes, still hand in hand. Then, Sunghoon got up, grin on his face.

“Wanna see something cool?” You nodded at him, returning his grin. He headed back inside the rink.

You thought he was gonna show off by doing some fancy trick. But he started gliding on the ice, and you couldn’t believe what you were seeing. He took long strides that looked as natural to him as walking. He spinned one, two, three times, and continued skating as though it was nothing. You were completely mesmerized. You already thought he was out-of-this-world beautiful, but his beauty was brought to another level when he skated. His elegant moves rendered you breathless. When he skated back towards you, you were looking at him with only awe and admiration in your eyes. 

After what he’d told you and what he’d just shown you, you couldn't help but get a little emotional. You engulfed him in a hug as soon as he’d stepped out of the rink, your arms around his neck and his naturally coming to your waist. Your hands came up to his cheeks as you leaned back to properly look at him.

“That was- wow. That was amazing, Sunghoon. Thank you for showing me.” You could see the gratefulness in his eyes. There was something else there, and whatever it was, you knew you were looking back at him with as much of it. It was only you two in the building, but it might as well have been the two of you in the whole world. 

All too similarly as in your room, his gaze went from your eyes to your lips, and you couldn’t help but mirror that. This was the perfect moment. You inched your face closer, letting him close the gap between you. Your lips touched and it was as if everything fell into place. The kiss was shy at first, neither of you sure what to do, your mouths moving at a slow but steady pace. But as your hands traveled from his cheeks, to his jaw and down to his neck, and you felt him sigh in the kiss, something unclicked in you, making you want more. You deepened the kiss, and he returned it with just as much force. Your right hand came to grab at the nape of his hair and his hands gripped your waist tighter. After minutes or hours, you broke the kiss in need of some air. Your eyes met again and you smiled at him, relieved it had finally happened. 

You thought he’d have a similar reaction, but he suddenly looked panicked. Realization hit him like a truck. He liked you. Far too much. And even if the kiss and these past weeks told him you might like him back, it scared him. He’d unlocked his heart for you but couldn’t let you keep the key. Otherwise, he’d let you open it more and more and more until there he was completely bare in front of you, and you decided you didn’t like what you’d found and left him. Just like his mom did. Just like everyone eventually does. Just like his dad never even tried.

He took a step back. His panic was rubbing off on you. You called out his name, but he quickly got his bag and said, “Sorry, Y/N, I have to go. I’ll um- I’ll see you.” He took a few steps, turned around, and said, “I think you should take the bus tomorrow morning. Sorry.”

He started walking away. A few steps before he’d be out of your view, he turned back around. He hated the look on your face, how sad, confused and helpless it was all at once. Above all, he hated that he was the reason behind it. But he told himself it was better to leave you now than be left in a few months when you got bored of him, and started walking again without another word.

—

You walked home alone. It was a dark November night, and you were shivering from the cold and from sadness. Try as hard as you might, you couldn’t figure out why Sunghoon had reacted like that. The past month had gone so well, you were only getting closer and more comfortable with each other. The only logical conclusion you could come to was that kissing you had made him realize he didn’t like you. Thankfully, you didn’t live too far from the ice rink and you got home in five minutes. Lost in your thoughts, you couldn’t even be bothered to be quiet closing the front door and walking to your room, and you woke Sunoo up.

At first, he looked like he was about to scold you for making so much noise; but upon seeing your disheveled state, he started worrying. 

“Y/N? What’s wrong, why are you only coming home now? Where were you?”

You couldn’t hold it in any longer. You fell in your brother’s arms and started crying your heart out.

He held you for a little while, but not wanting to wake the others up by staying in the hallway, he said, “Come on, let’s get you in your room. You’re freezing.”

He left for a few minutes and came back with two cups of tea in his hands. He joined you on your bed. You had calmed down a bit and took a sip of the tea, already feeling warmer.

“So, tell me everything.”

And you did. Not just about what had happened at the ice rink, but everything before that: how yours and Sunghoon’s relationship was fake, which you hadn’t even told your siblings, but that it hadn’t kept you from falling for him, and how you really thought he felt the same way. When you got to the part where you told each other about your stories, Sunoo grabbed your arm in surprise, and said, “I can’t believe you told someone about that. Good for you, big sis.”

You sat in silence after a few minutes when you’d finished telling him everything, you, still reflecting on your evening, and him, trying to think of something good to say. He took a deep breath, and started: “You know, this might be completely useless, but I feel like there’s no point trying to figure out why he did that. We’re not mind readers, and assuming things will just go wrong. I think the best thing to do is just ask him tomorrow, or whenever you’re ready to face him, really.”

You looked at your brother fondly. “How can you be so stupid sometimes, yet so wise right now?”

Sunoo and you talked for another minute, but when you yawned for a good seven straight seconds, you both agreed it was time for bed. Before you fell asleep, you told yourself that tomorrow morning, you’d find Sunghoon and make him be clear with you. You at least deserved that.

—

Heeseung and Sumin were clearly surprised to see you the next morning in the bus, but you told them you didn’t want to talk about it and they didn’t push, although it very obviously had something to do with Sunghoon. As you rode the bus and psyched yourself for your conversation with him, you had no idea he was currently in the midst of a heated argument with Jay. The latter pushed him with force, making Sunghoon’s back hit the classroom wall behind him.

“What the fuck did you just say about Y/N?” Jay asked, venom in his voice and fury in his eyes.

Despite the pain, Sunghoon smirked, wanting to rile up his friend even more. “I said, Y/N’s just as stupid as all the other girls. She probably thinks she’s so much better than everybody, but in the end it was so easy making her fall for me. It was almost boring, really, how easy she was.”

Jay pushed him again. “Don’t fucking talk about her like that.”

“Aw, little Jay is getting upset over his little Y/N? You sad that the girl you like actually likes an asshole like me?”

Jay hadn’t had many reasons to get angry in his life. This was making him discover another side of himself; he didn’t know he could get this angry. He didn’t know rage could fill up his veins like that and make him want to destroy absolutely everything around him, but above all, the person in front of him who’d he considered a friend all these years. On the verge of losing control, he reared up his fist, before Sunghoon said:

“You know what’s even sadder? She used to like you, too.”

His arm dropped. “What?”

“Yeah, in primary school. Didn’t you think it was weird how different she was before and after you left? Her little heartbreak made her change everything about herself just so that people would like her. And now all she can do is lie to everyone. I pity her, really. And to think that she thought I liked her. What an idiot.”

That was the last straw. Jay punched Sunghoon square in the nose, making him stumble back a few steps until he hit the wall again. He held onto his bloody, and possibly broken, nose and looked Jay straight in the eyes, still smirking. Thinking his job was done (but not sure what the job was in the first place), he walked away, heading to the nurses’ station. The scene had gathered quite an audience outside. It was less than ten minutes to the first bell, so already quite a few students were there, but no one had dared to venture inside. Jake, arriving too late to prevent any damage, looked wide-eyed back and forth between Sunghoon walking out and Jay standing inside, fists clenched by his side and panting from anger.

Sunghoon barely spared him or anyone a glance as he left the room. What he did notice though, were a crumpled tuna-mayo sandwich and a banana milk on the floor, looking as though someone had dropped them.

What had he done?

—

You had already run back to your friends and were currently crying for the second time in twelve hours in Sumin’s arms. It was the first time ever you cried at school, and probably also in front of your friends, spare Sumin, so it was a curious sight to most; she took you to another room for privacy. 

There, you practically told her everything you had told Sunoo the night before, including the fake dating.

“Wait… so, you and Sunghoon weren’t actually dating?”

You nodded, embarrassed by your lie.

“I- Why didn’t you tell me, Y/N? How could you fool everyone like that?”

You looked up in surprise at your friend’s harsh words. You probably deserved them, but you weren’t used to hearing her speak in such a way, nor to the cold stare she was peering down at you with. 

“I don’t know… I’m really sorry…” you mumbled, ashamed.

She scoffed. “You should be. I just- I just don’t understand how you can already be living such a lie, and still add onto it. It makes me wonder how I’m still friends with you.” The bell rang right at that moment, and she got up, saying, “Let’s go to class. You wouldn’t wanna be late.”

You followed her, but you felt sick to your stomach. Usually, you could always hide your discomfort or sadness, no matter how bad your period cramps were or how serious an argument with your parents had gotten. But this time, it was too much, and fifteen minutes into the class, you asked the teacher to go to the nurse. Not used to you needing to leave class and trusting that it was for a legitimate reason, your teacher let you off and you quickly packed your bag and left. 

When you got to the nurse, you sat down in front of her and said you weren’t feeling well and wanted to go home. For the same reasons as your teacher, she said she’d let you but needed to ask you a few questions before about your general well-being. You answered them quickly, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible and just go home. 

When you finally were able to leave, you only took a few steps out of the nurse’s office before someone grabbed your wrist, making you turn around. Sunghoon, who was resting in the room next door, had heard your voice and gotten up as soon as he’d heard you leave. His nose was covered in bandages and his eye had started swelling and turning blue, and you mentally thanked Jay. You ripped your arm out of his grip and continued to walk away without a word. You were too tired to argue.

“Y/N, please, hear me out.”

This made you stop in your tracks, but you didn’t turn around. “Hear you out? I’ve already heard enough, Sunghoon. No need to explain, you made it very clear what you think of me.”

You started walking again but he doubled you and blocked your path in the narrow hallway. 

“Y/N, I’m sorry, if you’d just give me a minute-”

“I don’t care that you’re sorry, Sunghoon! Sorry doesn’t cut it. I trusted you. Actually trusted you. You out of all people should know how hard it is to do that. Or was that a lie too?” Seeing him in front of you, your sadness retreated to the back of your heart and you were left with only anger. 

“It wasn’t, I prom-”

“That doesn’t mean anything to me anymore.” You pushed past him and walked on. And this time, he let you go, even though the only thing you wanted him to do was make you stay. You so desperately wanted to hear him out and forgive him, but you knew you couldn’t do that. You had too much dignity, and it would only end up hurting you even further. 

So you didn’t shed a tear the whole way home. When you finally got to your bed, you didn’t have the energy to start crying. You fell asleep, tears quietly rolling down your face. 

—

You slept the whole day, waking up to a soft knock on your bedroom door. It was your mom, telling you Jay was here to see you. Everyone had been surprised to see you already at home when they came back from work or school, but they knew better than to wake you up.

“I’m surprised, you know. He’s gotten so handsome.”

You rolled your eyes at her. “Just tell him that I’m not feeling well and he should go home, please.”

“Oh, I’ve already tried to, honey. The boy is adamant on seeing you.”

You sighed. “Fine. Can you bring him here, then?”

A few seconds later, you heard another knock, and Jay opened the door just enough to peek his head through, asking if he could come in.

“Well, you’re already here, so might as well.”

You sat up and gestured for him to sit down on your bed.

He looked around, taking in the messiness of his surroundings. “You know, I thought your room would be much more… organized.”

“Didn’t Sunghoon tell you? I’m a big, fat liar who hides the truth from everyone,” you said sarcastically.

“About that… did you hear everything he said?” You hummed in response. “I’m so sorry you had to hear that, Y/N. I don’t know what happened to him. He’d never said anything like that about you, and then, all of a sudden… What an asshole. I can’t believe he was my friend.”

“Was? You shouldn’t end your friendship over me, Jay.”

“Are you kidding me? I can’t be friends with a guy who talks about anyone like that, let alone you.” After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “Did um- did anything happen, for him to say those things?”

You sighed deeply. “I’ve already told this story twice in the past few days, so I’ll give you the short version, but basically, we were fake dating, and I started really liking him, and I thought he did too, until we kissed, and he left me completely stranded, and then the next day I hear him say all those things.”

Silence again. You suddenly remembered something Sunghoon had said that you had completely put to the side: Jay likes you. At least, according to Sunghoon. You didn’t know if it was true, but judging by his disappointed face, it looked like it. Seemed like all of your friendships were going to hell.

“Oh,” he simply said.

“Yeah…” you murmured back. 

“Well,” he turned to you, “that just confirms to me that he’s an asshole. Cause no guy in his right mind would turn you down, Y/N. I know I wouldn’t.”

He looked straight at you as he said that. Yep. Jay liked you. It was a nice feeling, but it was also about ten years too late. 

“Do you- do you know what I’m trying to say, Y/N?” he asked, gulping.

You hesitated for a second before saying, ”I think I do, Jay. I have to say, your timing isn’t great.”

He chuckled a bit lifelessly. “Yeah, I guess right now isn’t the best time to say this.”

“I also meant, you know what Sunghoon said, earlier? That I liked you before you left for the US? That was true.”

He looked at you, mouth agape. “Oh, was it…” His head hung down in defeat. “I can’t believe I’ve been such an idiot. I feel like it’s my fault that Sunghoon hurt you like this. If only I’d been just a bit earlier…”

“None of this is your fault, Jay. Please don’t think that. It’s mine for thinking Sunghoon could actually like me back.”

Jay took a deep breath. “God, as much as it hurts me to say, Y/N, I think he did. Or does, actually.” You furrowed your brows at him. “Sunghoon, he has this thing where he goes into retreat mode as soon as he gets too close, too personal. It’s a stupid defense mechanism, and when he realizes he’s let you in a bit too far, he snaps everything closed and hurts you before you can hurt him. At least, that’s how he sees it, I guess. He’s done it to Jake and me a couple times, and it takes some getting used to, but he stops after a while. When he knows for sure that you won’t hurt him.”

You didn’t know what to do with this information, so you just stayed quiet, which Jay took as a sign to go on.

“I’m not saying forgive him. Believe me, if I could smack him into space and never let him see you again, I would. But I think maybe, just maybe, and you don’t have to if you don’t want to, hear him out.”

You smiled at him. “You’re a good friend, Jay. And I don’t mean just to me but to Sunghoon as well. I hope you know that.”

Jay tried to ignore the pinch in his heart at the word ‘friend’ and smiled back.

“Oh, there’s another thing I needed to show you.” His tone was suddenly much more apprehensive, and he looked both sorry and scared to say whatever he was about to say.

He pulled out his phone and searched the thing in question. Before showing you anything, he warned, “Nobody knows who did this. It was sent out to the whole school on a library computer-”

Expecting the worst, you snatched Jay’s phone from his hands. And there they were. Pictures of you from your primary school years, recent pictures of you in your comfortable clothes, at home or in close proximity to your house. Sent out to the whole school, as Jay had said. You were horror-struck. You could feel all the years you had spent perfecting your image and maintaining it crumbling around you as though they were paper. Charismatic smiles and trendy accessories had been your brick and mortar, but a sledgehammer had hit them, destroying your foundations further with each swing.

