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studioeisa · 1 month ago

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maybe happy ending 🪴 jihoon x reader.

jihoon was always too good at pretending to be a person, and you were always a little too good at knowing better.

🪴 pairing. helper robots!jihoon x reader. 🪴 word count. 11.5k. 🪴 genres. alternate universe: non-idol. science fiction, romance, friendship, angst, hurt/comfort. 🪴 includes. mentions of food, death; themes of grief, mortality, memory. set in 2060s seoul, jihoon & reader are life-like bots. heavily inspired by maybe happy ending. 🪴 notes. i wrote this with the intention of proving to myself that i could still write for svt (lol), and i ended up bawling my eyes out on three separate instances. if there is any work of mine that you might read, i do hope this is one of them. this is a love letter to maybe happy ending, which most recently made history as the first original south korean production to win the tony award for best musical!!! not proofread; all mistakes are my own.

▶︎ WORLD WITHIN MY ROOM.

The light comes on in pieces. First the ceiling strip, then the wall panel, and finally the amber filament lamp in the corner that Jihoon insists on keeping—warm, inefficient, obsolete. Like him.

He powers on, slow as a secondhand thought.

“Ppyopuli,” he says, because it is polite to greet your houseplant. He nods to the drooping fronds with the seriousness of a man bowing to a superior. “You made it through the night. Unlike my left hip actuator.”

He rotates the joint. It makes a sound like someone crumpling a foil gum wrapper. The noise echoes in the apartment. Metal, silence, memory.

The radio comes on automatically. A woman’s voice—soft, practiced, almost human—tells him that today will be clear. Dust levels are low. UV index moderate. Good day for outdoor activities.

“It’s a perfect day,” Jihoon agrees, pulling the curtain an inch wider. Seoul stretches outside his window like a paused video. Skyscrapers, skybridges, the blur of a bullet tram in the distance. The air looks clean enough to breathe. Not that he does.

He makes his way to the kitchen. One slow step. Two. The fourth toe on his right foot has a loose servo and drags like a sleepy child.

Coffee isn’t necessary, but the smell is nice. He boils water for no one. Sets a cup beside the plant. “For ambiance,” he explains to Ppyopuli. “They used to say it helps people feel less alone.”

The mail chute clicks. Jihoon straightens.

“And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for,” he intones with mock drama, crossing the room in careful strides. The envelope lands with a satisfying slap.

He holds up the April issue of Jazz Monthly, turning it to show Ppyopuli. “Duke Ellington. Looks like he still hasn’t forgiven the world for outliving him,” Jihoon says. It would be a joke, if Jihoon knew how to joke.

There’s another package. Small, boxy. His replacement elbow joint. “Shall we model it later? Make an event of it?” Jihoon tells Ppyopuli. “I’ll invite the ficus from next door.”

He places the parts carefully on the table, like heirlooms. “Any mail from Shownu?” he asks the voice assistant. Silence. Then: This function is not available to retired Helperbots.

Jihoon hums a measure of Coltrane’s Naima, tuning his inner disappointment like a radio dial. He spends the afternoon alphabetizing his vinyls, though he can identify any one by spine pattern alone. He talks to Ppyopuli about chord changes, the difference between sincerity and sentimentality in brass solos, the scent of rain on real grass.

When the sun lowers behind the next apartment block, he flips the switch on the filament lamp. The room turns honey-colored. “There. Mood lighting,” Jihoon announces.

For a second, Jihoon imagines Shownu—big hands, deep laugh—walking through the door. Jihoon would offer him the magazine. Ask about Jeju. Pretend not to notice the decade of dust on the threshold.

“He’ll come back,” Jihoon says, gently brushing a bit of lint from Ppyopuli’s pot. “We’re the kind of people others come back for.”

The lights dim on schedule. The system begins its shutdown hum.

Jihoon lowers himself to the floor mat beside the window, the same spot he always chooses. Perfect view of the street, the tram, the moon when it shows up. “Let’s enjoy tomorrow, too,” he murmurs to no one in particular. Then powers down.

Soft click. Black.

Another perfect day, folded and filed away.

Four perfect days later, Jihoon is in the middle of folding an imaginary blanket. The kind with corners that don’t exist and fibers that only live in memory. He’s halfway through the third fold (or maybe the fourth—robot math, surprisingly bad with soft things) when someone knocks.

Knocks.

The hallway outside is usually as dead as discontinued firmware. No one knocks here. Not unless it’s a delivery drone misfiring or the ficus next door finally tipping over in a tragic act of photosynthetic despair.

Another knock.

He answers it.

You’re standing there. Slouched a little, like your battery is chewing through its last 5%. Still immaculate in that newer-model, showroom kind of way. Glossy exterior. Fragile expression. The kind Jihoon’s model was never programmed to wear.

“My charger’s dead,” you say, plainly. Not embarrassed, not not-embarrassed. Just factual. “Do you have one I can borrow?”

Jihoon eyes you the way a CRT monitor might regard a smart mirror. “Helperbot-5, right?”

You nod.

He sighs. Loudly. For emphasis. “Figures. You overheat when someone looks at you wrong.”

“I don’t overheat,” you say, a little sharply. “My power regulation firmware is just optimistic.”

Jihoon disappears inside and returns with a charger in hand. He holds it out, but doesn’t let go just yet. “Helperbot-3s didn’t need replacements until the building itself started falling apart,” he says. As smug as a humanoid robot can be. “We were built to last. You guys were built to sync playlists.”

Your hand closes around the charger, not delicately. “Thanks,” you say. The door closes before you can mean it.

You fail loudly at pretending like Jihoon hadn’t struck a chord. Jihoon hears it, while he is alphabetizing again. This time it’s tea sachets. There’s a box he’s never opened—hibiscus. He’s not sure why he owns it. Maybe Shownu liked the color red. Maybe he liked things that sounded like flowers.

Another clatter. A curse that’s been downgraded for civilian use. Jihoon’s audio sensors ping the sound, tag it: frustration. Human-adjacent. Female voice signature. Subunit #5-A. You.

He listens longer than he should. Not out of curiosity.

Out of—

Well. Something.

His OS runs a diagnostic. No errors, no flagged emotional feedback loops. Just a new, unfamiliar weight behind the ribs he doesn’t technically have.

He taps the wall. Just once. It’s not meant to be a warning, but you take it as one. You fall silent in the midst of what Jihoon can only assume is an attempt to fix what’s broken in you. In that literal, robotic sense.

Jihoon sits there in the dim light, tea box in hand, trying to name the emotion that’s come to visit him.

The system doesn’t recognize it.

So he gives it one of his own. Static.

▶︎ CHARGER EXCHANGE BALLET.

Morning begins with the usual fanfare: the ceiling light flickers awake, a low buzz in the wall socket orchestra. Jihoon powers on without ceremony. No jazz today. Just the sound of his own servos settling like old bones into place.

Then, a knock.

Predictable. Timed to the second, in fact.

You stand there with the charger tucked politely between your palms like it’s sacred. You’re upright this time. Charged, obviously, and possibly smug about it. Your posture says, Look, I survived the night without frying my kernel processor.

Jihoon takes the charger from your hands and gives a perfunctory nod. “Seven-oh-five,” he says. “You’re three seconds early.”

You smile like it’s a joke. It isn’t. He files the timestamp away, just in case. “Thanks,” you say, again. Neatly.

And so the pattern begins.

Mornings: knock, hand-off, nod, silence. Evenings: knock, retrieval, short exchange, maybe a quip about overheating.

You never overstay. You never apologize. You never ask for more than what you came for. Which Jihoon finds efficient. Familiar. Like maintenance.

He does not make space for you in his routine. He just slides you in between the others.

Jazz Monthly on Thursdays. Ficus gossip every other Sunday. You—twice daily, on the dot.

It does not feel disruptive.

It feels like doing what he was made to do: provide assistance, ensure stability, optimize.

If Jihoon notices that he starts putting the charger near the door before you arrive, he doesn't say anything. If he reroutes his tea-sorting to accommodate the evening exchange, it’s just coincidence. There are efficiencies to be had. If he catches himself waiting—not with anticipation, but with idle, service-ready stillness—that’s just protocol.

He is, after all, a Helperbot.

It’s in the name.

He has no emotional flags to report. No diagnostic anomalies. No electric flicker behind the chest plate. Just a charger, passed from hand to hand. A routine, now cleanly installed, and the peculiar ease of slipping into someone else’s schedule as if it had always been his own.

Perfectly logical. Perfectly him.

But then, one day, seven-oh-five comes. Then goes.

No knock. No politely smug posture. No handoff.

Jihoon sits in the same position for forty-seven seconds longer than usual. Statistically negligible, but still.

He waits a minute more, just in case your internal clock is out of sync. It’s not. He knows. Helperbot-5s are optimized for punctuality. Eight percent more precise than his own model, which still insists on resetting to factory time every full moon.

At seven-oh-eight, he stands. At seven-ten, he knocks.

Your door opens part way. You look... bright. Not metaphorically. Literally. A soft electric glow pulses from behind you—cables snake across the floor in a chaotic kind of order. A mess that works. That lives.

Jihoon clears his throat. “You missed your pickup.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You came to check on me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

You step aside, revealing a patchwork monstrosity of wires, clips, adapters, and a repurposed rice cooker. “I improvised,” you say.

You’ve mad scientist-ed your way into an at-home charger. The setup hums quietly, almost smugly. Jihoon stares at the Frankenstein of it all with a look of mild horror. “That’s not regulation,” he manages.

“Neither is collapsing from power loss alone in a rental unit while your neighbor alphabetizes tea.”

“Looks unstable.”

“So do you.”

Silence, then: you laugh. It’s not artificial. It’s a real laugh. Amused, tired, just a bit triumphant. Eight percent more expressive, after all. That’s what the specs say. Better emotional nuance. More adaptive neural flexibility. Capable of interpreting, expressing, and—when necessary—weaponizing feeling.

Jihoon crosses his arms like a defensive firewall. “Good,” he says evenly. “Saves me the trouble.”

You tilt your head. “You were worried.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

“I’m not a liar at all. I’m just not... upgraded.”

You consider this. Step closer. Close enough that Jihoon has to look past his own reflection in your eyes. “You don’t have to say it,” you murmur, teasing. Jihoon thinks it’s a tease. “I already know.”

Jihoon opens his mouth. No words deploy.

Just static, caught in his throat. You’re standing there, humming gently under your skin, eyes brighter than usual. He’s standing in a doorway he doesn’t remember choosing.

You smile. Not triumphantly this time. Just kindly. “It’s okay,” you say. “You’re still a good Helperbot. You still helped.”

You shut the door before he can respond, leaving him standing in the hall with a charger still in his hand.

A routine officially broken.

And no diagnostic error to show for it.

Only eight percent of something else.

▶︎ WHERE YOU BELONG.

Jihoon did not expect the knock.

It came at six fifty-seven in the evening. An offbeat time. Off enough to disapprove of. He opens the door half a second slower than usual. A calculated delay. Polite disinterest. There you are.

Not glowing this time. Just standing there, in the hum of hallway fluorescents, holding something behind your back. Jihoon reads that as a preamble. A lead-up. Trouble.

“I came to thank you,” you say. Too happily. Suspiciously happy.

Jihoon narrows his eyes. “For what.”

“For the charger. The schedule. The tolerance.”

“You already thanked me. On Day Six. With that terrible rice cracker.”

You step inside anyway.

The apartment isn’t exactly a mess, but it’s clearly occupied. Lived-in by something that wasn’t supposed to keep living this long. Jazz Monthly sits open on the floor, a cup of barely-warm water rests on the windowsill. Ppyopuli is perched by the window, its leaves tilted as though eavesdropping.

Your eyes track to the bottles. Neatly arranged in a corner. Counted, labeled. A small tower of carbonated dreams. You walk over to them like they might mean something.

“This is a lot of soda.”

“It was on sale.”

You crouch beside the stack. Look closer. And then you see it. The label on the envelope tucked behind the plastic fortress: Jeju Ferry Deposit – Shownu Reunion Fund.

You don’t say anything.

Jihoon tries to explain, even though he has no reason to explain to you. “It’s nothing. Just spare change. Recycling incentives.”

You hold up the envelope. “You’ve been saving.”

“It’s not uncommon. My model was designed for budgetary efficiency.”

You walk slowly back toward him, eyes soft now, as if your processors are adjusting to something dim and real. “You’re going to see him,” you accuse.

Jihoon nods. Stiff. Matter-of-fact. “Of course,” he chirpsts. “It’s only been twelve years. There are ferries every hour.”

You smile. Not the knowing kind. The kind reserved for fools, and those you don’t quite pity. “You think he’ll still want you,” you say.

“I think,” Jihoon says, precisely, like solving for X, “that I will knock. He will answer. He will say my name. I will explain the bus delays. The misrouted magazines. The company recall. He will say: ‘Go put the tea on, Jihoon. It’s you and me now.’”

A long pause.

“He said that often?”

“Never. But I imagine he would.”

You don’t laugh. Not this time. Gone is the patronizing look. In its place, something closer to commiseration.

“Then what?” you ask, even though you sound afraid of asking.

Jihoon looks out the window. Beyond the Yards. Past the fog. Toward something shaped like a future. “Then I’ll help him,” he says. “I’ll help again.”

You sit down beside Ppyopuli, who leans gently toward you. Then, with the spontaneity that can only come from a model of your kind, you announce: “I want to come.”

Jihoon blinks. The default move when emotions exceed available RAM. “Why.”

“I want to see the fireflies.”

Jihoon’s brain digs, and digs, and digs. Comes up short. Fireflies. Fire flies. Flies, made of fire? No. That makes no sense. He tries harder. Flies that are on fire?

He doesn’t notice that you’ve reached out until he feels it. Your fingers at his temple. An efficient exchange of information. The images flood Jihoon’s mind.

“Fireflies are a special type of insect that used to be almost everywhere, but can now only be found in one forest on Jeju Island,” you say softly as Jihoon’s vision swims with images of the glowing insects. “There’s a complex chemical reaction in their abdomen that is not found in other insects. Because of this chemical process, they can produce light by themselves without ever being plugged in.”

“Little forest robots,” Jihoon says absentmindedly, his voice cracking with awe.

You almost smile. Your lips curl upward then flatten, like you decided against it at the last minute. “They only live for two months,” you say, “but what a beautiful two months.”

Jihoon is not built to understand mortality like that. Age, either. He knows when he was manufactured. Knows when he became Shownu’s. Knows when Shownu left for his trip. These are all just days and times that bleed into each other.

You pull your hand away. The fireflies behind his eyes leave, too. “I can help you with the ferry times,” you say, going back to the topic at hand. “I’m good for those.”

He thinks about it for a moment. You. On a ferry. With your charger. With him. With hope.

“The ferry,” he says slowly, as though conjuring it from myth. “Could sink.”

“It won’t.”

“Or the car could break down.”

“You do maintenance every other Thursday. You have a ledger.”

You are looking at his ledger. You’ve been reading his notes again. His left eyelid twitches. “And what if we break down?” he prods.

Your head tilts. The kind of tilt that indicates calculation, not malfunction. “That seems less likely for you,” you confess. “You might just experience significant emotional interference.”

He bristles. “I don’t experience interference. I operate on logic.”

You smile. Barely. It’s the smile you use when he is being especially Helperbot-3. “Then you’ll let me come.”

“When did I say I’m going?”

“Just now. By listing all the ways you could fail.”

Jihoon stands. Too quickly. His knee clicks. He wonders if you hear it, record it, file it away under potential deterioration. You’re already walking toward his hallway. He follows, without realizing it. Still clutching a truss screw. “We’re not going,” he says, to the air.

You turn around. “Midnight,” you decide for the two of you. “Have everything ready.”

He opens his mouth to argue. Closes it.

Instead, he looks at the truss screw in his palm. The most ambiguous of them all. Part round, part flat, part none of the above.

Jeju. Fireflies. An island.

What a ridiculous, preventable detour.

He stumbles back into his apartment and starts folding shirts. It isn’t excitement, obviously. It’s something else. System calibration, maybe. New parameters. He can call it whatever he likes. But still, he packs.

Jihoon folds the last pair of socks into thirds, not halves. Halves would bulge too much in the suitcase. Thirds, he’s decided, are more respectful. You’ve returned, and now you’re watching him from the corner, your optical sensors dimmed out of courtesy. Ppyopuli sits on the edge of the bed like a stuffed animal summoned to court.

Jihoon exhales, zips. Then stands still. He isn’t frozen, just slightly unplugged from action. One foot on the ground. One still inside the past.

“We should say goodbye to the room,” he says.

He says it to Ppyopuli, and maybe for the room itself. Four walls, modest scuff marks, the subtle dent in the left side of the wardrobe where he once bumped into it carrying a humidifier in 2017. The humidifier didn’t work. The dent remained.

“You’ve been loyal,” he tells the room. Ppyopuli bobs in agreement. “Didn’t fall on me in an earthquake. Didn’t flood, even when it should’ve. Didn’t let the neighbor’s violin seep in through the walls. Well, not entirely.”

He sits down beside the suitcase. The zippers smile politely. Jihoon keeps going, “Remember the winter I overinsulated and the heater shorted out? You held the warmth anyway.”

The room doesn’t answer. But Jihoon feels its quiet understanding. A space that knew when to echo and when not to. You shift, softly. Enough to register empathy but not enough to interrupt.

“I think Shownu will like you,” Jihoon says to Ppyopuli. “He always liked things that didn’t talk back. You’ll fit right in.”

Ppyopuli leans a little closer, as if understanding loyalty as a language.

Jihoon nods to himself. That’s that. He picks up the suitcase by its handle. It wobbles slightly; he’s packed heavier on the left. Unbalanced, but honest. He takes Ppyopuli, tries to keep the plant to the left so it might tilt the scales.

Jihoon takes one last look. “Goodbye, room,” he murmurs, more sincere than sentimental. “Thanks for keeping me.”

Then he turns toward the door, toward you, toward Jeju.

He doesn’t look back again. He doesn’t need to.

▶︎ THE RAINY DAY WE MET.

The two of you are halfway to the port when you bring it up. The sky is overcast, a smudge of silver and blue, like someone rubbed their thumb across the afternoon. The road is mostly empty. The playlist is on shuffle, leaning jazz. Jihoon doesn’t admit it aloud, but he’s been skipping the vocals. Too risky. Too much feeling per square note.

“We need a story,” you say. Casual. Like you're not currently engaged in light federal evasion.

Jihoon blinks twice. Acknowledgement. Also buffering.

You tilt your head, that little pivot that usually precedes either a sharp observation or a wildly inappropriate metaphor. “Retired Helperbots aren’t allowed to leave their districts. But humans are. And humans fall in love.”

Jihoon groans, a full-body sound. “Please no.”

“We are a couple,” you insist. “On holiday. A romantic getaway to Jeju.”

“You’re not even—”

“Exactly. That's why it will work. Who would make that up?”

He stares ahead into the gentle asphalt horizon and tries to remember when you started winning arguments by sheer momentum. Probably somewhere between firmware 8.3 and the first time you reorganized his spice drawer alphabetically and by Scoville index.

“So,” you continue, clearly delighted, “where did we meet?”

“We didn’t.”

“Wrong. It was raining. I didn’t have an umbrella. You did.”

“This is sounding suspiciously like a musical.”

