#a little for his face too. he’s described like that. but bc he is blonde it is harder to scan

[vernalloy]

[ID: A drawing of Enoch Emery from Wise Blood. He is a young man with a thin face, blonde hair, a long upturned nose, and foxlike brown eyes. His front two teeth stick out, and he has a small, thin mustache. He wears a yellowish white suit over a pinkish white collared shirt and pea green tie. To the right is a small lineless drawing of his head, his face blue from suffocation. End ID.]

[oh-katsuki]

the notebook theory (tsukishima kei x reader)

masterlist | ao3

Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x Reader

Summary: Kei has a cynical and jaded outlook on love. When his friend Tadashi figures out that Kei has feelings for you, Kei isn’t sure how to react. After all, love is not something he does but rather, something that happens to him.

"There’s a notebook that Kei likes on his desk. No matter what he does, nothing is good enough to put a permanent mark into the thing. Even if he used a pencil, Kei feels like the evidence of the mark would still be there even after erasing it, a molecular change that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Kei calls it the notebook theory.

He thinks that might be what’s happening to him. A molecular change, imperceivable to someone not looking at him under a microscope. It’s like his DNA is being rewritten and stitched together with bright pink yarn. He feels himself steadily come apart and come together. It’s uncomfortable, like trying to dream when he has a fever. Kei is nearly certain that you’re the reason."

Content Warnings:  fem!reader (gender neutral pronouns), no real manga spoilers, slow burn, one-sided pining, angst, mentions of divorce and broken homes, toxic relationship (kei's parents), smut, fingering, oral (f!receiving and m!receiving), pinching, mentions of mark making, overstimulation (m!receiving), multiple orgasms, hair-pulling

Word Count: 24.8k

A/N: i know i spent forever working on this but it's finally done and while i have a lot of thoughts about it, idk rly what to say. anyway, here's my first attempt at a tsukishima long fic. also i already know that im not beating the tsukkiyama allegations, okay? i tried and failed to beat them okay i just think there is no way to put them in a situation without it being a little homoerotic bc.. they r them okay? anyway, i hope u enjoy and would love to hear ur thoughts <3

The morning comes without warning. Kei thinks he’s read that somewhere, though he’s just sure just where he saw it. He also thinks that whoever said that is right. Morning is always a harsh assault and never as gentle as people describe it to be. 

Kei’s room, the one he rents at university, faces toward the east. In the mornings, when the sun peeks over the horizon, it shines directly into his room and onto his bed before creeping across the light wood floors. His blinds, as useful as they are, always let some through the cracks and the light cuts the ground like butter to a knife. Kei doesn’t think it feels half as romantic as it sounds. 

The light works better than his alarm. No matter how set he is on sleeping in, he never fails to wake up as soon as those slats of light make their way across his bedspread. It wakes him like fever and he’s never quite as comfortable as he felt falling asleep. This morning is no different. 

He rises like he always has, running a hand over his blonde hair and dragging it down his face after sitting up. Then, he stands once in an attempt to gather his bearings before sitting right back down on the edge of the bed. He fights the lingering remnants of sleep, feeling the ray of sunlight beat down on his back. Then, he reaches towards his glasses on the nightstand and slides them up the bridge of his long nose before standing up again once and for all. 

Yamaguchi lives in the other room. His best friend since high school, perhaps his only real friend. They’d miraculously attended the same college and decided to room together, though his other friends from his youth aren’t too far. The arrangement managed to make it all the way until their fourth and final year. Living with each other has become par for the course. 

Tadashi wakes up later than Kei does on most days, except for Tuesdays and Thursdays. On those days, he has an 8 am and is usually in the kitchen before Kei has even stood up for the first time. Today is a Wednesday, so Yamaguchi is asleep in his room. The morning light doesn’t wake him the same way it does Kei. His room faces west, so it isn’t until the mid-afternoon, when Tadashi is chased from his room by the afternoon rays and heat, that he notices the sun on its blinding conquest across the sky. 

Kei’s room is clean and neat. There’s no clutter, no collection of items that don’t have a proper place. Everything is itemized and stored exactly where he intends for them to be. His floor is void of stray clothes, of socks he’d discarded the night before, his nightstand is bare and his desk is surprisingly empty save for one notebook sitting in its center. It’s a room that he could leave at any time, despite living here for nearly two years. If Kei chose to do so, he could pack his things and be gone in a day. 

Yamaguchi’s room is different. It’s lived in and well worn. There’s clutter on the floor, socks and pants he’d taken and tossed away to be dealt with later. Certain things don’t have a place and end up living on semi-crowded surfaces filled with things he likes to put down as quickly as he’d picked them up. Kei envies that way of living. A non-temporary way. He envies the rug in Yamaguchi’s room and the way he fills the space with himself. Kei thinks that even after they’re long gone, future tenants would still be able to feel Tadashi’s presence. 

To say that Kei is cynical would be accurate. He tends to lean more towards paranoia in his own strange way. He keeps things in order to quell the anxiety in it. Things stay where they are meant to be. As a result, he’s earned himself somewhat of an uptight attitude that makes Kei feel more awkward than relaxed even when he’s in his own spaces. Not that he minds it. 

Tadashi’s dish from last night is sitting next to the sink. Kei moves around it as he fixes a tea, making an effort not to drag his feet across the floor because he hates the scuffing sound. Every now and then, the glass of his mug will clink against the cheap kitchen tile and Kei will cringe in some paranoid worry that it will wake his friend. 

As he gathers his things to leave the quiet apartment, Kei wonders where his cynicism comes from. He’s sure he could pinpoint it if he tried. His parents divorce, his previous experiences with dating that have left him jaded, the holes that wore even in his most sturdy of sweaters. Inconsequential nothings that piled up until Kei had developed an undeniably cautious outlook on the world. To him, all of these things are the same. Like the morning, they’re intrusive and unsightly, but none is less important than the other. 

Kei does have things he likes. Art, for one. He likes paintings, sculptures, little pieces of history, and all of the things people make with their hands that he could never do. Kei is hopeless at crafts. His fingers are lithe and long, but they’re clumsy and hard to control. Despite his need for order, Kei has trouble controlling his urges. The subtle twitches of his fingers always mess up whatever it is he’s trying to craft. 

He likes writing best of all, specifically curatorial writing. It’s easy for him to pick which pieces belong together and how to organize them in a space, it suits his talent for compartmentalizing. Kei gets to tell a story that way, be it historical or artistic, sometimes both. The essays that his classmates find tedious, he finds relaxing despite the stress. For him, writing about art and history is a pleasure much like sipping tea that is the perfect temperature, unintrusive and natural. 

By the time he arrives at the library, it’s nearly 9 am. He works better here, in the quiet section at a table hidden by three tall shelves of books. It’s almost never occupied and there are hardly ever people seated in the immediate area. Kei doesn’t go out of his way to avoid others, but he finds that if he doesn’t approach people, they often won’t approach him. He prefers things this way, it makes the good and bad people easier to weed out. 

From this spot in the library, Kei can see where you usually set up shop for the day. You arrive after him by about 45 minutes and he convinces himself that it is always coincidental. 

Strictly speaking, you’re Tadashi’s friend, not his. You’ve known each other for a little under a year and have been by the apartment a few times, but yours and his conversations are limited entirely to pleasantries. How are you? What are you working on? We’re graduating soon, huh? Casual conversation that Kei can weasel his way out of at any time. Like his room, it’s impermanent. 

Kei has had the idea that nothing stays stuck in his head since middle school. The house he lived in when his parents were together, weekdays with his mother and weekends with his father, graduating seniors, the apartment he lives in now. To Kei, all of it is so temporary that he finds it difficult to get attached to it, not that he’s devoid of emotion. He quite loves the little things he has, but his grip on them is loose and half-hearted. Whatever leaves, Kei thinks is meant to leave, so he makes no effort to hold on. 

It’s probably unfair to think of you that way, but Kei can’t really help it. He can’t change what he is. Besides, it’s not as if he doesn’t have a reason to think so. He’s often approached by people for his looks, people who want to get close because they think he’s tall and handsome, people who collect others like trophies. He’s not heartless, so he’s been hurt more than a few times. Kei thinks he owes it to himself to be cautious, not that you’ve done anything to earn that type of subtle hostility. 

“Thought you might be here,” someone’s hand lands on his shoulder. 

“Shit,” he groans, “is it that late already?” 

Kei glances down at the watch on his wrist, reading the time as just past 10:45 am. He’s been here for an hour and 45 minutes and hasn’t gotten anything done. Tadashi pulls the chair next to him out and sits down, resting his chin on his hand. 

“Spacing out?” 

“A little,” Kei responds, tapping his pen against the table and turning back toward his book. 

“Got something due?” 

“Yeah, on Friday,” he exhales. “Haven’t started it yet though. You?” 

“Nah,” Tadashi smiles. “I’m just chasing you around.” 

“You’re like a girl with a crush.” 

Tadashi shrugs and lets out a good natured laugh. It’s a little too loud for this part of the library, but Kei lets it slide, smiling with his friend. 

Tadashi is the opposite of him, he thinks. He smiles often and says exactly what’s on his mind when it crosses it, even if it's a little mean. Tadashi used to be a follower, but in his final year of high school and university years, grew into someone befitting of his somewhat sunny and sarcastic personality. Thoughts and words come easily to him and he has no trouble vocalizing his joy or his disappointment. 

Yamaguchi has freckles covering the entirety of his body. Kei knows this because he’s seen far more of Tadashi than he thinks he should have. His skin is tawny and warm like him. Kei finds himself looking at the ones on his hands as Yamaguchi begins to write in his notebook. Kei can’t read his handwriting because it’s terrible and he doesn’t much feel like working on his own project, so he watches his friend’s hand mark the page. Then, his gaze slinks across the library to you. 

You’ve got your head down and look like you’re falling asleep despite it only being 11 in the morning. Your hand moves lazily across your computer keypad. By the time Kei realizes that you’ve spotted him staring, it’s too late to look away. His gaze was too intentional, so he smiles at you instead, nodding his head a little. 

You smile and wave, standing from where you sit and collecting your things. They fill up your arms because you don’t bother to put them in your bag, making your way clumsily across the room and setting your stuff down across from him. 

“Hi, Tsukishima,” you smile. “Hi, Tadashi.” 

You use his friend’s given name and Kei feels a pang of jealousy hit his chest. 

“How long have you been here? I didn’t see you,” you ask, settling into the seat across from Kei. 

“I just got here,” Tadashi smiles, looking up from his notes. “He’s been here for a while though.” 

Tadashi motions towards him. 

“Aw, why didn’t you say hi?” 

“You seemed busy,” Kei lies. 

You pout, filling your mouth with air. “Next time just come say hi, ‘kay?” 

“Sure,” Kei nods. 

Tadashi tosses him a sideways glance and Kei shrugs it off. He’s not interested in being teased this morning, though when is he ever. 

Kei doesn’t like the way you make him feel. When you’re around, he becomes prickly. It sets Kei on edge in a way that he hates. His world, previously so rigid and organized, quickly begins to feel cluttered and structureless. 

You make his heart pound. You make it hammer against his chest so hard that he can feel it in his ears and behind his eyes. It goes all the way down to his already-hard-to-control fingertips and the tops of his thighs. A previously pastel colored world goes vibrantly candy-colored like it’s been plunged in saturating liquid. He nevers knows how to hold himself, never knows how to act natural. What does it mean to act natural, anyway? How should he rest his hands on the desk? Would it be weird to lace them together? Does he look as stiff as he feels? It’s entirely possible that he is suffering a massive heart attack. 

You whisper across the table to Tadashi, leaning forward and laughing at something he’s written in his notebook. You can read his handwriting, something Kei is equally jealous about as he is angry. Kei just watches your conversation, unable to really listen into it on account of the stroke that he thinks he’s having. 

The three of you stay like this for a while, earning the occasional irritated whisper or dirty look from some of the more studious people in the library. Kei pretends to ignore them, remaining quiet throughout the duration of your study session with Tadashi. His quiet corner is invaded and painted bright pink with your presence and he doesn’t know whether to feel giddy or irrationally angry. Maybe it’s both. 

“Crap, is that the time?” Tadashi exclaims, hunching over himself when someone nearby shushes him. “I’ve got class across campus in 10 minutes.” 

He hurriedly collects his things. Tadashi does it so fast, in fact, that Kei hardly has time to beg him not to leave him alone with you. So he just watches as Tadashi throws his things clumsily into his bag and tosses it over his shoulder. 

“Bye, ___,” he says in a rushed whisper. “I’ll see you at home, Kei!” 

“Sure,” is all that Kei can muster. His voice cracks when he says it and he immediately avoids looking at you and stares at nothing in particular in his textbook. 

It’s quiet for a while. Kei pretends to busy himself by glancing between his textbook and his computer and you sit with your head bowed as you take notes on a lecture you’re listening to through the single earbud in your right ear. Then, you tap the end of your pen lightly on Kei’s notebook to get his attention. 

It’s only been about 10 minutes since Tadashi left, but the library now feels like an entirely different place. His heart pounds as he struggles to keep a straight face. 

When he looks up, you’re looking at him with a tilted head. Your expression is soft and unintrusive, friendly but a bit guarded. You smile softly at him. 

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” You ask gently. It doesn’t sound accusatory, but rather a casual statement tinged with friendliness. 

“Huh?” Blood rushes into his ears. 

“I just kinda get the impression that you’re uncomfortable around me,” you say. “Am I wrong?” 

“Uh, no- it’s not that I don’t like you.” 

He’s quick to correct you and he feels heat rush to his cheeks. 

“Then what?” you question lightly. There’s no ulterior motive behind your smile, Kei can tell, but your openness makes him uneasy. 

“I dunno,” he calms himself a little. “I don’t really know how to act around you, I guess.” 

You laugh, leaning back into your chair. “Is that all?” 

“Well, yeah…” he feels awkward and his palms are sweaty. He drops them below the table to wipe them. “You’re Tadashi’s friend and I’m pretty different from him so I just…” He trails off, shrugging his shoulders.

“I was worried you hated me,” you smile, chuckling to yourself. 

“That’s definitely not it,” he loosens a little, smiling lightly despite the thudding of his heart. It slows down steadily. 

“I’m your friend too, ya know?” 

“That so?” 

“Well, yeah,” you shrug and lean all the way back, crossing your arms. “I just kinda figured that we would be.” 

“Friends?” His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. His word placement is awkward. 

“Duh,” you laugh a little. “You know, you don’t have to speak formally with me.” 

“That’s just the way I am,” he huffs at being read. 

“Well, you can drop them with me. I don’t mind.” 

“Tall order,” he snorts. 

You tilt your head to the side. “Did you just make a joke?” 

“Uh, yeah…” 

“Funny,” you smile. “What are you studying?” 

“It’s not really studying…” he says, glancing down at the near empty document. “I’m supposed to be writing an essay I have due on Friday. Not going well.” 

He looks up at you through his lashes. You’re leaning forward across the table now, your chin angled upward as you try and peek at what’s on his screen. He turns it so that you can see better. 

“Baroque art?” You read aloud. “Oh yeah, Tadashi mentioned that you’re an art history major. Do you draw too?” 

“No,” he scoffs. “I’m hopeless at it, but I like art. It’s nice to look at.” 

“Huh, you look like you’d be good at drawing,” you say. 

“What’s that mean?” 

“I dunno, like a manga author or something,” you shrug. “You’ve got nice hands too. Like an artist.” 

“Manga?” He laughs a little, trying to play off the color he feels rushing to his face from the compliment. 

“Yeah, you look like the manga type.” 

“Is it the glasses?” He raises an eyebrow. 

“Maybe,” you laugh. 

Kei looks down at his hands. They’re big, like the rest of him, and his knuckles are thin. He’s hyper-aware of them now that you’ve complimented them. He studies them briefly, following the barely visible veins up the back of them, following the line of his fingers to his nails. They’re trimmed and somewhat well kept, save for the spots that he tends to bite at when he lays in bed at night. His hands look nothing like Tadashi’s. Tadashi’s fingers are thick and his nails are short on account of him biting them. Kei wonders if you prefer them to his. 

—

There’s a notebook that Kei likes on his desk. It’s only a bit bigger than his fist—a little thing, really—and it’s completely blank. Kei’s never written anything down in it, nothing has ever really been worth sullying the thing. It’s got brown fabric binding and a semi-thick cover. It’s malleable, but not so flimsy that he’d need a desk to write in it. 

Kei’s not too sure why he bought it in the first place. Maybe he liked the size of it, small enough to fit in his pocket, but not so small as to be ridiculous. It’s practical, much like he is. He’s considered turning it into a daily planner and putting to-do lists in it, but Kei isn’t much of a list guy, it’s Tadashi that likes making lists. Nothing has ever really felt like it suits the book. He’s considered journaling in it, but his life is one big routine and he doesn’t think there’s anything worth writing about. 

No matter what he does, nothing is good enough to put a permanent mark into the thing. Even if he used a pencil, Kei feels like the evidence of the mark would still be there even after erasing it, a molecular change that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Kei calls it the notebook theory. 

He thinks that might be what’s happening to him. A molecular change, imperceivable to someone not looking at him under a microscope. It’s like his DNA is being rewritten and stitched together with bright pink yarn. He feels himself steadily come apart and come together. It’s uncomfortable, like trying to dream when he has a fever. 

Kei is nearly certain that you’re the reason, not that he’s about to admit to anyone else that he likes you. Tadashi managed to weasel it out of him, though he didn’t really have to ask. In fact, it was less of an admittance to Kei than it was confirmation of his own feelings. If Tadashi can tell that he likes you, then he must. 