And that sledgehammer had a name: Bae Sumin. You’d figured it out in an instant. You’d been friends your whole life, she was the only one apart from your family to know about your true face; only she would have access to such photos. You knew it wasn’t Sunghoon because the pictures he had taken that day weren’t there.

If what had happened with Sunghoon had made a crack in your heart, then this had shattered it into a million pieces. The person who you’d trusted the most, who you’d thought would never do anything to hurt you, had done the worst thing anybody could do to you.

“Y/N- are you okay?” Jay asked tentatively. You had forgotten he was there.

“Um, yeah, yeah- I think I just need to be alone for now, if that’s okay.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind staying a while.”

“Sorry, Jay, but I’m sure.”

He looked at you for a few seconds. He’d never felt more distance between you two, not even when you had been oceans apart. “Alright. Call me if you need anything. I mean it.”

You smiled a tiny, tiny smile in response and he left your room. On his way out, your mom hugged him, saying it was nice to see him again and that he was welcome anytime, and he thanked her.

As he walked home, he couldn’t help but bitterly laugh to himself. Even when he confessed, he hadn’t been able to say the words he’d wanted to tell you this whole time: I love you.

—

You didn’t go to school for the rest of the week, the only stain on your perfect attendance record. All of your friends had tried to reach you, asking if you were okay, and you replied in a few small messages, telling them you’d be back when you could. Other people had contacted you, asking if those pictures were real. You obsessed over your school’s gossip Instagram account: the past few days, all the posts had been dedicated to your pictures and Sunghoon’s and Jay’s fight. You had ten missed calls from Sunghoon and seventeen from Sumin. You ignored each and everyone of them, only giving Jay, Heeseung, Sieun and Jiung the time of day. 

On Sunday morning you woke up, already dreading going to school the next day. You could already picture the nasty stares and whispers you’d get in the hallways. You thought about facing Sumin and Sunghoon again, and you thought the worst thing possible would be to have to do it at school. So you decided to wait until they called you again, as you knew they would, and finally picked up their call.

Sumin contacted you first, at eleven in the morning. You agreed to have her come over to your house to talk. When she appeared at your front door, you realized you weren’t sad, angry, or disappointed; you were just confused. You didn’t understand why she’d done it. Looking at her face, you couldn’t imagine her sitting down at that computer and sending out those pictures, writing the comment This is what Kim Y/N is like in real life.

You let her in and walked to your room, your siblings’ eyes burning holes into her soul the whole time. You sat down on your bed, sighed, and said, “Go ahead.”

“Thank you for letting me come here and explain myself. I don’t know what took over me, Y/N. Well actually, I guess I do. Jealousy, as stupid as it sounds.” She chuckled at herself. “I’ve always tried to hide it, but I’ve always been a bit jealous of you, Y/N. You’re the prettiest girl, the smartest, the nicest, and I’m just the best friend. That’s all anyone knows me as. Everybody loves you, yet I know it’s all a facade. And I’m not saying that to be mean, because I know you’re an amazing person even without all the glamor. And when I saw you with Sunghoon, I mean, you saw how I was. I didn't fight with my parents. I was so, so jealous. You hadn’t shown interest in any guy since Choi Soobin and all of a sudden you were dating Park freaking Sunghoon, and he knew about your quote-on-quote ‘real’ face, so I couldn’t even comfort myself that he didn’t know who you really were.”

“Wait- why would you be jealous of Sunghoon and me?”

She took a deep breath. “You remember, freshman year, when I confessed to him and he turned me down?”

“Yeah, but I thought that was in the past.”

“Do you also remember that guy I told you about later on, who I’d gotten really close with but completely shut me off when I thought we were about to start dating?”

Something clicked, but you didn’t want to face it. “Yeah…”

“Well, surprise surprise, they were the same person. Ha. I got mad at you for lying to me, but I did the same thing.”

“Sumin… Why did you never tell me?”

“I’m not sure. When we were in that talking stage, I could’ve bragged about it to anyone, you know, that Park Sunghoon was actually being nice to me, but I didn’t. I wanted to keep him my little secret. And then I confessed, and we all know how that ended.” A beat passes as she takes a deep breath, shaking the bad memory away. “I am over it, it was more than three years ago. Maybe there was a nice part of me that thought he had changed, because you seemed happy with him, and I didn’t want to ruin that. But maybe there was another part that hoped he might hurt you like he did me. And that’s such a shitty thing to do, I know. I should’ve told you when I saw you get involved with him. I can’t believe after all these years, he did the exact same thing to you that he did to me. What an asshole.”

You were staring at the wall in front of you, feeling empty. Why did everything have to happen at the same time? You were just drained of any willpower.

“This doesn’t explain the pictures,” you said plainly.

“Right. When you told me you were fake dating, I guess something snapped in me. I couldn’t believe it was another lie, I thought we had gone past the stage where you hid things from me. So that, plus jealousy, I just went a bit crazy, I think. I really wasn’t thinking, Y/N, and I promise you with all my heart that if I could go back and undo everything, I would. I’m so, so, so sorry. I regretted it as soon as I hit post.”

You looked at your friend and knew she was telling the truth. You believed her, and yet you couldn’t quite look past it.

“I know you are, Minie. It’s just… what am I gonna do now at school? Everybody must hate me.”

“I won’t lie, some people haven’t been saying the nicest things, especially Park’s fangirls. But God, Y/N, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but who cares? They’ll talk about it for a week, two at most. Your life at school won’t be the same, but you’ll still have all of us. I’ve talked to Heeseung, Sieun and Jiung, and they’re not the tiniest bit mad at you. They’re just worried to death. A bit confused too, but mostly worried. And you know what? Even Yujin, Wonyoung and Gaeul, who I’ve literally never talked to before, came to ask me how you were. Jay and Sunghoon are barely on talking terms but they always team up when it comes to practically verbally assaulting anyone they overhear talking behind your back. Jake has to hold them back sometimes but he always glares at those people too. You don’t wanna see Jake Sim glare, I promise you. It’s so scary,” she says in a confessional tone, visibly shuddering just at the thought of angel-faced Jake looking angry, and you can’t help the small chuckle that escapes your lips.

Her face softens as she places a warm palm over your hand. “We all love you and care for you so much, so screw literally every single other person in that school. They don’t matter.”

There was something refreshing about Sumin’s words. The idea that you could live your life without worrying about other people had always been in the back of your head, but you always told yourself you were in too deep to go back. Now that you had been forced to, you understood why you felt so empty: the immense weight of having to keep up a persona, had been lifted off your shoulders. You would only have to carry yourself, and not a second person, which made you feel weightless. You’d just have to get used to it and come to enjoy that feeling.

You took your friend’s hands in yours. “I want to forgive you, I promise I do. And I will. I just don’t know if I can do that right away. I’ll need some getting used to this new life.”

“I completely understand, Y/N.”

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you around anymore. And you know what, I’m sure one day I’ll look back at this moment and thank you.”

—

Sumin left a few hours later and you were now waiting for Sunghoon to call you. You waited and waited, until your phone rang with a small ding: he wasn’t calling you, but had sent you a message. A very, very long message. You were very tempted to reply with a I ain’t reading all that. I’m happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened, but you thought it might not be the appropriate moment. 

You opened the message, which had come after thirty unread texts, and started reading, slightly appalled by the lack of paragraphing.

Dear Y/N, 

Is this how you start a long text? I would much rather be telling you this than writing it, but someone hasn’t been picking up my calls. Sorry. I probably shouldn’t be giving you much attitude right now. Where do I even start? The ice rink, I guess. Asshole move #1, obviously. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you like that. That kiss was really really good and I really really liked it. Because I really really like you. And I think I’ve known that for a while now, but the kiss confirmed it. And I was happy for a second, but then I panicked. There’s no other word for it, I panicked. I’ve never liked someone this much before and I was so scared. I still am. I’m terrified shitless. But I know that my fear is completely irrational, and that you’re literally the best person on Earth, which is why I’m writing this. I know it’s cliché to say my mom left me and now I think everybody will. And my first reaction to that is to hurt someone before they can hurt me, which is what I did. But as much as I wanna fight it, it’s always there at the back of my mind. You can even ask Sumin about it. Should I be saying that? I feel like I might as well. I was an asshole to her, and I’m so angry at myself that I did it again with you. I didn’t mean a single word of what I said about you to Jay. Not a single one. You’re not stupid, you’re the smartest and most amazing girl I know, and I never pretended I liked you, because I never had to. I think I just wanted Jay to punch me, really. I wanted him to run to you and make sure you were okay, because I was too scared to do that myself. But I regret doing that so much. I hope you know that. And bless Jay, he’s a real one. He told me to get my shit together and talk to you. I can tell he’s still mad at me but still wants to make things good between us. I was already trying to call you before he said that, but I probably would’ve said something stupid that would’ve made things worse. And I can’t afford that, Y/N, I really, really can’t. You get me like no one does and being with you is the most liberating thing ever, I’m never myself more than when I’m around you. You just bring out the best in me. Well, except for that thing I did. Which I promise I’ll never do again. I am so extremely sorry, and if you wanna hate me for the rest of your life, I completely get it. But I would also be very happy if you didn’t. I hope I’ll see you tomorrow at school. I really miss you.

Your Hoon

You wiped away the tears that had formed in your eyes and typed back:

You’re such an idiot, Park.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

—

The next day, as you imagined, was mostly hell. You’d decided not to dress up as usual: there was no point trying to look good after this, it would only make you seem more ridiculous. You put less makeup on, not bothering to hide your eye bags, and didn’t bling your outfit up with accessories or fancy shoes, opting for your worn-out Converse you’d had since your feet stopped growing. On the bus, where people usually ignored each other, you could already feel the gossip being told about you. You avoided people’s gaze like the plague and sat down next to Sumin. You laid your head on her shoulder and sighed.

“I already wanna go home.”

She laughed, “I know. We’ll be with you the whole day, so don’t worry.”

You spent the bus ride catching up on what had happened when you were gone (nothing much), and although there was some awkwardness there, it was nice being with your best friend. When Heeseung got on, he practically screamed your name and suffocated you by means of greeting.

“I’m so glad you’re back. You know, I think you look really cute in those pictures. All these people are just jealous they don’t look as good as you even when you don’t dress up.”

Sumin shot daggers with her eyes at him and he cringed, saying, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

You reassured him, saying that it was fine since it was all you were going to be hearing the next few days. “Might as well get used to it.”

It was somewhat easy to ignore the stares coming your way when you walked into school with Heeseung and Sumin flanked at your sides like bodyguards. When you reached your classroom, Jiung engulfed you in a hug and Sieun was almost crying. How the hell had you gotten such sweet friends? 

In the hallways, some people tried to get reactions out of you by calling you out, yelling liar! or you can’t fool us anymore. You couldn’t ignore them as they were very much in your face. When at lunch, a table of girls next to you was very clearly talking about you in the nastiest way possible, you took your tray and were ready to get up and leave, but a very familiar voice stopped you in your tracks.

“You think it’s funny talking about someone like that?” Sunghoon was practically screaming at the girls. “You think you’re any better than her? I bet you do the exact same thing but are just glad someone else got called out for it.” You weren’t sure if that made you feel much better, but you appreciated the effort.

“As a matter of fact,” he continued as he pulled out a chair and got up on it, his voice getting louder, “I’ve got something I wanna say to everyone.”

Somebody whooped (probably Jake) and you tried to get Sunghoon to come down from the chair, but he just smiled his radiant smile at you and turned to look at the students in the cafeteria.

“All of you who judge Y/N are hypocrites. You wanna tell me you’re all as perfect at home as you are at school? That you never relax a little bit? Sure, she pushed it a bit far- (hey! you grunted in protest), but nobody shows who they truly are to everyone. We all judge each other in this stupid high school, so Y/N did what she had to do and protected herself. If anything, this should make you respect her even more. And it’s not like she did anything wrong to you. She didn’t use her popularity against anyone, so you better not use this against her.”

From the crowded tables in the cafeteria, somebody yelled “Nobody cares!”

Somebody, whose voice you thought you recognized as Jungwon’s, joined in: “Yeah, what is it about you seniors and thinking the whole school revolves around you? We still like Y/N!”

Sunghoon, taken aback, simply said, “Oh. Alright. Well, you better keep it that way then!” and got off his chair. 

He turned to you, already a pleading look on his face and said “Y/N, I’m so sorry-”

But you cut him off right away. “I know, Sunghoon, I know. I think this proved it.”

“I really wanna make it up to you. So just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. Buy you a house, move to another country, you name it. I’ll do it.”

You chuckled at him. “You don’t need to go that far.” You looked down, then back at him. “I think I just want to pretend like nothing happened. Like it was all a huge, awful fever dream. Even if I can’t forgive and forget right away, I don’t think I want you out of my life while I figure it out.”

He let out the biggest sigh you’d ever heard. “My God, you don’t know how happy to hear that, Y/N. Thank you so much.”

“Thank you for defending me just now. That was… definitely something.”

He smiled down at you. "I did my best. Too bad those sophomores ruined everything.”

You could feel eyes burning into your sides, so you turned your head a bit and noticed that your friends and the table of girls that had just been gossiping were staring at you, some of them teary-eyed. When they saw you notice them, they all turned back to each other and pretended that they were having some other conversation. You and Sunghoon chuckled, and you realized how much you had missed him.

Yes, Sunghoon and Sumin had hurt you, but you were a strong believer of second chances. Even if it was hard at first to stop thinking about Sunghoon’s voice when he had said those things or Sumin’s intentions when she posted the pictures, they’d made it up to you in any way they could and you’d reciprocated that by being completely honest. No more trying to look perfect all the time; you were human and were allowed to have low moments. Your grades even dropped by two points, because you’d started spending more time with your friends than with your textbooks. You’d spent whole Saturdays at the ice rink with your now real-boyfriend Sunghoon, and had invited the whole crew. Heeseung was surprisingly good at it. You had even caught your little sister Yeeun on a date with the cute Japanese boy she’d talked about. 

As promised, Jay came once a week or every two weeks to have dinner with your family; Sunghoon always insisted on being present. The tension between them had turned into friendly competition, and you could tell the two friends were glad to have each other back. 

You’d never felt so free. Your relationship with Sunghoon felt like uncharted territory and home at the same time; so daunting and exciting yet so comfortable and relaxing. You kept the PDA at a minimum at school, but when it was just the two of you, your whole body never failed to heat up, even in the cold of the ice rink. He had been nicknamed the ice prince, but he was so, so warm.

In the end, everybody found out. But you had Park Sunghoon by your side, so it was alright.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger (ask to be removed/added!)

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[poppyflower-22]

His Girl.