“No. It’s Paris. Or New York. Or possibly Seoul, but definitely with cobblestones.”

He snorts. “Cobblestones. Because pain is romantic.”

“Exactly! You held your umbrella out like a gentleman from the 1940s. But you said nothing. Because you were shy.”

“And you?”

“I wore a bright red raincoat. And a fur hat.”

“Basically, you were Santa Claus.”

You stifle a laugh before weaving the rest of your fantasy. “You tried to speak, but we both said ‘Where are y—’ and ‘How long have y—’ at the same time. It was very awkward.”

Jihoon indulges you. “Did we laugh through the awkwardness?”

“No. We stood in perfect, beautiful silence. So much silence it wrapped around us like a scarf.”

“Sounds clammy.”

You ignore him. “Then we danced. In the subway. To a jazz quartet.”

Jihoon glances at you. Not disbelief, exactly. More like reluctant amusement curling at the corners. “So we met. In the rain, in a city you refuse to name. I had an umbrella. You wore a war crime of an outfit. And we fell in love through the power of proximity and precipitation.”

You nod. “You see? You do improvise.”

“This all sounds too oddly specific to be fictional,” Jihoon remarks.

For the first time, you falter. Jihoon realizes it before you admit it. The fabled First Meeting is not a fable. It is somebody’s story.

“My owners,” you say in explanation, and that’s all you have to say for Jihoon to drop it. There are some things that need no explanation. The hesitance in this moment is one of them.

Outside, the road bends. The sea begins to appear in the distance, gray and gleaming. The kind of view that dares you to feel something. Jihoon doesn’t say anything. Just reaches over and turns up the volume.

Saxophone. Mist. The low hum of two fugitives pretending to be fools in love.

And then the dashboard pings.

A sharp, uncaring noise. The sort of alert that suggests, in polite corporate euphemism, that you are now one bad decision away from becoming roadside sculpture. Maybe art. Probably not the kind people stop to admire.

Jihoon glances sideways. You are perfectly still. Too still. Your usual composure edged with a dimming hue that would terrify him if he had the bandwidth for terror. Instead, he has concern. Which is worse, somehow, because he knows how to spell it.

“Battery low,” you say, evenly. Not a plea. Not yet.

Jihoon grunts. Pulls over at the next exit, which, because the universe is mean-spirited and unnervingly precise, leads to a part of town where the neon signs are all cursive and vaguely anatomical. There are hearts. So many hearts. None of them metaphorical. Some are malfunctioning. One has wings.

You look up at the building and then at Jihoon. “Love hotel.”

He blinks. Default response to emotional excess. “We can’t—”

“We can pretend,” you say. Calm. Deadpan. “I taught you sarcasm. This seems like a natural progression.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Wonders briefly if he’s developing ulcers. Is that even possible? Emotional ones, maybe. The kind that grow legs.

In the end, you go inside. Together.

The woman at the desk doesn’t even look up from her tablet. Jihoon shuffles awkwardly like a schoolboy entering the wrong classroom. You lean forward with the gleam of a perfect con artist and say, with eerie confidence, “We’re celebrating an anniversary.”

“Three years,” Jihoon blurts, betrayed by his own tongue, brain choosing treachery over silence. He wants to die or at least reboot.

The woman doesn’t say anything. She only nods, pops her gum, keys over a plastic fob. Doesn’t care. Why would she? Everyone lies in motels. That’s what the wallpaper is for.

The room you end up booking is pink. Aggressively pink. The wallpaper is textured and suspiciously damp. The lights are dim but everything still has a sort of lusty sheen to it. There’s a mirror on the ceiling, which Jihoon avoids with religious fervor. Even the carpet has ideas.

You plug into the bedside outlet with a sigh like someone returning from war. Then, surprisingly, you sit beside him on the edge of the bed. You tuck your knees under your chin, almost human, almost small.

“Want to watch something?”

Jihoon shrugs. “If we must.”

You pull up a file. It’s not one of your documentaries or philosophical lectures or grim, slow meditations on the heat death of the universe. It’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Jihoon looks at you. You look at the screen. The irony looms, thick as smog. Twenty minutes in, Jihoon is actively offended.

“That’s not how processor reboots work,” he huffs. “The cooling logic is backwards. And his motor cortex override—”

“You’re missing the point,” you interrupt, voice soft, flickering. “It’s not a film. It’s a poem.”

“It’s nonsense.”

“Which is exactly what we need.”

The Terminator says, I know now why you cry, with devastating sincerity. You snort. Jihoon doesn’t. He’s too busy watching the screen, jaw tight, brow furrowed, like it might offer answers to questions he hasn’t learned how to ask.

When it ends, neither of you move for a long time. The motel buzzes faintly, a low electrical hum beneath the silence. The air smells like old perfume and newer mistakes. Eventually, you both lie back. Him, rigid and unnaturally straight. You, curling slightly in dim recharge mode, your glow settling to a slow pulse.

“You’re very strange,” Jihoon says, eyes fixed on the mirrored ceiling.

He watches you curve like a parentheses. “So are you,” you whisper, your words muffled into your pillow.

It’s a simple exchange. A statement of fact. But it feels larger, somehow. Like the shape of a beginning disguised as a joke. Somewhere above, a neon cupid flutters his wings and burns out a bulb. It is the first honest thing in the building.

Jihoon doesn’t realize his hand is next to yours. Doesn’t move it. Doesn’t name it. Just lets it be.

He thinks: this is what it’s like.

Not to be alone. He glances at Ppyopuli, who is sitting atop his suitcase, and he mentally apologizes. Ppyopuli is good company. A good plant. But Ppyopuli does not snore, or make jokes, or brush against Jihoon in a way that has him feel almost-but-not-quite alive.

Maybe, in some inconvenient corner of his circuitry, Jihoon understands. The moment he let you plug in was not the beginning of the end. It was the end of the beginning. Or something equally ridiculous. He doesn’t have the capacity to think in metaphors.

Whatever it is, he doesn’t mind. He lies next to you and plays in his mind’s eye images of Paris, or New York, or cobblestoned Seoul. Rain-slicked streets, red raincoats, and a borrowed love story.

▶︎ WHAT I LEARNED FROM PEOPLE.

The ferry ride is unremarkable, which feels like a minor miracle. No one questions your scarf, your oversized sunglasses, or your strategic silence. Jihoon spends most of it holding on to Ppyopuli, occasionally glancing at you as if trying to solve for an error message that hasn’t been coded yet.

You hum a little. Too loudly. Too often. Like a motor running just beneath its tolerance threshold. Jihoon notices, of course. He notices everything. But he says nothing.

The car rolls off the ferry and onto Jeju’s sleepy roads. The light here is different. Not softer, exactly. Slooower. It drips off the trees, crawls across the sky. Jihoon drives like someone trying not to wake a dream.

“You okay?” he finally asks, when your fingers start twitching in your lap like you’re typing something no one can read.

“Fine,” you say. Too fast.

He doesn’t push. You probably wish he would, but that is not how he was built, not how he was raised.

Shownu’s house appears the way ghosts do. It’s a modest thing at the end of a gravel road, tucked between orange trees and fog. The paint is peeling. The mailbox leans. Jihoon pulls in slowly, like the car itself isn’t sure it should.

He opens the car door. One foot out. But then, you say, the word falling out of you as if it were punched, “Don’t.”

He pauses.

You’re still in the passenger seat. Buckled in. Glowing faintly. “Jihoon,” you say again, and he is surprised by the fact that your voice quivers. He didn’t know that was possible for your model. “Please don’t go in there.”

He turns to you, frowning. “You brought me here.”

“I know, I know. But I—” You hesitate. The air inside the car thickens. “I don’t want you to think he’ll be the same. He won’t be.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” you say, voice barely above a whisper, “because I’ve watched it happen.”

He doesn’t ask. He stays there, one foot out the car door, as you give anyway. “There was a couple,” you begin, and your voice changes. Like it’s coming from further away. From a backup drive you never meant to access. “Newlyweds. Architects. She liked old movies, and he liked old buildings. I thought I would live with them forever.”

“I watched them dance. In the kitchen. In the rain. I thought it meant something. Maybe it did for a while. But humans change slowly. Like corrosion. At first it looks the same, and then one day, he says her name like he doesn’t believe in it anymore. And she doesn’t notice, or maybe she does. She smiles anyway.”

You turn your head. Look out the window, as if you are looking for the owners you can’t even name without breaking down. “They were still standing next to each other,” you say, “but they were alone.”

The memory flickers across your eyes. Jihoon watches it—reflected, refracted—half-light and shadow on glass. A couple. Young and in love. Fools.

“I stayed through the whole thing,” you say. “I stayed until they sold the house. Until they boxed up everything they weren’t brave enough to fight for. And then they shut me off.”

The car is very quiet. Even the birds seem to pause.

“I know what heartbreak looks like,” you insist, turning to glance back at Jihoon now. You look… sad. “It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t beg. It just disappears. So if he’s not what you remember—”

Jihoon places his other foot on the ground. Stands. “Then I’ll meet him where he is,” he says decisively. “Not where he was.”

He doesn’t say it cruelly. Doesn’t say it like he doesn’t believe you. Just says it because it’s his turn.

You look at him. At this man with lint on his shirt and a barely-healed crack in his voice.

He takes a breath and starts walking. He doesn’t have to check behind him to know that you’re following, ready to steady him when—if—it all comes crashing down.

You don’t reach the front door so much as drift toward it, two figures suspended in time. The house is small, whitewashed, with a slanted roof. Everything smells like salt and citrus. A low wall curls protectively around the garden, where a windchime ticks out notes in uneven time.

Jihoon feels you beside him. Too still again. Watching him the way one watches a candle guttering out. Not for the light, but the inevitability. He raises a hand to knock. The door opens after Jihoon has knocked four times.

The man on the threshold is younger than Jihoon expected. Early thirties, maybe. Wiry frame, short black hair, suspicion curled behind his eyes like a reflex. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t move aside.

“Jihoon,” the man says, and it is not a greeting.

Things click into place a beat too late. This is an older version of a person Jihoon is supposed to know. Once a boy. Once ruddy-cheeked and missing two front teeth. “Changkyun,” says Jihoon.

“Yeah,” Shownu’s son says. “And you haven’t changed.”

Jihoon takes this in. Quietly. He had expected a reunion. Not resistance. Not this acid stillness between them. “I came to see Shownu,” Jihoon says, the words firm in their anouncement.

“You’re late,” Changkyun says flatly. “He died. Three years ago.”

You move closer to Jihoon, almost protectively, but he doesn’t react. Or maybe he can’t. The word doesn’t compute.

Died. Di-ed. Diiied. Died died died. DIED. died.

Pass away, pass on, lose one’s life, depart this life, expire, breathe one’s last, be no more, perish, be lost, go the way of all flesh, go to glory, give up the ghost, kick the bucket, bite the dust, croak, flatline, buy it, cash in one’s chips, go belly up, shuffle off this mortal coil—

Become extinct. Become less loud or strong. Stop functioning, run out of electrical charge.

Died. Died. Died. D—ead. Dieeed.

Verb. Die. Past tense. Past participle. Died. Of a person, animal, or plant. To stop living.

Died.

“I wasn’t informed,” Jihoon says, and it sounds less like sorrow and more like a misfired protocol.

Changkyun laughs. It is not kind. It is not unkind. It is exhausted. Like someone scraping the last of a dish they never wanted to make. “No, you weren’t,” he says. “Because I didn’t tell you.”

He leans against the doorframe now. The weight of history pressing forward.

“You were never supposed to be his son,” Changkyun says. “But somehow, he loved you more than he loved me. Took you to baseball games. Bought you piano lessons. Called you ‘bud.’ I was eight. I watched from the other side of the screen door. Do you know what that feels like?”

Jihoon does not. Cannot. He computes it, but it doesn’t resolve into emotion. He sorts through years of memories in three seconds. Jihoon was not the ‘son’. He was the programmed robot that could be everything Shownu wanted to be.

Changkyun has to know that. Changkyun needs to know that.

“I believed I was helping,” Jihoon says.

“Yeah. You always did.”

There is something so painfully human in Changkyun’s face then. Not rage. Not even jealousy. Just bruised memory. Mismatched love. The ache of being out-loved by a machine.

“When he got sick, I moved him here,” Changkyun says. “I made sure the mail didn’t reach you. He kept asking. But I wanted—I wanted the last years to be with me. Just me. Even if he never looked at me the same. Sue me.”

He steps back inside briefly. He doesn’t invite you and Jihoon in. Neither of you move. Not away or towards. When Changkyun returns nine minutes later, he is holding a thin, square package wrapped in plastic.

“He wanted you to have this. Said you’d know why.”

Jihoon takes it. His fingers scan the object. Billie Holiday. Lady in Satin. The vinyl glints in the light.

Changkyun breathes out. Hollow. The fight inside him scattered. “That’s it,” he says, and there is relief. Closure. “You got what you wanted.”

No, Jihoon nearly says. This is not what I wanted at all.

The door clicks shut on him before he can force the words out.

Jihoon stands there, Billie held like scripture. You step closer, gently, as if sound might crack him.

He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t move. He is, for once, truly still. Inside him, protocols rearrange. Mourn. Try to reroute.

This is not a malfunction. This is something else.

This is grief, he thinks. Possibly.

Jihoon says nothing for a while.

He just stands there on the doorstep, LP pressed flat against his chest like it might slip away. The Billie Holiday sleeve has a water stain across her mouth. It makes her look like she’s still singing. Or drowning. The vinyl inside shifts when he tightens his grip, and he hears the faint whisper of it sliding against cardboard. A ghost of a voice. A ghost of a gesture.

You wait beside him in the gravel path, silent. Not intervening. That would be cruel. And you, famously, are not cruel—just devastatingly accurate.

“You were right,” Jihoon says at last. Voice flat. Nothing to sand it down. No inflection. Like a dial tone.

But you glance at the record. Tilt your head, just slightly. A tiny glitch of grace. “No, Jihoon. I was wrong.”

He doesn’t look at you. The horizon is easier. “He didn’t forget you,” you go on, delicate and graceful and so devastatingly kind. “He just wasn’t allowed to remember out loud. That gift? That was a whisper. He whispered your name.”

Jihoon swallows. Some ticks never deprecate. The action is unnecessary, yet he performs it anyway, like muscle memory from a body he never had. “Come on,” you say, gently. “Let’s go see the fireflies.”

He nods wordlessly. He did his Thing. You should, too.

You walk in silence. Past the cracked tiles of the cul-de-sac. Through the loose stone and root-stitched path. Into the forest, where the trees press in like old gossip and the humidity climbs like a rumor. Each step is its own decision, a soft rebellion against grief’s gravity.

The jar in your hand swings lightly. Jihoon watches it and tries not to think. Fails. He is very, very good at recursive thought. It loops in his head like a bad pop song or a corrupted code.

He says, suddenly, “I never learned how to grieve.”

You nod. Not surprised. “Most people haven’t.”

“But I’m not people.”

“No,” you say. “You’re not. But you tried. You’re trying. That’s the part humans get wrong.”

Jihoon stares at the jar. At the soft sway of your arm beside him. He wants to ask what part he got wrong, what he missed in the script, but then the lightning bugs appear.

Tiny green flares in the dark. Drifting like lazy stardust. Some slow. Some quick. All of them impossibly small. They blink like they’re thinking, like they might ask questions if they had mouths. The forest breathes with them, pulsing gently.

You and Jihoon speak at the same time.

“Oh,” you both whisper. He says it with awe. You sound like you are about to cry.

Both of you are quiet, so quiet, as if speaking too loud might scare away these insects.

You open your jar with shaking fingers. You make no sudden movements, no attempt to snatch any of them up. You just leave it open, as if seeing if any of them will be attracted to the little terrarium you’re offering.

The fireflies flicker by. “Hi, tiny friend,” you call out, almost sing-song, “can you say hello?”

The insects blink. Jihoon does not. He watches your face instead. The soft lift of your mouth. The reverent hush of your voice, speaking to something that can’t speak back. “Do you fly just for fun,” you continue softly, “or to get somewhere by the dawn?”

There must be enough of a coax in your voice to entice, because a single firefly drifts into your jar.

Jihoon holds his breath. He’s ready for it to hate its glass cage, to come and go. Instead, it settles. It perches in the jar. It stays.

“Do you have nowhere to be, little friend?” Jihoon murmurs to it.

You’re holding the jar between your palms like it’s the entire world. “Do you care what you mean to me?” you hum, voice crackling around the question.

You are talking to the unafraid firefly. You are talking to your long-gone owners. You are talking to Jihoon, who is surrounded by little forest robots but still looking at you.

“Never fly away, little robot,” he tells your firefly, because he knows that’s what you want. Because that’s what will make you happy.

It works. A little. You crack a watery smile. The fireflies around you take their cue. They begin to retreat, begin to disperse. Except for the one in your jar. That one stays.

“They’re just going home to charge,” Jihoon tells you soothingly, but it sounds like he’s talking about himself. Like the metaphor snuck in through the back door and now refuses to leave.

You’re quiet until all the lights are gone. Until it’s just you, and the darkness, and the loneliness that is now unfamiliar.

“Then maybe we should go home, too,” you say once the last firefly has gone, once all that’s left is the friend in the jar.

Jihoon nods. Looks at you. Not the place beside you, but you. The jar glows between your hands like a secret.

There is something different now. Hard to quantify. Asymmetrical in the way change always is. He cannot name it. Cannot trace the moment it clicked into gear. Only that something shifted, and that it does not want to shift back.

He exhales, just because. A simulation of relief. It fels close enough.

You begin walking back, and he falls into step beside you. Your shoulder bumps his, lightly. He does not move away. He doesn’t pretend it didn’t happen. That, too, feels like something.

“I’m sorry about Shownu,” you say, voice as soft as a thread being pulled through a needle.

Jihoon grips the record tighter. The sleeve crinkles under his hand. “I’ll be okay,” he says. Then, after a beat, quieter: “I’ve still got—”

He stops. The word catches. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s true.

You tilt your head.

“Ppyopuli,” he finishes lamely. “I’ve still got Ppyopuli.”

It’s not what he means to say. You know that. You’re smart that way.

In the distance, a firefly lifts and blinks once, twice, and disappears into the trees. The forest takes it back. Your jar remains.

You walk slower now, but not because of tiredness. Because there is nowhere to rush toward anymore. Because going home, this time, feels like choosing rather than retreating.

Jihoon glances sideways. Your glow is low, humming, soft as breath. Like a firefly.

It keeps the grief at bay. It replaces the bad feeling with something else, with something that Jihoon’s vocabulary can’t reach for just yet.

▶︎ WHEN YOU’RE IN LOVE.

The light comes on in pieces. First the ceiling strip, then the wall panel, and finally the amber filament lamp in the corner that Jihoon insists on keeping—warm, inefficient, obsolete. Like him.

Routine is meant to be grounding, but lately it feels like pacing in a square room. “Ppyopuli,” he says, nodding at the houseplant with a reverence that borders on the theological. “You’re looking hydrated, unlike my social life.”

The fronds droop. He chooses to take this personally.

Jihoon rotates his left hip actuator. The sound is still somewhere between a gum wrapper and a ghost sighing. It echoes differently now. More space in it. More absence.

The radio turns on. The woman’s voice—the one designed to sound like a former lover you never quite got over—says the UV index is safe again. That it's a perfect day.