People seem to know things about Kei before he even knows them himself. At least, that’s how it seems. He’s always confronted with his own feelings by other people, not that they’re really ever wrong, but it seems everyone catches onto what he’s feeling rather quickly. He’s not too sure why that is, maybe he’s just obvious and hasn’t realized it. 

Come to think of it, when Tadashi had confronted Kei about his feelings for you, he’d been deeply annoying about it. Kei couldn’t even try to deny it because Tadashi had come out with his guns blazing, cornering him in the living room and throwing facts about you at him until his face was beet red with embarrassment. Then, with a serious frown on his face, he’d simply stated you like them and that was the end of it. Kei couldn’t even deny it. Even he knew that it read plainly in his expression. 

To be frank, it sucks being told in plain speech how he feels about someone. Whenever that happens, it makes Kei feel like he’ll never be able to keep another secret in his life. Sometimes, he wishes that he was able to make the decision to tell someone else on his own, but even Kei knows that that is a little beyond him. Kei can think the feelings just fine, but when it comes to speaking them aloud, he seems to have a padlock around his throat. 

Tadashi knows this about him and if it weren’t for him, Kei would have agonized far longer and far worse over certain situations of emotional turmoil. Most of the time, Tadashi gets it without needing to ask or say anything. It’s nice to have someone understand him in that way, even if it does mean he can’t keep a secret to save his life. 

Feelings lately make Kei a little angry. He’s always known that he’s had somewhat of a sour personality. Kei doesn’t need to be told that he’s smug to know that he is. He’s snarky and usually touchy, picky about the people that he hangs out with. It’s not really a secret that Kei is a hard person to get along with, but lately, he feels like it’s been worse. 

Maybe it’s because this is new territory to him. As conceited as it sounds, Kei has never liked someone first. It’s not because he doesn’t think anyone is worthy, but rather, because there are very few people he doesn’t find grating. Despite how he seems, Kei is incredibly sensitive about things, so naturally, it’s easier to get on his nerves. 

He’s dated before, though not for long, and all of his relationships have started the same way. Kei is approached by them, usually on the premise of looks, and he accepts. He’s not sure why he does. Sometimes it’s because he thinks they’re pretty, other times it’s because the romantic in him hopes that it will actually work out. It never has. 

Most of the time, Kei turns out to be different than they expected. He’s too touchy, too sarcastic, too awkward in his way of trying to love. To Kei, it has always felt like it’s ended just as he was beginning to develop real feelings. 

If he’s being honest, it’s given him a twisted inferiority complex. He’s worried that somehow, on a fundamental level, he’s not enough. Sometimes, it even goes so far as for Kei to think that he’s just generally disappointing. He tries not to be. Kei wants to be relied on. He wants to be someone his friends can go to when they need something sturdy. 

Despite his personality, Kei considers himself sturdy. Well, maybe stubborn is a better word. Kei considers himself stubborn enough to be made sturdy. He’s just a little awkward. That’s all. People seem to mistake that for being unreliable. It’s a peeve of Kei’s. 

Tadashi isn’t like that. Tadashi is bright and warm, reliable in every sense of the word. Kei actually looks up to him a lot, not that he’d ever say anything like that to his face. Sure, Tadashi’s not perfect, but at least people rely on him. At least Kei relies on him. 

Tadashi is more easy going than Kei is. He has an easier time going with the flow, which makes him more personable. Kei thinks that Tadashi is the closest thing that he’s had to a better half. In truth, without Tadashi around, Kei isn’t exactly sure what would have become of him. 

It’s pointless thinking about these sorts of things though. Kei realized a long time ago that thinking about being better won’t automatically make him better. This is just the way he is and Kei’s learned to accept that, whatever it means. Still, none of this changes the fact that he likes you. 

Kei could mull over thought after thought and he doesn’t think it would have any effect on the fact that he’s definitely developed a crush. He’s positive it will go away. In fact, he’s not even sure if it’s real. Maybe Kei is just jealous of you the same way he’s jealous of Tadashi. You’re bright and warm like he is. You and Tadashi are cut from the same cloth, so maybe that’s why the two of you get along so well. 

In all honesty, Kei wishes he could be a little more like Tadashi for that reason. Maybe if he were more like Tadashi, he’d have the courage to fully accept these new and uncertain feelings for what they are. But he doesn’t have that kind of courage, not right now at least. He doesn’t have the courage to solidify and lean into his feelings. Kei doesn’t want to risk what little comfort and security he has. If the relationship between you both is a blank page, Kei doesn’t have anything important to write. What if it ruins the paper? What if when he erases it, it changes the thing on a molecular level for the worse? The notebook theory. 

— 

Despite everything, Kei is rather self-aware. At least in his own head he is. Kei knows that when he pretends he doesn’t like you, he really ends up liking you more. He knows that he’s touchy, that he’s awkward, that he comes across more crass than he intends to. Kei is clumsy, not stupid. That doesn’t mean that he has to acknowledge it. 

You’ve been coming around more often since the conversation Kei had with you in the library. Maybe you’re more comfortable now knowing that he doesn’t hate you, so you’re happier to join Tadashi in their shared apartment. 

Kei feels bad about making you think that he hates you. Actually, he feels really bad about it. Like, astronomically bad about it. Embarrassingly enough, it actually keeps him up at night. So he goes out of his way to be a little nicer to you. The only other person he’s ever done that for is Tadashi. 

He greets you properly when you pass, despite the flare up of a medical condition he’s yet to fully diagnose brought on by your presence. He asks you questions about your studies, partially because he is genuinely curious and partially because he doesn’t want you to hate him. He thinks he’d die if you hated him. Kei’s being brave in his own way. It’s little, but he’s doing it. 

As a result, the two of you have grown a little closer. Kei has your phone number now, though he rarely has any reason to text you. Typing out a message to you makes him nervous. It makes him red in the face when you’re not even there. Somehow, having your phone number feels vulnerable to him, like he has access to you whenever he wants and you him. It means that if you wanted, you could make him nervous without even being nearby. That’s a lot for Kei to think about. 

Kei sees you in the library sometimes too, but he never takes the initiative to speak to you. You always come up to him first, clumsily gathering your things the way you did the day you and him sorted out your friendship and plopping them down in front of him. 

Sometimes, you both go several hours without saying anything to each other. Other times, you’ll chat away about something while leaning forward on the desk and Kei has to pretend that he’s not wildly nervous at your proximity. You’re so friendly. So genuinely warm that Kei can physically feel it when you talk. Despite his nerves, Kei would describe you as comfortable. You’re a comfortable person to him, as alarming as that is. 

His crush is out of hand. It scares him, not that he’s actively thought about that. What started as him noticing you has quickly ballooned into him being painfully aware of you at all times. He kind of feels bad about it. You don’t seem to think that he’s anything more than a friend and it makes Kei feel bad that he thinks of you as anything but that. He doesn’t want you to be just a crush to him. Kei wants you to be like Tadashi, someone he can rely on and be comfortable with. He almost feels like he’s reversed what’s been done to him his whole life, like somehow he’s only become your friend because he wants something more. 

Truth is though, he doesn’t want anything more. Kei wants to stay exactly where he is. He doesn’t want his crush to develop any further. He doesn’t want to confess, he wants to forget. Even now, sitting on a couch in the library, he wants to imagine he doesn’t feel anything at all for you.  

“Hey, are you okay?” You tilt your head at him. 

“Huh? Me?” He questions. “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

“You seem a little distracted,” you smile. “You’ve been staring at your computer for like… 10 minutes with this blank look on your face.” 

“You’ve been staring at me for 10 minutes?” He raises an eyebrow, trying to play off the embarrassment of being caught like that. 

“Not staring at you,” you huff, “but I definitely noticed.” 

“Ha, creep,” he tilts his head up a little, blowing air out of his nose. 

“You’re twisted, you know?” 

“Whatever,” he shrugs his shoulders and looks back at his computer screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees you shake your head and smile before looking down at your work. 

Tadashi has said the same exact thing to him before. In highschool, after Kei had made a joke about his teammate Hinata’s height, Tadashi had given him a look and snorted that he’s so twisted. He’s been hearing that sort of thing his entire life. 

“Hey, are you cool if I skip out of here early?” You ask a few moments later. 

“Oh, yeah sure. I don’t mind,” he nods, hiding his disappointment. “I didn’t realize that we had like… set times to be here.” 

You laugh lightly. “Well, we don’t, but we tend to come and go at the same time, no? I kinda look forward to it.” 

Kei envies your honesty. You’re so honest all of the time. You say what you feel when it pops into your head. He wishes he could be like that, maybe then he would be able to say that he does too. Instead, he just nods and swallows his heart back down. You smile at him again and then gather your things. 

“You’ll be home on Friday night, right?” 

“Uhm, yeah? Why?” 

“Tadashi invited me and a few friends over, did he tell you?” 

“I think he mentioned it.” Kei has actually been thinking about it for the last couple days. 

“Good, I’ll see you, right?” 

“Yeah, you will.” 

“Great, talk to you later then!” You smile and with that, you walk away. 

You sounded so certain in that statement. Talk to you later. You said it like it was inevitable. Thinking about that, Kei can’t help but watch you go. He even likes looking at the back of you, though he wishes he could see your face too. It feels worse to be walked away from than walked towards. 

Kei can’t tell anymore if what he feels is romance or jealousy. It’s probably both. It’s probably some mix of the two that he can’t quite sort out. He wishes it weren’t that way. Kei gets the feeling that he might be ruined. 

So he just watched you leave the library. Someone is waiting for you at the top of the stairwell. Kei can tell they’re a guy and despite the reluctance of his feelings, his stomach drops anyway when you nudge his shoulder with yours and loop your arm around his. That’s something you haven’t done to Kei before. Touch him. You touch this other person so easily. It makes Kei jealous. 

It makes sense that you might be seeing someone, that there might be someone else. After all, you’re you. Desirable. You look up at the stranger, leaning on him, smiling and flashing your teeth. Yeah, it makes sense. 

Turns out, it’s easier to pretend that he doesn’t feel anything when he thinks you’re interested in someone else. He likes to think it will save him the time of wondering. 

—

Kei has cleaned his room approximately four times today. Sure, it’s overboard, but every time he goes into it, he notices something else that needs to be spruced up. Like a pot with a leak, there is always something that he seemed to miss the last time he went through and cleaned up. 

It’s not like you’ll be in his room tonight anyway, but you will be in his apartment and that’s close enough to his room that he, for whatever reason, needs to make it so spotless that it looks like a set. Kei knows though, that even when you’re here, he’ll be wondering if there’s something else that he missed beyond the closed door and he’ll think about it incessantly. 

He’s been avoiding the thought of him liking you. Instead, Kei cleans and cleans and then cleans some more for good measure. It’s not like he has any sort of claim on you and he knows that it’s stupid to feel jealous over one interaction he witnessed by chance, but his mind is running away with him. Was that person your boyfriend? Has he been begrudgingly pining over a taken person all these months? Do you think that he’s creepy because of it? 

He doesn’t get to be upset over the idea that you’re seeing someone else. Why wouldn’t you be? Kei’s done absolutely nothing to indicate his interest in you (or lack thereof), besides maybe telling you that he doesn’t hate you. He has no right to feel the way he does, but he spirals anyway. His insecurities, the ones that gnaw at him in the hours before he falls asleep, play in a constant loop in his head. His unreliability, his unpleasant personality, his cynicism, the baggage he carries with him like a badge. All of it piles up one by one. 

Kei feels like a kid again, losing himself over such a simple interaction, over something so miniscule that it might not even be considered anything at all. There are a plethora of reasons for his feeling like this and Kei thinks he could draw one of his issues out of a hat and it would still somehow address the situation at hand, but all he really feels is hurt and he doesn’t want to explain it away. Kei finds that liking someone hurts. It hurts more than it feels good and the uncertainty chews at his patience and leaves it razor thin. It’s not your fault, nor is it the person Kei’s convinced himself you’re seeing, but he needs someone to blame and it can’t be himself. 

The idea of you relying on someone else makes him nauseous. He’d never considered the thought before, that you find him as unreliable as others do. Kei wants to be relied on, most of all by you, and that fact makes him upset. He’s afraid of what you think of him and without the confidence to accept his feelings, it threatens to crush him. 

Kei’s got this itch over it, so he tries to distract himself. Cleaning his space to prepare for you helps him delude himself that he doesn’t quite like you at all. It’s not your fault. He’s just confused, like his parents were when they married each other. It hurts. Like they were when they had him to try and fix their marriage, which had started to fall apart even when Akiteru was an only child. He’s confused. He’s jealous over your ability to live the way Kei has always wanted to. That’s all this is. Nothing more and nothing less. He feels like he’s being split in two, stretched thin between two modes of thinking. 

Kei glances over his shoulder and into his room one last time. He’s forgotten to wipe the mirror. He goes back in and the cycle starts itself over. 

—

He’s not proud of his behavior. Kei thinks only a seriously huge asshole would be proud of the kind of behavior he displayed tonight. He regrets it immensely, though some part of him is begrudgingly holding onto the idea that maybe he was right to be so short tempered. Of course, that’s a lunatic’s idea. 

Tadashi is standing by the apartment door, mumbling something to you behind it. Over Tadashi’s shoulder, he sees you shake your head and in response, Tadashi gives a small bow before shutting the door to the shared apartment. Then, Tadashi turns and walks towards him. 

Kei doesn’t want to look at him, but Tadashi, for some reason, commands his gaze. 

“Is there a reason you were such a huge cunt tonight?” Tadashi sort of spits the words. They land at Kei’s feet and roll around before settling. 

“What are you talking about? I was normal,” he answers, though the statement sounds like a lie the moment it leaves his lips. 

“Bullshit,” Tadashi says. “You were being an asshole the second they walked through the door and you’ve been one to me all day.” 

Kei scoffs, his cheeks burning, “I’ve just been tired, dude. Besides, what does it matter? You’re closer to all of them than I am.”

“What? You’re tired so you just get to be a huge asshole?” 

“No,” Kei responds. 

“So then what was that?” 

Kei doesn’t really know. He doesn’t know what prompted him to act so cold or make such snide comments. It’s true, he’d been in a bad mood all day and he knows that Tadashi has borne the brunt of his misplaced emotions, but even Kei is confused as to why he’d acted the way he did. Still though, there is a part of him that knows that it was connected to his spiraling and what he saw in the library. He’d sound insane if he said it out loud, like somehow his growth was stunted in the third grade, but Kei is sure it had something to do with liking you and the hurt that comes with it. 

It’s not as if he’d been outwardly mean, but he had been cold. There are parts of himself that Kei doesn’t want you to see, sections of his personality that he ropes off from you because despite not liking you, he wants you to see the best in him. Tonight, he managed to somehow show off the worst. 

It started with the noise when everyone had arrived. You, Hinata, Kageyama, Tanaka, Kiyoko, and Yachi had all piled into the apartment in one large group. Kei’d been sitting on the couch and the sound of the door startled him right off the bat. He assumed that by the time they all had rounded the corner into the living room, his face was already sour, because everyone had greeted him cautiously. 

It’s no surprise that everyone was so loud. Kei has known this particular group for many years and they, having all gone to school or work nearby, pile into his apartment often for events like these. You were really the only new factor in all of it and while Kei is known as a touchy person, he certainly was more touchy than usual tonight. 

You’d been trying to talk to him all evening and Kei, in a desperate attempt to avoid whatever lingering feelings he had for you, had been shutting you down at every turn. Thinking back on it, he’s endlessly embarrassed. You didn’t deserve that. You’d been nothing but kind to him and there Kei was holding a grudge over you for something he had no right to be angry about whatsoever. He had been holding a grudge over something that he’d learned later that evening that wasn’t even true. 

Kei thinks that what Tadashi is referring to, was deliberately picking a fight with Tanaka. Kei and Tanaka have never been particularly close. Even in high school, his boisterous and somewhat obnoxious personality has always rubbed Kei the wrong way. Despite that, Tanaka has somehow managed to maintain a connection to him through university and the two of them have established a tentative but honest friendship. 

You had been sitting on the arm of the couch beside Tanaka, leaning over him to look at something he was showing you on his phone. Then, you laughed a little too hard and Kei felt that familiar sense of injustice rise to his throat, thick and heavy. It’s an ugly feeling, the kind that makes Kei feel sick when he’s in bed late at night. Bile rose in his throat in the form of harsh words. Jealousy in the form of the verbal venom Kei excels at. 

For Kei, Tanaka was an easy target, someone he could poke at and get a satisfying rise out of. In the moment, the rise he’d gotten from Tanaka by making snide comments about the volume of his voice and his particular obsession with pretty girls had been exactly that, satisfying. 

He’d picked a small fight. Nothing physical, but just enough to get him irritated. Kei’s not proud of it, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t done it deliberately. After all, Tanaka has never been the type to be the bigger person and turn his nose up. 

Sometimes, when Kei is experiencing emotions he’d rather not deal with, he decides to obsess over one single thing. Usually, it’s cleaning or schoolwork. Tonight, it happened to be the volume of Tanaka’s voice, which he knows was a shitty thing to do. Despite wanting to be reliable, Kei can’t help but feel that he was endlessly immature, lashing out at someone completely unrelated to the situation just because he could. 

Tadashi pulls him from his thoughts. 

“I thought you liked them, dude,” his voice is even, letting up on the anger. 

“Who?” Kei plays dumb. 

Tadashi responds with your name and Kei stiffens slightly. “I thought you guys had gotten closer. What happened?” 

“Nothing happened,” Kei says. It’s the truth. Absolutely nothing happened. Kei had spiraled all on his own. 