Part 1

Summary: Lando loves his rich, girl boss, girl. Though he doesn't really know what she really does underneath. Until he does.

or

In which Lando finds out his girlfriend is not who she said she was.

Side note: I'm using names for reader, and spelling and grammar errors. I've had this in my head for a while and while I write on Wattpad normally, I'm taking a brake because of some nasty things said to me about my writing.

Masterlist

2020

Lando was on another high from another podium that weekend in Australia. He was at the bar ordering another drink, when he looked across the bar, he saw the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life.

She was wearing a short black dress. Her makeup and hair were just right, and she was wearing a silver chain necklace. She was sipping a Vodka Cruiser. Not a care in the world.

He thanks the bartender and makes his way over to her. He sat down bedside her. She didn't even give him a glance.

"Not interested." She spoke. And God Lando fell in love her voice. It was British. But her voice was so soft.

Lando clocked an eyebrow, "I didn't even say anything." He chuckled.

She sighed and turned to look at him. "You were going to hit on me and hoped I would end up in your bed by the end of the night. No?" She bluntly spoke with her eye raised.

Lando just stared at her in aww. Because maybe that was the case but not now. He could tell she was interesting person already. There was a spark in her eyes, of mystery and fun. She interested him very much. "Okay maybe your right." He smirked at her. "But how about I just buy you another drink?" He asked.

She wouldn't say it out loud, but he was handsome. "Fine." She sighed and Lando flagged down the bartender. The bartender gave her a nod as he left to get her drink.

"So, what's your name, love?" He asked turning his seat to face her.

She copied him. He was interesting. Mostly when she said no, the guy would walk away or start being aggressive. But not him. "Bonnie." She smiled.

"No last name?" He asked with a curious look. He watched as she brushed her black hair out her face and smiled at him.

"Salvatore." She reposed with a small smile. "Yours mystery man?" She asked taking a sip of her drink.

"Lando. Lando Norris." He spoke. He watched as she studied him.

"The formal one race driver?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

Lando nodded, taking a sip of his drink. "Did you watch the race?" he couldn't but ask.

Bonnie shook her head, "Oh no, my father loved F1." She smiled. She loved her father and talking about wasn't a sad thing. Despite the life they lived.

"Oh sorry."

"No, it's okay. It was a long time ago." She reassured him with a hand on his hand. "But he was a Ferrari fan." She teased knowing he is a McLaren driver.

"Oh." He teased placing his hand on his heart. "Not Ferrari." They both laughed. Bonnie's hand was till on his and Lando started cresting without knowing. "Who's your favorite team?" He couldn't help but ask.

Bonnie smirked, "Red Bull." She told and watched with a beaming smile as he fakes a hurt look.

"Now that hurts. Right here." He spoke in fake sadness as he pointed to his heart. They both giggled with each other. "I'll get you to change your team at the end of the night." He boldly told her.

Bonnie shook her head with a smile. "Tell me something about you. No race talk. I can tell you don't want to talk about it." She said to him.

Lando chuckled, that was right he didn't want to talk about his driving right now. He wanted to know this girl right in front of him.

"I hate sea food." He told her and couldn't help but wrinklie his noes up at the thought of it.

Bonnie chuckled. She liked it. Not her favorite but she could have in curtain things. "Really. Why?" She rested her elbow on the bar and her chin rested in her hand to look at him.

Lando shook his head, "Just don't. Don't like the texture." He explained. "Do you?"

She hummed. "I can have it in curtain things, But not all the time." She told him and took a sip of her drink.

"Tell me something about yourself." Lando spoke as he watched her.

"I can speak Five languages." She smirked and watched his eyes widen.

"Wow. What are they?'

"Dunch, French, Russian, Latin and Japanese." She smiled

Lando leaned back in aww. "Wow I can't even learn a new language. Never mind five." He spoke impressed. She kept getting better to him.

She was everything he ever wanted in a girl. And not in a cocky way. in a more, he has found the one for him way. She was witty and he could just tell that she would be fun to have around.

Bonnie shrugged, "I was a homeschooled kid. My father was traveling everywhere, and I guess I just picked it up." She told him.

"You might need to come with me to my racers, you can be my spokesperson." He teased. Bonnie chuckled.

"Let's not get ahead of our self-Mr. Norris." She teased with a smirk. Their hands were still together.

Lando giggled with her. He watched in aww as she giggled. "Your very beautiful." He couldn't help but blurt out.

Bonnie blushed. She never blushed. She looked down and when she looked up Lando was smiling at her. Not smirking at her, like he was happy with his comment. No, he smiles like he was admiring her and her beauty.

And he was.

"You're not bad." She shot back with a smile. And it widened as she saw him blush.

They both sat there with blushing cheeks. That night they talked all night. They had found themselves at ease with each other. It was easy to just talk and not be judged.

Bonnie couldn't help but be attracted to him. And not just by his looks but by how he talked about his family. His hobbies and generally. He was the life of the party but deep inside there was a whole different side to him.

Lando was in love by the end of the night. He had found she was a businesswoman, running her own company and traveled for work. He had found her easy to talk to. He had found she had a poodle dog and loved him more than anything.

That night they had formed a connection that would make and break them. For better and for worse.

But no matter the outcome maybe love can overcome it all. After all, if you love someone you love all of them or not at all.

This is going to be a short series. You can request other things as well.

[soobinologisttt]

playing with fire - yang jungwon

pairing ☆ jungwon x f. reader

warnings ☆ dom!jungwon, (im a sucker for doms), sub!reader, cunnilingus, cheating (reader and reader's exbf), in exbf's bed (lolol), praise (!!!), jungwon is a sweetheart, ft. ryujin of itzy and jaemin of nct

word count ☆ 4k

a/n: summer break !!! i can finally post more :) i am taking summer courses which sucks tho :(

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

usually, you love a good party. the drinks, the way drunk girls unite while in line for the bathroom. it became one of your favorite things about college.

but it wasn't always this way.

during your first year, you absolutely despised parties. opting out to curl up with a good book or tv show.

it was your second year when you found your love for parties.

your roommates begged you to go to a "beginning of the school year" party. then they dressed you like you were their doll.

3 shots later, you were all ready to go. (you wanted to pregame in fear of getting spiked at the party)

when you saw yourself in the mirror, you could not see the nerdy girl underneath.

short black skirt, tight white corset, boots that gave you at least two inches of height, and smoky makeup up with lashes.

your breast sat pretty, your ass was basically out, and your hair was straightened. straying away from the normal curls.

this was way out of your comfort zone but you liked it. feeling, for once in your life, hot.

of course, once you were actually at the party the confidence you had dissipated. you felt self-conscious, as you stood in the corner of the room.

you watched as people danced with friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, sneaky links. seeing them dance so openly and freely made you feel like an imposter.

you looked down into your red cup full of sprite. it wasn't even halfway finished.

you frowned as you looked back up. scanning the room for your roomates, you saw them having a good time.

sipping drinks and flirting with a group of guys that you've never seen.

that's when a pair of eyes found yours.

your eyes met his dark eyes and you felt your heart flutter.

your eyes dart to the floor in a panic as your cheeks heated up.

you never had gotten attention from boys, especially guys that were as hot as him.

he was tall, a good 5'10, lean, pretty face, dark eyes, jet black hair that looked soft to the touch and full lips that curve up into a cupids bow.

you could only imagine how they would feel.

you pulled yourself out of your thoughts and raced to pull out your phone.

focusing intently on your phone, you pull up your shared groupchat and start to type.

you only got to third word when you saw a body enter your eye sight.

you looked up to see who it is and it's the guy that was staring at you.

your heart was beating out of your chest. you've only ever read about guys this beautiful. but now you were in the presence of one.

you were awestruck like you just saw god.

he was dressed in the most basic fit, a backwards hat, a white tee, black adidias pants with stripes, and a white pair of adidas.

"hey, i've never seen you hear before." he gave you the most gut churning smile.

his long dimples catched your eyes like a moth to a flame.

"yeah, my roommate dragged me here and then disappeared." you bit your bottom lip.

"well, i can keep you company for the time being," he took your empty hand into his, leading you to the kitchen.

"what are we doing?" you question as you see where he is leading you.

"to get a drink." he smiled.

"what's your name?" you asked as he pulls you along.

"i'm na jaemin," he smirked.

that's when you knew you were in deep shit.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

now, your stood across the room from him just like how it started. glaring at him as if you were a hunter stalking its prey.

you know he feels your gaze. choosing to ignore it instead for some girl. the girl being one of your ex-roommates. the same one that brought you to a party in the first place.

you weren't surprised at this revelation. you knew she was known for being a homewrecker.

even going as far as sleeping with a professor. leading to his divorce with his wife.

so when you found the sext's between your boyfriend and ex-roommate, you didn't even flinch. she's known for this.

but, jaemin doesn't know that you know. all day you've been going around like everything is okay between you two.

just like is started, you plan to end it that way too.

he wants to play, you can play too.

while dressing up, you made sure to put on something that would turn heads.

dressing yourself in a tiny black skirt, red corset, and your favorite black heeled boots.

wearing the most dramatic makeup, a smokey red look with eyeliner that could cut.

nevertheless he doesn't even give you a second look. instead his focus is on the girl in front of him. looking her up and down while smirking.

you feel your face get hot, the anger has you crushing the red cup in your hand. nearing spilling all of you're sprite and vodka.

your hands releases before anything can spill.

instead you take a big gulp, nearly draining your cup.

you continue watching as the alcohol runs down, basking in the feeling of the warm substance reaching your stomach.

the feeling calms you. taking your mind away from the breaking heart in your chest.

you close your eyes and take a deep breath. containing the tears that you've been holding back.

when you open your eyes, you see him flashing his gummy smile at the women in front of him.

you are so over it. you are so ready to go over there and talk your shit.

not only to him, but to her too.

just as you were getting ready to stalk towards them, you feel a pair of hands on your waist.

you yelp as you jump to turn around.

"oh i didn't mean to scare you," your best friend, ryujin apologizes.

"it's okay," you turn back around as you feel your eyes start to water.

she quickly follows your gaze to where your almost ex-boyfriend is flirting with your ex-roommate.

she knows everything. as soon as your found out, she was there. threatening to cut his dick off and shove it down his throat.

at the time that made you laugh, but now it makes you want to cry. you wish she could do it without getting charged, but unfortunately that is frowned upon.

you put your head down to shield the forming tears from your best friend.

"forget about him," she makes her way to your front.

"i am trying," you pull your head up to look her in the eyes.

her hands make their way to your shoulders, shaking you lightly.

when you see her soften smile, you nearly break down.

"we are going to dance." she pulls you into a hug before pulling back and grabbing your wrist.

you hurry to gulp down your drink as she pulls you along.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

you end up between ryujin and a random guy.

your back is to him as you scan the room to find your cheating boyfriend.

you didn't realize how close you were until he leans over you and whispers into your ear.

"what are you looking at?" he follows your eyes to were you have been looking, "you've been staring over there all night."

you roll your eyes, "my boyfriend is cheating on me with my ex roommate."

you turn around to face him, faced with on of the most beautiful boys you have ever seen.

you thought the same about jaemin, but this guy topped him by a lot.

as tall (maybe taller) than jaemin, wide cat light eyes, that gleam a

you couldn't help but notice how pretty his eyes are. a dark chocolate color that has you buckling at the knees just looking at them.

you immediately freeze, face turning red for the second time tonight.

"i'm sorry for throwing that all on you,"

"no, it's okay. i'm jungwon," he greets you.

that name sounds so familiar but you can't put your finger on it. you crinkle your face as you attempt to recall.

"jungwon... i know that name from somewhere,"

"we had a project together last year. over the pros of solar power." he tilts his head slightly and smiles, his dimple on full display.

his smile caused the butterfiles to unleash from their cage in your chest. you attempt to lock them back up, but instead they make their way down to your cunt.

you slightly rub your thighs together as you feel your underwear dampen.

"oh yeah," you smile back.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

during the night, you dance with ryujin and jungwon. even going as far as to grind on the both of them.

hoping to get a reaction for your cheating boyfriend but instead getting the attention of his friends. glaring at you like you were in the wrong.

you couldn't care less, flipping them off multiple times as you grind your ass on the two people surrounding you.

as the night goes on you start to forget about jaemin. enjoying your time with jungwon and ryunjin, laughing and dancing to the music.

sometime around 1am, ryujin excuses you and her to go to the bathroom.

while standing in line you catch a glimpse of jaemin leaving his room with your ex-roommate, attempting to hide her behind him.

"where have you been all night?" he questions accusingly, as the girl sneaks past you both.

"i don't know, where have you been all night?" you scolf, crossing your arms.

"looking for you," he rolls his eyes.

"i was so easy to spot, ask your friends," you smirk, "or maybe ask your little fuck buddy," you nearly laugh.

"what?" jaemin squints his eyes are he plays dumb.

"oh you thought you were being sneaky?" you laugh this time, "might want to tell her that, she has been eyeing me the whole night. i think she wants me next. too bad i don't want your sloppy seconds." you wink.

you watch as his face turns a deep red. making you want to laugh even more. as he opens his mouth to respond, you hear the bathroom door open.

it is your turn for the bathroom.

"come on y/n," ryujin pulls you into the bathroom with her before you could finish going off on him.

"thank you," you hug her.

you probably would of pushed him down the flight of stairs next to you guys if she didn't pull you into the bathroom.

"no problem," she smiles at you as she pulls back.

after you both pee, you decide to go to check jaemin's room. sepecting that they were fucking while you were dancing.

you know that is it going to hurt you but you just need to prove it. your noisy personailty getting ahold of you.

when you both exit the bathroom, you top her. stepping off the side so the line can keep going.

"you can go down first," you tell her, "i have something i have to do." you nod to the room jaemin and his mistress came out of.

"okay, call me if you need me," she smiles, "the offer still stands, i can cut it off and stick it down her month instead."

you shake your head with a chuckle.

"i need you out of jail, who else is gonna threaten people for me."

she rolls her eyes, "fine, well text me. i'll be downstairs."

you give her a tiny nod before turning to walk down the dark hall.

when you get closer to jaemin's room, you see jungwon enter it.

you feel your stomach flip.

"why is he in there?" you question.

you conutine to stalk towards the room and with one step at a time, you feel your heart drop.

by the time you open the door, your heart is in your stomach.

the light on jaemin's desk is the only light on in the room. casting a orangish yellow color within the room.

"what are you doing in here?" you ask the boy that is leaning on jaemin's desk. the very same desk that you do homework on. or atleast did.

you shake the thought out of your head.

"waiting for you," jungwon smiles.

"how did you know i was.... you know what nevermind, you can you help?"