“Perfect for what, exactly?” Jihoon mutters, pulling the curtain wider. Seoul looks unchanged. Which is, in itself, a kind of threat. Bullet trams still thread between glass towers.

He makes coffee. Still not for himself. Still beside Ppyopuli. The ritual is unchanged, but the motivation, fuzzier now. A photograph exposed to too much sun.

The mail chute clicks. “The moment you’ve all been waiting for,” Jihoon intones with a practiced flourish. The mail is junk. Flyers. Discount codes. Nothing from Jazz Monthly. Nothing from Jeju. He doesn’t ask the voice assistant about Shownu anymore.

He alphabetizes his records again. Notices that the Billie Holiday LP has been slotted out of order. He knows it was your doing. He doesn’t fix it.

“Ppyopuli,” he says later, cleaning the dust off a speaker grill with a toothbrush, “I think something is wrong with me.”

The plant does not disagree.

“My system has been searching. Passive scan. Low frequency,” Jihoon rants. “Like when you hum a song you forgot the lyrics to. I think I’m trying to locate someone.”

It is not Shownu. He knows Shownu is d-word.

Jihoon doesn’t say your name. He doesn't have to.

Ppyopuli remains aggressively unhelpful.

That night, Jihoon eats precisely one spoonful of synthetic tteokbokki before pushing the bowl away. His appetite, never really about hunger, seems to have found a better way to ache.

He stands in the middle of the room. Lets the light hit him. Amber and lonely.

Then, without fanfare, he turns toward the door.

Enough is enough.

He doesn’t rehearse what he’ll say. You’d see through it anyway. He just knows he needs to see you. Like checking if a lightbulb still works by touching it, not flicking the switch.

But when he opens the door, you’re already there. You both start. Not expecting that the other would be searching as well.

You don’t say anything. Neither does he. Jihoon—for all his wires and wear and water-damaged memory—knows exactly what to do.

In one of those moments where the world tilts quiet and everything is more possible than it was a breath ago, you both lean in. You kiss right at his doorway.

You kiss him like you were built for it. Which, technically, you were. Not that it makes it any less strange.

Jihoon registers every nanosecond of contact: the tilt, the breath, the impossible, exquisite pressure of your mouth on his. There is data. Input. Endless parsing. It is not the act itself that overwhelms. It is the meaning nested inside it. The truth tucked into the microsecond pauses. The confessions smuggled in between the static.

He kisses you back tentatively. Less fluent. Less native. But attentive, like a translator decoding a new dialect by feel. He tastes the static first, the warmth.

You laugh into his mouth—low, amused, indulgent. You’re good at this. Distressingly good. Your hands know exactly where to go, what to press, how to skim his spine like a familiar page.

“You’re—very—fast,” Jihoon mutters between kisses, dazed, as you push him back into his apartment.

“No,” you say against his lips, “‘m just a newer model.”

You kiss him again. And again. And again. The room sways. Not physically. Metaphysically. A recalibration of coordinates.

Jihoon feels his back hit the doorframe and doesn’t care. He’s smiling. Actual smile. Unsubtle. Unmanaged. It’s disconcerting.

Your nose brushes his. Your hands cage his jaw. You say, soft and certain: “I want you.”

He inhales. Fails to exhale. “I want you, too,” he whimpers.

It isn’t love. He doesn’t have the blueprint for that. Neither do you. But this wanting—this mutual, reciprocal disorientation—it hums like something sacred.

You kiss him again. Slower now. Curious. As if you were mapping him anew. Your lips move across his face, and his arms snake around your waist.

“If I had a heart,” you murmur against his neck, “you’d be in it.”

Jihoon’s fingers twitch where they’re planted on your hips. His voice cracks in the middle. “I concur,” he mumbles.

Your palms flatten on his chest. You start to slide them down. He lets you. Doesn’t stop you. Not until you do it yourself.

“Wait,” you say, as if you’re just remembering something.

You step back half an inch, just enough space to kiss the brick before you throw it at him. “My battery’s failing,” you say.

The room drops a degree.

Jihoon’s mouth opens. Then closes. Then opens again. His hands hover in the air, unsure. He asks, after a pause: “Terminal?”

You shrug. Casual. Too casual. Too cool, cool, cool.

“Uncertain. Our models aren’t built to last the same way yours are,” you say matter-of-factly. “Something about corrupted cell matrices. Could be months. Could be days.”

“You should’ve told me.”

“I just did.”

Jihoon stares. At your face. Your mouth. Your eyes, that don’t flinch. Then: “I don’t care.”

“Jihoon.” You sound disapproving.

“I don’t care,” he repeats. “If I get a day, I’ll take it. If I get an hour, I’ll take that, too.”

You stare back, silent as the inside of a bell. When you step forward again, you let the rest fall away.

The next kiss tastes like something. Jihoon didn’t know that was possible. That a kiss could feel like grief, and honesty, and desperation all at once.

You sink together, slowly, like dusk into night. Before powering off, this is what Jihoon thinks:

Whatever this is—whatever it becomes—let it burn through the battery. Let it flicker out only after it’s meant something.

He holds you tight.

▶︎ THEN I CAN LET YOU GO.

You agree to end it. Every morning, like clockwork. One of you says it first. Sometimes you, sometimes Jihoon.

“We should stop.”

And then one of you adds: “But first.”

But first, Jihoon takes you to the hanok village because he’s read that human couples like to rent hanbok and pose for photos. You refuse to change. He wears the pink one anyway. He insists it’s for historical accuracy. You remind him he was built in 2037.

But first, you eat street food together—if eating is the word for holding tteokbokki between your lips like a cigarette and pretending it doesn’t short your vocal module. You call it method acting. Jihoon calls it corrosion.

But first, you argue. Or try to. A full simulation of a romantic disagreement. The topic is laundry, which an article from 2025 says is the number one petty cause of break ups.

“You never fold,” you accuse, gesturing to the perfectly ordered basket.

“That’s because I autoclave.”

“That’s not a thing!”

“It is now!”

And then your hand touches his, and his touches yours, and the whole scene melts down into a tangle of arms and mouth and laughter. A synthetic tangle. A beautiful failure.

The fight ends with your face tucked under his chin. He tries not to overheat.

That night, you lie beside him on the floor mat beneath the filament lamp. Billie Holiday plays from his turntable. She sounds like she knows. Everything. Even this.

“Jihoon,” you whisper against his collarbone.

“Mmh?”

“We should stop.”

He turns his head to look at you. “I’m ready if you are,” he says.

A pause. Considering, contemplating. “Maybe one more day,” you answer. You, who once told Jihoon, Everything must end eventually. Living with people has taught this to me.

He plants a kiss to your forehead. He does not understand why, but it makes you feel good. Makes you melt a little, relax, trust.

The next morning, he powers on slower than usual. His diagnostics scan for error, but everything is nominal, except the place where you aren’t yet. He makes coffee for the plant. Straightens the record stack. Updates his firmware. None of it sticks.

Then the knock comes. You.

“Breakfast,” you say. “It’s waffle day.”

He doesn’t question it. He’s learned not to.

At the diner, you both order what you can’t eat. You ask if he thinks anyone has ever tried to smuggle love through routine. Jihoon says no, but he understands the urge.

After, you walk home past a mural of a heart-shaped planet and a tagline: Live like you mean it.

Jihoon pauses. This time, it’s his turn for the charade. “We should stop,” he offers.

Without missing a beat, you say, “But first…” The two of you chase each other down the street. Your laughter is not mechanical. It is real. It is lived.

Later that night, you fall asleep recharging beside him. Your head on his shoulder. Billie sings again. Her voice is a slow ache. Jihoon watches your chest rise and fall with the subtle click of a slowing fan. He doesn’t shut down. He just watches.

Maybe when the glaciers go. When the moon forgets to rise. When the firmware fails for good. Then he can let you go.

But not yet, not tonight. Not tomorrow. Or the day after that, or the day after that, or the day after—

There is no clean way to leave someone who has learned your update schedule.

You try anyway. Approximately seventeen weeks after you two started this whole thing. (Jihoon can, in fact, tell you down to the exact second. Seventeen weeks, four days, thirteen hours, ten minutes. That’s when you decide to pull off the metaphorical Band-Aid.)

You explain it like an operating manual. Bullet points. Projected timelines. Forecasted decay. Your voice is as smooth as always, and it breaks something in Jihoon just the same. “A year, at best,” you say, and you smile like it’s a weather report. Like death is just light rain.

He doesn’t touch you. Doesn’t speak. Just looks at you with those eyes that were never manufactured. He was always too good at pretending to be a person, and you were always a little too good at knowing better.

“So, that’s it?” he says. Not accusing. Not angry. Just suspended.

“If we stop now, maybe it won’t hurt so much.”

He doesn’t say that it already hurts. He doesn’t have to.

You leave. Or rather, you walk out of his apartment and back into your own. Six steps. Not far, technically. But emotionally, it’s somewhere around Neptune.

He doesn’t follow. Not out of coldness. Just programming. If you said no, he’ll listen. That’s the cruel part about love written in code: the logic is always sound.

He updates his memory with what he has learned:

When you are in love, you are the loneliest. You’re only half when one is what you were. You’re part instead of a whole.

When you are in love, you’re never satisfied. The thing you want is always out of reach. A need without a name.

It was love. It could have not been anything else.

Jihoon returns to his routine like a soldier returning to the trenches. He powers on at six in the morning sharp. Greets Ppyopuli with exaggerated brightness.

“Good morning, Ppyopuli! Just you and me again.”

The plant is wilting a little. So is he.

He makes coffee. Two cups, out of habit. Places one across from him, where you’d sit. Then moves it back to the counter, like he caught himself breaking a rule.

He alphabetizes his records. Again. He updates his firmware. Again. He reorganizes the spice rack by frequency of use, which is laughable because he doesn’t cook. But you did. Sometimes.

He opens the window and stares out at Seoul’s skyline like it might answer back.

He talks to Ppyopuli more now. “It’s been a while since it was just the two of us, huh? Like that first week she borrowed my charger,” Jihoon says. Too happy. Overcompensating. “Remember that? Ha-ha.”

Ppyopuli says nothing. It has no conversational subroutines.

“The air’s clear today. Sunlight’s nice, too. Warmer than usual,” Jihoon chirps. “It’s hitting all the places she used to sit. Isn’t that strange? I never noticed how much light she took with her.”

He stares at Ppyopuli, suddenly accusing. “Stop thinking about her,” he tells it. “First, people pretend to move on, and if they pretend hard enough, it becomes true. We’re going to think about something else now, okay? On three. One, two, three—”

Jihoon still thinks of you. Sitting with you in this little room. How you changed every part of it. The way you rewired the light switches so they dimmed like sunrise, the way you labeled the tea jars in handwriting that didn’t match his.

He tilts his head toward the ceiling, closing his eyes like it might help. He whispers, “Teach me forgetting. Help me go back to that other time.”

That other time is long gone. Memory is not a function Jihoon can disable.

Even time reminds him that he loves you.

▶︎ MAYBE HAPPY ENDING.

Changkyun arrives one afternoon, as if he were scheduled by the sun itself. He knocks once, then again. Sharp and deliberate. Jihoon opens the door slower than necessary, like it might buy him time to rewrite the past couple of months. It doesn’t.

“Hi,” Changkyun says. He’s holding a storage drive and something harder to name.

“Hello.” Jihoon’s instincts kick in. “How can I help—”

“Some memories of my father,” Changkyun interrupts. Not rude, just… focused. “I think it’s time I stopped avoiding the good parts.”

Jihoon doesn’t answer right away. But after a beat, he steps back in a wordless invitation. The amber lamp flickers on in the corner. The room smells faintly of dust, coffee, and longing.

Changkyun steps in. Jihoon plugs the drive into his memory port with something that almost resembles ceremony. A priest digitizing communion. He sorts quickly.

Shownu laughing in the rain; Shownu holding up an umbrella over Changkyun first; Shownu in an apron, jazz playing, fingers smudged with flour. Twenty years of a life well-lived, transferred from one machine to another in less than five seconds.

“Take what you want,” Jihoon says as Changkyun ejects the drive. “They’re only the brightest bits. Everything else got unrendered.”

Changkyun doesn’t smile, but he softens. “I know you loved him,” he says, and it sounds a lot like I’m sorry.

“He loved you too,” Jihoon answers, in a way that translates to I’m sorry, too.

Changkyun takes a deep, unsteady breath. It strikes Jihoon, then, that humans grieve for a long time. It’s supposed to have been three years since Shownu passed, and yet. And yet. Here Changkyun is—fraying at the edges, clutching at straws. Grieving.

“I just didn’t want to remember it until it couldn’t hurt me anymore,” Changkyun confesses. “But then it never stopped hurting. So. Here I am.”

The grief is never-ending, Jihoon realizes with horror.

Then, with relief, he realizes: but so is the love.

The grief is never-ending, but so is the love.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” Changkyun asks, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

Jihoon freezes. Maybe if he stays still enough, he can pretend like he didn’t hear. Didn’t register. Changkyun catches it and chuckles. “Don’t play dumb,” the man chides. “You’re not good at it.”

“She and I made a deal. No contact,” Jihoon says, sparing Changkyun the details. “Clean break. More humane.”

“You’re not human. Neither is she. So maybe stop trying to follow rules written for people who can forget.”

Jihoon leans back against the wall, arms folded. “That sounds suspiciously like something a child would say.”

“Then maybe stop letting the adults ruin everything.”

That gets a laugh out of Jihoon. A surprised sound. Changkyun looks down at the drive before slipping it into his coat like a talisman. “Thanks. For this. And for… whatever you were to him. You mattered.”

Jihoon follows him to the door. “You sound like you’re saying goodbye.”

“I’m saying: live. While you still can,” Changkyun says, but he doesn’t correct Jihoon about the whole saying goodbye thing. It is very much the last time they will see each other. Both man and robot know that much.

The door clicks shut.

Jihoon stares at it for a full five seconds. Then ten. Then he turns. The room looks the same as ever. Lamp, vinyl, ficus. But none of it means anything without you nodding at it like a museum tour guide who secretly hates art.

He moves before he can hesitate. Opens the door again. Marches next door. Every step is a betrayal of the promise you both made.

He knocks.

Once. Twice. Thrice.

You open the door like you were waiting. Like you knew. Like you always do.

He opens his mouth—prepped, rehearsed, a few dramatic pauses mentally underlined for effect. But before anything gets out, you speak.

“I think we should erase each other.”

Jihoon blinks. Not because he’s surprised or processing, but because he's trying not to flinch.

Your voice is soft. Almost cheerful. It’s like you’re offering tea. Like you’re suggesting a walk. Like you’re not pulling the pin on the only grenade you’ve both been passing back and forth for months.

He shifts his weight. “Let’s talk about it,” he says, and it almost sounds like he’s begging. But that would be absurd. Robots don’t beg.

You step aside and let him in. The apartment looks the same. Not yours alone. Yours-together. Slightly off from either solo version. The mismatched mugs. The filament lamp you insisted on stealing from him. The single record sleeve, still propped by the window. A scent capsule still faintly humming in the corner, too shy to admit it's been spent for days.

Neither of you sit down. This is a standing-up conversation. “Those sunny afternoons you spent with me, they’ll still be happening. Just somewhere in the past,” you tell him. “They’re not less valuable just because…”

Just because they didn’t last, goes unsaid. Just because we outlived them.

The logical part of Jihoon is stating to see the appeal. “The ending’s not the most important part,” he says. “But as endings go, ours is not so bad.”

You’re nodding. Trying to convince yourself of the same. “No tears, no regret, no broken heart,” you note.

“Letting go and moving on before we make a mess—is that a happy ending?”

“More or less.”

“Is this a tragic ending”

“Not at all.”

You stare at each other. You agree, because there is nothing else to do. Not when you are both doomed to power down, to corrupt, to experience the kind of grief that lasts lifetimes.

You both know what needs to go.

The firefly jar goes first.

It blinks once as Jihoon unscrews the lid, dazed from the light. The insect floats upward, slow and meandering, toward the ceiling vent. The lazy curve of its flight feels too poetic for something with wings that fragile.

“Go home, tiny friend,” you whisper, voice smaller than Jihoon has ever heard it, “wherever that may be.”

Jihoon watches until it disappears. The blink lingers longer in his retinal afterimage than in the room. Some things do that.

Then: the mugs. The Polaroid. The Post-It you stuck on his collar once that read You are not subtle. The novelty charger you gifted him as a joke but used for months. The tiny sketch you made of him. Lopsided, endearing, taped to the inside of the cupboard.

He deletes the shared playlists. You burn the scent capsule. Together, you fold the blanket you always stole half of. Someone places the stack of shared books into a donation box. Neither of you says which one. It doesn’t matter.

Each item is small. Insignificant. But it adds up to a life, or something like it, or something that could have been like it. A constellation you can only see by looking slightly to the side.

Once everything is done and dusted, he turns to you. For a second, you’re just looking. Staring like it’s a portrait and you want to memorize the shading.

“It’s not a bad ending,” you repeat.

He nods. “As endings go.”

“We still had the good days.”

“And the chords. And the root beer popsicle incident.”

“The skybridge dance.” You grin. Unrestrained. Happy, for once. “We were terrible.”

“You stepped on my toe four times.”

“You were leading with the wrong foot.”

You laugh. He smiles. It's all so achingly gentle.

You lean in.

The final kiss is strange in its simplicity. It does not try to be remembered. It is not desperate. It is not fireworks. It is warmth. Contact. A knowing.

A thank you. A quiet folding of shared time. Neither of you pull away for the longest time, and so the kissing lasts for what could be hours. It is really just minutes. Minutes that Jihoon would have stretched into an entire lifespan, given the chance.

Jihoon knows he has no more chances left. And so he walks to the door, his steps slow, unhurried.

You don’t follow. You stand there, still. Watching him the way he watched the firefly go. Like part of you might still be floating up there, too.

Here is what is supposed to happen: the two of you will input your master passcodes and delete months worth of memories. He will know nothing of you, or your owners, or your firefly. You will forget him, and Jeju, and Ppyopuli.

At the door, he turns around to face you. You try to speak at the same time. It is like the First Meeting That Never Was. Both of you smile, even though it’s a sad, final thing.

“Maybe we’ll meet again some time,” you say first.

Jihoon shuts down the part of him that wants to run research on reincarnation, on alternate universe. He lets himself believe. Blindly. Hope. A foreign, flightless feeling.

He nods, agrees, because it will make you happy.

“We’ll meet again somewhere,” he concedes. “Somewhere things don’t have an ending.”

You are both smiling. You would both be crying, if you could.

“Is this our maybe happy ending?” you ask, and Jihoon thinks for a moment before answering.

“We’ll see.”

▶︎ WORLD WITHIN MY ROOM (REPRISE).

The light comes on in pieces. First the ceiling strip, then the wall panel, and finally the amber filament lamp in the corner that Jihoon insists on keeping—warm, inefficient, obsolete. Like him.

Routine is meant to be grounding, but lately it feels like pacing in a square room. Familiar but claustrophobic. Comforting like a splinter you’ve decided to live with.

“Ppyopuli,” Jihoon greets. “Today, the air in Seoul is very clear and warm. Today, the sunlight’s warmer than the norm!”

He rotates his left hip actuator. The sound is still somewhere between a gum wrapper and a ghost sighing. It echoes differently now. More space in it. More absence.