“Why did you ignore them then?” 

“I didn’t ignore them,” Kei says. Again, it’s not a lie. He may have shut conversations down and been a little cold, but Kei couldn’t ignore you if he tried, it’s sort of the whole problem he’s dealing with now. 

“Maybe, but you were cold. Like… needlessly.” 

“I was fucking normal, Tadashi. You should know me well enough by now to know that,” Kei spits. 

“That’s the problem though, isn’t it? I know you and I know that shit wasn’t normal. You’re twisted, but you’re not an outright asshole, Kei. What’s going on?” 

“I was normal, Tadashi. Just because I didn’t bounce around or get rowdy, doesn’t mean that something is wrong,” Kei answers. 

“Yeah, but you were like… majorly fucking weird, Kei. You were being an asshole. Don’t you like them? Don’t you want to be nice to them?” 

“I don’t.” 

“You don’t want to be nice to them?” Tadashi scoffs, rolling his eyes. 

“No, not that. I don’t like them like that anymore,” Kei lies. 

“Oh please, that’s such horseshit,” Tadashi laughs bitterly. 

“Get off my ass, Tadashi. I don’t fucking feel that way about them anymore,” Kei insists. 

“Did something happen?” 

“No, literally nothing happened! Why does something have to happen? I just don’t like them,” Kei feels himself getting indignant. Tadashi doesn’t deserve this either, but he seems to be indiscriminate with his poor behavior tonight. 

Tadashi looks at Kei for a moment, studying him and calculating all of the things only Tadashi could know about him. Kei tries to hide it. 

“Jesus, Kei, you’ve got to stop doing this shit,” Tadashi touches his hand to his forehead. 

“Doing what?” 

“Getting all in your head about every single connection you’ve ever had with a person,” Tadashi raises his voice. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“It means I’ve seen you do this a million times! You start to really feel something for a person and then you fucking back away like a dog with its tail between its legs!” 

“I don’t do that!” 

“Yes, you do! You sabotage yourself until the other person is forced to do something about it!” Tadashi exhales. 

“I’ve never done that deliberately! What does someone else’s actions have to do with me?” 

“It doesn’t have to do with you,” Tadashi says, “It has to do with your parents.” 

The wind is knocked out of Kei, air sucked from his lungs. He furrows his eyebrows at Tadashi, his mouth slightly open. 

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Tadashi pushes, angry and trying to make him listen. “Not every relationship is like your parents’, Kei.” 

Tadashi knows he’s stepped over the line the moment he says it. If it hadn’t registered before, it registers clearly on his face now, regret settling over Tadashi’s usually bright features. Kei gapes at him for a moment, running through his thoughts and trying to pick out one that best verbalizes what it is he feels. Kei comes up empty. 

“Shit-” Tadashi starts towards him. “Kei, I’m sorry I didn’t mean that. I’m just pissed off I didn’t mean to-” 

Kei pushes past him. “Tadashi, I know you mean well, but don’t try to tell me about my fucking parents.” 

Tadashi doesn’t try to stop him when Kei flings the front door open and walks outside.

—

Kei remembers it like it was yesterday. He remembers all of it. 

He can clearly recall the way shattered glass looked on the marble tiles of his childhood home. White porcelain, broken up into multitudes by his mother and father. They never laid hands on each other, but everything else in the house was fair game. Kei’s lost count of the amount of broken glass dishes and picture frames he’d swept from the floor. 

Kei’s parents had always been on and off in their affection for each other. One minute, they were deeply in love and the next, they were at each other’s throats. Neither of them were bad people, but they made each other bad people. The two of them brought out the worst in each other, maybe on account of knowing the other so well. 

Akiteru was an accident. His brother knows this because when his parents argued, they never let him forget it. In their spats, leverage was whatever they could get their hands on, and that just happened to be Akiteru and the unfortunate circumstances of an accidental pregnancy. 

His parents got married at 19, thinking that they’d be able to handle a child, that their marriage was anything but rushed. They convinced themselves that it was love, when the reality was that Akiteru came because they were too young and stupid to prevent it. At least, that’s what Kei and Akiteru had settled on in the evenings after the yelling had died down and they were left to make sense of it in their shared bedroom. 

They had Kei to fix the marriage. Kei knows this because, like Akiteru, his father’s marital “solution” in the form of a second child was constant leverage to his mother. Kei grew up asking Akiteru why his mother and father even had children in the first place. 

Their relationship was rocky and unstable, predictable and toxic. They, like Kei, would do things to get rises out of each other. They’d make digs, do things to get under the other’s skin. They did it for attention, for affection, or out of loathing for the person they’d decided to make their life partner. When things settled, they got bored. His parents often mistakened calmness for complacency in their relationship. His parents loved each other, but they hated each other just as much, and it was he and Akiteru who paid the price. 

They got divorced when he was fourteen and any chance of Kei having a normal family went to the courthouse with the divorce papers. Akiteru was 20 at the time and managed to avoid the brunt of the custody battle. Kei still gets unexplainably angry with Akiteru for leaving him alone, though he knows that it’s not his fault. The only way Kei could make sense of it was through blame and it was easier to blame Akiteru for lying about volleyball or leaving him alone than it was to blame himself. Both Kei’s father and mother tried for full custody, not because they loved him that much, but because they knew that it would destroy the other. In the end, Kei spent his weekdays with his mother because she lived closer to his school, and weekends with his father just because. 

It happens all the time. People grow together, then grow apart, and grow to loathe each other. Kei watched it happen to his parents, he watched it happen to his friends, he watched it happen to himself with his own reflection. That’s just the way it goes. 

The air outside of his apartment is cool and breezy. He can feel the wind through his sweater, cutting through the gaps in the stitching and into his skin. Kei feels like he can think a little better out here, sitting on the short concrete wall with his back to the apartment building. He stares at his feet, outstretched in front of him. He's still wearing his house slippers. 

Kei did this once when he was younger. The fight that night had been particularly bad and his parents had resulted to throwing things across their bedroom. Kei could hear picture frames shatter through two walls and he wondered which memories they’d decided to trash. A particularly loud shout had sent Kei out of the front door and onto the curb in front of the house. 

He remembers crying, staring at his house slippers on the pavement, afraid because he could hear the shouting even from the lawn. Akiteru had come out to get him, sitting down beside him on the curb and putting his arm around him. 

“Are mom and dad gonna get divorced?” Kei had asked through sniffles. 

“Divorced? No, no,” Akiteru answered. “It’s just a rough patch. It happens to all couples. Mommy and Daddy will be fine.” 

“It’s normal?” Kei sniffled. 

Akiteru paused for a moment. Looking back, Kei realizes that Akiteru was debating on whether or not to lie to protect him. Kei wishes he hadn’t. 

“Yeah, it’s normal.” 

Normal. Kei realizes that he doesn’t exactly know what a normal relationship looks like. He is his parents' son. What they had in them, he has in him. Kei knows that those habits, the digs, the sour statements, the passive aggressiveness, are all things he’s picked up from watching them. Some role models they were. 

He needs to apologize to Tadashi. He may have overstepped, but Kei knows that he’d been an asshole tonight. He’ll need to apologize to Tanaka as well. And to you, which is perhaps the scariest part of this. He wants to apologize for his behavior, but apologizing means that he has to admit that he’d acted the way his parents did, out of jealousy and a pull for attention. Yup, he’s his parents’ son alright. 

Kei tilts his head up toward the sky. Only half of it is visible, the other half blocked by the three story apartment complex directly behind him. It’s a clear night, but he can’t see any stars and the moon is nowhere to be found. Kei wonders when the morning will come. It’s a few hours off, but he thinks about how the sky will look when the sun begins to rise. 

“Kei,” a familiar voice calls from in front of him. 

You’re a few feet away, your hands clasped in front of you. 

“Thought you went home,” he says. 

“Yeah well, I had intended to,” you start, “but you seemed off and I felt weird going back without checking on you. Can I sit?” 

Kei shrugs his shoulders, mortified and angry at being caught like this. He appreciates the thought, but you’re the last person he wants to see right now. It just means he needs to face his shortcomings sooner. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Kei answers automatically. 

“Just decided on some fresh air?” You smile a little and Kei blows air out of his nose. 

“Yup, that’s exactly it.” 

You sit next to him with your legs outstretched the same way his are, your hands are laced together in front of you, hanging down between your thighs. Kei doesn’t make an effort to say anything and neither do you. Instead, he just trains his head back up towards the sky and attempts to collect his thoughts, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. 

Strangely, tonight he doesn’t feel nervous. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have the energy to. Maybe he’s too preoccupied with being sorry to pay any mind to the heart palpitations he gets when you’re around. Maybe it’s because even though he showed you the worst of him tonight, you still came back. It’s a small hope, but it’s there. 

“Hey,” your voice comes quietly, “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you need- I mean- if you want to talk about it, I’m a pretty good ear.” 

Kei nods a little. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “about tonight.” 

“I didn’t come here for an apology, you know?” You exhale a little. 

“Yeah, but you deserve one,” he says. “I was pretty shitty to you.” 

“Yeah, you were,” you agree, catching Kei off guard, “but it happens to all of us. Sometimes we feel things and just can’t keep them inside, you know?” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, swallowing down his shame. 

There’s another long silence. You don’t move to touch him or talk to him, instead, you provide steady company. Kei, as strange as it is, is comforted by your presence. 

“I fought with Tadashi,” Kei says after a few minutes. 

“Today?” 

“Yeah, tonight. After everyone left,” he says. “I deserved it though. I’ve been pretty shitty to him all day.” 

You hum, leaning back on your hands. 

“I did the same shit in high school too, you know?” Kei starts. “We’ve uhm- we’ve known each other for a while, the group that was over tonight. Around the end of middle school some shit happened and I uh- I took out a lot of what I was feeling on Tadashi and the others, but mostly Tadashi because he was the only one who knew.” 

Kei isn’t sure why he’s telling you this. Maybe Tadashi was right. Maybe this is another attempt at self sabotage. 

“You bullied him?” You ask, a little surprised. 

Kei shakes his head. “No, but I wasn’t very nice either. Anyone could tell you that. I thought I was past it, though,” he admits, a little defeated. 

“Did you ever apologize?” 

Kei looks up at you in surprise. Your eyes are full of something, curiosity, maybe pity. 

“For what you did in school?” 

He nods. “Countless times, and not just to Tadashi either, to everyone.” 

“You know, stuff like this happens,” you say. “When I was little, I used to hate sharing. Toys, food, friends. I’d hate it when my friends were friends with other people. It made me insecure and I’d get mad at them for it. I grew out of it, but sometimes I still get that way and I have to apologize later.” 

Kei laughs. It’s strikingly similar to what’s happening now, not that you’d have any way of knowing. 

“I can’t imagine you doing that,” he says. 

“I’m serious,” you say. “I still get weird over it sometimes.” 

Kei shakes his head a little, smiling. 

“All that I’m saying is that sometimes we slip up, that’s all. It’s normal,” you continue. “Not that I’m condoning it. Just saying that it doesn’t make you a horrible person. It makes you human.” 

“Thanks,” he says softly. 

“No problem,” you respond. 

“So why’d you fight with him tonight?” 

“He was angry with me because I was an asshole,” Kei shrugs.

“And you’re mad that he called you out?” You give a quiet and somewhat incredulous laugh. 

Kei shakes his head. “No, I’m angry about what he said after.” 

“What’d he say?” 

Kei debates on telling you. He doesn’t want to make himself out to be a victim. After all, Tadashi meant no harm, even if his comment did exactly that. 

“The argument kind of switched subjects,” Kei tiptoes around the fact that the subject was you. “He brought up a bad habit of mine and I got defensive.” 

“Okay,” you say, waiting for him to say more. 

“Remember when I said that something happened at the end of middle school and only Tadashi knew about it?” When you nod, Kei continues. “My parents got divorced. They were a bad match and it was messy. He brought it up.” 

You nod again, your eyes wide. 

“He didn’t mean any harm, I know that,” Kei inhales. “But uh- that stuff kind of sticks with you. Well, it’s stuck with me and I didn’t like having it used to explain my behaviors, even if he was right. I’m not deflecting or anything though. I know I was the problem tonight.” 

“Sure,” you say. “I’m sorry about your parents.” 

Kei shrugs. “It’s in the past. They’re both remarried now with new kids.” 

The last sentence leaves Kei with a sour taste in his mouth. His parents are good people, but after his childhood, he doesn’t think they have any business having more children. Maybe they’re capable of being good for them, but Kei doesn’t like to imagine that. It makes him feel like their marriage wasn’t the problem, but he and Akiteru were. 

“You say that like they got a new pet,” you smile a little. “Are you still in touch with them?” 

“Yeah,” he says. “I visit whenever I go back home, though they’re really not too far from here.” 

“That’s good of you.” 

“Well, they are my parents,” Kei says plainly. 

You’re the only other person he’s divulged this to by choice and your reactions, understanding and level-headed, make him feel better. It’s like getting a weight off of his chest. This is the worst of him. This little bit of information, his history of being unable to fully confront his feelings, of taking anger out on others when he was young, is where his problems originate. 

“Yeah, but you’re allowed to feel what you feel about it,” you say. “My mom died when I was eleven. Texting and driving. I’m still angry at her for it.” 

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

You shrug and offer him a wry smile. “It’s in the past, but I’m still angry even though I shouldn’t be.” 

“At her?” 

“Yeah,” you nod. “She made a stupid mistake that we’re constantly warned about and left my dad and me behind. I was so angry with her, still am. I love her though, perceived faults and all.” 

Kei thinks about whether or not he loves his parents. He thinks he does, even if he resents them. Kei can’t imagine what he’d do without them. Even though his childhood had few emotional comforts, he still can’t think about a world where he doesn’t visit home to have his mother’s cooking. That’s a world that you live in. 

“That’s hard.” It’s all Kei can think to offer. 

“It was,” you say. “Got easier though as soon as I started accepting things. Now I just miss her more than I hate her.”

Another bout of silence follows this. It must be close to two in the morning and he’s been outside so long that he can no longer feel the tip of his nose. 

“Anyway, about tonight,” you say, “it’s not a crime to feel what you feel, but if you need help, that’s what we’re here for. It’s easier to accept feelings and get hurt than to ignore them, don’t you think?” 

“Yeah,” Kei says, looking to face you. “Thank you.” 

You’re so pretty. It’s striking. The curvature and angles of your face, the gentle look in your eyes, softened by the conversation. Kei finds himself thinking that despite not wanting to face you a few hours earlier, he’s grateful that you showed up. You’re good in ways that Kei can hardly fathom. 

“You should go inside. Tadashi is probably wondering where you are,” you say, standing up. “Plus,” you pinch the tip of his nose between your middle and pointer knuckles, “your nose looks like a cherry tomato.”

“Rude,” he says, startled by the sudden touch. 

“Payback,” you shrug your shoulders and Kei rolls his eyes. 

“Do you need me to walk you home?” Kei offers, a bit nervous about you walking home on your own. 

“I’d love to take you up on that, but you seem tired and I don’t live very far,” you respond. “I’ll call you when I get home though, okay? Since you’re so worried.” 

Kei laughs a little and then nods, standing up. “Yeah, I am.” 

His honesty surprises even him, but you just tilt your head and give him a small smile. 

“I’ll see you on Monday,” you say. “Thanks for the apology” 

“Anytime.”

“I hope not,” you laugh and Kei follows suit. 

You begin to turn on your heel, giving a small wave. 

Kei doesn’t know what overcomes him, but he calls out your name and reaches for your wrist. Before he has a moment to think about what he’s doing, he pulls you to his chest in a hug. You stiffen and then relax in his grip, wrapping your arms around him. Your body is warmer than his, sending heat through the gaps in his sweater. 

“You can call even if it’s not to tell me you got home safe,” he says. “If you want to.” 

You squeeze him around the middle. “Okay, I will.” 

When Kei lets go, he finds that his face is burning. The cold has been replaced by a flush of blood, making his vision a little syrupy.

“Thanks for coming back,” he says. “Get home safe.” 

“Of course,” you sound a little dazed, wearing an expression that Kei thinks might match his. “And I will.” 

Then, you smile at him, flashing your teeth and giving him a wave. You hold up your phone and point to it. 

“Expect a call!” 

Kei nods and raises his arm to wave goodbye.

He stands and watches your figure as you walk down the sidewalk and turn the corner. When you’re out of sight, he lingers by the door to his building, just in case you decide to come back. You don’t come back, but Kei lingers anyway, considering the conversation. 

He goes inside, intent on apologizing to Tadashi. When he opens the door to his apartment, the lights are still on in the living room and Tadashi gets up from the couch and walks quickly down the hall to him.

“Kei, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-” 

“Don’t worry,” Kei says. “I know. I’m sorry about tonight too. And for treating you like that today. And for high school.” 

“High school?” Tadashi says, confused. “Why are you bringing up high school?” 

“Just wanted to apologize again.” 

Kei can feel his eyes drooping, exhaustion creeping into his body and replacing the elated feeling he had moments before. 

“I didn’t mean to bring your parents into it. How you like someone is none of my business,” Tadashi says. “I was out of line.” 

“So was I,” Kei admits through a tired sigh. “I shouldn’t have acted that way. I’ll apologize to the others in the morning.” 

Tadashi narrows his eyes a little and nods. Kei, besieged by that sleepy late night feeling, moves towards his bedroom. 

“Hey, Kei,” his voice comes out a little louder this time. “You’re being surprisingly easy-going. Are we good?” 

Kei scoffs a little, rubbing his eyes. “I just had some time to think, that’s all. And yeah, we’re good.” 