"sure, what do you need me to do?"

you look down at your shoes that are killing your feet.

"i'm looking for anything that proves that they were.. having sex." you wince at the heartbreaking thought.

he quickly moves to look around the bed as you rummage through jaemin's drawers.

knowing him, you thought he would hide it somewhere.

just like how he hide his secret side piece.

"like this?"

you turn around in a flash and to see jungwon holding the evidence.

a ripped condom packet.

you feel the tears form.

"fuck." you quickly wipe the few tears that are rolling down your cheeks.

he looks at you with pure eyes. watching as you wipe your tears.

he starts to walk towards you, "y/n, you know that he -"

he stops as you dash to the bathroom, feeling bile rise from your stomach.

you dry heave into the trash, only to find the final conformation that he indeed slept with her.

the condom, lazily tied and tossed for the world to see.

you feel your world crash down around you. you back up to the wall behind you. sliding down it as the tears slide down your face.

"he doesn't deserve you, y/n." jungwon sits down next to you.

"i know, jungwon. but it still hurts," you pull your knees to your chest and put your head on them.

jungwon takes this chance to move in front of you. pulling your head up to look into your eyes.

his brown eyes matching his dark brown hair, both glimmering in the bathroom light.

"can i take your mind off of it?" he wipes your tears.

"how?" you search his eyes for a clue to why he is being so nice to you.

"like this," he leans foward and smashes his lips onto yours.

you kiss back, feeling his warm lips against yours. not in lust but in want, need, yearning.

placing his hands on your cheeks he pulls you into a deeper kiss.

he pushes his tongue lightly against your lips. asking for entrance. you slightly part your lips and he pushes his tongue in.

he tastes like cranberry, probably from the cranberry vodka he was drinking.

you moan at the taste, sending a shock to your now aching cunt.

you took this time to push your tongue into his mouth, exploring it, memorizing, and craving more of it.

you don't even know how long you have been kissing when he pulls back.

you could care less as he rest his forehead on yours.

"fuck, you have no idea how long i've wanted to do that." his dimples reval themselves as he smiles..

"really?" you look down at your shoes.

"yes," brings his pointer fingers to your chin and lifts up your head.

"jungwon?" you question as your eyes flicker from one eye to the other.

"yes gorgeous?"

"can we get off the floor? my heels are hurting my feet." you chuckle.

"oh yeah," he moves quickly to get up.

once he is on his two feet, he holds out his hand to help you up.

thinking that he is just gonna help you up, you take it. but instead you end up around him.

legs circling him and arms incasing his neck.

your faces are inches apart when he utters.

"is this okay?" jungwon asks, pulling his face back a little to watch you answer.

you feel youself blush at the way his breath tickled your lips.

"yes, this is okay." you smile up at him.

he takes this as a okay to walk you out of thr bathroom. sitting you on jaemin's desk, he quickly makes his way to look the door.

"if you want to stop at any time, tell me okay?" he states as he takes big strides towards you.

you nod with a little smile. already feeling a little daze from the way he is talking to you.

"baby, use your words. i need to know that you understand," he reaches you and pulls you to the edge of the desk. pulling you closer to him.

"i understand jungwon," as soon as the words left your mouth, he lunges at your neck. soft lips leaving a trail of soft kissed and love bites.

"atta girl." jungwon praises you.

you feel the ache between your thighs worsen as he speaks.

"if i was your man, i would treat you better." he mutters on your neck.

"jungwon," you moan as he places one hand on your waist and the other on your left tit. pulling roughly on your corset, letting your breasts out of the tight garment.

"you like that? my hands all over you in his bedroom?" jungwon teases.

"mhm, i like it so much," you throw your head back in bliss.

his fingers pinch and squeezes your nipple making you jump and whimper.

"fuck y/n, you're so amazing." he grunts.

you close your thighs around jungwon, core aching in need as he continues talking.

"i would make you so happy y/n," jungwon starts, "baby, you would never feel the way he makes you feel,"

he brings his hand down from your tit to your clit. outlining the little bead as you arch into his hand.

you throw you head back, making it easier for him to have access to your neck.

he sucks roughly at your soft spot.

between the feeling of his lips on you and the noises that are filling the room, you could no longer hold back.

"fuck, jungwon." you moan loudly.

"you're so perfect y/n." he groans.

your fingers claw at his clothed back, wanting more.

"can i leave a mark?" he asks against your neck.

you nod as he starts to suck and nip at your skin savagely.

the sensation of his lips against your neck and his fingers circling you clit but not touching, you feel like you were going to combust of need.

"jungwon," you try to move your neck.

but, he doesn't let you move instead he places the hand from you waist on the back of your neck.

"please, please," you grind into his finger, finally getting it to touch your clit.

you roll your eyes in pleassure.

"what do you need baby?" he mumbles against your neck.

"i need you."

he pulls back and brings his hand from your clit to your chin. admirring his work before looking into your eyes.

"are you sure?" his bright brown eyes look at your wereily.

"please, i really want this," you smash your lips onto his.

you feel his arms embrace you before picking you up and making way to jaemin's bed.

you know this is wrong but you couldn't care less. jaemin cheated on you... and you want this.

jungwon lays you on your back on the edge of jaemin's bed.

"god, you're so gorgeous," he pulls back to look at you.

you blush and shy away, turning your head.

he pulls your head back to look at him.

"you don't have to cover up for me," he smiles at you.

"okay," you look into his big brown eyes.

he makes his hands down to your skirt.

"can i leave it on?"

fuck.

"yes," you whine.

he moves to his knees and kisses up your thighs to your underwear.

you gasp as jungwon's teeth latch onto the thin fabic of your underwear. you sit up on your elbows to watch him drag them off of you with his teeth.

you can feel the smooth surface of his teeth as he slowly drags them against your skin.

his hands are on the side of both of your thighs as he looks up at you with dark, lustful eyes.

once your underwear are past your thighs, jungwon finishes pulling them down quickly.

"lay just like that baby." jungwon mumbles as he lightly pushes you back down.

when you're back down, he starts to kiss up your thighs.

his hands return to the side of you as he continues to kiss up your thighs slowly until he makes it to your stomach.

"you're so pretty," he growls onto your stomach.

"jungwon, please." you arch.

he slides his right hand up your thigh to your wet heat.

you shudder at the feeling, feeling the sensation of your pulsating cunt.

the soft tips of his fingers prodding at your entrance.

"please what?" he smirks against your stomach.

"touch me," you moan as he slides his finger in.

"that's all you had to say y/n," he slides back onto his knees.

before you could even think of something to say, his mouth connects with your clit. sucking harshly as you whimper.

"fuck jungwon," he slides another finger into your wet pussy.

fingers pumping into you as he sucks on your numb clit.

"jungwon," you heave as he speads up his pace.

his tongue swirls around your clit as he continues to finger you.

"i am going to cum," you moan, "please keep going, just like that." you run your hands through his hair.

he doesn't stop as you grip his hair tightly.

you start to feel that build up of pleasure that jaemin could never bring to you.

"fuck, i am so so so close,"

jungwon moans against your clit and you break.

arching you back as you chant his name.

he slows down his motions and lifts off of you, quickly coming up to check on you.

"are you okay?" jungwon smiles with his red lips and puffy lips.

"yes, i am more than okay." you smile at him in a daze, "this is the first time in awhile that a guy has made me cum." you blush.

"glad i could help," he smiles again before going down to pick up your underwear.

"what are you doing?" you sit up on your elbows.

"dressing you. i don't want your roommate to worry." he helps you to pull up your underwear.

"she'll be okay," you smile as he stands.

"i want it to be special." he looks down at you.

"what?" you look back up at him.

"I want my first time with you to be special." he explains.

"why?"

"because, this is something i've been dreaming about. i do not want it to be in the same room that you're cheating ex lives in. you deserve so much better." he pulls you up and looks into your eyes.

you blush as you look down at the floor.

"is that okay with you?" jungwon brings his hand to your chin and guides it so that you are looking at him.

his eyes as wide as a full moon. glaring at you with a sparkle that has you wanting to drop to your knees.

"yes," you kiss him, jungwon kissing you back with more passion than you thought a human could ever have.

he pulls back after about a minute, "let's get you home."

you nod as he grabs your hand and leads you to the door.

as soon as you open it, your ex is standing there.

"what the fuck are you doing with my girlfriend?" he nearly screams.

"doing what you couldn't," jungwon smiles innocently, "making her cum."

you chuckle as jungwon pulls you though the party.

eyes are all on you both but you couldn't care less. for the first time in a long time you feel wanted. cherished.

you look around for your bestfriend but don't see her. pulling out your phone you see her text.

i went home, text me (jungwon texted me ;))

"i can drive you home." he says as you both step out into the cold.

"i would love that," you smile up at him from his right side.

"alright," he slings his arm around you and kisses your forehead, "let's go."

[dfortrafalgar]

Distraction

Portgas D. Ace x Fem!Reader

You and Ace intended to spend the day at the beach, but he can’t seem to be able to relax.

Warnings: modern au, so much smut. like so much smut. wet, sticky smut. 69-ing briefly. reader is also written to be on the chubbier side (im projecting <3) ace fucks you in the back of his car, basically. MINORS DNI. YOU WILL BE BLOCKED.

I woke up thinking about Ace today so I cranked this out in, like, an hour. It was a nice change of pace while I've been finishing up IMLY and the Luffy fic from my poll, which is almost done! (speaking of which, thank you for 200 followers <3)

Ace hadn’t seen your swimsuit yet.  All he knew about it was that you purchased it recently on a shopping trip with a group of your friends, but it was currently concealed under a light t-shirt and denim shorts.  Throughout the drive to the shoreline, he was anxiously eyeing your bare thighs, his grip on the steering wheel of his station wagon turning his knuckles white.

“What’s got you so nervous over there?”  Your airly voice shook the freckled man out of his daze.  “Eyes on the road, hotshot.”

“It’s nothing,” he blurted, pouting and turning his attention back to the road.  Maybe he should have you sit in the backseat when your skin was exposed.

His own friends often joked that he was no better than a dog.  It wasn’t his fault that his sex drive was higher than cruising altitude… or maybe it was.  But he couldn’t help his wandering eyes when the soft skin of your plush thighs was exposed, or the way your deft hands fiddled with your cuticles as you stared out the window, sparkling eyes taking in the cloudless summer day as the backroads passed by on the drive to the beach.  Most of your evenings together were spent with either his head between your legs, your head between his legs, or your face smushed into a soft pillow while Ace desperately railed you from behind.

It was a good life, that’s for sure.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been to the beach,” you suddenly stated, turning your head to look at your flustered boyfriend.  “I’ve only ever been swimming in pools recently!”

“Yeah, me too,” he replied, his voice shaky.

Your eyebrows furrowed in concern.  “Ace, are you really alright?  Your face is kind of red.”  You reached your hand over to press your palm to his forehead.  “You don’t feel like you have a fever, do you?”

“Nah, I feel fine.  Honestly.  Just… thinking.”  One of his hands left the steering wheel to rub his sweating palm against the fabric of his swim trunks.  All he had on, other than the baggy trunks, was a white tank top that had a very unfortunate oil stain around the chest area.  He was sure his entire upper body was flushing red with the debauched thoughts that plagued his weary brain.  He hadn’t even seen your bathing suit yet and his mind was running in circles.  (He started to debate calling up that therapist that Sabo recommended.)

“Well, tell me if you really don’t feel good.  I don’t want you to force yourself to be out today just because of me,” you cooed, your voice soft and comforting.

He needed to tell you to stop talking.  Even the sound of your voice made butterflies swarm in his gut.

He might as well have been ovulating.

After what felt like an eternity, the trees surrounding the backroad route he had taken began to dissipate, replaced with the beautiful sight of the shoreline.  The ocean spanned outward as far as you could see, disappearing along the horizon and blending in with the bright blue sky.  A few small beach houses dotted the shore.

“You said this was a public beach, right?” you asked curiously.

Ace nodded, swallowing a thick glob of spit.  “Public, but very minimal.  There’s some private properties surrounding it so a lot of people assume the entire place is off-limits to locals, but there’s a small parking lot set back from the beach near a tiny bathroom shack-lookin’ thing.”

You grinned.  “Nice.”

“Do you not like public beaches?” he inquired, tossing you a side eye as he pulled further down the road, approaching the aforementioned parking lot.

“I don’t mind them,” you replied.  “But sometimes really busy beaches make me nervous.  Sometimes I don’t feel comfortable swimming when there’s too many people around… I get self-conscious in my bathing suits!”  Your statement was punctuated with a fluttering, nervous laugh as you involuntarily squeezed the skin of your thighs.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that when I’m here,” Ace replied, flashing you a cheeky grin.

The parking lot seemed sparse.  It was entirely gravel with a few decrepit wooden fences separating where cars could park, some overgrown weeds poking through the impacted dirt here and there.  Sure enough, there was a brown, run-down bathroom shack between the beach and the parking lot.  During high tide, it almost seemed like the entire area would get flooded, but the gravel was drier than bone thanks to the beating sunlight.

You dug through your bag, removing a tube of sunblock.

“I thought you already put on sunscreen before we left,” Ace said, pulling into a spot and putting his beat-up station wagon in park.

“I did, I’m just putting some extra on my face,” you responded, uncapping the tube and squeezing some of the white gel onto your fingers.  You deftly rubbed the lotion onto your skin, across your cheeks and brow, down your nose, and down your neck.  

Ace needed to look away from you as your hands trailed down your neck and across your collarbones, ridding your hands of the excess lotion.  You weren’t provoking him on purpose, he knew that, but clearly his dick was taking charge of the day.

Little prick.

The two of you excitedly exited the car, grabbing your small umbrella and towels to find a nice spot to set up camp on the sand.  You were quick to lay down your towel when you found a spot, Ace digging a deep hole into the ground to mount the umbrella and provide a shelter from the beating sunlight.  Only a few other people were dotted around the beach, mostly older folk who were most certainly retired and enjoying their elderly days basking in the sunlight.  The thought made you smile.  You watched with glittering eyes as Ace pulled his tank top over his lean body, his muscular chest rippling with his movements, letting the cloth fall into his bag in a wrinkled heap.

“Oh, shit, forgot the cooler,” Ace mumbled suddenly.  “I’ll be right back.”  He swiftly turned tail and hiked through the sand back to his car.

You smiled, crawling under the umbrella and feeling the sand beneath the fabric shift below your knees.  You slid your denim shorts down your legs, shifting your weight to pull them off before folding them neatly and tucking them into your beach bag.  Your shirt followed, your hands hooking under the bottom hem and pulling it up over your head, repeating the process of folding it and storing it away.  Weirdly enough, you felt more comfortable on this beach than any other.  While some old folk liked to gab, the sparse population on this beach seemed more than willing to keep to themselves.  And there was no risk of creepy men your age or obnoxious teenagers to toss rogue comments about your body or shitty pick-up lines.