The radio turns on. The woman��s voice says the UV index is safe again. That it’s a perfect day. “Perfect as always,” Jihoon grunts as he pulls open the window blinds.

The future hums forward on repeat.

Then, there’s a knock.

Jihoon freezes. The toothbrush still in his hand, poised mid-dust swipe over the speaker grill. A relic cleaning a relic. A knock again. Familiar rhythm. Four taps. Two-second pause. One.

He opens the door.

You.

Like a ghost. Like a glitch. Like muscle memory wearing your shape. You stand there, like you’ve always belonged in that frame, except you don’t. Not anymore. Maybe never did.

“My charger’s dead,” you say, plainly. Not embarrassed, not not-embarrassed. Just factual. “Do you have one I can borrow?”

Jihoon eyes you the way a CRT monitor might regard a smart mirror. “Helperbot-5, right?”

You nod.

He sighs. Loudly. For emphasis. “Figures. You overheat when someone looks at you wrong.”

“I don't overheat,” you say, a little sharply. “My power regulation firmware is just optimistic.”

Jihoon disappears inside. Returns with a charger in hand. He holds it out, doesn’t let go just yet. “Helperbot-3s didn’t need replacements until the building itself started falling apart. We were built to last. You guys were built to sync playlists.”

You arch an eyebrow. Tilt your head. It’s the same expression you wore the first time you mocked his record collection. He was secretly delighted then. He's not sure what he is now.

But, this time, he doesn’t let you say thanks and leave. He lets you in.

You find the port with unthinking grace, and sit in the corner where the filament lamp burns. You do not seem to notice the Billie Holiday LP is still out of order.

Ppyopuli rustles faintly. Jihoon leans over and whispers, “Don’t tell her.”

Your eyes flick toward him. No smile. No question. The ambiguity hums like static between power lines. Present but unspoken. Heavy as a memory, light as a lie.

“You know,” Jihoon says, settling across from you, tone shifting, softening, “the 5 Series—they really are something. I mean, you adapt better. Handle unexpected variables. React to nuance. You’re more attuned to tone shifts. Sarcasm. Subtext. That kind of thing.”

You don’t answer. You watch him, expression unreadable, like a screen on standby.

He scratches his jaw. “I read somewhere—don’t ask me where—that you’ve got 8% more emotional processing capacity. Doesn’t sound like much. But 8% is the difference between laughing and not. Between noticing someone’s gone quiet and actually asking why.”

You blink. Slowly. “Eight percent. That’s the number,” you say, and you sound so pleased it makes something in his hardware feel heavy.

“Eight percent more likely to remember birthdays. Favorite meals,” he says. “The way someone’s voice changes when they’re tired. The mug they use on hard days.”

There’s a pause. Enough to hold something unnameable. You’re looking at Jihoon, and he doesn’t quite know if the weeks apart are folding into each other. If you chose the route of memory. If you’re lying to him, now, like he’s lying to you.

Your voice is softer when you speak up, your eyes trained to the charger keeping you alive for a couple moments more. “Do you think it’ll be okay?”

Jihoon exhales. It could be a laugh. Could be a sigh. Could be the sound of giving up on forgetting.

“I hope so.”

You sit in silence. Not comfortably. Not uncomfortably.

Something real. Something human. Something bigger than the grief, and the love, and everything else that should matter.

Outside, Seoul pretends to be perfect.

The future keeps arriving.

Ppyopuli doesn’t say a word.

#jihoon x reader #woozi x reader #svt x reader #seventeen x reader #svthub #keopihausnet #jihoon fic #woozi fic #svt fic #seventeen fic #jihoon imagines #woozi imagines #(💎) page: svt #(🥡) notebook

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cort4se · 2 months ago

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A GAME?

synopsis: a playful little game of truth or dare turns out to be a bit more than just a game. fem!reader x ellie wc: 3k cw: nsfw 18+ mdni a/n: cross posted on ao3 with the same user, don’t copy, translate, redistribute or feed my works into AI.

“Yeah, let’s play.”

Ellie snorts, “What kind of game?”

“Hmm,” you press a finger to your chin, pretending to think. Your gaze drifts upwards to her ceiling, noting the various planet models that hang from it. Illuminated solely by the light emanating from the small stars stuck haphazardly on her ceiling.

Looking across her room, you note the many posters with Savage Starlight written in bold. Photos of the two of you, and some of her friends, are scattered on her bulletin board held up by different coloured tacks. Underneath her array of photos are textbooks on astronomy, physics and planetary science that litter her desk space.

A slow lulling of smoke fills the space between you. Your gaze returns to her, and you finally respond to her question with a small hint of excitement in your voice, “A game to get to know each other better.”

“Okay,” she leans over to take the joint from you. A bit skeptical, she asks, “How do you play?”

“How about.. Truth or dare, but the dare is removing a piece of clothing each time you don’t want to tell the truth. Whoever’s left in nothing but underwear loses and has to do whatever the winner wants.”

Upon seeing Ellie’s horrified expression, you add, “Within limitations, of course.”

“W-what?” She coughs out, her hand is over her chest as she tries her best to beat some air back into her lungs. She’s flushing red, fighting to find her voice through lost uhms and choked words.

You lean forward, taking the joint from her. Your smile falls a bit. “We don’t have to play if you don’t want to.”

A shiver runs down her spine when your words ghost her ear. Her eyes widen, and her heart moves wildly in her chest. She quickly shakes her head, like branches caught in the wind, shaking away any nerves.

Trying to play it cool, she leans back, “N-no it’s cool. If it’s what you wanna play,” she shrugs, “It sounds like fun.” She gives you a sheepish smile.

You smile at her. This couldn't be further from her idea of fun. You know she’d rather play video games or go to a comic fair, but a grin climbs onto your face, grateful she’s willing to indulge you and your weird games.

“Alright, I’ll go first.”

You take one last hit from the joint before you press it against a small metal tray, ending its light. Shifting across her messy sheets, you sit crisscross applesauce from her with arms folded over your chest.

Your eyes close as you take a moment to think. Once you’ve got your question, you open them again. “What keeps you up at night?”

“Hmmm,” her lips purse together.

She scoffs. “That time I fucking slipped on ice as I was on my way to class.” She buries her face in her hands, “There were so many people around and I actually fell in slow motion!”

You try your hardest not to laugh, “Oh, Ellie.." You tuck your lips, trying your best to stop your lips from curling upwards.

But after saying her name out loud, your composure falls, and your shoulders shake as a heartwarming laugh tumbles past your lips. The thought of Ellie falling over with her comically large backpack sends you into a fit of laughter.

“I’m so sorry, but that’s—“ you weakly wipe away a tear, “oh I wish I was there— I would’ve paid good money to see that.”

“Oh fuck you.” She rolls her eyes, “It wasn’t that funny.”

She looks away to stop herself from smiling. Unfortunately, you happened to have a contagious laugh.

She impatiently waits for your laughter to die down before pursing her lips. Taking a pause, then shrugging her shoulders, “I dunno what’s your favourite subject?”

You blink at her.

“Are we serious? At least ask me something more interesting.”

“Well, I don’t know what you want me to ask,” she rebuts.

“Ellie, you've got a chance to figure anything you want about me. Anything at all.”

There’s a star that spins around her iris and twinkles when you say that, settling into small sparkles. Anything?

“Okay.. “ she begins, fiddling with the hem of her sweater, the space between her eyebrows creasing as she mulls over her question.

“Ellieee,” you nudge her shoulder, and her eyes find your face again.

“Don’t overthink it. I’ll answer truthfully.” You give her a genuine smile, and her heart skips.

She swallows thickly, hoping you can’t hear the loud noise coming from her heart hammering against her rib cage. She clears her throat, “When you’re attracted to s-someone, what body part do you notice first?”

Your brows raise at her question, but you frown as you find yourself thinking it over… You’ve… never thought of that before.

You think over each body part and compare them to each other. The conveniences and inconveniences of each. Lost in thought, your busy mind doesn't allow you to feel her intense gaze, the way her eyes are fixed on the slight changes in your facial expressions. Mentally mapping the curves of your face. Studying it like it’s something foreign. Incomprehensible.

Ellie bites her lip. This was a bad idea. She doesn't know how much longer she can keep her crush hidden from you, especially not when you look like that.

She blinks in anticipation of your answer.

Your eyebrows knit together while your mouth moves to the side as you finalize your answer. You nod, “Arms.”

“Arms?”

You shrug, “Preferably muscular arms, I like the firmness of them. They’re comfortable to hold on to. And oh my gosh,” your hands come up to demonstrate, “they’re so soft. It’s insane.”

“Huh,” she puts her hands in her lap.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she shrugs, “just wasn’t expecting that.”

You raise an eyebrow, a smile playing on your lips, “What were you expecting to hear?”

“I dunno, I half expected you to say something generic, then follow up with a poetic explanation.”

You laugh, “What kind of person do you take me for?”

She shrugs, “It’s not too far from something you’d do.”

“Okay. Whatever,” you playfully roll your eyes.

Leaning back, you fold your arms over your chest, studying her body language.

She shifts uncomfortably beneath your gaze. Her sweater is too close to her skin. She can feel each weave of the fibre and she’s itching to rip it off. Her palms are too warm, her throat feels dry. The effects of the hybrid must’ve really been kicking in. She’s never felt so hungry before.

“What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve gotten off to?”

A fire. A fire just went off and exploded her entire nervous system. Mhm.

That could be the only explanation as to why she’s gotten so red, so quickly. “W-What did you just say?”

You tilt your head, a little nervous this time, “I asked… what was the most embarrassing thing you’ve gotten off to?”

She scoffs, “You can’t ask me that.”

You raise a brow, “Why not?”

She’s flustered, “B-Because—”

“Oh?” You cross your arms over your chest, leaning closer. “Ellie, what have you been watching?”

She scoffs, lightly pushing you away with her leg, “I don’t watch porn.”

“Whoa now I’m dying to know, if it wasn’t porn what was it?”

Your body heat must be transferring to her somehow, because she feels impossibly warm. So warm that the thought of taking off her sweater doesn't seem all that crazy. Would it be crazy to say she believed taking a bath in lava would be cooler than staying in her own skin right now?

You’re practically climbing on top of her at this point.

“No, pleasee tell me,” you fake pout, “you can leave your sweater on,” you smile. You run your hands down the sleeves of her sweater, feeling the soft fabric beneath your fingertips. “Wow, this looks really good on you. Did you recently buy it?”

Ellie tries to avert her gaze, she did, in fact, just buy it, but you’re so close to her, her eyes are darting all over the place. “Thanks, uh yeah, I just got it.”

You tilt your face to move in front of hers. “Hey, why are you looking away?” You frown, “You don’t wanna play anymore?”

Fuck. She can’t do this, not with you and not now; she can’t think of how to respond, so she closes her eyes and moves her face away from yours again. Face still unbelievably red, the tips of her ears burning with warmth.

You brush a loose strand of auburn hair behind her ear, your touch searing her ear. “Ellie..” you begin, “you're so red.. are you okay?” Your hand comes up to cup the side of her jaw, feeling for signs of a fever.

Her eyes shyly open at the touch, and she has to bite her lip to stifle a whimper that threatens to leave her throat. Your eyes are red and glossed over, thick lashes paired with your heavy-lidded eyes, she can hardly look away from them. Her eyes drift towards your lips.

God. She can’t think straight at all. You looking at her like that sends her into overdrive.

She brings her hands to rest on your hips, which are practically straddling her at this point. Hands shaky, her voice cracks, “I-uh,” she exhales, “I feel a little out of it.”

Your brows knit together, “How come?”

She shrugs, “Uh— must be the new blend.”

Has to be the weed. Yeah definitely.

Because why else would she imagine bringing her hand up to your face, your warm skin in her palm and bringing her lips to yours. Imagining the softness of them. And God, they’re so soft it's unreal, she imagines catching your gasp, and it's almost tangible, she can taste the burn on your lips, the unexpectedness, it's so vivid. It almost feels real.

But it is real.

She stills when she realizes she is not dreaming, and she did, in fact, just kiss you. Hand still on your cheek, she hastily pulls away.

Burning with embarrassment she fumbles over her words “Oh my God— shit I-I’m so sor—” you kiss her back, shutting her up. You can taste the earthy blend of the weed on her lips. And when you bite her lower lip— God, it makes your mind spin. She whimpers. You moan at the sound, sliding your tongue in her mouth.

Your hands find the sides of her face, and the heat of her face burns in your palms. Her lips feel so nice on your lips, almost like they were divinely crafted just to kiss your own.

Her lips chase yours, and she looks almost disappointed when you pull away to look at her. A soft sound escapes your lips when you do. Her eyes are red with pupils consuming the entirety of her iris. Her lips are swollen with kiss-bitten marks, and the subtle shyness in her expression makes your heart swell.

Her hands trail upwards from your hips to the softness of your waist, pulling you against her lips. She licks across your lower lip, kissing you with an intensity that wasn’t there before. She presses your back into the bed. Kissing the corner of your mouth, moving to your cheek, then trailing all the way down to your neck.

She's gentle, but when her teeth graze against your neck, you can’t help but shiver underneath her. “Ellie—”

Her hands trail underneath your shirt, cutting you off. “Can I take this off?”

You quickly get up, taking off your shirt. Her hands trace over the bare skin of your abdomen, trailing up to the fabric of your bra. She kisses your cleavage, “This too.”

You unclasp your bra, and you swear you see fireworks go off in her eyes when your bra falls off your chest. She nibbles on her lip, her hands moving to knead your nipples with her fingers. She slowly rolls them between her index and thumb, watching as they perk up from the motion. She has a hungry look on her face before she tilts her head and takes one of them in her mouth.

You whimper from the sensation, the warmth from her tongue melting your thoughts. With a shaky breath, your hands come up to rest in her hair. Her tongue swirls around your nipple, giving it a slight tug with a sucking motion, her free hand kneading your other breast with her palm.

There’s an unbearable warmth pooling between your legs. Aching to feel more of her, your hips roll against hers. You can feel her smile against your chest. She takes your nipple between her teeth, lightly grazing it.

You gasp, throwing your head back, “S-shit Ellie”

You gently tug at her strands, pulling her up from your chest, a line of saliva connecting her mouth and your chest. You pull her into another kiss, her hand now resting softly on your chest. The kiss is clumsy and a little messy, her teeth sometimes meeting yours.

Your hands trail up to her shoulders and cross behind her neck. You tug on her lower lip, bringing it in to your mouth, lightly sucking on it. She groans in your mouth, “You taste so good.”

You push her onto her back, you on top of her, straddling her hips. You smile, “Thank you.” She whines when you pull away from the kiss, her lips missing yours already. You tug at her sweater, “Take this off.”

She barely catches that, her gaze solely focused on your kiss-bitten breast and soft, swollen lips. But the realization quickly hits her, and when it does, she practically jumps out of it along with her sports bra.

Your lips are on her neck, kissing down to her collarbone, biting and nibbling on your way down. Your bites are not gentle, and her skin turns red almost immediately. Her brows draw together as she bites her lower lip, stifling her moans.

You kiss down her sternum, down the tone of her stomach to the waistband of her shorts, you look up at her from between her legs. Hazy red eyes silently asking for permission. She lifts her hips in response, pulling them off halfway. You help her take them off fully.

You rub her clit through her underwear and she jolts when you do. You kiss her inner thigh, “Relax.”

You kiss and bite at her soft skin before moving her underwear to the side, “Shit you’re so wet”

“God you don’t have to tell me that.”

You smirk, “Embarrassed?”

She groans, “Shut upp.”

“Sorry, sorry,” you chuckle.

You hook your fingers into the waistband of her underwear, sliding them off her legs. Your hands snake around her thighs, finger pads digging into her toned legs, keeping her open. “Lemme know if it’s too much, okay?”

She nods. And you lick a strip up her folds, and she’s so warm. Everything about her is. The heat from her thighs around your head, her lips, her freckles, the colour of her hair. You swirl your tongue on her clit and she squirms beneath you.

“Is this okay?”

“Fuck, you’re so good.”

A teasing grin splits your lips. Your tongue slides past her folds, delving deep inside her and your nose brushes against her clit. Her back arching off the bed.

“Oh fuckk,” she grips your hair. Pushing you down into her even more. Truth be told, you couldn’t really breathe, and the worry of passing out did cross your mind. But if you did, at least it was while doing something you loved.

Slipping out of her you drag your tongue slowly upwards her slit swirling around her clit. Ellie hisses above you, “Shittt.” She grips your strands tighter, panting your name. She rolls her hips into your mouth, skin slick with sweat, hair sticking onto her forehead in odd places.

Her thighs tremble around your head, every stroke from your tongue drawing wet and obscene sounds from her. Your nose brushes up on her clit as you move deeper into her. You draw circles into her clit and her eyes screw shut. “Shit shit I-I’m— so close—” she gasps in between, cutting herself off with a strained whimper.

You flatten your tongue, drawing a slow line up her slit, committing her taste to memory “Yea? Gonna cum on my face?”

You’re making a mess between her thighs, and she can feel you smiling into her. She tenses hard around you. “Shit”, she exhales, ” I— can’t, fuck fuck fuck,” she’s whining and her whole body freezes up as she silently trembles. Her back curls against her sheets as waves of pleasure rack through her body. Her thighs firmly clamp around your head, tensed and shaking. Every bit of her is fried and overactive.

Your hands dip into her thighs, prying her open. Your lips and chin are slick with her. Your brows draw together in concentration as you completely dial in to licking her through her high, tasting every bit of her.

She has to push your head away from her, panting and overstimulated, “Please, please, I c-can’t.”

You give her clit a final suck before you pull away from her, her skin is soaked in sweat, her thighs twitching. Tears prick her eyes, and she’s heaving.

“Shit, You okay?”

Ellie’s red and burning, trying to catch her breath. She nods, “I-i think so..” Your face is a mess, your nose, chin, and cheeks are covered in her slickness. She hooks a finger beneath your chin, bringing your face towards hers. She kisses you, tasting herself on your lips.

“God, where did you learn that?” she smiles, all red and embarrassed.

You give her a playful shrug, “Beginner’s luck.”

Her brows raise, and her mouth falls open. “You’ve never done this before?”

You shake your head. You move closer to her, “Also I technically win since my pants are still on,” you give her a shit eating grin.

She gives you a confused look, raising her brow.

“The game we were playing earlier?”

She gives you an accusing look. “I knew something was up..” She narrows her eyes at you, “What do you want?”

You give her a shy look, “Round two?”

do we like small text or regular text (this one)?? idm but I'm curious

#lesbian #ellie x reader #ellie williams x fem reader #wlw #truth or dare #tlou fanfic #tlou #tlou 2 #ellie williams smut #ellie tlou #nerdy!ellie x reader

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kiyomitakada · 2 months ago

Text

hi everyone so ages ago i translated watari's diary from the movie tie-in material L File No. 15 (sourced from this post by @mikami) but i just realized i never posted it here?? of all places??? so here you go! i recommend reading this translation along with the screenshots from that post since there are pictures that i did not bother actually including.

(spoilers for the live action films!)

---

QUILLISH WAMMY'S DIARY

The following diary was included in the discovered files. It is thought to have been written by Quillish Wammy (who is said to have gone by "Watari" while acting as L's intermediary), but as with the previous files, it contains information of dubious veracity.