“Okay, are you good?” 

“Yeah, I am,” Kei says. 

Before he closes the door to his room, he furrows his eyebrows and makes a firm decision. 

“By the way,” Tadashi turns to him, cocking his head to the side in response. “I lied. I do like them.” 

“Could have guessed as much,” he responds, laughing a little. “See you in the morning.” 

“Yup, see you in the morning.” 

Kei shuts the door to his room. It clicks into place quietly. His room is spotless. It looks like a room that could be easily emptied at any time. He sighs, stepping into it and laying down on his bed. His phone is on the comforter next to him, lying face up. 

When it lights up, it illuminates the ceiling above him and he answers the phone without needing to check who's calling. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, I got home safe,” he hears your keys clink against something and then the sound of a door shutting. Then, he hears the sound of you laying down on your bed. He imagines you’re lying the same way he is. 

“Good, I’m glad,” he says. “No trouble?” 

“No trouble at all,” you say. He can hear your smile. 

“Thanks again for coming back tonight,” he says, turning over onto his side and letting the phone rest on the bed in front of his face. 

“Of course,” you say.

He doesn’t know what else to say. His nerves have caught up to him and your voice through the speaker sounds so close, like you’re whispering directly into his ear. 

“Okay, well I’m going to go to bed,” Kei starts. 

“Kei?” you say. 

“Yeah?” 

“I’m gonna take you up on your offer. About calling you. Just wanted you to know.” 

“Okay,” he swallows. 

“I feel a lot closer to you.”

“Yeah, me too.” 

“Goodnight, Kei,” you practically whisper. 

“Goodnight,” he responds, lowering his voice the same way you did. You hang up the phone and the call ends. 

He blinks at his phone for a moment before standing up and getting ready for bed. Kei goes through the motions while thinking about how the evening got here. He’d been certain before it began that he no longer liked you, that he was confused. Now, he’s certain of the opposite. 

He decides that he’ll like you for real this time. Even if he’s afraid of hurting himself, of hurting you.

Kei lays down in his bed and faces the ceiling. He thinks about his parents, about your mother, about you. The cadence of your voice, the slight tremor in it. He thinks about your expressions, understanding and unintrusive. He thinks about your history, the anger you’d admitted to him and the grace you’d given him in his own circumstances. 

He dreams of braids, like DNA. Coils of pink yarn woven together in an intricate pattern. A molecular change not visible to the naked eye. Morning comes like liquid gold, spilling across his bedspread in slats through the window.

—

Kei’s apologies go smoothly. Tadashi’s friends—his friends—are good people. They know him better than most and field his awkward, stumbling apology with steady hands. 

He’d explained his sour mood in as little detail as possible, deliberately omitting his feelings for you while doing so, and he made a special effort to apologize to Tanaka. He’s easygoing and quick to forget, but Kei knows that even after accepting the apology, Tanaka will lord it over his head for a week or two. Tanaka thinks those kinds of things are funny and Kei won’t try to tell him otherwise. 

You do take Kei up on his offer. You call him twice a week now. Sometimes it’s to tell him something relevant to him, other times, you just whisper into the phone that you just felt like talking. Either way, it’s not good for his heart. Kei thinks that at this rate, it might just give out. 

There are a lot of things that Kei could say about liking you. It makes his days a little brighter. When he remembers that he has someone he cares about like that, he feels a surge of excitement for no particular reason. He finds that he looks forward to seeing you and goes out of his way to do so, more than he did before he was willing to admit it. 

He’s noticed the way you eat, like every bite of food is even better than the last. He’s noticed that you wipe the condensation off of your cups before each sip. He’s noticed that when you’re studying, you’ll pull at the collar of your shirt absentmindedly and then become frustrated when it is stretched out of place. Kei likes all of these things about you. 

Kei has also found that liking someone hurts. It hurts worse than he thought it would. Insecurity weaves its way into even the most minor of interactions. He’s self conscious almost all of the time, adjusting his hair, clothing, glasses right down to minor details. As of late, Kei appears more put together than he ever has, but the reality is that he’s probably the least put together he’s ever been. 

When you’re around, Kei is awkward and clumsy. He drops things, trips over nothing, loses control over his lanky limbs and overshoots things. He feels like a teenager again, not that he’s that far off from one. 

Still, one thing overshadows all of this. Kei is so comfortable around you, so peaceful despite the nerves and insecurity, that he’s able to forget about the worst of it. Forgetting about the worst of things is not something Kei is particularly good at. He’s cynical by nature. You help to ease the burden of it. 

The coffee shop he’s visiting with you today is quiet. The room is decorated with dark oak wood and the tables are accented by the rings of the trees the wood was cut from. The early spring light filters in at angles through the windows letting out onto the street. It falls across your notebooks and the knuckles of your hand, wrapped evenly around a black pen. 

You’d brought him here to study instead of going to the library and Kei can’t help but think that it feels like a date. His tea sits half-finished in a mug beside his laptop, beginning to cool to room temperature. Your coffee sits by your unoccupied hand and every now and then, you’ll reach to take a sip of the warm beverage without even glancing up. 

Kei has spent so much time watching you today, that he’s hardly gotten any work done. His computer is open on a document with a paragraph of writing about nudity in the classical period, which he hasn’t touched in about 10 minutes. He’s been clicking blankly around the page, adding spaces and then deleting them and then glancing up over the edge of the screen to look at the way you purse your lips when you’re focused. 

“You’d get a lot more done if you stopped staring,” you say, not looking up from your notebook. 

Kei chokes on his exhale. “What?” 

You laugh a little, looking up at him through your lashes. God, you’re pretty. 

“The document?” You chuckle. “You’re not fooling anyone by clicking around randomly like that.” 

“Oh,” Kei furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head a little. “Yeah, just can’t seem to focus.” 

“What’s the paper on?” You set down your pen and cross your arms on the table. 

“It’s not really a paper,” he says. “It’s a visual analysis on the Aphrodite of Knidos.” 

“Is that the one without the arms?” 

“No, but they come from the same family of statues,” Kei smiles a little. 

You hum a bit. “Do you like it?” 

“Like, do I think the statue’s pretty?” Kei closes the screen of his laptop to see you better. “Yeah, I do. Learning about the history of it is a bit depressing though.” 

“Why?” 

“Well, Aphrodite was one of the most powerful Greek gods, right?” He says, and you nod your head and roll your eyes because you know that already. “But this statue group intrudes on a private moment of hers. She’s trying to cover up her body, probably just before or after a bath. It’s meant to be humiliating.” 

You tilt your head. “Sounds more interesting than molecular structures at least.” 

Kei laughs a little. “Yeah, I think it’s just a bit more interesting.” 

“Why did you choose to study art history?” You question, leaning forward on your elbows. 

Kei feels awkward at receiving the question. He doesn’t like talking about himself much, let alone his passions. They tend to get away from him. 

“Probably because I’m no good at art,” he smiles a little. 

“Such a shame, what with your artist’s hands and all,” you reach across the table and tap his knuckle. 

Kei feels the color rise to his cheeks. 

“You’re no good at art, so you study art history instead?” You press for more. 

“Yeah,” he says. “I like things that people make with their hands. There’s a lot of human expression in ancient art, good and bad. Gives a bit more context into who we were before.” 

You lean back in the chair, grinning at him. Kei bites the inside of his cheek and tries not to notice the slope of your neck. 

“Why are you studying molecular bio?” He changes the subject. 

You shrug your shoulders. “I want a good cushy job that makes me a lot of money.” 

Kei watches the corners of your lips curl up. 

“Plus,” you continue, “I wanted to show off a little bit.” 

“So you put yourself through four years of torture?” He raises an eyebrow. 

“Yup, I’m a huge masochist,” you grin. 

“You STEM kids are unbearable, you know?” Kei snorts. 

“But you like me anyway, yeah?” 

Kei nods, heat creeping up his neck, and watches you return to your work. 

It’s true, he does like you anyway. Kei likes you so much, in fact, that it frightens him. Well, the idea of liking someone has always frightened Kei, whether he’s noticed it or not. Commitment, or lack thereof, make Kei nervous in the same way heights do. He feels like he could lose his footing at any moment. 

That’s probably why he doesn’t want to do anything in particular about his feelings. Kei is content with just feeling them. He’s content to just be able to like you in his own way, even if nothing ever comes of it. He probably shouldn’t do anything about them, considering the back and forth battle he’s waged in his mind over the last few months. He’s too indecisive to do anything but like you, and even that feels herculean to accept. 

Not that liking you is a hard thing to do. You’re easy to like. It’s easy for him to picture touching you. It’s easy for Kei to imagine late night conversations and little intimacies shared over damp pillows. You’re easy to talk to, floating through conversations and navigating conflict with a sure step, something Kei can’t do. It’s not hard to find things to admire. 

Kei imagines what it would be like to be with you. He imagines the feel of your hands in his, how you might look spread beneath him, the inside of your thighs pressing against his hips. He imagines how his glasses might fog up with your breath and slip down the bridge of his nose. What do you taste like? What do you feel like? 

A little alarm bell sounds in his head. This is a dangerous line of thought, a greedy one. Kei doesn’t think he can handle greed, not when it comes to you. He got a taste of it that day when he saw you leave with someone else and again the following Friday. Kei doesn’t mix well with it, with wanting. Still, he wants. 

—

It’s a breezy day. It cuts the growing humidity as the beginning of May creeps on. This is no doubt one of the best times of year, though Kei prefers the fall or winter. Still, even with the slightly sticky air, his walk to class is pleasant. He’d even venture to say that it’s good. 

Light filters through the trees, blooming with their spring flowers, and in the distance he can see a familiar row of cherry blossoms just beginning to bloom. As he approaches them, he finds himself admiring their delicate petals, wondering just how brief their bloom will be before they come cascading down. One tree among the pink rows has yet to open its flowers. The buds sit on their branches, shades of green and gray. A late bloomer. This tree will no doubt flower once the other petals have fallen, and when it does, it’ll become the most eye-catching thing on the street. 

Kei admires it for a moment, standing below the thing and looking up through its twisting branches. It’s so small, much smaller than the rest of its counterparts, and its branches don’t look too full of yet-to-bloom buds either. 

There was a tree like this outside of Kei’s childhood home, the one his family lived in together when it was whole. It would always bloom a week after the others and every year he would worry that it never would. Of course, he kept this fear to himself, but he often watched it from his bedroom window when Akiteru was out. He’d press his face against the glass and pray for the flowers to come so that it didn’t get left behind. Sure enough though, it would bloom without fail and leave scattered pink petals across his yard and doorstep. Kei wonders if this tree in front of him will do the same. 

“Thinking about changing your major to plant sciences, Kei?” 

He jumps, started by your voice and your proximity. 

“Jesus,” Kei turns, “you need a bell or something.” 

“You’re the one standing in public staring at a tree with no flowers on it,” you laugh a little. 

Kei shrugs his shoulders, not really willing to give an explanation for the train of thought he was just on. 

“Where’re you headed?” he questions. 

“Dropping off an assignment,” you smile lightly, “wanna come with me?” 

“I can’t. I’ve got a class in 15.” 

“Fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes,” you shrug. “We’ll make it.” 

“We?” Kei raises an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, you come with me to drop off my paper and then I drop you off at class. It’s a win-win.” 

“Sounds like I’m just doing a lot of extra walking,” Kei snorts. 

“Yeah, but you get to do it with me so it’ll be more fun.” 

Kei folds and goes with you to drop off your assignment. It’s an essay assigned by an old-fashioned professor who doesn’t like electronic submissions. You comment off-handedly on what a waste of paper it is and Kei nods, just happy to hear about it. 

It’s strange. Kei is normally very tied to his routine. It keeps him sane, helps him to organize his thoughts and feelings into neat compartments. For Kei, an orderly life is an orderly mind. Somehow though, you ask him to deviate from that and he’s more than willing, eager even, to oblige you. Better yet, he does it without feeling off-kilter. Well, without feeling as off-kilter about his daily life. When it comes to you, Kei is about as stable as a pogo stick. 

The walk to your professor's office is only a few minutes from his classroom, just a few buildings over, but by the time you both arrive there, Kei’s palms are sweating. He resorts to shoving them in his pockets and wiping them on the inside of his pants, mortified at the idea of accidentally touching you like this. 

“Hey, about tonight,” you start after dropping the paper off with a quick bow. 

You’re supposed to come over. It’s the first time you and Kei have agreed to hang out at one of your places alone and Kei has been compartmentalizing his nerves so harshly that he’d almost forgotten about it entirely. Maybe that explains his easy-going mood. 

“Yeah?” 

“So, Tadashi may have mentioned it in front of the others,” you give him a sheepish grin, “and they may have asked to come and I definitely told them ‘the more the merrier’.” 

“Oh, yeah?” Kei’s a little disappointed. “So they’re coming too?” 

“Yeah, is that okay?” You furrow your eyebrows. 

Kei can’t very well come out and say that it isn’t, because his reason for thinking that is entirely about monopolizing your time. Kei says he doesn’t want to do anything about these feelings, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t indulge just a little into the foreign feeling of accepting that he’s ‘in like’. 

“Yeah sure, why wouldn’t it be?” 

You raise an eyebrow at him and Kei misses the message entirely. 

“I dunno, you’re not really a fan of bigger groups right?” 

“Not really,” Kei shrugs, “but I’ve known them for a while so it doesn’t count.” 

You nod your head and then smile. “Great! Now, where is your class?” 

“Social Sciences,” Kei glances down at the brown watch on his wrist. “In about… four minutes.” 

“Wanna run? Can’t be late, can you?” 

Kei does not want to run. He runs anyway. You’re faster than he is and your step is louder. The soles of your shoes thump on the floor with every step you take and your whole body lurches forward with each bound. When you reach the end of the hallway his class is in, Kei is completely winded. Considering that he plays volleyball as a hobby, he should really be in better shape. He attributes his lack of breath to your presence. Maybe he’d been holding it while watching you run. 

You glance into his full classroom, giving him a relieved look upon seeing that the professor has not begun her lecture yet. Then, you bounce twice on the tips of your toes and start jogging in the other direction. 

“Have a good class!” You call. 

“What’s the rush?” he questions. 

“I’ve got class now too, dummy. Just wanted to hang out with you for a few more minutes.” Then, you turn and run off, your bag bouncing against the side of your leg as you round a corner and fly down a set of stairs. 

That’s the thing about you that Kei can’t get enough of. When Kei takes a step back, when he resigns himself to being okay with just a chance meeting and a brief hello, you take a step forward. Whatever Kei lacks, you make up for tenfold. Your outstretched hand makes him greedier. It makes Kei want more than he’s ever wanted before. He goes to class starved for something that isn’t food, a feeling Kei hasn’t experienced often, let alone leaned into. He lets himself feel the hunger. 

—

Day melts away to a cool evening, still slightly wet, but like the dampness before rain. The air loses its warm touch, creeping into something chillier. Kei opens his bedroom window to let the air in. He likes the smell of cool nights. He wants his room to smell like it when he sleeps tonight. 

“Sorry that I spilled the beans about tonight,” Tadashi leans in the doorway of his room. 

“It’s not like that,” Kei rolls his eyes, already irritated with the implication that whatever you and Kei had organized was anything more than two friends hanging out. 

“Sure it isn’t,” he laughs. 

“I’m serious dude,” Kei fights the urge to throw something soft at him. 

“You wanted to hang out with them alone, right?” Tadashi tilts his head. His dark hair falls to the side and around his neck. 

“I just said it wasn’t like that!” 

Tadashi gives an even laugh. “You’re the one making it dirty, Tsukki, not me.” 

Heat floods Kei’s face, painting it red. 

“Caught ya,” Tadashi smiles. 

“When the hell are you moving out?” Kei grumbles and Tadashi gives another good natured laugh. 

“Not until you do. You’re stuck with me.” 

“Not if I kill you,” Kei doesn’t smile when he says this. 

Tadashi barks a laugh. “So what changed?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean with you. You seem a little more upbeat lately,” Tadashi says. “Nothing like the sad sack from a few months ago.” 

“I was kidding before but now I’m serious. I really will kill you.” 

Tadashi shakes his head a little but doesn’t say anything, intruding on Kei’s space until he gives an answer. 

“I just got tired of it, that’s all,” Kei says evenly, though it’s a little hard to admit. 

“Tired of what?” 

“Pretending,” he says plainly, glancing up at Tadashi in the doorway. 

“Because of them?” 

“No,” he starts. “Maybe. I don’t know. Can you leave now?” 

Tadashi shakes his head. “Too curious to leave.” 

“I don’t have an answer for you,” Kei grumbles. “I got tired of pretending I didn’t want them.” 

“Not like you were very good at pretending,” Tadashi laughs and Kei tosses him a sharp look. 

He raises his hands defensively, tucking his chin downwards and laughing lightly. “Okay, fine. I’m gone now.” 

“They’ll be here in an hour or so, by the way,” Kei adds and Tadashi gives a little hum to confirm that he’s heard him as he leaves the room. 

Kei glances around his room. The floor is bare, save for a small mat by the side of his bed to keep the shock of warm feet on a cold floor in the morning away. That notebook, dear to him as it is, still sits on the desk. It’s empty, but Kei likes the look of it. 

The hour before you and his friends are meant to arrive goes by so slowly that Kei worries that he’s gotten the day wrong. He incessantly checks his watch. It’s a brown leather watch with a square face. Thin and somewhat old fashioned, Kei prefers it to pulling his phone out to check the time. His Dad has one like it, almost matching. It had been given to him as a gift at his high school graduation and Kei had accepted it begrudgingly. He’d not been on good terms with his parents then and having them both in the same space for his graduation day was more trouble than it was worth. Still, he wears the watch almost daily. Despite having the impression that his parents never really cared about him, it was a fine gift for him and the brown strap suits his light skin tone in the same way it suits his father’s. 