And you had Ace, of course, who would kiss the ground you walked on if you asked.  The thought made your stomach flutter with glee.

Back in the parking lot, Ace was quick to haul open his trunk and grab the small cooler they had packed with water, some sodas, and some light snacks, slinging it over his bare shoulder and slamming the door closed.  The hinges made a terrible squealing noise as the door moved.  He really needed to get that fixed.  He quickly jogged back to the shoreline with the cooler bag in his possession, his sandals making scuff marks in the gravel.

He almost died and came back to life when he saw you from behind.

Your clothes were off, your body hugged in a bikini that looked sculpted for you and only you.  The strawberry-print bodice was tied around your neck and below your shoulder blades with thin straps, the front of the suit being held together in the front with a metal ring between the bust.  Your plump breasts peeked over the seams slightly, making blood rush to Ace’s face.  The solid-colored bottoms squeezed your hips and ass perfectly, with one side open and held together with strings in an intricate criss-cross pattern.

Ace’s feet were moving on their own, his soul ascending from his body as he floated toward you.

You heard the rustle of his swim trunks from behind you as you approached, turning to look at him over your shoulder.  “Hey!  All set with the cooler?”

He plopped to his knees on his own towel, the cooler hitting the ground with a thud.  “Yeah, all set…”  His voice trailed off as if he wanted to say something else.

You gazed at him with confusion painting your features.

“You… you look…”  Ace could barely look at you.  “You look so fucking hot… oh my god.”

Suddenly, his demeanor in the car made much more sense.  The constant red flush painting his adorable freckled cheeks, his mouth in a perpetual tongue-tie, his lips pursing together tightly as he struggled to keep his composure.  Your lips pulled into a bright smile, relishing in the flustered behavior of your boyfriend.

“Aww, thank you, baby!” you cooed, moving closer to him.  Your hands trailed down his arm, ghosting over the tattoo on his bicep before teasingly falling to the cooler and unzipping the top, pulling an orange soda out of the bag.

“Please don’t tease me, I think I might explode,” Ace huffed.

You popped open the can with a satisfying click, taking a quick sip from the opening.  “You know… I don’t think anyone’s going to mess with our stuff if you want to go back to the car…”

Ace’s dark eyes darted toward you, assessing the mischievous expression on your face as you kept the cold soda can pressed against your mouth.  The metal was rapidly developing condensation thanks to the heat in the air, droplets of water dripping down the orange can and onto your fingers, plopping against your folded knees.

He carefully removed the soda from your hands, tucking it back into the cooler to make sure it didn’t spill, before standing up and hauling you to your feet, dragging you by your hand across the hot sand and back to the parking lot for a third time.  He ripped his car keys from the pocket of his swim trunks, shoving the metal key into the door lock to open the vehicle before leading you to the trunk and popping open the door.  You quickly clamored inside, him following behind you and closing the trunk from the inside.  He chucked his keys somewhere towards the front of the car.

He wasted absolutely no time in smashing his lips against yours, making you wince slightly at the feeling of his teeth hitting your own, but the way his long fingers expertly groped the skin of your breasts below your bikini top made you forget about the momentary discomfort.

After a few stifling moments, Ace pulled away and heaved into the skin of your neck, holding you down by your shoulders.

The best part about him owning an old, refurbished station wagon was the ample amount of room in the back, as well as the lack of center console between the two front seats.  It was a car built for fucking.

“Is this what you were thinking of on the ride over here?” you asked, a coy tone on your tongue.  “About what my new swimsuit would look like?”

Ace grumbled, a childish pout on his lips as one of his hot hands continued to rub patterns up and down your side.  Up to your breasts, his thumb ghosting over your concealed nipple, trailing down your waist and groping the plush flesh of your belly, down your thigh to squeeze your ass.  The way the strings on the exposed side of your bottom piece fit into your skin made his cock throb.

“You’re insatiable,” you giggled, your own hands leaving scorching patterns over his shoulders and arms.  “Are you ovulating?  You’re acting like me before my period.”

“Shush,” he grumbled, followed by another sweltering kiss, all tongue.  You felt a dribble of spit leave the corner of your mouth, sticking to the skin of your cheek.  His lips moved against yours, exchanging a blistering heat.  Ace always seemed to radiate warmth even on the coldest days, and his presence in this moment filled your body with a heated, lustful buzz.  Goosebumps rose on your skin when he pulled away from you leaving your front exposed, gently biting your puffy lower lip with his teeth.

“How worried are you about someone messing with our things on the beach?” he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

You adjusted yourself slightly below him, his knees beside your hips caging you onto the floor of his trunk.  “Hmm… not too worried.”

“Perfect,” Ace replied swiftly, tugging his swim trunks down.  

He had such a nice cock, perfectly shaped with a cut tip that flushed a beautiful rosy hue.  A slight upward curve, lean and not too long, perfect.  He was either hard for the entire time you were setting up your small spot on the sand and you hadn’t noticed, or he was fighting with every fiber in his body to keep the erection at bay.  Whatever the circumstance, the fantasy of spontaneously fucking you in the trunk of his car in that sexy bikini of yours that he daydreamed about on the drive down was finally coming true.

Your hands made a move down to your hips to pull on the fabric of your bottoms before his fingers wrapped around your wrists, halting your movement.

“Sorry,” he uttered, his voice a soft whisper filled with a desperation you rarely saw from him.  “Your suit stays on.”

Your mouth morphed into a grin as he released you, leaning back up on his knees and idly stroking his cock with his right hand.  You parted your legs for him, making a show of smushing your breasts together under your tight top.  God, your suit could have been molded onto your body, it looked so good.

“Are you going to stay there and jerk off over me, or are you going to share some of the fun?” you asked deviously, one of your hands crawling below your bottoms and teasing your clit with the slick that had built up.  A pleasant, tingling flutter resonated in your belly and floated down your thighs, but nothing was better than the feeling of his fingers and cock doing the work for you.

“I want to do everything to you,” he muttered, releasing his dick from his slow ministrations.  “I don’t even know where to begin.”

You watched as it bobbed in the air, so hard it held itself out away from Ace’s toned stomach.  You involuntarily licked your lips at the sight.  “You’re so pretty…” you muttered.  You took it upon yourself to sit up, gently pushing against Ace’s shoulders to get him to sit on the trunk floor on his ass, leaning against him further to get the hint to lay down in the position you had just been in.

Neither of you had a strictly dominating or strictly submissive attitude.  Rather, you mutually shared the moment, taking charge when you wanted and snatching the lead away whenever you pleased.  This was one of those moments as you rotated your body on top of his, moving your ass closer to his face as one of your hands ghosted along his hip bone, your other arm supporting you and keeping you upright.

Ace got the hint almost immediately, his greedy hands groping and squeezing your ass as he pulled you downward to rest your clothed cunt against his mouth.  The hotness of his breath and the feeling of his lips against your weeping pussy concealed by the polyester made your breath hitch as your lips traveled closer and closer to the tip of his dick, watching hungrily as it seemed to pulse in the air, desperate for attention.

Your boyfriend made the first move, pulling you down by your hips and resting your cunt over his mouth, his tongue forcing its way between your folds through the suit and quickly finding your clit.  You gasped, your arm shaking somewhat as you quickly followed his lead, wasting no time in taking his cock into your hot, ready mouth.  

And goodness, did he taste good.  A familiar slightly salty musk partnered with the residual scent of his daily body spray, a vanilla and cedar flavor that always made your heart flutter in your chest.  His cock might as well have been burning as you hollowed out your lips and took him further down your mouth, loving the way the organ pulsed against your tongue.  

On the other end, Ace’s fingers had found their way into the fabric of your bathing suit, holding the barrier aside as two of his digits spread your natural slick over your cunt and lubricated his skin before he pressed them into your pussy, addicted to the way your muscles constricted around him.  Your entrance was always on the tighter side no matter how many times you fucked, and it was absolute heaven for him.  He turned the pads of his two fingers forward, pushing gently against the roof of your vagina where he knew you were acutely sensitive, and smirked to himself when your thighs clenched around his head.  Your movements over his cock momentarily stuttered at the feeling of his thumb connecting with your clit to simultaneously stroke the needy bud while passionately fingering your pussy.

He knew you too well.  He knew what you needed.  Ace wasn’t a selfish lover, he had learned your quirks and needs very early on in your relationship.  You loved your clit rubbed in somewhat slow circles, alternating between various pressures.  You responded to his fingers against your g-spot, and you loved when his dick curled upward into the same area.  Not too deep so as to hit your cervix, which hurt you quite a bit, but deep enough to reach those sensitive areas that had your legs shaking.

You learned quickly too, however.  Ace’s tip was the most sensitive part of him, his breaths growing shallow when you delicately sucked your lips around it and trailed your tongue along the slit, collecting the small amount of salty precum that emerged from the tip.  He loved it when you gently fondled his balls, rubbing the wrinkled skin between the pads of your fingers.  He adored the inside of his thighs being caressed, and you tried your best to do both with one hand as the other trembling appendage fought to support your weight as you continued to blow him.

You popped off of his cock momentarily, stroking the base with your hand.  “Did you have fruit recently?” you asked, turning your head somewhat to look over your shoulder.  Not like you could see much.

Ace paused his motions against your pussy.  “... Maybe.”

You grinned, the usually salty, bitter taste of his essence now replaced with something slightly sweeter.  You wanted to egg him on, to ask him if he had planned for this to happen and eaten some pineapple or citrus with his breakfast in preparation, but you decided to keep your inquiries to yourself and return to your task of sucking him off.

Ace was content to keep fingering you, his current position in between your thighs a bit too difficult to involve his tongue, but he knew he could please you regardless.  The circular movements of his calloused thumb against your throbbing clit had you sucking in sharp, lustful breaths through your nose, small whimpers leaving your throat and vibrating down his shaft making him bite his lip and stifle a wheeze.  Your thighs were quivering as he continued to curl his fingers into your g-spot, following the rhythm of your lips around his cock.

After some moments, however, you quickly scrambled off of him, your hand clutching around your stomach as you pivoted above him, capturing his lips in yours.  You ground your clothed cunt over his pulsing cock, keeping it locked between your pussy and his toned abdomen.

“Now who’s the desperate one?” he asked, teasingly, his signature boyish smirk traveling right back to your clit.

“I can’t help it, you’re contagious,” you huffed against the skin of his cheek.

Usually, the two of you used lube.  It didn’t matter how wet you got thanks to foreplay, the sensations were always heightened when there was no risk of chafing.  But clearly, you didn’t have that luxury today.  Nor did you have any condoms.  Instead, you bit down your thoughts, reserved yourself to spending 70 beri on the morning-after pill later that day, and hovered over his cock.  You pulled your swimsuit to the side and took his dick in your hands, wasting no time in slipping it through your folds that were thoroughly drenched thanks to Ace’s expert fingers.  

The first insertion always hurt somewhat.  A slight, red-hot throbbing pain that radiated through your pelvis, followed by a pleasant pressure as his cock slowly intruded into your tight muscle.  The groan that radiated from Ace’s throat made your pussy flutter.  

That was another thing you loved about him.  He was loud.

Maybe on a normal day you’d be worried about someone hearing you, or seeing the way his car shook with the force of your collective moments, but both of you had succumbed to desperation and couldn’t care less.  Traumatize the elderly beach goers who might happen to walk through the gravel parking lot to their own cars.

You sunk fully down onto Ace’s hips, his dick perfectly nestled inside your wet and willing pussy as his hands tightly gripped your hips through your suit bottoms.  You slowly rocked your hips, desperate for some extra friction against your clit.  It was much harder with the fabric covering you, but eventually you found a movement that felt just right.  Edging your hips slightly forward, you rolled your pelvis against his, dragging your clothed slit over the taught skin of his lower abdomen, moaning at the feeling of his dick pulsing within you.

Maybe you really didn’t have to worry about lube today.  Every motion against the walls of your vagina had you biting your lip and arching your back over him.

Ace’s hands assisted with bouncing you on his cock, his voice slowly increasing in volume as he watched you through half-lidded as your breasts jiggled with each movement, how the fat of your belly and thighs rippled so deliciously as you gyrated above him.  His voice was delectable, gruff and whiny, higher-pitched than usual with stuttering breaths and hitches in his throat that had your heart beating a mile a minute.

Your legs were growing tired, and Ace could tell.  He wordlessly beckoned you off of him, being quick to lean you over the back seats and move your suit to the side again, slipping his cock back in between your folds.  This angle always fit the both of you.  As much as Ace loved it when you rode him, taking you from behind came with many more benefits.  His free hand could travel down to dip beneath the cloth of your swimsuit and rub those delicious circles against your clit while simultaneously thrusting his desperate hips against your ass.  His chest pressed into your shoulder blades, his free hand supporting him against the back of the seats as you held onto the leather for dear life, whining with each motion of his cock against your inner walls and his calloused fingers against your clit.

It didn’t take long for you to unravel, the feeling of his rough finger pads against your desperate nub too much to bear.  Your orgasm approached slowly at first, filling your stomach with warmth, the insides of your eyelids flashing purple and indigo, before your body snapped and you were shuddering against Ace, moaning out loud as your pussy involuntarily clenched around his cock, your cunt feeling feather light as it fluttered.  The force of your orgasm caused you to gyrate your hips back against his, weak, airy moans escaping your tongue as the red-hot pleasure radiated through your entire body leaving your pussy buzzing with the aftershocks.

Ace was barely holding it together.  The force of your orgasm causing your pussy to clench around his cock had his arms weakening against the seat, his hips frantically rutting into you as sultry moans left his lips at the feeling of his cock burning inside you, begging for satisfaction.  His fingers never stopped rubbing your clit, caught up in what had essentially become second nature for him.  The overstimulation had you twitching around him, shallow breaths heaving from your lungs.  Ace’s pace increased as did the stuttering of his hips, his thrusts growing more shallow as his own orgasm approached.

“A-Ace… fuck, baby…” you whined, dropping your forehead against the back of the seat.  “You’re gonna make me cum again…”

The man was too caught up in the throes of pleasure.  Calling him desperate earlier was clearly an understatement.  A loud, throaty groan reverberated from his lips as his hips rapidly drilled into you, forcing you against the back of the seat.  His shallow breaths only helped to fuel your second orgasm that rocked you with a sudden wash of white light behind your eyes and you were shuddering against him again, your own moans filling the stifling air of the car.  