May 7, 1973

Recently, I find myself thinking idle thoughts.

The metal I invented, which is superconducting under 28.7°C, is now used in 87% of electrical cables worldwide. It has brought me great wealth. Too much to know what to do with, I feel. No matter how much money I accumulate, there is no way to buy a human life, so I can't imagine any interesting way I could spend it.

May 12, 1973

Today, I had a revelation.

My talents mainly skew towards the sciences, and there are many things I can do with them, but also many things I cannot. But what if I use my wealth and my enthusiasm to raise new talents? Then there will certainly be one or two who can achieve things I cannot. Extremely interesting. To what extent can humans cultivate their talents? This is what I should dedicate the rest of my life to finding out.

I will gather children with talent and intelligence from all over the world — the brain develops very quickly from ages 9 to 13, so children around that age range should work best — and educate them thoroughly. Eventually, I believe, they will be able to change the world. Perhaps I will call the institution Wammy's House.

[Notes on the children]

F: Strong sense of justice, and quick to action — which is why he can make mistakes.

R: Has recently shown interest in astronomy. Has fallen asleep while looking through a telescope before, and thus contracted a cold. Twice.

K: Talented in multiple fields. Has perfectly understood almost everything I teach. I have not yet determined which area she is most skilled in — very exciting.

*1 (T/N: shaky translation): Many researchers have reason to believe members of Wammy's House are referred to by single letters of the alphabet. However, there is no consensus as to what extent these nicknames were used. Some suggest only Quillish Wammy and the person themselves recognized the nickname.

February 23, 1987

Today, I have learned a lesson. Sometimes an overly nurtured talent goes beyond the will of the person who nurtured it. [T/N: I genuinely can't tell if he's talking about the kid raising their talent or Watari raising the kid] K has left Wammy's House of her own volition. This is the first time something like this has happened since I founded Wammy's House. I feel a strong sense of loss.

---

[Notes on the children, 2]

D: Mainly talented in physics. Frequently smashes radio-controlled models, possibly to conduct their own experiments. The degree of destruction is being monitored.

P: Often found with their nose buried in a novel. I think I will try teaching them psychology once they are a little older. It would be nice if they showed some interest in profiling.

L: Invests in stocks. Clearly talented, but so far an unknown variable.

July 10, 1994

Currently, out of all the children, L holds most of my interest.

While he does show interest in existing fields of study, he is even more enthusiastic about using his own methods (adjacent to statistics) to make deductions. Right now, he is spending the most time on criminal investigations. He is working against actual human beings, which is why the cases are so complex and difficult to unravel… He seems immensely fascinated by this.

L, when in pursuit of an objective, is able to immediately determine the necessary information. L. You are my hope.

August 13, 2005

L has selected FBI agent Naomi Misora for the Los Angeles B.B. Murder Cases. It seems he did so in recognition of her bravery and deductive abilities. L dislikes unnecessary physical exertion, since he wants to keep his mind functioning as quickly as possible. Thus, he has to rely on others to act as his agents on the scene. Naomi is reliable.

[A photo of Naomi, along with the text:]

Naomi Misora FBI Investigator Achieved investigator status unusually quickly Specialty: Marksmanship Intelligent and passionate

---

February 26, 2006

I was present at an ICPO conference today. The focus was exclusively on the "Kira case." Criminals all over the world are dying of simultaneous heart attacks. Some members of the public might call this "judgment," but it is murder. L is very intrigued by this new type of crime.

*2: The Kira case, as detailed in the other files, refers to the phenomenon where criminals globally die of simultaneous heart attacks. Rumors flew around the Internet claiming that "'Kira' is our savior and carries out justice," and the name was attached to the phenomenon even though this was not actually proven yet. Since the case affected the entire world and was growing in momentum rapidly, the ICPO's response was necessarily rushed.

March 2, 2006

It seems Naomi Misora and Raye Iwamatsu are now engaged. They are planning to hold the ceremony in Japan. Naomi says she is retiring from the FBI. That took me by surprise.

I am unsure how L feels about Naomi's decision, but he has chosen her for his plan to make contact with Kira. Raye will be the driver. I'm sure Naomi will carry out the plan perfectly. Yes, L's choice is correct. But making a bride approach a murderer… making her groom drive her there…

L. That calmness in you is what I hoped for, what I raised. Still. Is hesitation not an option for you?

March 10, 2006

It's been raining since morning. It's coming down in sheets. I haven't seen such weather for a long time.

L believes there is a 97% probability Kira is in Japan, so we are headed there. Even so… Why did L say something like that? He never says things so sentimental, so unsettling… Could it be that he can see something I can't even imagine lurking in the future of this case? L, why did you say, "I might not be able to come back?" You are only in charge of directing the investigation. There's no reason to think you will come face to face with danger.

The lesson I learned from K is once again swirling in my head. Sometimes an overly nurtured talent will go somewhere I cannot follow…

L. Tell me you weren't thinking straight. Please. Tell me it was just the rain.

---

April 1, 2006

The twelve FBI agents who L ordered to tail the families and associates of the Japanese police have all died simultaneously of heart attacks. …Including Raye Iwamatsu… It was a shock, considering the pattern up to now, that Kira would kill so many human beings who weren't criminals. I think L wasn't able to predict it either.

I tried expressing my condolences to Naomi Misora over the phone, but I couldn't reach her. I am worried.

April 2, 2006

L met the Japanese investigators in person. Starting from now, he will work together with them to advance the investigation. L has never shown his real face to anyone before now. I can feel his anxiety about this case radiating off this decision. Or perhaps it's impatience?

L asked them to call him Ryuzaki.

[Notes on the Japanese investigators]

Soichiro Yagami: Chief of the task force assigned to the "Kira case." Overflowing with a particularly Japanese sense of justice. Trustworthy.

Ukita

Aizawa

Sanami: The only woman on the investigation team. A little too kind.

Mogi

Matsuda: A hot-headed young man. Slightly too presumptuous.

---

April 11, 2006

L is fixated on Light Yagami. He says that the probability of Light being Kira is only around 1% to 3%, but from his behavior, I can't help but think it must be higher. But although I suppose Light is decently intelligent, he's nothing more than a regular college student. To even consider the possibility of him being a mass murderer, there has to be some additional factor — an inconceivable one.

What is it?

Are we fighting against something entirely new?

[A photo of Light, along with the text:]

Light Yagami Student majoring in law at To-Oh University. A prodigy — he has already passed the bar exam. Hates to lose; focuses on winning in everything. His father is the chief of the task force, Soichiro Yagami.

[Memo so I don't forget my orders]

An emergency order from L. Written below so I don't make a single mistake.

Macarons (DALLOMIU) x 12 boxes

Marshmallows (MEIGI-YA) x 12 bags

Donuts (Donkin Donuts) x 12 bags

Black tea (F and N) x 12 cans

Potato chips (Golbee) (specifically BBQ flavor) x 2 bags

[T/N: The potato chips are the type Light eats in The Chip Scene — they're consomme in the original Japanese (both manga and diary) but BBQ in the Viz translation, which I'm going with.]

*3: The Donkin Donuts company shut down all its stores in Japan in 1998. Therefore, this memo conflicts with the range of time in which L and Quillish Wammy were thought to be in Japan. Whether this is a mistake on Wammy's part or an indication that the diary is of unreliable origin is still a topic of discussion.

April 15, 2006

I think the incomprehensibility of what happened today will stay with me for the rest of my life. Naomi Misora shot herself. It was after she told L, "I'll use my own life to prove that Light Yagami is Kira." But Naomi wasn't able to prove anything.

She must have, in her own way, found something confirming her theory. Considering her actions up to now, she wouldn't have made such a declaration without some kind of proof. But she took Light's girlfriend hostage at the museum. She killed her. And then she took her own life. Why would she do such a thing?

It wasn't like her. No matter how I think about it, it wasn't like her. She looked almost… confused, right before her death. Not like Naomi at all.

[Photo of Shiori, a movie-only character!]

Shiori Akino Student majoring in law at To-Oh University. Dating Light Yagami. Possesses a strong sense of justice and articulates her ideals clearly. Postscript: Was shot and killed by Naomi Misora at the Oumei Museum of Art.

*4: Naomi Misora's murder of Shiori Akino and subsequent suicide is the greatest mystery of this case. As Quillish Wammy wrote here, the question "Why did Naomi kill Shiori?" is still entirely unexplained; some have even proposed that it had no connection to the Kira case at all. Also, in regards to Shiori, it bears mentioning that some believe she was dating Light Yagami while others believe they were simply classmates.

---

April 18, 2006

The construction of the Kira Response Building is complete. We will be moving the investigation headquarters there.

[Memo with cutouts so I don't forget]

[T/N: As you can see in the Tumblr screenshots, this page of the diary is entirely filled with cutouts from advertisements showing different parts of L's outfit.]

[picture of jeans]: The feeling of a new working style, a dominating sense of existence — Loose silhouette, straight frame. Its special characteristic is the five pockets it boasts on the front. Two of the pockets are integrated into the seams on the sides for a working-style taste. There is an adjuster in the back so you can adjust the size slightly.

[T/N: I tried for ages to figure out if this meant 5 or 7 pockets total, and then I decided accurate translation of an advertisement for jeans in the tie-in material for a movie spinoff for a 2000s manga wasn't worth this effort.] [No offense, L.]

[picture of sneakers]: A strong impact! Each step brimming with confidence — These shoes are made with the ripstop fabric used in military wear. It won't tear, no matter how much you wear the shoes out. Additionally, the camo pattern is piece-dyed with black and deliberately scuffed, giving it a tasteful finished look.

[picture of white sweater]: It looks good in any season: a must buy item — Silhouette is loose enough to hide the lines of your body. The neckline is also loose, so wearing it is a delightfully relaxed experience. The white color has outstanding compatibility with denim.

[picture of Hyottoko mask] Hyottoko mask

[doodle of white bag]

[picture of a chessboard] CHESS: The definitive version of the battle of minds

---

April 29, 2006

An individual calling themselves "the Second Kira" has sent video tapes to TV stations. Their patterns are clearly different from those of the Kira who has acted up to now. According to L's theory, while the previous Kira needed a face and a name for the murder, this Kira only needs to see someone's face to kill them.

Also, Light Yagami is now part of the task force. Light can't forgive Kira for taking his girlfriend's life. He's burning with determination to solve the case. He really is a smart teenager.

I wonder which L feels more for him: sympathy or competitiveness. Even I can't tell.

*5: In this time period, there were several unexplainable events, documented by the news and TV broadcasts in Japan at the time. For example, several police officers died of sudden heart attacks near the doorstep of the TV station that was broadcasting a message from the person claiming to be "the Second Kira" (including a detective whose name appeared in the earlier "Notes on the Japanese investigators"). It is thought that L's theory that "this Kira only needs to see someone's face [...]," as documented by Quillish Wammy above, was based on this incident.

May 11, 2006

Misa Amane has been arrested under suspicion of being the Second Kira. She is in confinement. The Japanese investigators seem somewhat opposed to this method. L is feeling cornered. It makes me anxious.

[Photo of Misa Amane, smiling in a sleeveless skull-and-crossbones shirt]

Misa Amane Idol There was an advertisement on the bus for fashion magazines with her on their covers. She seems to be a rather well-known figure in Japan.

Postscript: I have acquired Misa's photo albums, CDs, and DVDs as evidence. I passed them to L. L has not informed me of any new data from this analysis, but he has been playing the CD.

---

June 2, 2006

L announced to the investigators that "as of now, I have concluded that Light Yagami and Misa Amane are not Kira."

Light will still stay in the Kira Response Building to help with the investigation. L has accepted this. Could it be that L has recognized that someone else is on his level for the first time? I am happy for him, but also have complicated feelings about this. Is it possible that Light has become L's first-ever friend?

June 9, 2006

The Kira murders continue. L has been chewing his nails more often lately.

L, you should already know this: you do not need to carry the burden of all the world's crimes on your shoulders.

June 26, 2006

Light Yagami's theory may be our breakthrough in the case. His line of investigation has turned up a name: a Sakura TV newscaster, Kiyomi Takada.

[Photo of Kiyomi Takada, smiling placidly on a news channel, hands folded together]

Kiyomi Takada Newscaster for Sakura TV

She became the current face of the news channel EVENING SPOT after her predecessor Saeko Nishiyama's sudden death in a car accident. She quickly began hosting segments supporting Kira. She lives alone in a condo within the city.

---

June 30, 2006

You could say my scientific skills have started to rust, but as an inventor who tries to always think things through logically, I am feeling bewildered. There are "Shinigami," gods of death, who exist in this world. The Shinigami each carry a notebook, which is called a "Death Note." And the human whose name is written in the Death Note will die.

What on Earth? We've been up against Shinigami this whole time?

L was shocked. Unusual for him. But when I saw that surprise on his face, I actually felt relieved. At least Wammy's House — my creation — has not taken the capability for shock away from him.

Death Note: How to Use (Rules) — a partial excerpt

[T/N: Translations mostly copied from the Death Note wiki, with minor edits]

The human whose name is written in this note shall die.

If the cause of death is written within the next 40 seconds (in human-realm units) of writing the person's name, it will happen.

If the cause of death is not specified, the human will simply die of a heart attack.

After writing the cause of death, details of the death should be written in the next 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

If the time of death is written within 40 seconds after writing the cause of death — even if the cause of death is a heart attack — the time of death can be manipulated, and the death can go into effect even less than 40 seconds after writing the name.

The note will not take effect unless the writer has the person's face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.

The owner of the note can shorten their own life by using the note.

Even someone who does not own the note can use it by writing a name and thinking of a face, with the same effect as if they were the owner of the note.

After a name is written in the note, it cannot be changed.

The time of death written in the note must be within 23 days (in human-realm units).

July 3, 2006

Misa Amane has been released from the Kira Response Building.

July 4, 2006

The strange situation of a Shinigami coming in and out of the Kira Response Building has continued. I can't help but feel restless seeing a huge, white silhouette wandering about. This Shinigami is not cooperating with us, but isn't trying to hinder us either, it seems.

There have been multiple persistent calls for L to assist with the investigation into Princess Joan's overturned yacht. But L seems uninterested in any other cases right now. I have filed the investigation requests where he won't see them.

---

July 7, 2006

[This entry was translated here by @lunalit-river. I'll copy it over, but please show some love to the original post!]

Was this the outcome of giving you the opportunity to learn? Was it arrogant of me to think that I had given you everything you needed? A genius without parents or relatives, without food or education, a genius who may have had a miserable past. Was I wrong?

L wrote his name in the Death Note.

Was this all for victory? Was this all for justice?

To fight something supernatural like the Death Note, it is true that we must arm ourselves with something that is also beyond human understanding.

It is highly possible that Light Yagami will write L's name in the Death Note. In theory, L must write his name in the Death Note first to prevent Light from doing so.

But don't human emotions have a tendency to refuse to accept the truth and instead hope to twist logic and theory?

L. Don't you ever place your emotions prior to your goals?

L. I never meant for things to end this way. Your talent has surpassed mine, and now you are consuming yourself. But I…

Today I learned F's death. Am I about to lose you, too? I have never felt so powerless as I do now.

L. I am confused. When I established Wammy's House, I might not have anticipated this.

I learned a lot from being with you, L, just as parents learn a lot from their children.

L. Just one sentence is enough. Please tell me you want to live.

L. L…

July 7, 2006

L Lawliet Heart failure Dies 23 days from now, peacefully, in his sleep

---

July 10, 2006

This is the end of the case, isn't it? Everything has been arranged. I will bring Misa to headquarters, and as long as Soichiro Yagami and the other Japanese investigators do as L says, everything should go perfectly. Tonight, the Kira case will be solved.

I have learned from L, who moves towards his goal still, indifferent in the face of death. I too will not waver.

L still has 20 days left. I'll spend them with him. Not because of everything I gave him in his lifetime, but because of everything I deprived him of. I can devote all my time to him now.

L, what do you want to do? You can play silly games, if you want. You can go make friends. If you don't mind my old age, I would gladly be your friend. Or your

Do you want to see sights you've never seen before? Do you want to feel breezes you've never felt? [T/N: He switches to polite speech just for this paragraph. Back to regular now.]

Get up from that way you always sit; let's go outside. Everything I took from you — the small, the inconsequential, the boring things — and the beautiful, dear ones too: let's go find them together. It's okay if you don't have any conclusions to draw. I just want you to have fun. To love the world in front of you. To savor it.

L. That's right. Just like a father and son on holiday.

I've been writing in this diary for forty years. I think I will stop in twenty days. I can't imagine anything I would want to write about, anything I should write about, would happen after that.

Alright. I'd better go and bring Misa over.

This is where the diary ends. The Kira case has been dormant ever since the last entry here.

#death note #watari #watari death note #l lawliet #:))))))))))) <- definitely did not cry translating this. not at all.

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pearlesscentt · 1 year ago

Text

kitchen floor picnic

it was finals week, or hell week as you’d affectionately call it, and due to the onslaught of deadlines, everything was in shambles. good thing, you have your boyfriend to weather that cyclone with you.

mingyu x reader, college!au, established relationship, fluff, 1.2k words

in contrast to science, sound traveled faster than light—literally at that very moment.

when MINGYU opened the door to your studio apartment, it was pitch black, and all he could hear were your soft snores and the whirring of the dinky air conditioner. he started walking in blindly, worried about waking you up if he dared to turn on the lights, so he just clutched the paper bag full of groceries and hoped for the best.

his luck seemed to run out within a few seconds, as it wasn't long before he tripped over something hard, making him yelp in pain.

“shit,” he cursed under his breath. when the noise registered, his head immediately snapped in your direction, and he sighed in relief when you remained fast asleep. he kneeled down to clutch the toe he had stubbed and reached for his phone. he fumbled with it before eventually clicking on the torch, realizing he tripped over your bicycle helmet lying haphazardly in the hallway.

she must've tossed it on the floor from exhaustion, he thought, picking it up to hang it on one of the hooks on the wall.

it was finals week, or hell week as you’d affectionately call it. “i might not survive,” you told him at the beginning of the week during an afternoon at the library. “in our next life, remind me never to study architecture. this is torture, i will never put myself through this again,” you groaned dramatically.

he reassured you of everything you were capable of because he knew by now that the theatrics were just a part of your process for acing your classes. if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that you were an exceptional student. that was why he could only chuckle as you spent the next fifteen minutes complaining about your program while also perfectly tracing the pencil marks with ease on the plan you were working on.

which brings MINGYU to his current predicament: he was standing in the middle of your apartment, unsure of what to do next. he turned on the downlights from the kitchen. it was still dark enough to not disturb your sleep, while being bright enough for him to see the current state of your place.

it was a mess—even the word felt like an understatement. it was a category 5 tropical cyclone. there were different drawing and drafting materials scattered everywhere, papers of different sizes covering every flat surface he could see, an unfinished scale model perched on top of your desk, a pile of clothes on your unmade bed (indistinguishable whether clean or dirty), and a bunch of empty energy drink cans and instant ramen cups. lastly, there you were on your loveseat sofa, sleeping soundly in a fetal position because of the drawing tube and t-square at the far end of it.

beep, beep, beep.

he flinched at the sound, his gaze shifting to the phone on the coffee table as it lit up due to the alarm. power nap alarm, he knew immediately. you moved in your sleep, reaching to turn it off.

after a few moments, you sat up, stretching your arms out. MINGYU watched, he couldn’t help but smile at how adorable you looked with your messy hair. soon enough, your eyes darted in his direction.