He walks to the mirror in his room, hanging on the wall beside his nightstand, and peers into it. Kei’s curly hair is somewhat unruly. It’s hard to manage, especially in the warmer months when his waves turn into frizzy curls that he can’t seem to keep down. It’s gotten longer, coming down to just above the bottom of his ears at the back and curls upwards in licks of thick blond. 

Kei fiddles with it for a moment, tucking it behind his ears and then deciding to pull it forward. He could put gel in it to help calm it down, but he hates the greasy look of it and he’s never been one to primp and preen. He adjusts his glasses on his nose, square frames in a tortoiseshell pattern. They look expensive, though they’re only a cheap pair that he’d found at the drug store and had the lenses replaced. 

He looks normal. Kei looks like himself, if not a bit flushed in the face from his nerves. His reflection is one he is oddly unfamiliar with, despite it being his throughout his entire life. At some point during high school, he’d stopped recognizing the man in the mirror as Kei and started viewing him as a separate entity. Kei Two, a version of him that can make a home out of a space and find things to write in his notebook. Kei Two’s family is still whole and unbroken, and he likes to imagine that he’s a little more friendly than the real-world version. He looks away from the mirror, content today with being the original. 

Kei is in the living room and around the corner when the front door latch clicks open and is followed by a symphony of raucous voices. He takes a sharp inhale, unsure of why this feels so different from the hundreds of other times you’ve all piled into his living room. 

“Where’s Kei?” He hears you call, dragging out the syllable of his name in a soft hum. 

That’s why. It’s because this time, you’ve come here to see him specifically. You’re not here to see Tadashi or by chance, you’re here because you’d made plans to see Kei. That’s what makes it different. 

You round the corner and Kei is hit full force in the chest with his emotions and his nerves. It happens all at once, keeping the air from his lungs. You’re smiling, beaming even, and Kei thinks that maybe it’s because you can hear the hammer of his heart against his chest. 

“Hi,” you breathe, plopping down next to him on the couch. 

“Hey,” he chokes out. 

Kei chides himself for his nerves. He’d been doing better about getting weird around you, but today he feels closer to blowing up than he ever has. 

Hinata, Kageyama, Yachi, and Noya make their way into the kitchen, each one clapping Tadashi on the back as they do. They beeline for their fridge, opening the door and flooding the floor with artificial white light as they pull out enough beers and sodas to supply a small army. Kei wonders why he and Tadashi ever bought so many of them. Kei hardly drinks, but he supposes that Tadashi just likes to host. 

“Tanaka and Kiyoko?” Tadashi questions as he makes his way into the living room with the group. His beer cracks open with a satisfying pop. 

“Date night,” Noya says, sinking into one of the arm chairs situated around the coffee table. “So annoying.”

He groans about Kiyoko, someone he’s all but worshiped since high school. 

“You’re just mad it isn’t you,” Kageyama quips, giving a somewhat mean grin. 

“Not true,” Noya argues. “I am the happiest person in the world for them! But now they go on dates and I can’t come. It’s like I lost a bro.” 

“You’re so overreacting,” Yachi adds, her lips forming around high pitched syllables. “They’re here most of the time.” 

“Yeah, most but not all,” Noya pouts. 

“Give the same energy to Daichi, Suga, and Asahi next time, kay?” Tadashi laughs. 

Their friend group is a large one, consisting of most (if not all) of their highschool volleyball team. While Hinata, Kageyama, and Yachi are the same age as Kei and Tadashi, Tanaka and Noya are a year older, and Kiyoko is two. Daichi, Asahi, and Suga all went to universities outside of Sendai, meaning they hardly ever see them. All in all, the rest of the group is pretty bummed about it. Kei just finds that he misses having Daichi around to reel everyone in. Now that he’s gone, that job has somehow gone to Tadashi, who is more of an enabler than anything else. 

“They’re different and you know it,” Noya frowns, opening his open beer with a hiss through his teeth. 

You lean to the side, bumping your shoulder against Kei’s. 

“Who’re Daichi, Suga, and Asahi?” You ask softly. 

“You’ve never met?” Kei furrows his eyebrows and you shrug. 

“Maybe, but if I have it was only once or twice.” 

“They’re friends from our volleyball team in highschool, but they’re two years older.” 

“Okay, so one year older than me?” 

Kei blinks a few times. “You’re a year older than me?” 

“Yeah?” You laugh a little like it’s obvious. 

“But aren’t you a fourth year?” He furrows his eyebrows. 

“I took a year off before starting college,” you shrug your shoulders. “Thought that I had to get my sillies out.” 

“Your sillies?” Kei laughs a little. 

“Yeah,” you smile, “and I had to save up some money. It makes the world go ‘round, you know?” 

“What are you guys whispering about?” Tadashi gives Kei a wry grin over the top of his beer can. 

It’s only then that Kei realizes the way you both are leaning into each other. He’s tilting his head down to hear you better and you’re leaning forward. It gives off the impression of two people conspiring, of closeness that Kei hadn’t even realized had crept up on him. 

“I was asking who Daichi, Suga, and Asahi are,” you shrug off the moment, leaning back in the chair. 

This prompts a chorus of disbelief, everyone jumping in to describe them to you. Kei takes it as a moment to breathe, inhaling and exhaling. He can feel your thigh against his, just barely there and bleeding warmth through the fabric of his jeans. 

They delve into stories about nationals, little details that Kei had forgotten a long time ago. Every now and then, someone will bring up Kei’s more-than-sour personality and he will feel the need to hide the embarrassment on his cheeks. Even though you know about it, it’s still mortifying for Kei to hear. He wants you to see the best in him, but any hopes he had of you forgetting are quickly washed away as someone brings up Kei’s relentless prodding of Kageyama’s easily pushed buttons. 

You laugh along with them like you were there, amused to hear stories about your college friends in their high school years. Kei finds himself thinking that you fit very well into this scene. 

Still though, despite the fun he’s having, Kei’s battery begins to run out quickly and after a long game of cards, he gets up to take a quick break in the kitchen. It’s not that he wants the night to end, but rather that he just needs a minute to himself and uses the idea of more snacks as an excuse for it. 

He reaches into a cabinet, pulling out a half-finished bag of chips and setting them on the counter. They’re clipped with a bright red chip-clip from the grocery store and Kei thinks that because of that, they shouldn’t have gone stale yet. If it were the peak of summer, Kei might think twice, but this time of year, they should be fine.

Then, he bends down to get a large white mixing bowl from a lower cabinet. Their plates and bowls are kept in various different cabinets, though the only reason they stay somewhat organized is because of Kei. 

“Done already?” You lean your hip against the counter. 

“With what?” Kei struggles to keep his eyes from following the line of your body. 

“Hanging out,” you smile lightly. 

“Not really,” he says. “Just needed a minute and decided to get more snacks.” 

“Wanna go sit outside for a bit then?” 

Kei glances into the living room where the group chatters away. He’d hate to be stopped on the way. 

“Relax,” you laugh. “They’re so caught up they won’t even notice that we’re gone.” 

Kei furrows his eyebrows and then shrugs, swallowing his heart down with the spit that has pooled in his mouth. He follows you out of the front door, shutting it with a quiet click and heading down the steps of the complex and to the concrete wall lining the shrubbery outside. It’s the same place you’d come back to talk to him at all those weeks ago, though he is in considerably better spirits than he was then. 

It’s a cool night, the gentle heat of the day completely burned off to make way for a crisp breeze. He inhales, wishing that he had brought a drink to fiddle with and sip on to distract him from his nerves. 

You sit beside him, leaning back on your palms with your legs outstretched in front of you. Your hand is only a few inches from his and Kei sucks in a breath when he accidentally touches it while he gets comfortable. You only offer him a little smile in response. 

“Sorry again about bringing the troops here,” you speak first. 

“That’s really okay,” he says. “Contrary to popular belief, I actually really like them.” 

You snort. “I hope so.” 

Kei inhales louder than he intends to and when you look at him like he’s going to say something, he just holds his breath and shakes his head. The air only leaves him when you finally look away. 

“Kind of a bummer though,” you start, “I was kinda excited about just hanging out with you.” 

Kei’s breath catches in his throat. He swallows to move the metaphorical blockage. 

“We hang out all the time though,” he says like it’s enough. Of course it’s not enough. 

“Guess so,” you smile a little, though Kei can hear the distinct turn of disappointment in your voice. 

“You know,” he starts, already embarrassed at what he’s going to admit. “I wanted to be your friend for a while.” 

“Oh yeah?” you smile, opening up again and turning towards him. “Why?” 

Kei shrugs, resisting the urge to shut down completely. It’s embarrassing admitting to someone that you wanted to know them before you actually knew them. 

“You kind of reminded me of Tadashi,” he says. “And you both got along so well.” 

“Tadashi? I’m nothing like Tadashi,” you laugh, shaking your head. 

“What? No, you two are so similar,” Kei insists, lacing his fingers together. 

“What about us is so similar?” 

“Well, you’re both sociable and warm and…” Kei trails off. He can’t really think of anything else. You look at him with an expectant look in your eyes. 

“See?” 

Kei realizes that the two of you are not similar at all. Your warmth is where the similarity stops. He’d been likening you to Tadashi this entire time, not because the two of you are similar, but because you make him feel similar to the way Tadashi does. Safe and comfortable, though with the added addition of deeply awkward. He realizes that without the safety net of you being like Tadashi, he’s never had any ability to deny his feelings and with that they rage full force around the corner and slam into his chest like a heavy blow. 

“We’re nothing like each other,” you laugh and lean back against your palms. “Though, it would be cool to be like Tadashi.” 

Kei experiences the sudden realization that he doesn’t want you to be like Tadashi. Kei wants you to be like him. He wants you to be greedy and want him the same way he wants you. He wants you to be able to keep up with his turns and his moods, something he didn’t realize he wanted in the first place. If you’re like Kei, then Kei doesn’t have to be afraid of showing you the worst. You’ll have already seen it. If you’re like Kei and he loves you, then what is stopping you from loving him? 

“Even if you’re not like Tadashi, that’s fine.” His cheeks burn. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah, I like you all the same,” he admits quietly. 

“The same? As Tadashi?” You purse your lips a little. “I thought I was a little different. Was I wrong?” 

Kei wants to kiss you. Kei wants to kiss you so badly that his mouth has gone dry and his lips feel like they’ve separated from his body. Anything he’d thought about not wanting anything with you flies out of the window with your proximity. You’re so close to him. Close enough that if he leaned a little to the right, his shoulder would be against yours. You’re so close and you’re looking at him like you’re waiting for something, implying that somehow you’re different from Tadashi. Implying that you want him to like you differently than the way he likes his platonic friend. 

“No, you’re different,” he says, taking the bait you’ve laid in front of him. His heart pounds and he can’t look at you. He thinks he’ll kiss you if he does. 

“Am I?” 

Kei can hear the smile in your voice. It makes what you’re saying sound honeyed and curved. 

“Yeah, you are.”

“How so?” 

Kei finally raises his head to look at you. You’re grinning, leaning towards him like you’re watching a show. He feels the way his nerves rise into his throat, pressing against the very back of his tongue. He doesn’t know how to answer or what to say. Well, he does know what to say, he just doesn’t think he can. Kei is good at thinking about emotions, but when it comes time to speak them outloud, it seems that he’s still got a padlock around his throat. So he does what any logical person would do. 

Kei leans forward, pushing against his screaming nerves and trying to ignore the tremble in his hands, and kisses you. It’s awkward and his teeth click against yours before his lips fully settle against your mouth. He feels the breath you draw in, like surprise and relief mixed together, and he finds that he does the same. 

He can see the way your eyes flutter closed through his barely open ones and he realizes that your lips are so warm. He screws his eyes shut when you dip your head forward to move your lips against his. Yours are so warm and soft, like satin. A kiss has never felt like this to Kei before and he finds that he wants to catalog every single one of your reactions. Maybe that’s what he could write in the notebook. Maybe he could write down every single thing that you do that leaves him winded and wanting more. 

Neither of you reach for the other, but he can feel the knuckle of your pinky against his as you slowly kiss each other, tilting your heads side to side. There’s hunger within him, the need to take more than what he’s receiving and a greed he isn’t quite familiar with, but there’s also romance. It’s like a spell that’s yet to be broken, fed by the click of your mouths as they move together. Kei sighs, flooded with the relief of this kind of physical affection, of being honest with himself at how much he likes it. Kei loves the feel of your mouth. He loves the way your lips and tongue feel and he loves that they’re all that he can feel right now. 

The kiss lasts longer than Kei thought it would and by the time he pulls away, you’re both steadily panting and attempting to keep your breathing even. He wants to do it again. He wants it so badly that it makes his chest swell. He wants to do that with you forever, but he swallows down the desire. It’s a temporary fix, but it’s enough for him to choke out what it is he wants to say next. 

“I think I’m in really hot water,” he squeaks. 

“What do you mean?” You breathe out, the playfulness from a few moments earlier long behind you. 

“I think I want you way more than I thought I did,” he admits quietly, the first out loud admittance of his feelings to you. 

You smile a little before speaking. “I think it’s only hot water if the other person doesn’t feel the same way.” 

Your face is still so close to his. “Yeah?” 

It comes out a bit desperate, like he needs reassurance. Kei does. He’s so afraid that he thinks he could die. Afraid of the spell breaking, afraid of losing whatever moment this is and being forced to return to his one-sided pining, afraid that you don’t feel the same way.

Your face moves closer to him, breath trembling lightly. “Yeah.” 

You kiss him again, pressing your lips against his lightly before parting them. He’s so overwhelmed and so immediately lost in it. Kei feels the way your tongue teases the inside of his mouth and it makes him feel like a teenager again, swelling with desires and emotions that he can’t name. You move your hand over his, placing it lightly on top of his, and he reacts by lacing your fingers together and pushing forward more. 

Kei wants to touch you so badly, to reach up and hold your face, to touch your waist and your legs and your chest. He wants to do it all, to feel you right here under the cover of night, but he doesn’t. Instead, he kisses you and stews in the desire, letting it swell in his chest as he listens to the clicking of your mouths. You kiss him so slowly, moving your mouth at a languid pace. It drives him crazy. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of this.

“We should go back inside, I think,” you break away, your bottom lip shiny with a sheen of spit. “The others might think something’s up and Tanaka isn’t exactly good with discretion.”

Kei automatically reaches up to swipe it with his thumb. He doesn’t know where this affection comes from, where the possessive action found its origins, but he finds that he likes the way it feels to be able to do it in the first place. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Kei responds, though he would have been happy to continue sitting out here with you, kissing you silly. 

You stand first, dusting off the back of your legs and waiting for Kei to follow suit. When he does, you reach quickly for his hand, giving it a quick squeeze before walking in front of him. 

Kei is not sure how he should act when he goes inside. He’s tense all over, desperate to pick up where the two of you left off, and unsure if his face betrays that thought. 

“Where’d you guys go?” Tadashi asks as Kei closes the door behind him. 

In the time you’d both been gone, the living room has been transformed into something nearly unrecognizable. Empty beer cans are strewn about the tables and the blankets and pillows from the couches are now haphazardly laying around beside the couch or over people’s bodies. Then again, maybe the room always looked like this and he was just too busy thinking about how close you were to him. 

Kei doesn’t know what to say. Why had they gone outside in the first place? He’s not even sure that he remembers. 

“I wanted a cigarette and I made Kei come with me,” you answer evenly. “Why? You jealous?” 

“Of inhaling second-hand smoke? No, thanks.” Tadashi laughs, but he tosses Kei a sideways glance. Tadashi knows him well enough to know that Kei wouldn’t voluntarily stand outside with a smoker unless he was particularly fond of them. 

“Aw, man, I thought you quit?” Hinata pipes up, tilting his head. 

“I did, hot stuff,” you respond, sitting down on the couch. “Don’t worry. I won’t smoke anymore.” 

Hinata huffs and Kei takes the opportunity to sit down next to you. 

His thigh is pressed against yours, warmth seeping through his pants and into his skin. Kei feels like he could explode. You’re so close to him again, closer than before, and he can’t stop replaying the kiss in his head. He’s desperate for it, fidgety with his desire. He keeps thinking about the hot press of your mouth and the languid motion of your tongue. All he can imagine is the few points of contact between you both, mouth and hands, and how badly he wanted it to be more. He needs it. 

You touch him a few times throughout the night and the tension is so palpable that Kei is convinced he can see it. It’s like there is a rope pulled taut between the two of you. If he doesn’t stick his ground, he’ll go flying towards you, grabbing and touching and taking in the way he’s desperate to now. 

After an hour, his friends begin to grow restless. Their faces are flushed with alcohol and the things they’d been amusing themselves with are no longer enough stimulation. 

“Hey, we’re going out to the bars. Who’s coming?” Hinata speaks up. 

A chorus of agreement rings out, but the last thing Kei wants to do is go out.

“I think I’ll probably stay back and start cleaning,” he says somewhat disdainfully. “It’s a mess in here,” Kei tosses you a small glance. It’s unintentional but he’s glad for it because Kei is hoping that you’ll stay back with him, that you both can pick up where you left off. 

“I’ll stay and help too. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow anyway,” you smile and Hinata pouts. 

“You guys are so boring,” he protests. “Leave the mess for tomorrow and come out with us.” 

“I’ll pass, pipsqueak,” Kei scoffs. 