Ace barely had time to call out your name before he was thrusting disjointedly into you, crackled, weary moans leaving his lips as he came into your sore cunt, his hands pressing down onto your lower back to keep you still as he buried his cock into you, soaking you more than you already were.  You felt him pull out of you, your cunt fluttering around nothing as the sound of him falling backwards against the closed door of his trunk filled your ears.

Your own spent body dropped to the side, sitting on your hip and barely holding yourself up with one hand.  You slowly picked your head up, gazing at your boyfriend and assessing his condition.

Black hair mussed beyond belief, his freckled cheeks and shoulders flushed with a delicate red hue, his lips wet and swollen parted with the force of his labored breathing.  His eyes were closed, jaw slack as his pelvis continued to twitch from the force of his orgasm.  A few last drops of cum were bubbling from his tip, slowly dripping down his drenched dick that almost glistened, covered in your own fluids.  You felt wet between your legs.  It would have been a nice feeling if you weren’t already so stifling, your entire body feeling sticky.  You finally noticed the way the windows had fogged up.  You didn’t have time to think about carbon dioxide toxicity before Ace’s weary hand traveled up to the back window of his trunk door, blindly popping the window open a crack to let some fresh air flow into the car.  The summer heat felt oddly cool against your sweaty skin.

You slowly crawled closer to Ace, ignoring the way your drenched cunt sat uncomfortably inside your bathing suit.  You combed a damp strand of black hair off of his forehead before delicately pressing your lips against his cheek, encouraging him to finally open his eyes.

“You alright?” you asked, your voice low and quiet.

He finally smiled, his narrow, dark eyes filling your chest with warmth.  “I think my heart almost stopped.”

You giggled, running your sweaty hand up and down his skin.  “Should I wear bathing suits around you more often?  I don’t think you’ve ever fucked me like that.”

Your boyfriend’s humble laughter made you grin.  “For the sake of my health, you probably shouldn’t.”  He finally leaned forward to press a tender kiss against your wet lips.  “Though, if I were to die fucking you in a bikini, I’d die a very, very happy man.”

[thephantomsdream]

so I've been reading real published romance books and they cannot fill the void that ao3 and company do fill, but they did give me an idea. ok, lmfao, hear me out. (I've had this in my drafts for way too long, i decided to release it because why tf not)

content: alien!141, soulmates!141, abduction, intergalactic human trafficking, space shit; very vague idea of anything ever; probably made up alien names; writer is at work while dealing with annoying costumers so it's rushed and dumb.

imagine:

Good ol' you, in your house, unaware that in the deep, vast universe, trafficking also existed. Not long ago, a reptilian race found out about our warm bodies, interesting features and intelligent yet primitive brains, and started to abduct and sell men and women to rich buyers. It was good business, especially considering our side of the universe wasn't even aware of extraterrestrial life, so they couldn't even guess where they disappeared! The treaty and all intergalactic laws were vague about us. "Let them be" meaning "Let them fuckers figure their shit out, lol idk".

Well, as you can understand, the Sheh'deauz (lmfao stay with me) decided to in fact not let us be. So back to lovely you, yeah?

Home alone, playing videogames or something, when suddently you see some flashes of light out the window. It was weird considering it wasn't raining but you remained calm, as you assumed maybe a storm is approaching? Mainly, you couldn't give a shit but the moment you heard scratching and hissing outside your door, you panicked. Long story short, your house slowly started filling with an invisible gas that just made you pass out, but you did see your door opening, same weird blue-white light emanating from under it as it did, and a scaly leg entering your home as you fell on the floor.

You figured, as the genius that you were, that you were, in fact, not dreaming as you spent many hours (days? felt like days) in a cage. Very oddly technologically advanced. In another strike of genius, and of course, after seeing your kidnappers, you figured it was a spaceship and you were in some deep sci-fi shit. (maybe after laughing and asking them where are the hidden cameras. i would...)

After throwing tantrums and having the ugly multi-colored creatures mock you and hiss at you, you kinda gave up and sat by the very human bed you've been given and allowed time to pass. You were given food every so often, a toilet nearby, water at your disposal. But you feared for your life.

Well, let me tell you something. You have the luckiest misfortune of all, really. Or maybe, just maybe, things are meant to be this way. Maybe it was all meant to happen like this. Allow me to explain.

In another corner of the universe, four of the greatest warriors of the Intergalactic Army frowned at a holographic screen. A female alien, older, still beautiful, ethereal looking, skin creamy white with some lavender edges and striking blue eyes was frowning back.

"You're fucking kidding me." Their captain said (in a different language than ours but your writer here is multi-lingual, don't worry), getting closer to the screen. She just nodded, rubbing her forehead.

"Where is that again?" Asked another.

"So like—" a third one, this one with a distinct accent compared to the others, tilted his head incredulously. "They're our cousins genetically?"

"You can say so." She groaned. "The Council decided to not touch that part of the galaxy. They are being observed. Fucking hell! They were going on the right path."

"If they don't destroy their own planet before." The captain muttered, voice tired and coarse. In his many, many years lived, he's seen it happen again and again. Greed and stupidity almost whipped their race, so he's been following the Terrans close-by, as close as a mere Intergalactic Task Force Captain (stick with me lmfao) could follow.

"So what's the plan?" The tallest one asked, mask made of what others assumed was one of his most dangerous prey's skull was placed on his face.

"We give them hell." Captain commanded, Laswell nodding.

"Stay close, at the outskirts of their galaxy. We intercept any package and find their buyers."

"What do we do with our lil cousins then?"

"Eliminate any witnesses."

Shit went down really quick. You figured they were preparing for something as the guards by your cell somehow summoned some advanced looking chairs from the walls to strap themselves on and hissed at you mockingly, as they've done before. You just sat in a corner, by the bed, and wanted to cry. You were going through all stages of grief every few hours and it was getting exhausting. You were just now starting to understand how dire your situation was and how little chances you had of going home.

They turned off the main lights and a thousand scenarios crossed your mind. It was as if they were bracing for something. You frowned as you saw the guards tense as some alien hieroglyphics appeared on a holographic screen. It looked... like a countdown... You grasped the bed, trying to brace yourself for something. And good that you did because it felt as if the ship collapsed with something.

It basically shook you off to the ground, and while you'd think this was supposed to happen, you quickly realize it wasn't since the guards unstrapped themselves from the chairs and started shrieking as alarms suddently blared. After that? Seconds and it was over. Two white blasts ended them both, hitting them exactly in the middle of their ugly skulls. You did not hear any footsteps but you saw a shadow approaching your cell, so you scurried closer to your bed and now presumably magic shield that will block blasts that melt alien skulls.

The barriers from your cell unlocked, sliding to the sides and someone jumped in front of you. Someone big, dressed sleekly in black, although you could swear the edges of his frame looked transparent for a second. It was big, yet had the complexity of a human so you stayed locked in place, big scared eyes on the person pointing a big son-of-a-bitch gun at you. You heard it growl and speak something shortly, and the hairs on your whole body pricked.

World stopped for Price as he cracked another neck, just after locking eyes with the leader of this "cargo" ship. He was about to take a step forward to gently guide this person towards personal enlightenment by confessing all the information they needed, even if it would be involuntarily, when Soap spoke... well, growled just one word in their comms.

"Mate."

[lionheartedmusings]

once again rotating the qsmp and it's depiction of parenthood in my head and yeno i just... it makes me so deeply emotional it's not even funny? i remember conversations about "mothers and fathers" being the true qsmp theme song and i will die on that hill forever.

the thing that i find so poignant about it is that this was (as far as we know) never meant to be the story they were going to tell — the eggs were meant to come and go, a chapter in a story that would be looked back on fondly but one that was firmly over. and yet, the love. oh, the love.

it's so rare in media that we get such a raw and slow perspective of parenthood from the parents' perspective, to see the bonds forming and solidifying from "a responsibility that scares me" to "i would tear the world apart for you" — going back to vods of the first day of the eggs is wild, because they're filled with novelty and interest, but then time passes and we see love blossom.

we see love through grief too, like fit's voice when ramon lost his first life, or bad's screams when dapper had his nightmare, or the grief that came with trump, juana, and tilin's deaths. the desperation and grief of parents is an uncomfortable thing to witness, but in a medium like the qsmp it allows people to explore stories that are sometimes too heavy or too dark to portray in a less "goofy" medium.

we watched people's focus shift to their children as they embraced parenthood, especially in the face of loss, and we saw them accept truths that aren't pretty: if the eggs are there to manipulate them, okay. if they're a way for the federation to control them? fine. it doesn't matter, they're their children. they won't let go of them, not even if they're ultimately a means to keep them subdued.

the only time we've seen these characters truly lose their shit and rebel properly was when the eggs went missing, and that says so much. they'll almost accept losing their autonomy, but they won't lose their children.

it's been almost a year of the eggs, and they're the center of everything. every event, every game, every day — eggs are always the focus, whether it be in a "we need to protect them" way or a "i wonder what they want to do today" way. it's all about those kids.

meanwhile, we get to see these people be scared shitless, not have answers, be lost and confused half the time and not knowing how to handle every situation — they try their best, but time and time again they fumble and say the wrong thing, and have to apologise and try to do better next time.

it's so fucking beautiful, man. we see a day-to-day experience of parenthood and family (government assigned, found, chosen) that shows and movies can't give us because they're not a daily, breathing, on-the-go medium where we get to follow this one (or multiple bc none of us have lives) character through just... life.

in having this opportunity, we're privy to one of the most honest, human, and poignant depictions of parenthood and maturing that i've ever seen. we get to live this journey with these characters, and i'd bet a lot of money that that's part of why we're all so deeply attached to the eggs too.

long story short, storytelling is so fucking awesome and sometimes the most beautiful stories happen by accident.

[raysrays]

Crimson Guardian NSFW

Kyojuro Rengoku x Wife! Reader

18+ MDNI!🚫

CW: NSFW Content, minor angst, controlling/manipulating behavior, fluff-ish.

Y/N POV

Scenario : You've recently married into the respected Rengoku family, and while you continue your work as a demon slayer, life starts to get a bit messy. Balancing your duties becomes a real challenge as you navigate the challenges of married life. You find yourself having to make tough choices just to keep your husband happy, all while debating to stay true to yourself and your calling as a demon slayer.

Marriage. Truly one of the most beautiful milestones a couple can achieve. Marrying Kyojuro has undoubtedly been my greatest accomplishment.

I still remember it vividly, as if it were yesterday. Surrounded by friends, family, and core members, we pledged our lives to each other. Though it wasn't the most glamorous wedding ever seen, it was enough. Because really, all I've ever wanted was Kyojuro, and now, finally, I have him.

For the first few months, our marriage was nothing short of perfect. I moved into the Rengoku estate with Kyojuro's family, assisting Shenjuro with chores and gradually trying to get closer to Shinjuro. Though I'm not sure how successful I was.

It was only six months in that I realized being a demon slayer and a wife wasn't as easy as I thought.

Before our relationship, I was Kyojuro's Tsuguko. He was simply my mentor, and I trained hard under him to get myself where I am today. It was later down the road that we noticed each other's lingering gazes, the occasional flirting, and all the other subtle hints of wanting to be more.

Kyojuro was strong, and I knew he wanted a family, but I simply wasn't ready to give up training and my duties as a demon slayer just yet.

Every day, after helping out around the estate, I would hike over to HQ and pick up where I had left off the previous day, training until the late hours of the night. I would often come home exhausted, which usually caused Kyojuro to worry. As much as I reassured him, he never seemed fully convinced.

Now, here I was, sitting at the dinner table with Kyo across from me. It was a rare occasion for us to eat alone together like this. We made small talk about our day and training, and then he finally stopped eating and put his silverware down.

"Little Flame, I think it’s time we have a serious discussion about the way things have been as of late,” his usual happy smile seemed almost nervous.

I set my spoon down on my plate, giving him my full attention.

“Yes? What is it?”

“Sunflower, you have been working so hard as of late, and it’s quite admirable. I truly admire your dedication to the demon slayer corps and your training!”

“But…?” I ask, confused.

“But… since our marriage, I’ve found myself in constant worry over you. Every time you go on a mission without me, I have to painfully wait for your return. Not knowing whether or not you'd be injured or even-“

“Dead?” I finish.

I saw his body tense up at the word.

“Yes, my love. Dead. I cannot even bear the thought of you never returning to me. It pains me to my core,” he seemed so sad, so worried about me.

I know Kyojuro, I know he didn’t mean anything bad by what he was saying. However, I felt almost offended. He too was a slayer, a hashira. I also had to deal with the fear of him returning with serious injuries or even never returning at all.

Did he believe me to be incapable of protecting myself? He was the very one who trained me. Even though I knew Kyojuro was strong, much stronger than me, it just felt like he lacked faith in me.

“You don’t think I’m strong enough anymore? Do you think marriage has made me soft?” I realized I might have come off a little too harsh, but my emotions were getting the best of me.

His expression seemed surprised, but I could tell. While he may not have used those words, that was definitely the gist of it.

I watched him get up from his place at the table and walk over to me. He pulled my chair out from under the table, then grabbed my hands and kneeled down in front of me.

His big, bright eyes were now staring up at me.

“You are one of the strongest people I know, my love. I know how capable you are, but please remember…”

He brought my hands to his lips, kissing them softly.

“You are my wife before you are a demon slayer. I cannot risk sending you off only for you to never return.”

I could practically hear the desperation and love in his voice.

Kyojuro wasn’t someone who would usually discourage anyone from pursuing something they're passionate about. So if he was now, I knew that it’s something he’s been internally battling with for a while.

“What about you? Is it not the same? What about my worry? What if you never come home to me?” I could feel my face start to heat up. Everything he was saying seemed to come from genuine care, but it felt so hypocritical.

“I am a Hashira, my little flame. I have a certain responsibility you do not have to burden yourself with. I shall retire soon, in just a few years. So please…”

There’s no way he’d ask me-

“Please retire your sword, Y/N. Please stay home for me. Please allow my heart to rest easy knowing you'll be here waiting for me whenever I shall return,” his voice was pleading.

I felt so conflicted. I’d worked so hard. All of these years of training to hopefully become a high-ranking swordsman myself. However, at the same time, I never stopped to consider my romantic life and how being married would affect things.

We both sat there in silence for a few moments, and I finally rose up from the chair, pulling him up off his knees along with me.

I looked up at him, reaching my hand up to rest on his cheek.

“Kyojuro, you are the only one I would retire my sword for. So please promise me, promise me you will always come home to me. Until the day you yourself retire.”

“I promise you, Sunflower. As long as I know you are safe and waiting for me, there is no demon that could ever keep me away.”

I felt his hand on my lower back and the other holding up my chin.