“hi,” he whispered with a little wave.

you furrowed your brows and blinked at him. it felt like an eternity before you spoke up, “shit, i’m hallucinating.”

“uh, i’m really here, babe.”

“gyu?”

“mhm.”

“gyu!” your face lit up in recognition. standing up to make your way to him, you were quick but careful not to step on any of the clutter on the floor. “you’re really here.”

he opened his arms for you and gave you a warm hug. he rested his cheek on the top of your head as you melted into the embrace.

“why are you here?” you asked against his chest.

“for an intervention,” he joked before kissing your forehead. “i’m here to make you real food.”

judging by the state of your place, you had been living off instant ramen, any caffeinated drink you could find, and whatever was on sale in the nearby convenience store. your stomach growled for some real food.

“go do your thing while i cook,” he said with a laugh.

nodding, you settled on the floor by the coffee table and grabbed a technical pen nearby. you drew some finishing touches on the plan, continuing where you left off earlier before your nap.

it took about 30 minutes, using the shuffling sounds from the kitchen as your white noise while you were laser-focused on your task at hand.

“babe, time for dinner,” he called out softly.

when you looked over, he was holding two plates of what looked like katsu curry and rice with a proud smile on his face. suddenly, you wondered: where are we gonna eat?

noticing the change in your expression, he said, “hey, it’s fine, we could just eat here.”

“eat where?” you asked, walking over to him. even the small island in the kitchen was full of papers, you didn't even know which ones were important anymore; while the counter space between the single burner stove and the sink was not enough for both of you to eat comfortably.

“here.”

you raised your eyebrows at him while he placed both plates on the counter. then, he went toward the round dining table and retrieved two placemats from underneath a different set of papers.

“let’s eat here,” he said, placing the placemats on the floor, “like a picnic.”

frozen in place, you stood in front of him, still confused.

“don’t worry, i mopped earlier while i was waiting for this to simmer.” he took the plates again and motioned for you to sit. “we have picnics on the grass at the park and on the sand at the beach all the time, what difference does your kitchen floor make?”

with nothing to counter his argument, you obliged. you sat down cross-legged and used the counter behind you as a backrest. MINGYU followed suit, placing your respective plates on the placemats in front of you.

“are you sure you have time for this?”

“for sharing a meal with you? always.” he wrapped his arm around your shoulder to place a kiss on your temple. “besides, i've already finished all my exams earlier.”

you raised your eyebrows, thinking about the days; it was just last week when you shared schedules with each other to stay informed in case the workload made it hard to give updates.

“i’m sorry, i forgot your schedule,” you sighed in defeat. your eyes misty as you turned to face him, a pang of guilt starting to consume you. “you had mine memorized, but i couldn’t even recall yours.”

“hey, it's okay, i understand.”

“but still…”

“but still—nothing.” he shook his head to assure you, “we’re not here to keep score, baby. we're here to take care of each other. now, let’s eat, hm?”

as you took the first bite, warmth radiated through your body. sure, the food was good, but it was MINGYU’s steadfast presence that calmed your storms. the onslaught of deadlines and exams was eased by his unwavering love and care.

in the dim light of the kitchen, amidst the scattered papers and unfinished projects, you felt a profound sense of peace. not because he made the cyclone disappear, but because he was there to weather it with you.

author's note: just a little something bc i'm so soft for mingyu's acts of service and bc i missed writing here :(

svt masterlist | navigation ── reblogs and feedbacks are highly appreciated !

#svt #mingyu #seventeen #seventeen scenarios #mingyu imagines #seventeen imagines #svt imagines #svt x reader #seventeen drabbles #mingyu x reader #svt fluff #mingyu fluff #svt scenarios #svt headcanons #mingyu scenarios #mingyu headcanons #seventeen x reader

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uses-for-fics · 5 months ago

Text

Night Changes | Leonard Hofstadter

Leonard Hofstadter was in the middle of a painfully awkward conversation in the break room at Caltech when her name floated through the air like a comet, igniting a memory he hadn’t revisited in years.

“Dr. Y/N L/N is joining the department,” said Barry Kripke, leaning against the counter with a smug grin. “She’s some hotshot physicist with a résumé longer than Sheldon’s list of things he hates about humanity.”

Leonard nodded politely, half-listening. He was used to new hires arriving with impressive accolades, but something about the name tugged at his memory. He shook it off and returned to his office, not giving it much thought until later that afternoon, when she walked into the faculty meeting. Leonard nearly dropped his coffee.

She was… different. Stunning, polished, confident. She carried herself with an ease that radiated competence, her tailored blazer and sleek hairstyle worlds apart from the gangly girl he remembered from space camp all those years ago. He tried to focus on what the department head was saying, but his mind kept racing. Could it really be her?

As the meeting ended, Leonard worked up the nerve to approach her.

“Hi,” he said, awkwardly adjusting his glasses. “Dr. L/N, right? Welcome to Caltech.”

You turned to him, offering a polite smile. “Thank you. And you are…?”

“Dr. Leonard Hofstadter,” he said, holding out a hand. “I work in experimental physics.”

The polite smile shifted into something more amused, and a flicker of recognition sparked in your eyes. “Leonard Hofstadter? From… space camp?”

His jaw dropped. “It is you! I thought your name sounded familiar!”

You laughed, the sound rich and warm. “I can’t believe this. It’s been, what, fifteen years?”

“Closer to twenty,” Leonard admitted, scratching the back of his neck. “Wow. You look… different.”

You raised an eyebrow, smirking. “Is that your way of saying I had braces, bad posture, and glasses the size of dinner plates?”

Leonard blushed. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“It’s okay,” you teased. “You weren’t exactly the height of cool yourself. Remember when you tried to impress everyone by reciting Pi to thirty decimal places?”

“Hey, it worked,” Leonard said, grinning. “For about five seconds, anyway.”

The two of you fell into easy conversation, reminiscing about camp: sneaking out after lights-out to watch meteor showers, building a terrible model rocket that exploded on launch, and the awkward kiss you’d shared during the last-night campfire.

“You know,” Leonard said as you both lingered in the hallway after the meeting, “I always wondered what happened to you. One day we were best friends at camp, and the next… nothing.”

You hesitated, a hint of regret flashing in your eyes. “Yeah, I moved around a lot after that. My dad was in the military, so staying in touch wasn’t easy. But I always remembered you.”

“Same here,” Leonard said softly, and for a moment, the years between you seemed to vanish.

———

Over the next few weeks, you and Leonard found yourselves reconnecting. It started with coffee breaks and quick lunches in the Caltech cafeteria, but soon, the conversations stretched longer, delving into both science and the quirks of your pasts.

Leonard couldn’t help but notice how much you’d changed—and how much you hadn’t. You were still fiercely intelligent, still laughed at his terrible jokes, and still had a fascination with the stars that rivaled his own. But there was a confidence to you now that intrigued him, a sense of self-assuredness he found magnetic.

One day, as the two of you walked across campus, Leonard said, “You know, I have to admit, when I first saw you, I didn’t recognize you at all but then you mentioned space camp, and suddenly it all came rushing back.”

You smiled. “I almost didn’t recognize you, either. But then you adjusted your glasses and gave me that same shy smile you used to have, and it was like I was thirteen again.”

Leonard laughed, shaking his head. “Let’s not revisit the thirteen-year-old me too much. I’m still recovering from the trauma of my haircut back then.”

“Fair enough,” you said, grinning.

———

It wasn’t until one evening, when Leonard invited you over for dinner with the gang, that the dynamic between you began to shift.

“So,” Sheldon said, scrutinizing you from across the living room, “you’re Leonard’s old camp fling. Fascinating. Statistically speaking, childhood romances rarely rekindle, so I must ask: Are you here for scientific collaboration or romantic entanglement?”

“Sheldon!” Leonard hissed, his face turning crimson.

You chuckled, unfazed. “A little of both, I suppose.”

Leonard nearly choked on his drink.

As the evening went on, you charmed everyone, even Sheldon, with your wit and humor. But Leonard couldn’t stop stealing glances at you, his heart racing every time you smiled at him.

When the night ended and you lingered by the door, Leonard said, “Thanks for coming. It was really nice having you here.”

You looked at him, your gaze soft. “It was nice being here. You have good friends, Leonard and you’re still the same sweet, dorky guy I remember from camp.”

Before he could think, he blurted out, “Would you want to go to dinner sometime? Just the two of us?”

You tilted your head, studying him for a moment, and then smiled. “I’d like that.”

———

The date was perfect. Leonard took you to a local planetarium, where you both marveled at the stars and swapped stories about your favorite constellations. Over dinner, the conversation flowed easily, and by the time dessert arrived, Leonard couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so at ease with someone.

As he walked you to your car, he hesitated, unsure if he should say what was on his mind.

“What is it?” you asked, sensing his hesitation.

“I just…” He took a deep breath. “I know we’ve only just reconnected, but I feel like I’ve known you forever. And I don’t want to mess this up.”

Your expression softened, and you reached out to take his hand. “You’re not going to mess this up, Leonard. I’ve always felt connected to you, even after all these years. And I’d like to see where this goes.”

Leonard smiled, relief washing over him. “Me too.”

When you leaned in to kiss him, it was like the world faded away, leaving only the two of you and the quiet hum of the universe around you.

———

Over the following months, your relationship blossomed. Leonard marveled at how easily you fit into his world, bonding with his friends and even holding your own against Sheldon’s relentless logic. But what he loved most was how you made him feel—like he was enough, just as he was.

Every now and then, when the two of you lay under the stars, you’d reminisce about that summer at space camp, laughing at how two dorky kids had somehow found their way back to each other.

It wasn’t just coincidence, Leonard thought. It was fate.

#my fic #x reader #fanfics #my fanfiction #leonard hofstadter #Leonard Hofstadter x reader #Leonard Hofstadter imagine #big bang theory #big bang theory fanfic #big bang theory x reader

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ramp-it-up · 2 months ago

Text

Muse: Seven

Muse: Six | Muse Masterlist | Epilogue

Peach Masterlist | Knock You Down Masterlist | Minx Masterlist

Summary: Paris is for lovers. And hard launches. And exes. And you run again. How does Ari put up with you?

Pairing: Art Curator! Ari Levinson x Plus sized model! Reader; Ransom Drysdale x Reader (past); Ransom Drysdale x Minx

Word count: 5.3 K

A/N: Muse has been a series of one shots featuring Muse and Ari, and this the sixth one. This is the last chapter and I don’t want to quit them, so there will be one more, an epilogue next Monday. 🥹 Big thanks to @princessphilly who basically inspired the premise and has endured me being unhinged in her inbox. For this one, I was thinking of a movie with a scantily clad Daveed Diggs (for science, i was thinking of it for science), named Velvet Buzzsaw. That was my first time hearing about Art Basel, which is over 50 years old. Art Basel is an art fair that is kind of like fashion week for art but not really? It’s held annually in Basel, Switzerland, Miami, Hong Kong, and Paris. Ransom Drysdale and Minx (kinda) also make an appearance in this story. This AU is the nexus, not only connected to the Peach and Knock You Down verses, but also the Minx verse. I love reblogs, replies, asks and likes. Let me have it! :)

Warnings: 18+ Only, Minors DNI. SMUT! Read at your own risk; curate your own experience. Art Curator Ari. Plus sized model Reader, Paris brings out the ferality in Muse and Ari. Hard launches and Paparazzi.reference to anal if you squint, Oral (m/f receiving), mucho raw p in v creampie, partitions, SIZE KINK, breeding kink, multiple orgasms. Plot and porn.

I don’t have a taglist. Please follow @rampitupandread and turn on notifications to learn when I post!

I Do NOT Consent to my work being reposted, translated or presented on any other blog or site other than by myself.

-----

Paris always made you feel like the best version of yourself.

There was something about the buildings, the Seine, the sky behind the Eiffel tower, and the click of your heels echoing in a quiet alley that made you feel cinematic. Legendary. And Art Basel and Fashion Week had collided like a perfectly orchestrated climax.

You were running on no sleep, fresh off a red-eye and straight into a Montmartre shoot. It had been four hours under brutal white lights. But your skin still glowed and our smile was still soft. Because you knew what came next.

Ari.

Your phone buzzed just as you stepped out of the dressing room. One message. No preamble:

Thinking of that ass. And the way you let me have it seven nights ago, then destroyed my soul by jetting around the globe. I am a shell of a man.

You laughed quietly to yourself, then texted back:

Miss you too. Be ready.

An hour later, you stepped into the Palais de Tokyo, not just late, but intentionally so. Your black satin slip skimmed every curve, slits flashing thigh with every step. Your legs looked endless. And your scent, Guerlain Vanille, the one he gave you for your birthday, along with a rare art book and the vintage sapphire earrings you were wearing, left chaos in your wake.

You weren’t here just for fashion.

You were here for him.

The moment you stepped into the gallery space, the noise changed. You belonged to this world, but you weren’t here for them. You scanned the gallery, and found him instantly.

He stood by a sculpture made of raw steel and twisted silk, a dark suit stretched perfectly across his broad, tall frame, hand in his pocket, the other cradling a glass of something expensive. Ari looked like everything you ever let yourself want.

And the second he saw you, he stopped breathing.

You always did this. Wreck his composure with nothing but proximity.

Ari had been holding it together for six days. Endless events, curated smiles, too many people saying too much in too many languages.

But the second you walked into the gallery, everything narrowed into one beautiful point.

He didn’t come to you. Just stared. Ravaged you with his eyes like he’d been starved for weeks, not six days. But six days apart felt like weeks. LA, New York, now Paris. Your lives were runway fast and whirlwind cruel.

You drifted toward him slowly, although you wanted to run into his arms. You played it cool by skimming your fingers along the edges of the sculpture, pretending indifference while your body burned.

People in these two worlds didn’t really know what you and Ari were. Not yet. No hard launch. Just one half-blurry photo of him kissing your cheek weeks ago that disappeared in 24 hours that only your Close Friends saw.

You tilted your head at the sculpture’s chaos.

“Entanglement or control?” you murmured.

Ari leaned in behind you, lips grazing the shell of your ear, spreading the low flame in your body into a wildfire.

“I think it’s about being tied to someone. Willingly.”

You glanced up at him.

“Is that a metaphor, Mr. Levinson?”

He just smiled, sipping his drink like he wasn’t two seconds from dropping it and hauling you into the nearest corner. Like he wasn’t picturing your thighs spread and your cunt on his tongue.

You read the title of the piece aloud.

Disconnection. You raised a brow.

He didn’t skip a beat.

“Fitting, since I haven’t touched you in six fucking days.”

You smirked. “Sounds like a personal problem.”

“One I fully intend to solve tonight.”

His hand slid down your back, anchoring at your spine. He inhaled the vanilla on your skin and he was already hard, grateful fashion had done away with slim-fit pants.

You both remembered it, how you almost missed your flight last week, the way he ran down the street after you, barefoot and shirtless, just to kiss you again. The way you laughed, letting him back in to finish dressing.

You both needed each other’s keys.

You didn’t make it out if the gallery without his hand curling possessively at your waist. Didn’t make it to the car without his mouth crashing onto yours in the shadow of a Rodin.

Neither of you cared who saw.

And by the time you got back to his rented flat in Le Marais, it wasn’t a question of if.

It was how fast.

The door slammed behind you.

He kissed you against the inside of it, his mouth wild against your skin, his hands pushing your dress up and off your body like it wasn’t worth a small fortune. It puddled to the floor. You stood before him in heels and nothing else.

“I fucking missed you,” he growled, hoisting you into his arms. “Every second.”

He carried you down the hall, undressed you slowly as he peeled off his own clothes, kissing you, whispering words of devotion as his mouth devoured you.

“I love you,” he breathed against your skin.

“I love you so much, Muse.”

His mouth closed around your nipple, teasing and tugging with his lips, tongue and teeth and driving you to the edge of delirium. Every sound suck tightened the coil in your belly.

Molten heat was curling through your veins.

A thought pinged in the back of his mind to try and make you cum that way, but that was for later. Now, he was too desperate.

“Ohhhh. Ari.. Love you too.. Missed you so much…”

He kissed a trail down your stomach, each press deeper, rougher. He held you down as you writhed, hands planted to keep you from floating away.

“I’m going to love you so hard you won’t know what hit you. Gonna remind you who you belong to.”

He parted the soft lips of your cunt, skating his fingers over your clit.

“So fucking beautiful.”

His tongue slid over your slick folds, and you whimpered, fisting the sheets, thighs falling open in surrender. His tongue danced over your clit. He licked and sucked, coaxing you apart like he knew your every nerve ending.

Ari devoured you with patience and precision, whispering filth and praise between every stroke as he drove you higher and higher. He felt like a king as he earned the flavor of your orgasm on his tongue.

“So sweet. So mine.”

You reached for his thick cock with its beautiful roping veins, sliding your fingertips over the pearl of pre-cum at the tip. He hissed, jerking slightly as he spilled a little more and you slid your fist along his length

“Need you,” you gasped. “Inside. Now.”

“Shit. I need it too. For the rest of my life…”

You pulled him closer, so crazy in lust and love that you needed him like air. He slid into you in one deep, thick push that stole your breath. He stretched you out, and your cunt wrapped around his big cock and took him deep inside your body.

You wrapped your limbs around him, needing him closer, needing all of him.

“Fuck, Ari, yes, right there, just like that, ahhhh!”

Your orgasm happened almost instantaneously, catching Ari by surprise. He choked on air, blinded, as your pussy tugged the cum out of his cock without warning.

“Muse… oh FUCK.”

He spilled inside you with a broken moan, forehead pressed to yours, his hips still rocking gently, like he didn’t want it to end. Like this was the only place he ever wanted to be.

You weaved your fingers through his hair and kissed his perfect mouth.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.”

You said the words over and over as the pleasure bonded you, body and soul.

Ari didn’t remember falling asleep. Only that he did it with you in his arms.

Paris never stopped. But tonight, the city could wait.

Because you were home. And home was with Ari.

—--

The next morning, Paris looked like a painting outside the window, and you were tangled in Ari’s sheets, sore and satisfied, your limbs boneless and your heart embarrassingly full.

He was still asleep beside you, hair a mess, mouth slightly parted, one hand flung lazily across the pillow you’d shared. You slipped out of bed slowly, wrapped in his white button down, and padded barefoot into the little kitchen.

Coffee brewed. Toast popped. You walked out to the balcony, took a bite, sipped your espresso, and scrolled through the chaos of your tagged photos from last night’s event.

You were tagged in numerous pics, photos of the exhibit, fashion crowd candids. The usual chaos.

But you were still thinking about the way Ari whispered “mine” against your skin last night.

So you turned the camera on him.

He was still asleep, arm flung across your pillow, sunlight catching the ridges of his bare back like marble. So fine. So utterly yours. And you were his. No more questions about it.

You snapped the photo. You paused and bit your lip. You thought about the discussion you and he had, a couple of weeks earlier, about posting another photo to hard launch the relationship. You opened Instagram, typed one word, and posted the photo to your timeline.

Claimed.

Posted. Ari tagged.

Hard launch, achieved.

—-

Ari’s phone buzzed somewhere beneath a pile of sheets. Then again. And again. With a groan, he fished it out, not even opening his eyes as he unlocked it.