“Fine, but don’t complain to me when you’re full of regret tomorrow,” he points a finger at Kei and then moves it over to you. “And you’re too nice for your own good.” 

“Do you hear that?” You say, beginning to usher the group to the door. “I think it’s the sound of the bar and all that alcohol calling to you guys.” 

“You guys are so full of shit-” Kageyama starts, speaking up for the first time in a while, but Kei just waves him out. 

“Yeah yeah, let the grown ups clean while you guys have fun. We’ll see you tomorrow.” 

The rope is so taut between you both that it’s unbearable and by the time the door closes, you are spinning around on your heel toward Kei. 

“We’re not cleaning, right?” 

Kei shakes his head and starts towards you. The tension breaks when his hands find your hips and he hungrily leans down to press his mouth against yours. 

This kiss is different from the first, desperate and full of desire. It’s fast and your mouths move together quickly as he starts to walk you back towards his bedroom, his hands eagerly roaming up and down your hips. Vaguely, he acknowledges that his glasses have been moved out of place, but he pays it no mind as you turn the knob to his bedroom door with your back to it. 

There’s an urgency to his movements. Kei feels it in his chest, this desperate desire to be closer, to consume everything that you’ve laid out in the palm of his hand. You stumble backwards into his room and Kei catches your shifted weight with a hand around your waist. His other hand comes up to cup your cheek, feeling the warm skin on your jaw and neck. His fingers tremble where they touch you, half out of desperate need and half out of the nerves that threaten to spill from his mouth. His lips though, are occupied with yours, clicking together, all tongue and teeth. 

Kei kisses sloppily down your jaw, his lips smearing across your cheek and dipping down below your ear. He sucks a trail there, unsure if he’s leaving marks, all the way down to your collarbone. Every part of you tastes better than he’d expected it to and with every push he delivers, you pull. 

You make small sounds, little pants and groans that make Kei’s hair stand on end with wanting. Your voice, so familiar and fond to him, spills out in small, breath-like bursts that make Kei want to coax more out of you. Kei’s never been one to want this way, but right now, it’s all that he feels. So much tension and impulse that he feels like he can hardly control himself. 

You reach blindly behind you for the bed and Kei guides you down, placing his hand on one side of you as you sit. Then, without disconnecting your lips, he guides you up toward the wall. 

He feels the cool tips of your fingers at the hem of his shirt, pulling downward and then upward to get him to take it off. Kei obliges you, leaning back on his knees and pulling it off over the top of his head. You eye him for a moment, the two of you slowing down enough as the urgency settles into something heavy and lingering. 

Kei leans forward again, one of his hands reaching for your hip. He slips his fingers underneath the hem of your shirt, sliding his long fingers up your stomach as he kisses you again. You’re so soft and he can feel the way your chest heaves against his palm. His touch is feather light and he slides it up evenly until it reaches just below your breast. When you nod, Kei moves it up over your bra and he feels you shudder. Kei does the same, overwhelmed by your pliability. 

He can feel the goosebumps that have raised on your skin, little pinpricks of skin that indicate that some part of you feels good. When Kei squeezes your breast, you gasp into his moan and he groans his response, letting you bite at his bottom lip. 

He feels you suck at his lips and swipe your tongue along the ridge of his mouth. When he opens it to let you in, he’s overtaken by the warmth of the soft muscle. He groans, tilting his head down to kiss you deeper, letting the taste of you spread over his mouth. It’s hot and your breath fans across his face. 

Kei hands drift from your breasts along the sides of your body. He feels the heave of your breath there against your warm skin, his palms resting on your waist. You raise your knees, the sides of them pressing against Kei’s hips. He shifts downwards slowly, dragging his mouth along your skin, past the cloth of your shirt. 

His hands make their way from your waist to your hips as he dips lower. Kei takes off his glasses, already fogged up and in the way. When he meets your eyes, you nod your permission and Kei slips between your legs, his flat palms moving to spread your thighs. 

You’re so warm and soft, so pliable in a way that Kei can’t articulate. It makes his mouth water with his desperation and he’s grown hard against the bedspread beneath him. 

“Touch me,” you breathe out. 

Kei nods into your stomach, looping his fingers around our waistband, and pulls down your pants. Your panties come with it and it’s with a slight wave of regret that he realizes he won’t get to see the way you stick to them. 

When he sees you, his heart leaps into his throat. His eagerness and his nerves catch up to him and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. You shudder when the air hits your exposed cunt, an unintentional side effect of Kei’s nerves that has him grinding down against the bedspread. 

He slides his palm to rest over your center. It’s warm and sticky, wet beyond what Kei had imagined and he gingerly presses a finger between your folds. You gasp, mouth falling open above him. Then, he slides his finger into you to the first knuckle, curling up. Kei goes deeper on the second pump, curling his whole finger inside of you and feeling the way you tighten around him. 

You arch your back up off the bed and Kei groans and rolls his eyes, resting his head on the inside of your exposed thigh. He curls his fingers in you, watching the way they coat with your pleasure. His eyebrows are knit together, like he’s asking whether you like how he touches you or not, and you seem to pick up on his insecurity, nodding your head before letting it tip back against Kei’s pillows. 

Kei thinks your expression is incredible. Your eyebrows pull up in the center, pretty face twisted and mouth slightly open in an expression of undeniable pleasure. Kei’s stomach winds at the look of it and he ruts his hips against the mattress to quell the growing ache of need. His fingers, which curl at a slow and even pace inside of you, are warm with your enjoyment. It leaks between his knuckles, sliding down the back of his hand like a slow moving syrup. He wonders whether you have more to give and how you taste, his gaze slinking from your face to the place just above where his fingers disappear. 

He lowers his mouth to you without thinking, curious and needing the taste of it. Sure enough, you have more to give. Your voice comes quickly, a small gasp that is stifled by the back of your hand when he sucks sharply on your clit. Your hips push forward against his hands and then you arch up off the mattress with a small cry. Kei wonders if you’ve cum. He wonders if he’s sent you over the edge, but if he has, you’re taking all of it so well that he doesn’t dare stop. 

The taste of you spreads on his tongue, tangy and warm. You invade his senses violently, like you are gripping his throat. Kei holds his mouth to you, pressing the length of his cock into the mattress and moving his hips like he plans to fuck it. 

He moves his free hand down your thigh and onto the inside of your leg. Your skin is so soft. It’s so vulnerable, something easily pierced and bled. Kei’s pointer finger rubs gentle circles there, feeling the slight pull of the soft skin with his fingers, so thin that it almost feels like tissue paper. He’s sure that with a little pressure, you would bruise. 

The thought surprises him. He works his tongue across your clit and his fingers against that gummy spot inside of you, but his mind drifts to the softness of your inner thigh, the way it would be so easy to leave a spot that might hurt later when you press on it, remind you of exactly where he was. Then, Kei pinches you on the inside of your thigh and when you cry out, tightening around his fingers with a tapered moan, he pinches you again, harder this time. 

You whimper slightly, like you like it. No, you sound like you love it and Kei finds himself holding back a choked moan as he tries not to cum prematurely. He pinches along the inside of your legs and around the back. Not too much. Only when he feels like it. Only when he wants to hear what kind of sounds you’ll make. 

“K-Kei wait, wait,” you pant, grabbing him by his tufts of blonde hair. It hurts. He doesn’t think you mean to hurt him, but it doesn’t matter. He likes it and he twitches in his pants. 

“Huh?” He hums, detaching from your clit and slowing the movement of his fingers to a halt. Your legs shake around his handiwork. “You okay?” 

“I’ll cum if you keep going like that,” you breathe, screwing your eyes shut like you’re still on the edge. “Drag it out for me, yeah?” 

Kei furrows his eyebrows and sucks in a sharp breath.

“Cum if you want to.” He tilts his head down to reattach his lips. 

“Not yet,” you tug at his hair. “I like chasing it.” 

Kei stares at you, unblinking and awestruck. Your chest heaves and despite the pleasure on your face, you look uncomfortable as your orgasm slips away from you. Kei likes that look on your face and he finds himself growing greedy. 

“Come here,” you coax him onto the mattress. 

Kei watches as you slip your hands into the waistband of his jeans and pull them down, leaving him on his back with his tented boxers exposed. You crawl down his body and settle between his legs with your arms between his thighs. He shudders when you run your hands up them and he briefly sees his boxers jump. 

You smile, pressing your mouth to him through his boxers. Kei can’t stifle the groan that escapes him and heat floods his face when you raise your eyebrows in response. 

“You don’t have to,” he says through gritted teeth as you slip the waistband of his boxers down. 

“But I want to,” you mumble, taking him in your hand and placing a kiss on the side of his dick. 

Kei’s head falls back against the pillow and he swears under his breath when he feels the warmth of your mouth close around the tip of him. He jerks his head up to see, awestruck by the way your lips look around the head of his cock. 

For some reason, Kei is already so sensitive. He feels everything, and when you swipe the tip of your tongue along his slit as you bob your head, he makes a noise he didn’t think he could make. His fingers knot themselves in the bed sheets, white knuckled and trembling while you bob your head over him. 

Your mouth is so warm and wet. It’s a little messy, dripping down the length of him and onto his balls. Kei feels the warmth, the heat of you. He can still taste you on his tongue. Kei can still feel the stickiness left behind from your arousal on his mouth. The combination of you between his legs and the taste of you on his tongue is overwhelming. 

Kei can feel his orgasm growing in his lower stomach, turning over until he’s bringing his long fingers to your head in an effort to steady himself. There’s nothing he can do but give in, watching you through damp eyes as you watch his expression. 

It’s embarrassing how quickly he cums. It doesn’t take long and he teeters on the edge for a few moments before fully cresting over. Kei can’t help the way he lifts his hips from the mattress, his voice caught in his throat as it hooks on a high pitched groan. His voice cracks and he feels the way his cum collects on your tongue and across the tip of his dick in your mouth. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, red faced and panting, “I didn’t mean to- I didn’t mean to finish so quickly, you’re just-” 

“It’s fine,” you come up, your eyes glassed over and lust-filled. “I like making you feel good.” 

“Yeah but-” 

“No buts,” you crawl over him and straddle his waist. Kei winces when your weight briefly nudges his cock. “There’s still fun to be had. Can I kiss you?” 

He nods and you lean down to do as you’d asked. Your tongue moves slowly against his, less desperate this time, like you’re trying to work him down and back up again. You place your hands on his chest, settling your weight down so that your bare cunt is pressed against his sensitive cock. Kei thinks he might die. 

He brings his hands to your waist, the fatigue creeping from his bones as he digs the pads of his fingers into your fleshy sides. You draw in a breath when he does and it makes Kein feel like he’s tipping sideways with arousal. Everything that you do, right down to the involuntary twitch of your hips or eyebrows, is sexy. 

Kei turns you over, growing hard between your legs again, and gently pins you to the mattress. He kisses you for a moment longer, his lips working clumsily across yours before he pulls away to catch his breath and find his bearings. 

You chase him with your mouth, tilting your head up to kiss him. Kei feels his chest swell with arousal and his cock strains almost painfully against his pants as he peers at you. You’re so pretty. Everything about you is so pretty. On his chest, he can feel your fingers, splayed over his pecks, across his collarbone, and grazing the side of his neck. He leans closer, loving the pressure of your body and the desperation that pours from your skin. 

Kei kisses you again. He kisses you the way he wanted to outside, dipping his tongue into your mouth with a desperation that he can taste. You take control back, reaching between the two of you, and Kei shifts himself upward instinctually to give you access to him. He feels your fingers fumble for him and there’s a pause in which Kei doesn’t know what to do. He wonders if this might be the part of him that you like. The awkward part, the one that doesn’t know what to do. Kei’s thoughts are interrupted by the feeling of your hand wrapping around him and tugging upward. 

His head drops and a low groan escapes his lips before he can even think to stop it. Kei’d almost forgotten his sensitivity, how desperately he wants to be touched, how overwhelming it feels. He shivers, looking down at where your hand wraps around him and pumps. When he looks back up, he finds that you’re looking at his face, your eyes glassed over and observant as you commit all of his expressions to memory. 

“What?” he says, letting out a shuddering breath and the slight overstimulation. 

“Your face is red,” you reach up with your free hand to run your thumb along his cheek. 

Kei huffs, dropping his head and you fiddle with something between the two of you.

“No,” you pick his chin up. “I like it. It’s cute.” 

You tighten your grip around him and Kei feels his expression twist, a new rush of heat and desire flooding his belly as he realizes you’re sliding a condom onto him. Then, you guide the tip of him between your legs and he feels the wet press of your entrance against him. 

“Christ,” he groans. 

You smile slightly, shifting your hips a little and then placing your hands on his shoulders. Kei pushes forward slowly, his thighs twitching. It takes everything he has to keep from cumming again and every muscle in his body screams with a desire to let go. 

Kei is so overwhelmed, partially because you feel so good, but also because there is some part of him that knows this feels different. Kei feels different about you, about being intimate with you, than he has with anyone else. There’s something alive in him, something with its own mind. Something greedy and vulnerable that stirs when your face is this close to him, when he’s buried all the way in you to the base of his cock. Emotional and sensitive, Kei feels it kick. 

His first instinct is to run. Agreeing to let himself like you, to let himself do something about it, was not agreeing to letting something live inside of him. Kei’s first thought when he registers the difference is to cut it off and suffocate it so that it stops thumping against his chest. He’d grown so used to the hollow feeling that the feeling of living emotion makes him nervous, it puts him on edge. But when he pulls out a few inches and fucks back into you, the anxiety dispels into insurmountable pleasure. A pleasure Kei can’t describe, something fulfilling and whole. 

He picks up his pace, letting himself do what he wants while you grip his shoulders with blunted nails. He likes the expression you wear. Truthfully, he likes all of your expressions, but this one is new. Pressure and pleasure, a newness to the feel of him inside of you that you can’t quite keep from your eyes or lips. He kisses you as if he could taste it, slipping his tongue between your lips. 

“I really like you,” you mumble against his mouth, breath hot as it fans across his cheeks. 

Kei’s heart hammers and his hips stutter a little. 

“Me too,” he chokes, trying to think about volleyball to stave off a second orgasm. All that comes to mind though, is you. 

“Are you close again?” you breathe, voice laden with pleasure. 

“I have been since we started,” Kei admits. 

“Cum then,” you say softly, reaching behind his head to pull his mouth back to yours. Kei likes the control you exhibit. He groans his approval.

“You first,” he mutters.

There’s this possessive part of Kei that wants to watch you fall apart on him. He wants to see it, to watch you feel good too and commit it to memory so that he can always keep it. He thinks it’s a pride thing, something attached to his desire to succeed, to his reliability. Maybe though, it’s just because he thinks it’ll look hot. 

He reaches down and lifts one of your legs up by the back of your knee, pressing it down to give himself better access. You whine and Kei feels the way you clench down around him, your fingers knitting into the hair at the back of his neck. It hurts in a good way. 

Kei slips his hand between you, rubbing circles on your clit to get you there faster. Frankly, he doesn’t know how much longer he can last like this, staring down at your face while it twists with pleasure. You’re so attractive to him. Everything about you is sexy. It makes Kei a little crazy. 

He listens as your breathing quickens, as your voice wavers further. He feels the way your cunt begins to flutter faster, pulsing around him until you attempt to cry out and warn him. Then, you clamp down around him, arching your hips up off the mattress and pulling at his hair. Kei moves his head with you, relishing in the way you tug and scratch. 

He builds up to his orgasm so fast that it hurts. There’s pressure and then the mounting feeling of nearing the top, and then the peak and crash. He cums so hard that it hurts, pushing his cock as far as it will go into you and feeling the warm spill of his cum in the condom. He moans a long, drawn out sound that you mimic, his fingers knitting into the pillow behind you and his head dropping so that his lips sit near your neck.

He lets out a shaky breath, letting himself sit inside of you for a moment. You turn his head towards yours and kiss him. It’s gentle. A smooth and languid kiss that neither of you moves to deepen. Your lips move against each other and Kei closes his eyes to savor the taste. 

You tap his shoulder and Kei rolls over onto the bed beside you, snapping the condom off with a small wince and tying it up in a quick motion. He places it in the trash bin beside the bed. When he turns over, you’re already moving to slip under his arm, resting your head on his chest. 

There’s a passing moment of silence, not unlike the ones you both have fallen into before and you sigh lightly against his exposed chest. Kei follows suit, watching the way you move with his breath. 

His skin is sticky against yours and Kei can vaguely register the smell of sweat in the room. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since everyone left, nor does he know when they’ll be back, but he estimates that it won’t be more than an hour. Kei briefly wishes that he could pause time so that he can stay here with you, just like this. 

“I’m not good at this kind of stuff,” Kei admits quietly. 

“What stuff?” You ask, tracing your finger along the ridges of his lean abdomen. 

“Liking people,” he says. “Dating.” 

You give a small laugh. “No offense, Kei, but I could tell that from the moment I met you.” 

“Shit, seriously?” 

“Duh,” you breathe out. “It’s a little charming to me, though. I like that part of you.” 

So it’s true. You like the parts of Kei that he’s always worried were the worst of him. 

“Huh,” he says. “Could you tell?” 

“That you like me?” You ask, shifting your head to look at him. “Yeah, it was obvious after we established that you didn’t hate me. I always noticed you staring in the library.” 

“Really? I thought I was being a little slick with that,” Kei feels heat and color flood his face. 

You let out a good-natured laugh. “People can always tell when someone’s staring, Kei. It’s like a sixth sense.” 

“Good to know. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.” 

Another bout of silence follows. 

“You can keep staring though,” you say, “if you want to. And calling.”

“Okay,” Kei responds, “I didn’t really plan on stopping.” 