We both leaned in, our lips meeting in a tender kiss.

This kiss started so gently, so lovingly at first. As we pulled away for just a moment, staring into each other’s eyes, we realized how long it had been since we really enjoyed each other’s company.

After that, the kiss only grew hotter and more passionate.

Kyojuro swept me off my feet and carried me straight to our shared room at the back of the estate, the most private spot. It seemed fitting for newlyweds, after all.

As he gently laid me back on the soft futon, I couldn't help but stay focused on him. Kyojuro was simply beautiful. His hair, his eyes, his body, everything about him looked like he was perfectly sculpted.

My admiration was interrupted as I felt him begin to kiss me again. One of his hands traveling to my breasts, gently squeezing it.

The other massaging my thigh.

I feel him pull away from me starting to kiss on my neck traveling all the way down to my chest.

Kyojuro had always known my weak points and how to make me say yes to his every request. He knew my body just as well as I did, and now he was taking full advantage of that knowledge.

I could feel him pressing against me as he moved his hand down my body, lightly touching me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him closer to me, wanting more.

Then I heard, Kyojuro's soft voice whisper these words, almost as a demand. "Enjoy this little flame, you've kept me waiting far too long.”

As soon as those words left his lips, I felt myself begin to relax. His movements were so gentle, so careful, so loving.

His fingers trailed down my sides, sending chills through my body. His hands went back up and caressed my neck, making me tremble. He kissed me once more, and I melted into him.

It was as if he had cast a spell over me, and all I could do was obey him. He was completely in control of me.

After a moment, I felt him move back down and remove my underwear, revealing my already wet entrance. His hand slid between my thighs, and I couldn't help but let out a moan as his finger slipped inside me. He was gentle at first, just barely grazing me, but it felt incredible.

"Is this okay?" he asked softly, his breath hot against my ear.

I nodded but I could tell that wasn’t enough for him.

“Use your words my love.” He demanded sweetly.

“Yes Kyo, it’s perfect.” I said, my voice trembling.

He leaned down and kissed my lips before pulling back again, smiling at me.

"I want to be inside of you," he whispered, his voice filled with desire.

"Please," I begged.

He removed his fingers, replacing them with his cock, his tip rubbing against my clit.

"Good girl," he whispered, thrusting into me.

I threw back my head, arching my back and digging my nails into his shoulders. His movements were slow and deep at first and then they became faster and harder, and soon my whole body began to shake. I couldn't stop the moans from escaping my lips, and I couldn't help but beg for more.

When he starts to speed up I know we are both about to reach our limit.

I feel his fingers interlock with mine and his lips pressing against mine again, but this time, he wasn’t just kissing me, he was also letting his teeth graze my bottom lip.

He was biting down hard enough to draw blood.

We were both so close and we were both trying to hold back but we couldn’t anymore. We were finally going to let ourselves release.

I was the first one to let myself go, arching my back as I moaned his name.

Then he followed not too far behind.

After he finishes, we just lay there for a bit catching our breath.

“I love you, Y/N,” he finally breathed out, turning his head to look at me.

I turned to face him as well. “I love you, Kyojuro.”

After that, the two of us drifted off in each other's arms for the rest of the night.

The next morning when I awoke, I was still trapped wrapped in Kyojuro's arms.

After a bit of struggling, I managed to maneuver my way out and make it to the kitchen.

There I saw Senjuro, who was already preparing breakfast for everyone.

“Good morning, Sen,” I greeted with a yawn.

“Oh, good morning, Y/N!”

“I'm almost finished with breakfast. Is my brother awake yet?”

“He should be awake soon. We both have to see Master Kagaya today,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

He stopped to turn and look at me.

“Did something bad happen?” he asked nervously.

Poor Senjuro always assumes the absolute worst in every situation. Well, I suppose in this case it’s somewhat understandable.

“No, Sen, nothing's wrong. Kyojuro and I are just going to inform Master Kagaya of my retirement. That’s all.”

He gave a puzzled look.

“Retirement? Why? Haven’t you been training for years to improve your sword skills to move up in the ranks?” he asked.

He was right. I know I shouldn’t go back on my word to Kyojuro, but I really was having second thoughts about my decision.

Senjuro could probably sense my doubt because his next response was:

"If this is something that you're not sure of, then you shouldn't do it. If you have doubts about this decision, then maybe you're not ready for retirement just yet."

His words really struck a chord with me.

Maybe he was right.

Before I could ponder that any further, Kyojuro had made his way into the kitchen.

"Good morning! How are my two favorite people doing?" he said cheerfully.

I smiled.

"Morning, Kyo. Did you sleep well?"

"I did, actually. Thank you, little flame," he walked over to me, giving me a kiss.

I could feel my chest tightening, nervous about what was to come.

The whole time at breakfast, I felt so spaced out. All I could hear was Kyojuro and Senjuro talking and the occasional grunt from Shinjuro drinking away at the table.

“Sunflower? Are you okay?”

I was snapped out of my daze by Kyojuro waving a hand in front of my face. All three of them were staring at me, kind of concerned.

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.”

I shook my head a little and looked down at my plate. I felt bad for Senjuro going through all that trouble to cook, but I simply couldn’t eat right now.

After we finished breakfast, Kyojuro and I headed out.

The thought that this would be the last time wearing my uniform with my sword by my side was so weird and almost uncomfortable to me.

I knew that this day would come eventually, but I always hoped in the back of my mind that Kyojuro would be the one to retire before me.

I had been so focused on training and my duties as a demon slayer that it had never even occurred to me how my marriage would affect everything.

I was now a wife. My first priority should be the estate, and helping Shinjuro while he was in his state of grief, and being there for Senjuro as well.

It wouldn’t be right of me to go against my husband's wishes either. Especially after the intimate moment we shared. Right?

As we made it to HQ waiting to speak with the master I felt my heartbeat racing inside of me.

The room was quiet, I could feel Kyojuro’s eyes lingering on me but I couldn’t bring myself to face him right now.

Both mine and Kyojuro’s attention was shifted as we heard the door open and Master Kagaya entered the room.

"Rengoku, Y/N. It's a pleasure to see you both," Kagaya said, his face as warm as ever.

"It's wonderful to see you too, Master," I replied.

"So what brings you two here? It seems urgent, judging by the fact that you came in so early."

"It is very urgent," Kyojuro began.

He then proceeded to explain our conversation from the night before, and how I was considering retiring.

"Y/N, this is a big decision, and it's important that you feel comfortable and confident in it. Do you think you can fully retire, knowing you won't be able to assist the demon slayers as you are now?" Kagaya asked.

I looked at the master and then glanced at Kyojuro. He seemed so proud and happy that we were here. I could feel the warmth radiating from him.

But, I could also sense the worry in his expression. He was nervous, scared almost.

I couldn't do that to him.

"Master, I've spent most of my life training for the opportunity to become a hashira. To serve the demon slayer corps and protect those who cannot protect themselves. But...I'm no longer just a demon slayer. I'm also a wife, and as such, I think it's only right that I focus on that," I answered.

The room fell silent for a moment.

"If you truly feel this is the right choice, then we support you, Y/N," Kagaya finally spoke.

"Thank you, Master," I bowed.

"Thank you so much, Master! I will never

forget your kindness!" Kyojuro bowed as well.

The two of us left the room and started to head out.

As we exited, we ran into a few of the other Hashira, who asked us about what we had gone to see Master Kagaya about.

They too seemed surprised and a little concerned when Kyojuro explained to them that I would be retiring so soon.

I could tell some of their reactions to the news annoyed Kyojuro. Shinobu used the word “controlling,” and you could see his smile almost falter.

"Controlling" was never a word I would have used to describe my husband. He just loves me, right? He wants to protect me. There's no way my sweet and kind Kyo would ever do anything to control or manipulate me.

Right?

Part Two

[dreamlifebunny]

dream life daydreams: "i'm irresistible, they're absolutely crazy over me!"

an "imaginal act" is a scene you play out in your imagination that implies your wish has been fulfilled. the scene can use any of the five senses, and can be as long or as short as you want; what matters is the feeling that it evokes in you! i like to refer to my imaginal acts as "daydreams," because the word reminds me of when i was a creative child who's imagination was limitless!

instructions: take these imaginal acts and put yourself there in imagination! tweak the details to match your desires, personal details, and preferences, and use the senses that you have in your imagination to fully immerse yourself (e.g. feel your hand picking up your phone and seeing your background image and the time, or hear the voices of the people talking to you or about you, etc.)

you pick up your phone because your screen will not stop lighting up - once again, your dms are popping off with a bunch of super cuties hitting you up. some of them are nervously telling you how gorgeous you are and that they've always had crushes on you and were too embarrassed to tell you in person; some of them are confident and flirtatious, asking you for your number or asking if you've got a partner because they want to take you out; some are so enamoured with you that all they can send is emojis and messages like, "wow. just wow." just a day in the life of someone who is irresistible!

you walk into a room and can hear whispering voices talking about you; "oh my god, do you see them? i've never seen someone so breathtaking." "dude, you'd never make it with someone like them!" maybe you look over and see one of them elbow the other to try to get them to act cool - it's hard to remain calm when someone so perfect walks into a room!

after posting a selfie, your phone blows up with comments from so many thirsty mfs - "oh my god, you're SO gorgeous!" "are you single? you can't be single." "I can't believe someone like you exists!" feel your thumb scrolling through the seemingly endless comments from people you find attractive and fun who are hyping you up, people who could only dream of being with you. maybe you reply to comments, or maybe you make their heart flutter with just liking them.

you're having a conversation with someone who is so attractive (whether it's your SP or a stranger) at a public event, and the others in the room are visibly jealous; some come up to hover beside the person talking to you and try to get their turn to talk to you; one comes up with a drink or an offer to walk around the event; one even pulls the classic "is this person bothering you?" card. all you can do is smile knowing that everywhere you go, everyone is obsessed with you.

imagine walking into a room and having all eyes fix on you as conversations stop, because everyone is enamoured with your beauty!

imagine talking to someone and watching them visibly melt listening to your voice, looking at your smile, and getting lost in your gaze. they can't help but be enamoured, and you play it off like it's nothing, but you know you've won their heart.

you're stopped in the street by a stranger who's eyes light up as they see you. "excuse me, I don't mean to be rude, but you are the most gorgeous person I've ever seen and I couldn't let you go on with your day without telling you!"

you've got this, bunny 💕

[mayajadewrites]

could've been you - shouta aizawa x fem! reader, hawks x fem! reader

chapter twelve

✦ story synopsis: You're the new teacher at UA with a rocky past with one of their beloved teachers, Shouta Aizawa aka Eraserhead. You'd rather never see him again but alas, such is life. You also meet Keigo, aka Hawks, who is the opposite of Aizawa. Smiley, golden retriever energy.

✦ chapter content warnings: unprotected sex, fem! oral receiving

✦ relationships: aizawa x fem!reader, hawks x fem!reader

comments are ALWAYS loved and appreciated <3

ao3

TAG LIST:

@come-away-with-me87, @kxshdoll, @evilsanzu, @friendly-neighborhood-turtle, @lili-pond,

@the-unhinged-raccoon @falling4fandoms @cherry-cosmoz @kkgraham @big-denki-energy @aphrodite-xoxo @keiweeny @minminroie @skazewrld @crimsonsaki

Waking up next to Shouta was better than you expected.

Much better.

His muscular, strong arms were wrapped around you the entire night, tightening around you randomly as he buried his face in your neck.

For a man who doesn't sleep much, he slept just fine with you.

Your lashes fluttered against his bare chest - what a sight.

You heard a grumble leave his lips as he felt the slight movement of your body. Your doe eyes watch his face as he slowly wakes up.

"Good morning beautiful." Aizawa's voice was deeper than usual. What you would do to hear it every day.

"Morning stinky." You giggled as his eyebrows raised.

"Stinky? Really?" His hands planted on your plush hips. "Say I'm stinky again."

"You're. Stinky." You smirked as he pulled you on top of him, moving himself onto his back. You pressed your hands to his chest, arching your back a bit as you looked down at him. "You're even stinky from up here."

Shouta fake gasped, tickling along your sides with his calloused fingers. A laugh, a real laugh left your lips as he tickled you, to which Shouta was fascinated with. He loves watching you smile and hear your laugh, even though it's not the conventional laugh.

"Take it back if you know what's good for you." Shouta teased, his fingers still poking and tickling your skin.

"I don't know what's good for me apparently." You raised your eyebrow.

"Fine." His large hand plunged into your shorts, finding your already wet heat. "Dirty girl, you're already wet." His index finger slid inside of you, curling as he pulls the digit in and out of you.

"Sh-Shouta." You feel your walls clench around his finger.

"Ah-ah." Shouta pressed his index finger on his other hand to your lips. "You can't come until I say you can. That's your punishment." He took the pad of his thumb to your clit, rubbing circles. gently.

"N-no fair." You whine, pressing your hands to your thick thighs.

"It's not fair that you called your boyfriend stinky." He slid another digit into your pussy. "I gave you a chance to take it back. Now you must suffer the consequences."

Shouta's thick fingers moved in and out of you as he massaged your clit in the most delicious way. You could feel your orgasm approaching, but you knew Shouta was not going to allow it.

He could feel it too. His fingers retreated from you, his hands slapping down on the fat of your ass as he pulls you roughly towards his face.

"O-oh!" Your breath hitched as you felt the contours of his face in your heat. Your bury your hands in his inky hair, feeling his tongue wrap around your clit.

"Mm, you taste better than I could ever imagine." The vibration of his words made the hair on your neck stand up.

"Sh-Sh-Shouta please." You pull on his hair, letting your head fall back. "You feel so good, please-"

"No." Shouta moved one hand from your ass to your clit, rubbing his thumb on the sore nub. "You need to learn to listen."

"I-I've learned my lesson." Your toes curl as he sucks on your clit, his tongue plunging in and out of your gummy walls.

"I don't think so. Now shut up and let me enjoy my meal." His lips pulled from your body, his dark chocolate eyes finding yours. His eyes were filled with a lust that you've never seen in any man.

Like he would do anything to make you come. That he would do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted.

No, that's not just lust.

That's the look of love.

Even when he's punishing you, he still would do anything you asked. It took everything in him to keep to his word as he devoured you. Your juices danced on his tongue as he closed his eyes again.

"P-please." Your hands turn into fists as you feel your thighs twitch. "I can't hold on anymore."

"So impatient." He pulled away from your aching, throbbing pussy and pushed your body back down to his stomach. He shimmied his boxer briefs off and you felt his cock slap against your ass. "Think you can ride me?" He sat himself up, his eyes analyzing your face for an answer.