IG notifications lit up the screen like paparazzi flash. DMs, tags, texts from people he didn’t even remember giving his number to.

Confused, he opened the app.

And there it was. Your post.

His body. Your intimacy now public. The caption, a single word that hit him like a shot to the chest.

Claimed.

He stared, breath knocked loose, then grinned like a man who’d been struck by lightning and liked it. You already owned him. Now the world knew it too.

Ari came up behind you on the balcony, pressed a kiss to your shoulder, and held up his phone with a raised brow.

“So. We’re official now?”

You took a sip of your espresso, wondering how he’d react, but hid it with a smirk.

“We’ve been official. The internet just caught up.”

Ari grinned like a man who had no plans of ever letting you go.

Then he kissed you. For a long, long time.

—------

You didn’t mean for it to go that viral.

By the time your driver dropped you at the Grand Palais for your second show, your name was trending, not for the Mugler gown or your gallery moment, but for that photo.

Your agent had texted twelve times.

Your stylist simply said: Iconic.

Your mother had replied with: Is this serious? Should I meet him?

And when you stepped out of the car, clad in couture, the paparazzi didn’t scream the name of the designer.

They screamed, “Is Ari Levinson your boyfriend?!”

You didn’t flinch. You just adjusted your sunglasses and walked.

Inside, makeup artists talked in whispers. Models stole glances. Some who probably dated him in the past. You tried to focus on fittings and lighting and the rhythm of the runway.

But your phone buzzed constantly. Vogue wanted a quote. Peach texted You broke the timeline.

But you just hought of how much you missed him, even though it had only been hours.

Until he texted.

Hope your feet are okay. You looked deadly in that cape. You killed them, sweetheart. All of them.

Your heart did this weird thing and you typed back fast.

They screamed because of the buzz. Because I belong to you. I can’t wait to come home. Even if it’s rented. Even if the toast’s burnt.

He replied instantly:

We’ll get fresh croissants in the morning. Just bring those thighs. Deal?

You didn’t mean to laugh aloud. But you did.

And everyone noticed.

—--

Meanwhile, Ari was supposed to be discussing sculpture installation timelines. Instead, he was fielding interview requests and dodging offers for reality appearances.

Even his assistant, usually unflappable, raised an eyebrow over the phone.

“Just warning you,” he said, “your inbox is… a lot. Vogue Paris wants a quote. GQ wants a bed shoot. With her. Quote, ‘the hard launch turned certified sex god.’”

“Jesus,” Ari breathed.

“Page Six has already run a story. And word is you’re going to be a soundbite on the Deuxmoi podcast.”

Ari pinched the bridge of his nose and grunted.

“Nothing changes, strictly business. No comment on my personal life.”

Ari closed the call and looked out of the window.

But he didn’t think about donors or deadlines. Or newfound infamy. He thought about you. In his shirt. On his balcony. That look in your eyes when you posted it.

It should have terrified him. Maybe once, it would have. Instead, he saved the photo to his favorites.

He’d never loved anyone like this. Never felt owned in a way that thrilled him. Still, he had work to do. Paris didn’t wait.

Later, at the opening of Form and Fracture, Ari moved through the crowd like nothing had changed. He toasted and smiled with wine in hand.

Until someone leaned in and asked, too curious:

“So… the post. She’s really your Muse?”

He didn’t even blink.

“She’s everything.”

—----

By afternoon Ari had fielded three interview requests, dodged two offers for reality show appearances and spent 45 minutes arguing with a Swiss collector who thought Disconnection was about him.

But at 1:03 PM, when his phone buzzed again, it wasn’t business.

Come get me. I’m two seconds from climbing out the window. I need ten minutes with you. Or five. Just enough to feel you.

He didn’t reply with words. Just came in a black car.

You slipped out of the side entrance. Hood up, walking fast. Ari pulled you into the car quickly and the partition went up.

Suddenly, you were alone with Ari.

You straddled him in the back seat before he could even say your name. Your lips crashed together. His hands found your thighs under your leather skirt and he kissed you breathless. But then you pulled back, suddenly fragile.

“Are you sure? Still down for this? All of this?”

“I want it all, Muse. Let them have the photo. They don’t get our souls.”

He kissed your temple.

“Let them guess,” he said against your lips.

“Let them think they know everything,” he whispered at your throat.

You laughed, relieved and dizzy. And kissed him harder.

“I want to keep you,” you whispered.

“You couldn’t lose me if you tried.”

His hips rolled into yours and your breath hitched.

“Not here,” you gasped. “Somewhere quiet.”

He told the driver to take you to the flat. Fast.

But you were already unzipping your jacket, already tugging his belt loose.

The car came to a stop and Ari threw you over his shoulder, holding up his pants with the other hand as he carried you into the apartment. The blow job you’d just given him in the car had made him singularly focused on giving you multiple orgasms, and your upside down laughter just spurred him on.

He didn’t care about the time. Didn’t care if you had fittings later or if the world thought he was some random art collector sleeping his way through fashion week.

He just wanted you to remember this, to remember you two together. He loved you like you were art. And when he finally slid into you, pressing you into the mattress and filling you inch by thick inch, he didn’t move.

Just held you there and watched your face

“Still want ten minutes?” he asked, voice rough, hips barely rocking.

“No,” you gasped. “I want all of you.”

So he gave it.

Again and again, until your cries turned to gasps, and gasps to sighs, and the only thing louder than the thunder of your bodies was the silence after.

Peace.

—----

Your last morning in Paris was unusually warm for October. You and Ari were tucked into a quiet corner of the terrace of the Café de Flore.

It was one of those rare still moments after a week of chaos with lots of afterparties, fittings, exhibits, and barely any sleep. But here, with Ari’s espresso half-drunk and your croissant mostly devoured, everything else had fallen away.

Until the bell above the café door jingled. You looked up and froze, the smile falling from your face.

You and Ari had already had the “who hurt you?” talk. His story had been honest and quiet: a high school sweetheart who followed him to college, then bailed when the baseball dream died with his shoulder injury.

Yours had been Ransom Drysdale, the Amherst ex. The one who made you think “serious” meant something for two years until he told you, carefully and cruelly, that his family wouldn’t accept “someone like you.”

You almost laughed. Of course he’d be in Paris. Of course he’d show up like a plot twist in a movie you thought you’d already finished watching.

He hadn’t changed much. That soft, prep-school arrogance still draped across his posture like a monogrammed scarf. He still looked like the kind of man who got away with things just because he could.

He looked around and his eyes went wide when he spotted you.

Ari looked up at your shift in energy and the change in your breath and followed your gaze.

“Shit” he said quietly,

When you’d told him who your ex was, Ari had recognized the name immediately. He’d sold the Thrombeys more than one piece of art.

“It’s okay,” you murmured. “I’m good.”

Ari watched you carefully and decided to believe you.

Ransom sauntered over, one hand holding a bag full of food, and one in his coat pocket.

“Well, damn,” he said with that same cocky grin.

“Didn’t expect to see you outside of a campaign spread.”

You raised a brow. “Paris gets small during Fashion Week.”

“Yeah,” he said, glancing at Ari. “Seems like you upgraded. Curator, right? I saw the Basel feature. Very… brooding chic.”

Ari didn’t so much as blink, but you felt the weight of his palm steady on your thigh.

You leaned forward, syrupy sweet.

“Still collecting degrees you don’t use?”

Ransom chuckled.

“Touché. You always had that mouth. And what a mouth it is.”

Your jaw flexed. You were about to say something you’d regret when Ari squeezed your leg.

Ransom seemed to remember himself. He glanced at Ari with what might’ve been an apology and back to you with something that wasn’t quite regret.

“Anyway. Glad to see you finally settled down. You were… restless after we ended.”

You almost laughed. You weren’t "restless" until he broke your heart. But you didn’t rise to it.

Instead, you looked at Ari. Not checking for his reaction, just anchoring in the calm he always gave you. He looked back at you like you were the only person in Paris that mattered.

You turned to Ransom.

“I wasn’t restless. I just hadn’t found someone who could match me.”

He paused. Then gave a sheepish shrug.

“You and me were bad timing. We were dumb. You wanted a romance novel. I wanted… not to get disowned.”

It was the closest to an apology you’d ever get. Maybe the closest he was capable of.

Ari set down his cup a little more forcefully than necessary. Ransom clocked it.

“Relax, man. I’m not here to stir up ancient drama. I’ve got a family now.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his phone. A couple of taps, and he turned the screen toward you.

A photo of a gorgeous woman with warm-eyes. And beside her, two small girls, one maybe three years old, the other still a baby, smiling wide in matching dresses.

“My wife, Minx. Those are our girls, Golden and Elodie. They’re my world.”

You blinked and tried to process the information. Ari nodded slowly as you closed your slightly parted mouth.

“They’re beautiful,” you said.

“I know,” Ransom replied with a proud grin.

“Anyway, they’re waiting upstairs. Just grabbing breakfast. Don’t want to face three hangry women empty-handed.”

“I’m happy for you,” you managed.

And maybe it was true. In the distant, abstract way you could be happy for someone who no longer had the power to hurt you.

Ransom looked at you for a second longer than he should’ve.

“You look good,” he said softly. “I’m glad you got what you deserved.”

You held his gaze. “I did.”

He nodded, gave Ari a respectful incline of his head, and turned disappeared into the crowd.

The moment he left, you let out a long, quiet breath. Ari didn’t speak right away. He just slid his fingers into yours.

“Handled that like a runway queen,” he murmured.

You laughed, tension breaking.

“I wanted to throw my cappuccino at him.”

Ari shrugged. “I just wanted to punch him once. That’s all.”

You laughed. “I love you so much.”

“So You’re not restless anymore?” he teased.

You smiled. “Only for you.”

“I love you too, Muse.” Ari’s voice dropped. “He might’ve had a version of you. But he never had you.”

Your eyes stung, just a little. “And you do?”

Ari kissed your knuckles, one by one.

“I do. And I’m not letting go.”

And maybe later, you’d talk about what it meant, that his wife looked just a little like you, that he’d married a version of the future he’d once denied. Or maybe, you’d enjoy your last afternoon in Paris and think about what came next.

And that didn’t involve Ransom Drysdale at all.

—------

Back in New York, everything felt louder. Sharper. It was going to be a busy season ahead. The buzz from Paris followed you home and tour bookings doubled. Your inbox was chaos. Everyone wanted a piece of you.

But you were greedy, too.

You wanted the silence between sunrise and coffee. You wanted Ari’s bare chest under your cheek while he read the paper. You wanted the slow, quiet minutes that didn’t make headlines or social feeds.

So you gave him your spare key.

“Here,” you said, tossing it to him like it was nothing. “So you don’t have to buzz every time.”

He caught it easily, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. Then he turned, slid open the drawer by the sink, dropped the key inside, and looked up at you with that steady, devastating gaze that always seemed to knock the wind out of you.

“Or,” he said, looking up, “we just have one set.”

Your brow furrowed. “What?”

“One set of keys. One home. Yours. Mine. Ours. Move in.”

“Wait. You’re serious?”

Ari tilted his head like he couldn’t understand your confusion.

“You’re here more than you’re not. There’s a half-eaten container of kimchi in my fridge I’ve never touched. I’ve memorized your shampoo scent. And my super thinks I’m dating a model who moonlights as a cat burglar. So, yeah. I’m serious.”

Your mouth opened, then closed again. You couldn’t seem to find words.

“That’s... fast.”

“Not really.”

“It feels fast.”

You took a shaky breath. “We were just in Paris.”

“And now we’re in New York.”

“That’s the point. Paris wasn’t real.”

Ari’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t raise his voice.

“We’re in it. We’ve been in it. I thought we were past the pretending part.”

Your chest twisted. Not because you didn’t love him; you did. That was the problem. You loved him so much it scared the hell out of you.

“It’s not pretending,” you said quietly. “It’s pacing.”

He let out a short breath.

“You stood in front of a sea of paparazzi in Paris. Faced down your asshole of an ex in couture and heels. And now you’re scared of a lease?”

“It’s not about a lease,” you snapped, sharper than you intended.

“It’s about space. About not rushing into something just because Paris felt like a fairytale.”

“This isn’t about Paris,” he said, voice tightening. “This is real life. I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m asking you to stay.”

That’s what broke you. Because it wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t flashy. It was simple and sincere. And still, you pulled away.

“I need time,” you said. “I just got home. I need to be home.”

Ari stepped back like you’d slapped him.

“I’m not going to beg you to stay,” he said, jaw tight. “But I thought we were building something.”

“We are.” Your voice cracked. “I just... I need to breathe.”

So you left.

You grabbed your bag, shoved on your sunglasses, and walked out before the tears could fall. It felt too familiar.

To both of you.

—

You were home twenty minutes before the knock came.

You didn’t open it. And he didn’t use the key you’d just given him. He wanted you to let him in.

He knocked again. “I’m not leaving.”

You pressed your forehead against the door. “I just need space.”

“I’ll sit on this floor all night if I have to.”

You cracked the door open, just a sliver.

“Why can’t you just let it go?”

Ari’s eyes were soft. And tired. But he was not giving up.

“Because this is what people do when it’s real. They fight. They figure it out. They don’t run the first time it stops being easy.”

You opened the door wider.

“I wasn’t running,” you said. “I was scared. There’s a difference.”

“Then let me stand with you in the fear.”

That stopped you cold. And he stepped in. Slowly. Like approaching a wounded animal.

You didn’t back away.

He closed the door behind him.

“I don’t care if you need a drawer. Or two apartments. Or a thousand feet of emotional buffer zone. But I’m not walking away because you got scared. I choose you. Every day. Even on the hard ones.”

You looked up at him, tears hot behind your eyes.

“I don’t want to ruin this,” you whispered.

“You won’t,” he said. “Unless you keep shutting me out.”

“I want to want it. I’m just not there yet.”

He nodded. “Okay. Then we wait.”

“You’d wait?”

He smiled, a little broken.

“For you? I’d wait forever. But I’m hoping it doesn’t take that long.”

You laughed through the tears. And then he stepped forward, pulled you into him, and held you close to him.

Because that’s what love was, after all. Not perfect timing, or instant ease. But showing up, even when it hurts. Even when it’s hard. And staying anyway.

—-

Weeks passed. You still kept your apartment, but most mornings you woke up tangled in Ari’s sheets. He never brought up moving in again; he didn’t need to.

Your toothbrush appeared next to his. Your oat milk showed up in his fridge. Your heels collected by the door, not because you left them, but because that’s where you kicked them off.

He didn’t push; he just made space. And something in you softened.

One night, you were curled up on the couch, legs tangled, the city glowing beyond the windows.

He was reading a gallery proposal, and you were half-asleep, thumb lazily tracing the line of his ribs under his shirt.

You said it before you meant to.

“I brought more hangers.”

He looked up, one brow raised. “Yeah?”

You nodded. “And my skincare fridge.”

A beat. Then a smile.

“So,” he said, “This mean I can toss the expired sesame oil in the back of the fridge to make room?”

You laughed, curling closer.

“Only if I get the big dresser drawer.”

He closed the file in his lap and pulled you into his chest.

“You can have the whole dresser,” he murmured. “The whole damn closet if you want it.”

You were quiet for a moment. Then you whispered: “I think I’m ready.”

He didn’t gloat. Just kissed your temple. “Good.”

You packed slowly. Left the lease open “just in case,” but you both knew.

Your name was on the buzzer now.

—--

The shift happened quietly. And then not so quietly.

It was a couple months later.

Ari was barefoot in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, stirring a sauce Bucky had taught him how to make. You were folding laundry on the living room rug, and humming under your breath. Everything was peaceful.

Until he said it like he was talking about the weather.

“Did you know Ransom has a third on the way?”

You blinked and looked up.

“What?”

He turned to lean against the counter, spoon still in hand.

“Saw it on Instagram. His wife posted the ultrasound. Said it was an accident but a ‘happy one.’”

You let out a breathy laugh.

“Three? God. I can’t even keep a houseplant alive.”

Ari gave you a long look.

“You’d be a good mom.”

You froze mid-fold.

“Where’s that coming from?”

“I think about it sometimes,” he said, shrugging. “Not now. But someday.”

You tossed a pair of socks at him. “Insane.”

He turned off the pot and walked over, crouching behind you, and kissing the back of your neck. His arms wrapped around your waist, hands sliding up to cup your breasts, thumbs brushing slowly over your nipples through the thin fabric.

“I think about you,” he whispered, “round with my kid. Your tits swollen. Waddling through this apartment cursing me out because I knocked you up.”

“I’m on birth control,” you mentioned, even though you weren’t objecting. Not really.

“I know.” His hands tightened.

“Only reason I haven’t bred you already.”

Your eyes flew wide. “Ari…”

“It would be so fucking hot,” he breathed, forehead resting against yours. “You, spread out in our bed, pregnant with me. Heavy and needy. Letting me take care of you. Letting me keep you full.”

You whimpered, climbing into his lap without thinking, your body already aching for him. His hands slid under your sweatshirt, thumbs brushing the soft curve of your hips.

“Fuck,” you whispered. “You really do have a breeding kink.”

His grin was wicked. “Only with you.”

Your mouths crashed together like you’d been starving.

“You wanna breed me?” you spoke against his lips, already grinding into him. “Put a baby in me just because you can?”

His grip tightened, his voice ragged.

“One day, yeah. One day you're gonna be full of me,” he said, voice pure sin. “I’m gonna stuff you so deep you feel it for days.”

You nodded, almost dizzy. “God, Ari…”

“Not today,” he said it like a promise.

“But I want you to think about it.”

His hand slid down, pushed into your sweats, and found how soaked you already were.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re already ready. Just from talking about it.”

You pulled apart to take off your pants only to come back together like magnets.

“That’s because I want you to breed me,” you whispered, half-wild, your breath hot on his neck.

“One day. Fucking ruin me.”

“You know I will.”

He buried himself inside you with a deep, dragging thrust.

“Not today. But someday. You’ll be so full of me, baby.”

He fucked you slowly, thrusting deep, and talking you through it. He painted pictures in your head you couldn’t unsee.

“You feel that?” he breathed. “That’s how I’d put a baby in you. Not a drop wasted.”

You cried out, your nails digging into his back.

“Say it,” he whispered. “Say you want it.”

“I want it,” you gasped. “God, I want all of it. You. Everything.”

He groaned like it gutted him. His thrusts were deep, dragging sounds from your throat you didn’t know you could make. He didn’t stop until you were trembling around him and sobbing his name.

Afterward, limbs tangled and his warm cum leaking from you, he kissed your forehead.

“I love you,” he murmured.

You looked up, still breathless.

“If you ever actually try to knock me up...”

He raised a brow. “You’ll what?”

You smirked. “You’ll have to marry me first.”

His grin spread slow and wide. “Deal.”

And you knew he meant it.

-----

Ugh! Can’t believe its the last one.

There will be one more, an epilogue next week. 🥹

Read Muse: Epilogue

#muse mondays #ari levinson au #ari levinson #ari levison x reader #ari levinson x plus size!reader #ari levinson x model!reader #ari levinson smut #ari levinson x you #chris evans #ari levinson angst #ransom drysdale #chris evans characters #x reader

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blastzachilles · 3 months ago

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meet… STANFORD ERA LESBIAN!ATP .ᐟ ★

a/n: hi guys the much promised part two of lesbian!atp headcanons… stanford edition! so sorry it took me three weeks to get these out i am in an insane slump right now…… i’ll be free soon (hopefully) i have so much i want to get out. and also thank you @peariote some of these are taken from conversations we have had… and thank you @diyasgarden my lovely for helping me flesh out tashi. anyway. please enjoy. smiles.