“Ha, freaky,” you laugh a little and Kei reaches up to flick the side of your head. “Wanna start going out?” 

Kei thinks about this for a moment. He thinks about being able to hold your hand, brush hair out of your face, watch movies on the couch and fix your breakfast the next morning. Then he thinks about not being able to do those things. 

“I think I’d be a little upset if we didn’t,” he admits. 

“Good,” you say. “Me too.” 

He’s fighting off sleep. His eyelids are heavy and he tries to blink away the shroud of rest that’s falling over him. Kei knows you’re fighting it too. Your breathing goes in and out of that familiar breathing that comes with sleep. Kei likes the way it sounds coming from you, restful and quiet. 

“We should… really get up to clean just a little,” he mumbles. 

“Five more minutes,” you say softly, your voice heavy and laden with drowsiness. 

“Okay,” he says. 

It’s just five more minutes. Kei fights sleep to hear you breathe like this a little longer. 

—

There’s a period after which Kei doesn’t know what to do with himself. Like the awkward start to a new hobby or passion, Kei finds himself enthralled with his budding relationship while simultaneously stumbling continuously along the way. You’re gracious with him though, letting him make mistakes and fumble until he finds his footing. 

It’s all very awkward for him, very new. He finds that it’s easier to just do the nice things he wants to do for you than to agonize over it and slowly, he begins to grow comfortable in the relationship that took you both so long to begin. 

At first, only Tadashi knew about you both. Kei thought that there was no point in hiding it from him, since you were over at the apartment all the time. Of course, Tadashi somehow already knew. That’s how it usually goes anyway, and Kei is relieved to find that his internal change did not trigger some global shift that would turn his life upside down. Everything is normal, save for the fact that Kei now tries to love without hindrance. 

Kei discovers that he’s possessive. That’s a new trait of his that he didn’t know belonged to him. Before you, before Kei had found something he so desperately wanted to keep, he’d been rather detached. Possessiveness was rare because Kei hardly ever got attached enough to want. Now though, he wants so badly that it hurts. You lean into it. Kei suspects that you like it when he wards off people who hit on you, when he pouts a little because he wants to be close to you, when he gets a little jealous. Kei doesn’t really mind it either. After all, despite his possessiveness, he never feels insecure. The both of you make sure of that. 

This sunny period with you, the one Kei worried would only last a week, drifts easily from one month into two and before he knows it, it’s been five. Kei had worried about that fundamental change. The one imperceivable to the human eye. He’d worried that slowly, it would begin to spoil what is so good between the two of you. 

“Kei,” you snap him out of it, placing a hand on his shoulder, “you okay?” 

He sets down his cup of tea, barely touched. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” 

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet?” You give him a wry smile. “This was your idea, after all.” 

“Yeah, well it was a pretty shit idea actually,” he breathes, “My parents aren’t exactly easy.” 

“You want to cancel?” You ask, your eyebrows pulling up in a clumsy attempt to hide your disappointment. Kei can see right through it.

“No,” he shakes his head. “I want you to meet them. I just don’t want you to meet them.” 

The truth of it is that Kei would like to cancel. In an ideal world, one where the sun rises on the opposite side of his bedroom window, he’d forget the whole thing and take you out to get dinner and see a movie. Things would be simpler that way, less uncomfortable for the both of you. But as uncomfortable as it is, Kei wants you to be a part of their lives too. You’re too important to not introduce to his parents and Kei can’t see it any other way, though he’d like to. 

You snort. “What does that even mean?” 

Kei gives you a pointed and somewhat irritated look. 

“Okay, sorry,” you raise your hands defensively and walk over to place them on his shoulders. “I know you’re worried, but I think it’s going to be okay. I’m excited.” 

Kei huffs out a laugh, unable to vocalize his nerves in their totality. “Excited to meet my dysfunctional, divorced parents that kind of hate each other?” 

“Yup. I’m excited to meet the people who raised you.” 

Kei smiles a little. “You should meet Akiteru, then,” It’s an exaggeration, but for some reason the prospect of seeing both of his parents together has him feeling a little more bitter than usual, even if it was his idea. 

You give him a little grin through narrowed eyes. There’s an understanding that passes from you to him, like you’re acknowledging that you haven’t forgotten what he’d told you nearly six months ago. Kei feels the tension in his shoulders relax a little. 

His parents are already at the restaurant when he arrives. It’s a swanky Italian place. The kind you go to on birthdays or for anniversaries, where the pasta dishes are things like lobster mushroom ravioli or truffle oil fettucini in tiny portions. Kei made sure to book somewhere that his parents would have trouble making a scene in, not that they ever had much of a mind for decorum when they were married. He’s surprised to find them chatting cordially when you both arrive. 

“Kei,” his mother stands from the table and crosses to give him a hug. He pats her back gently.

“Hi Mom,” Kei responds and she gives him a small smile. 

Kei’s dad adjusts the lapel of his suit, the same one he’s had for years, and reaches to give him a hug around one shoulder. 

“Guys,” he inhales, “This is my partner, _____.” 

You grin at Kei and then introduce yourself formally to his parents. Kei watches in awe as you blend right in, like you’ve known them for many years. He sits down while trying to keep the nerves from his face. 

“We’re so happy to meet you,” his mother starts, “Kei’s never introduced us to any of his partners before.” 

“I’m the first?” You smile a little, raising an eyebrow at Kei as if to tease him. 

“There really haven’t been that many to begin with,” Kei grumbles as if that somehow makes it better. 

You laugh again and the ball of conversation begins rolling. His mother tells you how pretty you are and his father nods a quieter approval. They talk about his university’s graduation ceremony, which they attended separately, as if they were together the entire time and then ask about your major, if you graduated with him, where you plan on going. You tell them what you want to do and that you want to go wherever Kei goes. He marvels at how smoothly the evening moves onward.

There are moments where the tension in his family becomes obvious. Little swells or comments that bring up a sour or shameful memory that cannot be ignored. Moments when the air thickens and it feels like the hammer is about to come down. It never does though. The tension, rather than snapping, simply fades away. 

He’d expected everything to blow up for some reason. Kei had expected that, like his childhood, the restaurant dishes would end up smashed on the floor. The glassware always ended up broken in the house, why shouldn’t they be broken here to shatter the illusion of things being good? He braces himself for a ball that never drops.

It takes him until the ride home, after a successful dinner, to realize that the dishes haven’t been smashed in years. Not since he was fourteen and his parents fought for custody. Not since his mother got remarried to her now husband almost 6 years ago and his father met his new wife. Kei wonders why he still feels like he lives in that house. The one his parents were at their worst in. Why can’t he feel like he lives in the apartment he rents with Tadashi? 

“I think that went well,” you say softly on the drive back. 

Kei nods his agreement. “I think so too.” 

You don’t bring up the fact that they didn’t fight, or that they spoke about their new kids with each other as if they were old friends. You don’t accuse Kei of being wrong, of being paranoid even though he most definitely was. 

“I’m glad that I got to meet them,” you say. “You look so much like your mom.” 

“Really?” Kei asks. 

“Yeah, you’ve got her eyes and her nose,” you smile a little. “It makes you two look similar.” 

“Huh,” he says. “I never really gave that much thought.” 

Kei turns the idea that he has his mother’s face over in his head. He’d spent so much time dreading that he was like them on the inside, that he never paused to consider the outside. So much of his life has been spent worrying that he’s just like them. That he breaks the plates and lashes out and acts cruelly even when he’s trying to love. But he has his mother’s eyes and for some reason that unsettles him. It’s like evidence. 

“You don’t really act like them though,” you say as if on cue. “You’re a little gentler.” 

“Me? Gentle?” Kei scoffs. 

“Yeah!” you say. “I mean, sure you’re prickly, but there’s a goodness to you that’s really obvious if you look.” 

Goodness. What a strange word to use to describe someone. Kei thinks that if there’s any goodness in him, if there’s anything that hasn’t been tainted by his parents’ sour personalities, it’s from Akiteru. Kei likes to believe that whatever good he got was from him. No matter how strained his relationship with him might be now, Kei is certain of that. 

“That’s a relief,” he admits in a flat tone. 

After a long pause, he speaks again. “Thanks.” 

“For what?” You laugh. 

“Bearing with me… and with them,” he says. “Couldn’t have been easy.” 

“It was easy,” you say. “Because I wanted to meet them. And I care about you.” 

Kei feels color rise to his cheeks. He turns to look in the sideview mirrors as he pulls the car into a parking spot in his apartment complex’s garage. 

“You say that stuff so easily,” he huffs. 

“What? That I care about you?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well, I do,” you laugh a little.

Kei’s face grows hotter and he distracts himself by putting the car into park and taking the key out of the ignition. 

“Me too,” he says quietly, waiting for you to catch up so that he can take your hand in his. “Sorry that I don’t say it a lot.” 

“Not to be rude,” you say, “but even if you never said it at all, it would be obvious. You’re kind of a sucker.” 

Kei supposes that that’s true and he gives a small laugh before nudging your shoulder with his. The parking garage is humid and stuffy, but he holds your hand in it anyway. 

—

You’re half asleep in bed beside him and your breathing comes in even sweeps the way it does just before you fall asleep. Kei listens to it for a moment, admiring the sound of it and the way your chest feels expanding against his. 

He thinks about dinner, about how good it feels to have introduced you. How real it makes this relationship feel despite the uneasiness surrounding his familial situation. Kei thinks about his parents. He thinks about their inability to be good for each other. He thinks about the worst of them, something he’s familiar with, before thinking about the best of them. Kei imagines the way their faces looked at dinner, talking about the children they’re raising properly. They’re good people, they just made each other bad. Molecular shifts that changed them for the worst. The notebook theory in its most frightening form. But they were good too. 

Kei thinks about loving you. His reluctance to do so originally isn’t quite beyond him yet. He’s unsure, in fact, if he’ll ever really get past the fear of the fall, the fear of becoming what his parents made each other. But he also thinks about his promise to love you for real. Love is not something that Kei does. He knows now that it's something that happens to him, like it happened to his parents. They loved each other once, even if it made them so blind that they couldn’t see just how bad it made them. 

Kei still resents the fact that he was born to fix a marriage that never would have worked in the first place. He resents being a fix rather than a gift, but at the very least, his existence is proof that his parents cared enough about their family to try. Even if it was misguided, at least they tried even a little. 

In the quiet after of an emotionally charged evening, loving you seems like an easier task for him now. It’s not hard to love you. What’s hard, Kei thinks, is not hurting you. He carries a lot of baggage that, for a long while, felt like too much. Kei thinks he can manage if it’s for you. He’ll bear the brunt of it. He’ll put in the work. 

Yes, Kei is his parents’ son, but he’s also Tadashi’s friend, Akiteru’s brother, the person who loves you. He doesn’t live in the house with a bin full of shards and no glassware anymore. 

“Are you awake?” He whispers across the pillow. 

“Mhm,” you hum, pushing your cheek into his arm.

“Let’s move in together,” he says. 

You tense against him and slowly attempt to blink away sleep. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he responds. “I want to live with you.” 

“Okay then,” you smile a little. “Let’s do it.” 

—

In the fall, when his lease with Tadashi ends and his friend gives him a tearful, yet somewhat silly goodbye, Kei moves into your new shared apartment. Two small rooms in a modest part of town, a shared kitchen and living room, one bathroom, a mismatch of furniture from both of your old places, and an empty fridge. The first night is spent eating take out on the floor with you in front of a TV with no proper stand. Kei has never been happier. 

And in the morning, when the sun comes through the slats of his window, broken up into gentle dots by the orange-leaved trees outside, Kei rises slowly. He rises gently. Kei doesn’t want to wake you, not before he’s made breakfast. He pads out to the kitchen, where boxes are strewn about, half unpacked, and grabs the little brown notebook from the box it’s been temporarily living in. In it, he writes a grocery list full of the things you like. It’s a good enough reason, a good enough change. 

The notebook theory. 

[moonjxsung]

Not Allowed (pt. 2)

TV GIRL / NOT ALLOWED

Link to part 1 here

⇢ Pairing: Lee Felix x fem reader

⇢ Summary: You and Felix are childhood friends turned fwb, with no strings attached. Felix leaves to pursue his idol dreams, and you begin your life as a college student. When he comes back to visit your town, he’s drawn to you again- but you’re both leading very different lives.

⇢ Warning: smut lol

⇢ W/c: 20k? idk

⇢ A/n: inspired by the TV Girl song “not allowed” <3 this has a lot of smut bc the whole song is abt sex so if ur uncomfortable with that, please don’t interact! 

// MINORS DNI // DO NOT STEAL OR REPOST MY WORK

Disclaimer: All characters in this story are 18+. the actions and story represented in this work do not represent Stray Kids in any way; everything described is purely a work of fiction!

You felt your heart drop in your chest. The conversation was not going to be free of hostility. Unsure of how to answer, you locked eyes with him, letting your expression soften into one of remorse. 

“I like it. The blonde.”

He gave a small nod. “Thank you.”

You looked around nervously, debating whether you should just get up and leave. He wasn’t going to give up without a confrontation or an apology, both of which were off the table for you. 

“I’m gonna go order,” he said, smoothing down his top as he stood up. “Americano?”

You nodded, studying the pattern of the table below you. “Yeah, thanks.”

As he walked down the stairs to the counter, you replayed your thoughts in your head. This was going to be a colossal waste of time if you didn’t drop the cool girl act and just communicate with him like a normal human being. Not even your arguments with Mark were like this, so why were you so averse to doing the right thing? After all, it’s not like you were going to stay at your parents’ place for longer than a week. All of this would be out of sight and out of mind in due time, and you were determined to make it end on a positive note. 

When Felix returned, he held two iced americanos in either hand, clutching a small paper bag of croissants in the crook of his elbow. 

“Thank you,” you said as he carefully set yours in front of you. The rich, warm scent of both calmed your nerves a little as you took a sip of your coffee and nibbled a bite of the pastry.

Felix sat back in his chair and rested a slender hand on his cheek as he looked at you. 

“What?” you asked, worried you’d gotten something on your face. 

He shook his head. “Just looking.”

“You’re staring,” you replied, a bashful smile growing on your face for the first time all morning. 

“I can’t stare?” He inquired. 

“I guess you can if you want to. It’s just a little odd, is all.”

He cocked his head slightly. “I’m catching up on five years of changes. I promise I’m almost done.”

“Okay, okay. I digress.” you said, taking another sip of coffee and staring back at him. 

Felix’s hair was much longer than it was all those years ago, reaching just below the nape of his neck. His face was also much slimmer, and he looked rather intimidating with his carved-out jawline and hollowed cheeks. But his eyes were still soft, his button nose still a focal point of his beauty, and his lips even plumper and more pink than you’d remembered. 

“You look good,” Felix said in a voice barely above a whisper. 

You felt the heat rushing to your cheeks, suddenly more aware of your own appearance, and smiled politely in response. 

“Thanks. You look good, too.”

Felix took a sip of his coffee, and then his face turned serious again. 

“You… never called.”

You furrowed your brows at him, surprised at how quickly the conversation had changed pace. 

“I tried you a couple times. Never heard back.”

You did your best to remain calm, feeling angry at the audacity he had to accuse you of being the one to cut him off. He’d been the one with a time change, phone restrictions, and a whole new life to adjust to. As far as you were concerned, he’d transformed into a completely different person- whether he wanted you to remain in his life was up to him entirely. 

“You did? When?”

You shook your head with a dismissive smile. 

“When? I don’t know- some time and date five years ago?”

“You didn’t try again after that?”

At this point, you could feel yourself getting pissed off. 

“Why would I? I’m not even one to double text- what makes you think I should’ve tried for five years straight? I have a life too, you know.”

He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing down the longer bits and tucking them behind his ears once again. 

“I guess… I just thought we ended on a different note than we actually did.”

You cocked your head. “And what note was that?”

He exhaled sharply through his nose. “I don’t know, every day for a whole summer it’s like you can’t get enough of me and now you want to pretend I don’t exist?”

You scoffed at the absurdity of his words, although he had a point. 

“So I was supposed to keep trying your cell for five years straight because of some fleeting thing that happened half a decade ago? And where were you in all of this? You had a phone, too.”

“I told you it’d be some time after my trainee period. When I didn’t hear from you, I figured you just didn’t care to talk.”

You rolled your eyes, scoffing again. “Jesus Christ. Was I supposed to be sending an owl every week? Sorry I didn’t get the memo.”

“I didn’t know you needed a memo to remember who I was.”

“I know who you are!”

“Then why are you acting like it never happened?”

You sat back in your chair, angry thoughts racing around your mind. 

“Because!” You exclaimed, trying to compose yourself as you finally let your thoughts out. 

“Because what we had wasn’t supposed to ruin our friendship!  You left to be some mega-rich celebrity and I had to work my ass off to make a life for myself, only to never hear from you again. And now you’re back and I don’t know what it is that you want from me, but if it’s the same thing you wanted all those years ago then you can forget this little meeting ever happened. I’m not some side piece you have when you’re not filming commercials or singing on stage. Believe it or not, I have a life outside of whatever the hell this is.”

He shook his head in disbelief, and a silence washed over both of you. You glanced around the floor, hoping nobody heard any of that. The other diners seemed to be wrapped up in their own conversations, and you felt a minuscule sense of relief. 

“I can’t believe you think that’s why I came back. Even back then.”

You stayed quiet, feeling defensive and irate. 

“We never should’ve done it in the first place,” you said, lowering your head. 

He swallowed a lump in his throat. 

“You really feel like that?” Felix asked. 

You gave a small nod, holding back frustrated tears. 