The absence of Shouta made you whimper as you nodded, keeping your eyes on his as you grab his length with your hand. You wrapped your dainty fingers around his shaft, watching his mouth hang open slightly as you lifted your body off his, guiding the tip of his cock to your soaked slit.

His hands were desperately grasping at your ass, unlike the words he spewed just moments before.

Now he was begging for you.

Your pussy was too wet to even pretend that you could take him slowly. Shouta's large hands guided you onto his aching cock, bottoming out inside of you.

"So fucking wet." Shouta split you in half with his cock as he pushed himself into you. You rock your hips back and forth, your pussy clenching around his length. You tilt your head to the side, letting your mouth open slightly.

Shouta watched you as you rode him. What a beautiful sight this was. Your hair was messy from the night before, your cheeks a shade of pink from arousal, your lips swollen and plushy.

"Oh god, Shouta." You slid yourself up and down his cock, the sound of your ass cheeks hitting his thighs filling the room.

"Use my cock to fuck yourself, baby." A grunt escaped his lips as he thrusted upwards into you. He watched your eyes roll to the back of your head, your pussy clenching against his fat cock like it was about to tear open.

"P-please let me come." You whine, your dainty hand pushing against his chest. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face as he gulped, his adam's apple bobbing.

"Please what?" He could barely keep his composure. He knew you were about to break. He was, too.

"F-fuck, Shouta! Please, daddy let me come." He earned a moan from your beautiful lips.

His thrusts became messy and quick as you unraveled around his cock. It was the most mind blowing, delicious orgasm erupted inside of you. You rode out your high with him, your bodies so in tune with each other.

"Baby, yes." Shouta moaned, pulling your lips to his roughly as he thrusted inside of you one last time, letting his juices cover your walls. "God you are so amazing." His cock twitched inside of you as you both came down to earth.

You finally opened your eyes and looked at Shouta. You pressed your lips to his again, and again, and again. You smiled against his lips, your nails dragging along his scalp.

"You barely kissed me, Eraser." You pout as he lift yourself off of his length, a whimper leaving Shouta's lips at the loss of you.

"That was part of your punishment, you spoiled brat." His voice was smooth as he kissed your lips once more. "Can't say I liked not kissing you though. I'd much rather you behave so I don't have to do that again." His mouth formed into a smirk.

"I'll get my revenge." You maneuver yourself off of him. "After I brush my teeth." You pull his t-shirt from the night before over your body as Shouta watched your ass cheeks move against the fabric.

As you were brushing your teeth, you heard a knock on Shouta's door. You peeked your head out of the doorway of the bathroom, watching the muscles on Shouta's back move as he walked. His sweatpants were hanging from his hips lazily.

He opened the door and you saw red wings.

"She's here, isn't she?"

[sturnioloszn]

NEW LIFE - M.S

summary; matt gets to finally meet his baby, but he's terrified of doing something wrong.

warnings; absolutely none.

a/n; for some reason, i get inspired to write at 2am?? also, the baby fever is real, so here's a fic w newborn dad matt. i feel like he'd be the biggest girl dad ever.

★ ° . *　　°　.　°☆ 　. * ● ¸. 　　　★ 　° :. ★　 * •

"I can't do this," I weep, tears streaming down my face.

"Yes, you can y/n, one last push," the midwife in front of me says. I've been in labour for five excruciating hours. I'm in unbearable pain, and I really don't think I can do it.

"C'mon baby, I believe in you," Matt speaks from next to me. I squeeze his hand as hard as I possibly can, trying to relieve the pain I'm currently experiencing. I heard him trying to stiffle a groan, probably from his hand almost losing circulation.

I scream at the top of my lungs, the noise echoing off the walls, and I give one final push. Suddenly, a high-pitched cry erupted in the room. I look between me and I see her. My baby. Even though she was covered in blood, she was the most beautiful thing ever.

"Good job, you did it. You have a healthy baby girl," the woman in front of me congratulated.

I turn to Matt and see he's already looking at me with a warm smile on his lips, "You did it, my love, I'm so proud of you,". He leans over and places a gentle kiss on my sweaty forehead.

I return a lazy smile, "Thank you," I whisper, trying to catch my breath.

A few moments later, the nurse returns with my baby, who's is now wrapped in a pink blanket, and carefully hands her to me.

"Hey, baby girl," I say, bringing her close to my chest. I look down to admire her soft features. I may be a little biased, but she was the cutest baby I had ever seen. She had a cute little nose, soft lips, and rosy cheeks, I couldn't help but smile.

I couldn't believe she was really here. Emotions began to overwhelm me, and I felt tears welcome my eyes once again. This time, however, they were tears of joy.

"I think you should take her," I say, turning to look at Matt, who is staring at her just as intently as I was.

"Oh, uhm, I don't think... I can," he says. I can tell he's nervous about holding her but this was his baby too.

"It's okay, Matt, you won't hurt her," I reassure him, and he looks over to the nurse who is still in the room. The nurse takes her from me and guides Matt on how to position his hands so that he can hold her too. The nurse then lowers the baby into his arms.

"Oh my god, hi baby," He whispers, cradling her head into his palm. "She's tiny," he whispers once again, now looking up at me.

Oh god. Seeing Matt holding her makes me want to have another one all over again already. He looks back down to admire her the same way I just was. There's a soft smile on his lips, he's in absolute awe of her.

The midwife came back over and suggested I should feed her. Otherwise, she may begin to cry again. Matt handed her back over to me, and the midwife instructed me on how to breastfeed her. Matt watched attentively, he went on a small rant about how lucky and thankful he was for me and our new baby.

This was the beginning of something completely new, and of course, I was terrified but equally excited. I can't believe I have a baby with the man of my dreams, and we get to raise her and love her. I take deep breaths and absorb this moment, wishing I could crystalise it in my memories forever.

My daydreams are cut short when someone's bursts through the door.

"WHERE IS MY NIECE?!" Nick exclaims, breaking into the room.

"Shh," Matt whisper-shouts at him, causing Nick to slap a hand over his mouth.

"Shit, sorry," He says in a much quieter tone. Chris also enters the room now, moving to stand next to Nick.

"I'm gonna be the best uncle ever, screw you, Chris," he says, looking to Chris, to which he just replies with a middle finger.

This baby is already so loved, and I'm so excited to see what the future holds for me, Matt and our baby.

★ ° . *　　°　.　°☆ 　. * ● ¸. 　　　★ 　° :. ★　 * •

a/n; ....this is lowk the shittiest thing ever written in the history of writing, but oh well. tbh, this was planned out better in my head. i'm actually debating posting this, but it is what it is lmaoo. anyway, thanks for reading this piece of shit, love uuu. 💙

[the-sassy-composer]

Really tired of streaming services making absolute banger animated TV shows for adults, never advertising them, then canceling then because no one watches them, so I'm taking it upon myself to share some of the ones I've watched recently with the hope other people will hear about them for the first time and give them a shot.

---

Blue Eye Samurai

"A master of the sword lives life in disguise while seeking revenge in Edo-period Japan."

Probably one of my favorite animated shows of all time. Mizu, arguably one of the best sword masters in this time period, goes on a quest to eliminate four white men living in Japan, one of which is Mizu's father. The show focuses heavily on how factors outside of your control, such as race and gender, impact how others view you and how you view yourself.

Watch if you are a fan of: Complicated characters/relationships, revenge quests, gore, complicated relationships with gender and race, and absolute badass characters.

Where to Watch: Netflix

Undone

"After 28-year-old Alma nearly dies in a car accident, she finds that she has a new relationship with time; she develops this newfound relationship to find out the truth about her father's death."

Undone focuses on difficult relationships with family, including how your parents can have profound effects on you even after they're gone, and how to deal with grief. That, plus the added chaos of being able to travel through time.

Watch if you are a fan of: character studies, shows dealing with grief, time travel, trying to rewrite fate.

Where to watch: Prime

Scavengers Reign

"The crew of a damaged deep space freighter are stranded on a beautiful but dangerous planet."

A mix between sci-fi and horror, this show focuses on the crew of a crashed spaceship. Each (living) crew member of the ship escaped in pods, scattering them across the planet. They must fight to survive and make their way back to their ship on a planet featuring some of the most fucked up creatures I've ever seen.

Watch if you like: sci-fi, isolationist horror, body horror, creature features

Where to watch: At the moment, Max. As of May 31st, Netflix. Max canceled the show (even though it has a 100% rating 🙃). Netflix may make a season 2 depending on how many people watch it in the first few weeks after it comes to Netflix.

Harley Quinn

"The newly single Harley Quinn sets off to make it on her own as the criminal queenpin in Gotham City."

Honestly I was feeling a bit burnt out on super hero shows, but this one felt like a breath of fresh air. It follows Harley as steps out from the shadow of the Joker, no longer being one of his henchmen and struggling to find her identity as a single, independent villain.

Watch if you like: Superhero/villain shows, stories that focus on blurred lines instead of a clear distinction between good and evil.

Where to Watch: Max

Primal

"At the dawn of evolution, a caveman and a dinosaur on the brink of extinction bond over unfortunate tragedies and become each other's only hope of survival in a treacherous world."

This show is super unique in that there's basically no dialogue, but it still finds a way to display an absolutely gutwrenching relationship between two parents of different species going through shared grief.

Watch if you like: Brutality, heavily visual story telling, prehistoric stories, and tales of overcoming.

Where to Watch: Hulu

Love Death and Robots

"This collection of animated short stories spans several genres, including science fiction, fantasy, horror and comedy. World-class animation creators bring captivating stories to life in the form of a unique and visceral viewing experience. The animated anthology series includes tales that explore alternate histories, life for robots in a post-apocalyptic city and a plot for world domination by super-intelligent yogurt."

I love this show because you never have any clue what to expect. A siren living in a river falling for a deaf knight? An artist painting intergalactic art pieces? Three robots going on a field trip through the apocalypse to visit old human historical sites? You never know, but there's going to be love, death, and/or robots in it. Each episode varies wildly, so I'd recommend watching at least a few to get a taste for it, as some will resonate more strongly than others.

---

I'm sure there are lots more excellent animated shows, but these are all the ones I've watched in the past year or so. I'd love to see more recs in the tags, because I'm always down to watch more cool animations!

[artistsfuneral]

Jaskier meets Death at a forked path. He has never seen them in person before, their face - although incredible kind looking - is not one he's familiar with and yet he instinctively knows who is in front of him.

It's quite the idyllic picture to be honest. The path Jaskier has been following for the past few hours is lined with rough stone walls, the ones that are keeping flocks of sheep from straying too far. The sun is out and shining through the tree's leaves, creating a kaleidoscope of dancing shadows on the fresh grass. Death sits under one such dancing shadow-patch, surrounded by napping sheep. Their left hand is idly petting the spotted fur of a guardian dog, with their right, they're waving Jaskier over to join them.

He silently wonders if he should be scared. Others certainly would be terrified upon seeing Death waiting for them, but Jaskier has always been easily intrigued. Besides, Death is hardly looming over him, it's more like they're waiting for him - like one may wait for an old friend. It could be a trick of course, he muses as he walks over to where Death is sitting, then again it feels like the two of them could have met many, many times before and in much worse situations than this. So who is Jaskier to question Death?

The closer he gets the more he is able to take in. They're tall - taller than anyone he's met before, Jaskier thinks - and incredibly pretty. Not in the perfectly manicured kind of pretty, like some of the most beautiful darlings at court tend to be. No, Death carries a natural loveliness that can only be found and never created, like a special constellation of freckles, an off-center nose, or a small gap between your teeth. Death is everyone Jaskier ever sung of combined in one person, which makes him wonder if they always look like this or if they changed their appearance to please Jaskier's eyes specifically. If the latter, he'd surely feel flattered.

"Come sit with me, sweetheart," Death says and Jaskier is delighted to hear their voice. It's a very nice voice. He wants to hear Death laugh, he realizes as he sinks down next to them on the grass. Their eyes meet his and Death sends him the kindest smile, "It's been a while since I've seen you, sweetheart, I'm glad to see you happy and healthy." Jaskier grins, because what a funny thing for Death to say, but he can hear the honesty in their words. "Oh you know, just the usual aches and pains of my slowly progressing age. Nothing you haven't heard a hundred times before, I'm sure," Jaskier happily chatters back in the same familiar tone. "It's a lovely day, isn't it?" He asks and reaches for his pack. Might as well take his lunch break now, while the fruit he bought earlier this day are still fresh. Death answers his question with an agreeing hum and oh yes, Jaskier might just fall in love with them right then and there.

He focuses on his lunch and wills his foolish heart to calm. "Would you like some?" he asks Death, because his Mama raised him well and eating alone is never quite as enjoyable as sharing a meal. Death looks at him with amusement in their eyes. "I can not eat, but I appreciate the gesture."

Jaskier sighs, "What a pity."

"A small price to pay for a life like mine."

"You're alive?"

"I am here, am I not?"

He looks at Death wide eyed, a hundred thoughts stumbling through his mind at the same time. "I have so many questions."

"And I have a favor to ask of you, sweetheart," Death retords not unkindly. Throughout their short conversation the amusement never quite left their eyes and while Jaskier would normally feel patronized by such a look he somehow knows that Death is simply enjoying his company.

"Are we doing this right? Doesn't this whole asking for a favor thing usually go the other way around?" Death laughs and Jaskier's heart does a little jump, his fingers itch to write a new song. "You read too much, sweetheart."

"I don't believe there's such a thing as reading too much."

"The words of a scholar and a poet."

"At your service."

"Of course. I always get what I want," Death says knowingly, shoving yet another metaphorical box of Pontar towards Jaskier. Lucky for him he has long since learned to not think about these kind of things too much. It does feel a little bit like Death tricked him, though he loves a good repartee. "I have to admit, I am curious indeed. What could I possibly offer to you?"

Death turns their head away from him, looking at the dog in deep consideration. "I need..." Death pauses and Jaskier almost wants to think of it in a hesitant way, "to win a bet." The bard's shoulders drop immediately. "Ah," he says, because the hesitation now starts to make sense. Surely Death must know this of him. "I don't do bets, I'm afraid. It never ends well for the poets caught in between."

"I know," Death agrees easily and not very reassuringly, as a matter of fact. "But I am in need of a song. A song to bring the gods to tears and neither can I write nor sing. What I can do, is offer you my protection."

Jaskier's mind floods with thoughts.

Protection from Death.

The two of them stare into each other's eyes, the world around them timeless, everlasting. Finally, it is Jaskier who breaks the contact and returns to his bundle of food. He bites into a fruit, it's sweet juices run down his chin and drip onto his chemise. "I will make the gods weep," he declares and watches Death smile full of warmth.