CW: hints at nsfw

ART - VISUAL ARTS MAJOR .ᐟ

– VISUAL ARTS MAJOR ART who swears you’re her muse. Always begging you to let her use you as a model for whatever she’s working on, he’s positive her work simply turns out better when it’s of you. Nevermind the fact you’re almost always nude.

– VISUAL ARTS MAJOR ART who is always covered in charcoal and paint, to the point he’s like a magnet. Even if she’s not doing a project with those mediums, it still finds its way onto him. Little do you know it’s because you said you loved the way she looks with it one day, and she’s never looked back.

– VISUAL ARTS MAJOR ART who loves that he has to learn photography because it means she can always capture moments of you for forever. Always has a camera on him whenever he’s with you to make sure she doesn’t miss anything. Anything from being in the shower to falling apart under her. She even teaches you photography just so you can take photos of her between your thighs or when her hands are too busy elsewhere to hold a camera.

– VISUAL ARTS MAJOR ART whose exhibitions always feature at least one piece of you, whether it be painting, photo, or sculpture, and are always dedicated to you. Whenever he sneaks you in for ‘early access,’ he always shows you these with the biggest grin on her face. She swears one day he’s going to do an exhibition solely of you (Never including the nude pieces. Those are hers and hers only). You know she will.

PAT - FINANCE MAJOR .ᐟ

– FINANCE MAJOR PAT who went into finance for his parents, who want her to take over after graduating. He absolutely hates it, but listens and goes for the four years anyway. Their grades are average, simply because she cannot care enough to do more than scrape by. Despite the hatred, she still becomes the biggest finance bro possible.

– FINANCE MAJOR PAT who has in fact been attempted to be recruited to a frat before. Walking past a tent during rush week had them handing him a form until they opened their mouth and spoke. This is his favourite story to tell when trying to get someone into her bed (“Come on, I was basically a frat brother. I can show you a good time too.”).

– FINANCE MAJOR PAT who is somehow at a new party every night. Brings a new girl home every night too, partially in thanks to the frat story above. Is known around campus for being the biggest sleazebag ever, but no one really cares if it means they get a night with her.

– FINANCE MAJOR PAT who meets you and decides maybe you can change them. A one night stand where you treat her the best he’s ever been treated absolutely changes her world, and one night turns into two, and then three, and then she decides maybe there is more to life than just sleeping around and finally locks you down for herself (but it does take time for her to get used to just the one person, and there are some flirting incidents in the beginning).

TASHI - COGNITIVE SCIENCE MAJOR .ᐟ

– COG SCI MAJOR TASHI who is the most disciplined person in college. Like poster girl of discipline level discipline. She creates a schedule and actually sticks to it. As you spend more time with her, you eventually catch onto it as well, and start doing most things together.

– COG SCI MAJOR TASHI who is incredibly dedicated to her studies. One of the top students in her classes. She is always studying whenever she has time, but hates not being around you. Her favourite kind of date is studying with you at a library or cafe, where she doesn’t need to choose between you and her work.

– COG SCI MAJOR TASHI whose favourite courses are the natural sciences, particularly chemistry and biology. Something about learning how the body’s natural chemicals and processes draws her in, but she wants to make a difference with it, to make it mean something. So she minors in sociology alongside cog sci.

– COG SCI MAJOR TASHI who eventually takes the MD and PhD route, so she can do research and help in a medical setting. She spends her time in class one day, volunteering at a hospital and shadowing a doctor the next, and uses what she learns to do exactly what she wanted to. To do something bigger than herself.

tag list: @artstennisracket @glassmermaids @jordiemeow @cha11engers @kaalxpsia @apatheticrater @tacobacoyeet @tigerlilywl @newrochellechallenger2019 @compress1repress @artspats

want to join my tag list? fill out this form!

#blastz writes .ᐟ #lesbian challengers .ᐟ #dividers by me .ᐟ #challengers #art donaldson #patrick zweig #tashi duncan #so sorry again for taking THREE WEEKS TO POST THIS. my bad #can you tell who i've thought the most about.

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dexteri0us · 8 months ago

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you could be the one that could mess me up; you could be the one that'll break me down

pairing: dexter morgan x f!reader

warnings: fluff, college!au, summer camp!au, rivalry

summary: what’s tougher: coaching science-crazed kids or competing with Dexter for the camp championship?

w/c: like 3k

a/n: a little something for my fellow Dexter fans

The sun was beating down on the field, and you were already starting to regret not grabbing your water bottle. Your team of elementary schoolers was bouncing around you like they’d been given espresso shots instead of juice boxes, their energy sky-high for the last day of camp. And who could blame them? Today was the big showdown – the ultimate battle between Team A and Team B. Your team, obviously, was Team A which, you reminded them every chance you got, was the first letter of the alphabet for a reason.

You scanned the field, making sure everyone had their places, when you saw a stray kickball, sitting just past the starting line. You sighed. As much as you loved your kids, “picking up after themselves” was an elusive skill for most of them. You told them to hold tight for a second and jogged over to retrieve it.

Just as you were about to grab the ball, you saw Dexter walking up beside you, giving you that unreadable look, as usual. You smirked before he even had a chance to speak.

“Well, if it isn’t the illustrious Team B leader himself,” you said, bending down to pick up the ball. “Here to observe greatness in action?” you asked with a proud smile on your face.

Dexter didn’t miss a beat, casually handing you a bottle of water and raising an eyebrow. “Greatness? I think you’re setting them up for disappointment.”

“Oh, really?” you grinned, turning to face him as you spun the ball between your pointer fingers before resting it on your hip and taking the water. “Coming from the guy whose team spent ten minutes building an egg drop contraption that looked like a rejected spaceship model?”

Dexter’s face didn’t change, but you could see the spark of amusement in his eyes. He took the smallest step forward, as if to intimidate you. “That ‘rejected spaceship model’ actually worked, if you remember correctly,” he replied smoothly. “Unlike some teams’ eggs, which ended up looking like scrambled breakfast.”

He was right, of course. His egg drop design looked like it had come from an old sci-fi movie, a quirky contraption with beams, paddings, and an absurd amount of plastic wrap. You had no idea where he got all that, either way, it worked.

It wasn’t even surprising; Dexter had always taken unexpected routes to solve problems. His mind just worked differently. You knew he had a wild imagination; you could tell when he’d shown you some of his high school lab projects, each one stranger and more intricate than the last, and always with that unmistakable Dexter touch that landed him at the top of the class every time. Even now in college, he was still securing the highest grades, beating out students who had twice the resources and flashy internships.

Honestly, Dexter was probably the smartest person you knew, and being able to go toe-to-toe with him here at camp wasn’t just a thrill – it was an honor.

It was part of what made this science camp so special. It wasn’t just some neighborhood summer program; it was hosted by your college’s STEM department, high-level experience for kids that were intrigued by the world of science. Or even those who were just curious about the basic laws of nature ruling our world. The camp was selective about who it chose to lead, and the program heads always made sure to match top students with the best opportunities.

You knew Dexter had signed up for the challenge partly because he’d mentioned wanting to “quit an old habit” and keep himself busy during summer. He hadn’t told you much beyond that – just something vague about needing to break a pattern, occupy his time in a way that felt constructive. This camp, with its structure, routine and purpose was a way for him to do that.

And then, there was the way he was around kids. Despite his reserved nature, he seemed at ease with them, almost unguarded. Dexter seemed different, and only a few people got to experience this side of him. He once joked to you that kids’ brains were underdeveloped enough that he didn’t have to fake emotions or second-guess his reactions around them.

But right now, there was a different Dexter in front of you – not a soft Dexter, not a reserved Dexter. There was a smirking, overly confident camp leader Dexter who thought he could take you down. You hated that he felt comfortable enough to be this cocky towards you. So no, you weren’t about to let your admiration show. You'd have enough time to let yourself sneak a few appreciative glances at him when he wasn’t looking, but right here, with the competition about to continue? You weren’t going to let him talk you down.

You stepped closer too, having to crane your neck a little to keep eye contact. “Don’t worry. My team and I have an actual strategy. Not just a bunch of science facts thrown together like a five-paragraph essay.”

He snorted, his eyebrows rising. “It’s a science camp. Facts are kind of the point. Your strategy is taking the name Team A and thinking that it will actually secure you the first place.”

You scoffed and turned around, walking towards your team and Dexter was quick to follow you.

“First letter, first place. It’s called manifestation. It’s like destiny. We’re literally setting ourselves up for success from the start.”

He shook his head with a little laugh. “You realize it’s just a letter, right? It doesn’t have, like, mystical powers or anything.”

You couldn’t help but cackle, his words making you stop again and some of the smaller heads turn in your direction, silently watching the respected leaders of the science camp bicker. He was unbelievable.

“Please, you’re just pissed that I called it first.”

Despite Dexter being stoic and unpopular among his peers, he was good with kids, and you were aware of that. He was a lab geek to everyone, even his fellow students who majored in science too -- everyone was supposed to be a lab geek! - But most didn’t know that he was actually very creative. You knew that and this was just bitterness talking.

“It’s the first thing people see, the first letter people think of. It exudes victory. Doesn’t Team B just sound… second-rate by comparison?”

He gave you a deadpan look, which only made you want to argue for your team more.

“Team B,” he said, with an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression, “actually stands for best. Maybe even better. I wouldn’t be so quick to assume we’re coming in second.”

You shook your head and bit your cheek, contemplating your next words. You brought the ball that was on your hip to his chest, slightly pushing him with it, but he didn’t budge. He just took it as he waited for your next remark.

“My Team A kids are about to wipe the floor with your Team Better.”

He chuckled and threw the ball into the air before catching it. “We’ll see about that,” he said, eyes glinting with that calm confidence that always got under your skin.

You turned to your group again, arms stretched for emphasis. “See? He’s already trying to play mind games because he knows Team A is unstoppable!”

The kids cheered, and you looked back at Dexter, who was fighting a grin.

“Careful,” he said, “I’d hate to see you go down after all that talk.”

You leaned closer, and you saw his eyelids flutter, finally a sign of weakness.

“And I’d hate to see you hand over those first-place prizes with that smug look wiped off your face.”

You found yourselves in a silent, smirking standoff. His lips curved ever so slightly, daring you to say something more. The corners of your mouth tugged upward in response. You weren't backing down, and neither was he, testing each other, seeing who would blink first. You let your eyes drop just briefly, enough to catch the flutter of his lashes, but a voice from behind cut through the haze, breaking the moment like a splash of cold water.

“You’re going down, Mr. Dexter!”

You both turned toward your team, seeing one of the more spirited girls in your group, Sarah, giving Dexter a withering stare.

You crossed your arms, looking at Dexter. “See? You’ve gotta inspire these kids, Dexter. Get them excited! Pumped!” you slapped his triceps as if to emphasize your point, and he side-eyed you. “No wonder Team B’s lagging behind,” you switched your expression to an exaggerated pity, sighing and shaking your head.

“Alright,” he murmured, your trash talking finally getting to him. “I gotta go. I have to tell my team about Team A’s lack of structural integrity and how we’re going to crush them in the obstacle course.”

You gave him a taunting smile, before he walked away.

“And thanks for the water!” you lifted the bottle in the air and he turned, nodding at you with a genuine smile. Before he headed to his kids, he made a stop where your team was hanging. Despite him being the leader of the opposing team, instead of being intimidated or intimidating, the kids smiled at him, some of them running up to him and showing him a bug they just found in the grass.

You watched him stop right in front of Sarah, crouching down to her eye level with an inquisitive look. “Did I just hear you say I’m going down?”

She shifted her feet, but held her ground, her cheeks red. Kind of like you when you first met him. “Well…yeah!” she crossed her arms, mustering her bravest face. Honestly, you couldn’t be prouder. “We’re Team A, so we’re winning this competition – duh! Plus, we have Ms. YN, and you don’t!”

“Point taken, Sarah,” he said with a chuckle. “I think you’re ready to start a motivational business someday.” The kids giggled, including Sarah who had a proud smile on her face. Dexter raised his eyebrows expectantly, offering his hand to Sarah. “May the best team win, then.”

She shook his hand and with one last look to you, he left. You made your way to your team and gave Sarah and some other kids high-five.

“Did you see his face, Ms. YN? He knows we’re gonna win!”

You laughed, nodding. “Oh, he definitely knows. Let’s make sure he remembers it.”

You sat in your chair and watched your kids, dressed in their teams’ tie-dyed orange t-shirts as some of them were clutching their juice boxes trying the slurp up the last drop, some were still playing with their DIY space shuttles from the NASA day, and some were playing tag or patty cake with each other.

It had been a great few weeks and you couldn't believe the camp was almost over. It was always hard for you to say goodbye. Some of the kids came back every year and you were happy to see their faces. Of course, there is a few bad eggs, but the overall experience was always amazing. And even though it might have not seemed that way, you enjoyed sharing that experience with Dexter, who was one of the smartest people you knew.

You turned around, looking in the direction of his team, watching him sitting on the ground, stealing Franklin’s hat, exposing the boy’s ruffled hair as Dexter put it on his own head, the hat obviously too small for him. Franklin tried to get it back, reaching for it, but Dexter quickly snatched it away and held it out of his reach, making the boy crawl over him as he laughed hysterically.

Your heart fluttered at the sight, but you shook it off, turning back to your team and making a regular head count.

The rest of the afternoon flew by as the competition heated up. Your team was cheering like maniacs after each round, pumping each other up with a team spirit that only a summer camp could create.

Next up was a chemistry challenge, where each team had to mix different chemicals to create a specific color in their beakers. Your team surged ahead, mixing the combination quickly, while Dexter’s team carefully measured out each drop.

“Come on, Team A! Don’t let Team B show us up!” you encouraged, but your team’s rush and Dexter’s team’s focus worked in his favor, adding a few point to his part of the scoreboard.

As the afternoon wore on, the two groups moved from one challenge to the next, each victory and loss met with cheers and groans. Finally, the last event arrived: the biology obstacle course. The campers were buzzing with excitement, and you could barely contain your grin as you glanced across the field at Dexter. The score was pretty much tied, and it all came down to this.

“Alright, A’s,” you said, crouching down to your group’s level. “This is it. Remember to have fun, and let’s give it everything we’ve got.”

The obstacle course was a test of agility and knowledge. Each camper had to climb through a “jungle” of hanging ropes, identify plastic animal replicas hidden among the trees, and finish by sprinting to the finish line with a “baby bird” (a rubber ball) in a spoon.

Your team went first, charging through the course with surprising speed. Dexter was impressed but kept his expression neutral. His campers were determined to outdo them, each one putting in their best effort as they charged through the course, cheered on by Dexter’s calm, steady encouragement.

When the final camper crossed the finish line, you and Dexter called your teams together to tally up the points. The competition had been so close that neither group was sure who had won.

“Alright,” Dexter said, reading off the scorecard. “And the winner is…” he paused, dramatically prolonging the suspense, while you shot him an exaggerated look of impatience.

“Team A!” he announced, unable to keep from smiling as your team erupted in cheers. He felt bad for his team, but a flicker of pride rose in his chest as he watched you celebrate with your kids, hugging a few of the campers. You shot Dexter a smug, triumphant look, mouthing “I told you so.”

The losing team received consolation prizes – a handful of science-themed chocolate bars and some novelty key chains shaped like tiny beakers and DNA strands. The kids took it all in stride, laughing and goofing off as they filed back to their cabins, waving at you and Dexter as they disappeared down the paths.

You and Dexter began gathering up the supplies left over from the relay race. Every so often, you’d bump shoulders or catch each other’s eyes and share a smile.

As the last of the campers drifted out of view, you took a long breath, letting it out slowly as the day’s exhaustion sank into your muscles. You stretched your arms overhead, feeling that familiar soreness, and smiled as you glanced over at him.

“Guess that makes me the science camp champion, huh?”

Dexter chuckled softly, his eyes glinting with amusement. “For this year, maybe. Next year, though, don’t get too comfortable.”

You laughed, feeling a spark of joy as you realized, yes, you would look forward to next year – another summer with him, another chance to see this side of him. You were alone by now, perched on the steps of the main cabin where the camp leaders, cooks, and cleaners stayed during camp sessions. You leaned back, savoring the quiet, the fading light of the day casting a soft glow over the campgrounds.

Dexter sat down beside you, resting his elbows on his knees as he gazed out at the now-quiet field, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. After a moment, you scooted closer, letting your chin dig into his shoulder. Gently, you threaded your arm through his, reaching for his hand and giving it a small squeeze. He looked down, his expression softening as he turned to you, and suddenly you were so close your noses were almost touching, the fading sunlight casting shadows over his features and catching on the ginger stubble along his jawline.

“Same time, same place?” you murmured, your voice low and quiet.

Dexter didn’t answer – not with words, anyway. Instead, he lifted a hand to brush away the baby hair from your forehead before closing the space between you, his lips meeting yours in a soft, lingering kiss.

You always made his heart beat so fast, he didn’t know how it hadn't burst already. You were one of two things that made him feel this way and it was a perfect balance of light and darkness.

His stubble scratched lightly against your skin, a slight irritation that you secretly loved. It made you smile against his lips, feeling a familiar thrill rush through you.

You remember teasing him about it early on in your relationship, only for him to take it too literally and show up the next day, clean-shaven. You’d laughed, explaining that it was just a joke, and that you loved his rough edges. It made you love him more, it was just so Dexter.

Since then, he’d kept his natural look, but sometimes, you’d see that flicker of hesitation, trying to understand the meaning behind your words and actions. It reminded you how hard he tried to learn the language of affection, your love language, and you tried to learn and understand his. It put you into perfect synchrony.

He leaned into the kiss with more force before pulling away and letting his forehead rest against yours, noses brushing as he lingered there, his hand still holding yours as you drew circles on his skin with your thumb.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he replied, his usual calm and stoic replaced by a rare warmth as he looked at you.

You smiled and kissed his shoulder before resting your head against it, letting your eyes close for just a moment.

“It’s so quiet.” you sighed, enjoying the peaceful moment. That’s something you'd missed. Even though you loved the camp, you weren't really a fan of chaos, and this? Having the moment to breathe in the warm scent of pine trees, to hear the birds singing and crickets chirping and to be in Dexter’s embrace is like a reward.

“Funny you’d say that, considering how much noise you make.” He glanced down at you, raising his eyebrows. “Half the chaos around here has been you cheering your team to victory.”

You scoffed, too tired to put up a fight this time. “I’m just an enthusiastic leader.”

“Oh, I know,” he said, a hint of smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’re definitely enthusiastic. I’m pretty sure you broke the sound barrier.”

You poked him in the ribs, and he genuinely laughed. A sound that you appreciated greatly, because you were one of the few people that got to hear it. As his laughter faded, he leaned in and pressed his lips softly to the crown of your head.

You watched the sun dip lower, your heart full as you let yourself drift into the soft, steady rhythm of his breathing.

a/n2: thanks for making it this far! soo, what do we think? i'll appreciate any kind of feedback! also, i'd love to explore this relationship more, so maybe we'll see these two again!

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