“Yeah, I do. I wouldn’t have to spend my adult life running from such a stupid mistake.”

Felix’s lips pulled into that same thin-lipped expression of hurt, and he raised his eyebrows.

“Okay. If that’s how you feel.”

Without another word, he pushed out his chair behind him, and gathered the mostly-full drink and crumbs of his unfinished croissant. 

You remained seated at the table as he gave you a small bow and made his way to the stairs. And then he was out of sight, for the fourth time that week. 

*

You probably cried for hours that night. It was getting old fast, this torturous act of hurting Felix and then feeling guilty for hours on end. But you couldn’t help the way you felt about the whole situation. 

You’d seen the interviews, watched the way he filmed alongside beautiful Korean women and traveled the world to perform in front of thousands of pretty girls. He had the world at his fingertips, and yet he used the brief moment of time you slept with him as a weapon against you- as if he hadn't moved on several times before all this. Moved on to a new place, a new life- probably even several other women.

When you’d finally begun to doze off to sleep, after hours of battling a pounding headache, a startling noise woke you up again. 

Three brisk knocks on your window- just like they’d always occurred.

Your heartbeat quickened, and you looked at the clock while still adjusting to the atmosphere around you. It was just past midnight. You crawled out of the comfort of your bed, fixing your hair briefly and pulling up the blinds to get a good look. 

Felix stood against the dark night sky, casually dressed in a light gray hoodie and track pants. His hands were shoved in his pockets, head hung in deep remorse. 

When you opened the window and looked at him, his glossy eyes suggested he’d been crying too. 

“Hi,” Felix said quietly. “Can I come in?”

You complied, stepping aside as he hoisted a leg over the sill and climbed into the small space of your room. It felt like old times, only this time it was tainted by tension and your caution so as to not overstep boundaries. 

You sat on the edge of your bed, and Felix found a seat on the desk chair across from you. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I was angry. And I let my emotions get the best of me.”

You chewed on the inside of your lip, an anxious habit that made itself known whenever you had to tear your own walls down. 

“I reached out because I cared about you,” he continued. “Five years ago. And I still do. I had zero intention of sleeping with you. It just happened. And it’s not going to happen again. I never would’ve just used you for sex. Part of me wants to think that you know that, too.”

You began to cry even again, wiping tears with the back of your hand. You knew he was right, and you didn’t actually believe that. His intentions had just gotten blurry with him being so far away. 

“Hey…” he said, finding his way next to you and wrapping you in a warm hug. “I’m really sorry I hurt you. I was just being selfish.”

You gasped through tears at his words. “I could never forget you,” you blurted out, almost pleading for him to unlearn whatever you’d made him think before. “And I don’t think you used me for sex. It’s just… overwhelming having you back. I don’t think you realize how fucking hard it was for me when you left.”

Felix wiped a tear from your cheek with his thumb. “You don’t think it was hard for me, either? I wanted to tell you so much. I wanted to call you up every chance that I got, but I couldn’t. And then when I didn’t hear from you I thought… I thought maybe I just cared more than you did.”

You shook your head. “I cared, too. Don’t ever think I didn’t care.”

Felix nodded, a kind of light in his eyes at your admittance.

“Can I stay for a bit?” Felix asked, hoping he wasn’t overstepping his boundaries by inquiring. “Nothing weird, I’ll even stay on the floor. I just want to catch up. As friends.”

It was your turn to nod, sitting back against the headboard and pulling your blanket up to your waist. He sat cross legged facing you, both of your gazes meeting each other with curious smiles. And for a small moment in time, you were those careless kids all over again. 

*

You don’t remember Felix leaving, but he did. You also weren’t sure when you’d fallen asleep. Beams of sunlight shining over your eyelids woke you up, and your room was quiet and vacant except for a small note on the desk. 

Y/n,

Had to leave for a family thing. See you later tonight?

PS- you still snore 

-Felix

You chuckled lightly at the note, remembering the way he’d teased you about that back then. 

You’d thought it to be a dream for a second, gripping the note firmly in your hands to remind you it was in fact, real. Felix had been here last night, and you finally didn’t want to cry at the thought of seeing him again. In fact, it excited you.

At breakfast, you thought over the conversations you had last night. Felix told you about his trainee days, long ones spent studying Korean and practicing dances in small, crowded rooms. He recounted the shows he was on, expressing the premature grief he’d felt at almost getting  completely eliminated. He told you about the members, eyes filling with joy as he described them in great detail and summarized their seven starkly different personalities. 

He told you about how much he’d missed his sisters, how long plane rides finally didn’t make him nauseous anymore, and how he felt much more natural being blonde.

And about how he thought of you every time he stopped at a McDonald’s. He also still used his raspberry chapstick, on his third tube now. And he missed you. 

“I never forgot about you. Not once,” he said honestly. “I stopped getting Oreo mcflurries because they tasted so much like you. It was a flavor I wanted to preserve in that little time and space. I feared I’d… lose it.”

You bit back a smile from across the bed. He always had a way with his words, but hearing the details of your relationship with him so eloquently relayed back to you made your head spin. 

“We’ll I’m sorry for ruining your favorite McDonald’s order,” you’d said back to him in a joking tone. You didn’t want to give him the wrong idea by entertaining the narrative too much. You kept it platonic.

After all, you still had Mark waiting for you back at home. As your mind snapped back to Mark, your eyes shifted around the room in a panic. It’d been days since you heard from him, and he never answered your last text. In a sudden panic, you reached for your phone and began to dial him, before hanging up and thinking it over. You desperately needed a new set of clothes, and it wouldn’t hurt to check on the apartment. 

So after a quick shower and some breakfast, you grabbed your keys and started off toward the apartment again. Not quite ready to return to the place of tedious routine. 

*

As you unlocked the door, an overpowering scent filled the room, making you scrunch your nose in displeasure. 

“Mark?” you called out, scanning the room for him. 

The kitchen was a mess, dishes piled high in the sink with remnants of previous meals all over them. The table was sprawled with unopened mail and- beer bottles. You knew instantly. 

“Mark?” you called again, growing angry at the state of the apartment. 

As you made your way into the living room, you finally saw him. Sprawled on the couch, a beer bottle clutched in his hand as a loud game of baseball echoed from the tv. 

“Mark? Why is the place so messy?”

He said nothing in response, fixated on the screen in front of him, bringing the bottle to his lips to take another swig of beer. 

“Mark?” you said again. 

“Jesus- stop saying my name like that, I have a headache.”

Your heart dropped at his tone. 

“Yeah, because it’s not even noon yet and you’re already piss drunk. What’s going on?”

He waved a hand to dismiss the conversation. 

“No, none of that,” you said. “Tell me what’s going on with you.”

He kept his eyes glued to the game, the commentator’s words drowning out his slurred reply. 

“I dunno. Have the place to myself considering my girlfriend left me. Just wanted a beer.”

“Left you?” you said in sheer disbelief. “I’m staying with my parents for a weekend and you think I left you?”

He shrugged. “You left me a while ago. You never want to sleep together anymore. We’re hardly even in the same bed, and when we are, you don’t tell me anything. You don’t visit me at work anymore. We haven’t gone on a proper date in forever. You’re always… gone. Even when you’re here, it’s like you’re not really here.”

It was the first time he sounded sober so far. Your heartbeat quickened with anxiety, as you weren’t prepared to be put on the spot like this.

You took a seat beside him timidly, folding your hands in your lap. 

“Is that what this is about?”

 “That’s what this has always been about!” he shouted, and you jumped in your seat. “Just say you don’t want this! Any of this,” he said, gesturing to the environment around you. 

You shook your head. “I’m just stressed. I still want this, I want you.” 

“Then why don’t you fucking act like it?” he questioned. You felt your eyes welling up with tears. 

“When have I not acted like it?”

“When you decided your work was more important than us.”

“I have never once put more value into my job than our relationship. You know that. Just because we haven’t had sex or cuddled in a little while doesn’t mean I’m not still here.”

Mark threw his arms up and let out an exasperated sigh, beginning to cry. 

“I lost my fucking job,” he said suddenly, hot tears streaming down his face 

“You- What?” you said, mouth slightly parted in shock. 

He buried his face in the palms of his hands, letting the beer bottle rest on his knee. 

“They let me go.”

“When?” you asked, turning your body to face him more. 

“Couple weeks ago.”

“Weeks?” you repeated. “Mark, why didn’t you tell me?”

He slouched further back into the couch. “I’m a fucking loser.”

“You’re not a loser,” you said. “You’re going through a tough time.” 

You scooted closer to him, enveloping him in a hug and rubbing his knee soothingly. 

“Where have you been if not the lab?” You asked suddenly, remembering he’d been gone for hours each night consistently. 

He rolled his eyes, pulling away from you. “Does it matter?”

You squinted. “I’m just wondering.”

Mark shut his eyes, taking another swig of beer and ignoring your question. “I need a nap.”

You got up from the couch, gathering the garbage that surrounded him and making your way back to the kitchen. 

“I’m gonna clean a little and grab my things. I just came here for a change of clothes.”

Soft snores emitted from the living room. 

You spent the better part of your day cleaning the apartment and organizing Mark’s stuff. You probably threw away dozens of takeout boxes and empty beer bottles, pinching your nose at the stench they left behind. 

When things seemed habitable again, you grabbed a fresh set of clothes and left the apartment, careful not to wake a sleeping Mark on the sofa. 

*

“You don’t know how long I could stare into your picture, and wish that it was me”

After stopping by your favorite ramen place for dinner and running a few errands, you returned to your parents’ amidst the rush of traffic, looking up at the vast navy sky. It was already nearing nighttime, and you knew Felix was visiting tonight. You’d be lying if you said it wasn’t the only part of your day you were looking forward to. 

You showered again, washing the smell of beer and old takeout off your skin. And you dressed up in a cuter set of pajamas this time, matching your tank top to your shorts and completing it with a silky French braid. 

You were glad you had remembered to grab a few books from your nightstand at the apartment, settling down under your dimly-lit lamp to continue one you had already started. 

And just past midnight, three knocks came from your window. 

Felix climbed in with ease, setting a bag down on your desk and slipping off his sneakers. He looked fancier than you’d ever seen him before, light wash jeans accompanying a fitted black shirt and a leather jacket. You bit back a smile at the sight, wishing he’d owned it back when you were allowed to rip it off him. 

“Hey,” he said with a smile, sounding out of breath. 

“Hi,” you replied gently. “What’s with the fancy outfit?”

He chuckled. “We went to this dinner thing. I dunno, I think I just overdress wherever I go these days.”

You smiled up at him. “It looks good. Maybe overdressing is a good thing.”

“Yeah?” he said. “Maybe.”

You took your seat on the bed, resting against the headboard and crossing your legs. 

“How was your day?” he asked. It reminded you of when he’d catch up on your day between hungry kisses before you got intimate. Part of you wished it was still that way. 

You shrugged. “Not the best.”

“Why?” he said, furrowing his brows and sitting across from you, also cross-legged. 

 “Just… a lot. Back home.”

He cocked his head. “Back home? Wait so you don’t… you don’t live here anymore?”

You audibly laughed. “You thought I stayed in this dingy part of town? In this empty room? Of course not!”

“Where do you live then?”

“I’m on the south side, a little drive out from here. I just came to say hi to my parents for a bit. And to get a break from…” your voice trailed off. 

“From?” he said, urging you to finish.

“From… my boyfriend.”

Felix felt his heart sink.

He knew you agreed to remain friends. He knew he had an obligation to keep things platonic. He knew how you felt about what happened before. But he still held on to a sliver of hope that you’d be single by the time he came back to visit. Wishful thinking indeed. 

“Ah, boyfriend,” he said awkwardly. “That’s cool.”

You nodded. Sensing the awkward tension in the air, you changed the subject.

“What’s in the bag?”

He glanced over at it, shrugging casually. “Baked you a few things. There’s some brownies, lemon tarts and salted caramel cookies. Though I think I needed more caramel on those.”

You grinned at him, shaking your head. “You’re exactly the same. Still got a thing for baking. And spoiling people.”

He smiled back at you, a glint of sadness in his expression. “I never stopped.”

The night was spent catching up once again, you getting more glimpses into his life as an idol, and him learning all about your job and its attributes. Felix was careful not to bring up any topics that might lead back to your boyfriend, still feeling overwhelmed at the mention of one in the first place. Call it immature, but he was undeniably jealous. 

Yet every time the room fell silent, his mind wandered back to that minute detail. What did he look like? What did he do for work? How often did the two of you have sex? Were you in love?

Questions he wished he could pry and get an answer to, but ones he knew would push you away. So he kept silent, engaging in surface-level conversation that hardly satisfied his need to understand you. 

At half past two, you let out a yawn, feeling your eyelids getting heavy. 

“Tired?” he asked, licking a cookie crumb off the tip of his thumb. 

You nodded, stretching out your legs and pulling the blankets over you. You fluffed your pillow before resting a hand below your cheek and laying on it, staring up at Felix who still sat across from you. 

He swallowed nervously, admiring the way your long lashes blinked up at him so innocently. He remembered that from years ago, a little move that always drove him crazy. 

“You want to stay?” you asked quietly.

He swallowed again, feeling his ears get hot. 

“I… don’t want to make it weird. Especially with…” his voice trailed off. He couldn’t bring himself to circle back to the boyfriend topic.

“It’s not weird. We’re friends,” you explained. “You can just take the other side and we won’t cuddle or anything.”

Felix’s heart raced at the suggestion. Though he would have preferred cuddling, even as friends, he couldn’t bring himself to decline your offer. He wanted nothing more than to hear your snores as you drifted off to sleep beside him. 

“Okay,” he finally replied, removing his jacket and running a hand through his hair. 

“You still have a change of clothes in the left drawer,” you said in a sleepy voice. “And your toothbrush is still in the bathroom.”

Felix successfully found the change of clothes, comfortably slipping into them and brushing his teeth with the familiar blue toothbrush you always kept for him. 

When he returned, your lashes fluttered open, smiling up at the sight of him. “Cute,” you said quietly.

He felt his heartbeat quicken. There it was again- that feeling he got in the pit of his stomach when he had to remind himself to keep it platonic. Not to smother you with kisses, not to hold you while you slept. But to behave the way a friend did- one with a friend he was wildly attracted to, who also now happened to have a boyfriend. 

“Thanks,” Felix said, trying his best to sound nonchalant. 

He slipped into the bed next to you, pulling the blankets up to his torso and staring up at the ceiling. It was a sight he wasn’t used to, locking eyes with the white canvas above him. Normally he’d lay on his side, arms wrapped tightly around you, legs lazily hoisted over yours as he pressed little kisses to your face and whispered sweet nothings in your ear. 

The feeling felt strange, unnatural, even. Like lying beside a stranger in a foreign place. Not to mention the new addition of clothes- normally, Felix would get himself cleaned up and change into a clean pair of boxers. Sometimes, he wore nothing at all. The white t-shirt and patterned shorts were among the new developments in your friendship with him. 

“Need to charge my phone,” he said suddenly, sitting up and reaching for his phone from beside him. 

“Would you plug mine in, too?” you said, eyes still shut as sleep began to wash over you. 

He reached for yours, balancing the two phones in one hand as he made his way across the room to a spare outlet. First he plugged in his own, the little chime confirming the outlet worked. And then yours- the glow of your lockscreen making him squint against the brightness. He glanced over his shoulder at your sleeping frame, small breaths emitting from your mouth as you dozed. 

A growing curiosity led him to tap the screen as it dimmed again, examining the photo set as your background. 

It was a man, presumably your boyfriend, dressed in a black jacket and a snug black beanie, smiling at the camera as one slender hand gripped a spoonful of ice cream.  

Felix felt his stomach churn. He carefully observed all of his features- big brown eyes, dark slanted brows and a strong, masculine jawline. He was handsome- hell, he was hot. 

Felix painfully imagined the scenario that preceded the photo. First date? Second date? Hundredth date? Did he kiss you before, or after the picture was taken? Had the same spoon been used to feed you ice cream? Did you already live together at the time? What was his reaction at the photo finding a place on your lockscreen?

Felix clenched his jaw. He hoped the guy appreciated you making the photo a permanent part of your routine. The same photo you’d look at when you woke up in the morning, the same photo you’d look at right before going to sleep at night. The photo you’d see before dialing your mom or dad. The photo you’d see if Felix were to call. 

As he sat observing the photo, refreshing the dimming light for a third time, a small buzz caught his attention. There on your phone, a text banner covered the guy’s face. Felix scanned it briefly, knowing he really shouldn’t be prying in your text messages like this. 

Mark: Sorry about today

Felix raised an eyebrow. It must’ve been the guy on the lockscreen. A little heart emoji next to his name confirmed his suspicion. Another text came through as he finished reading. 

Mark: I should’ve told u 

He frowned. Told you what? What had happened before he came over tonight? Is that why you seemed upset?

Mark: Sorry for yelling. Thanks for fixing the place 

Mark: I’ll explain when you get back 

Mark: I don’t deserve you 

Felix scoffed silently. At least he knew that much. 

Mark: I still love you

And then he froze. The four words made his heart stop briefly.

He knew you’d been seeing someone new. He knew you weren’t single, and that you and him were not going to hook up. Let alone be in any form of an intimate relationship. 

But he hadn’t considered that the two of you were on “I love you” terms. The thought of it made his throat dry. You were entirely in love with someone, and it wasn’t him. It was never going to be him. For a fleeting second, Felix considered leaving. There was no reason to be here- in bed, asleep next to someone he’d felt so complicated about. He’d just grab his things and disappear out the window, probably never coming to visit you again. The presence of Mark in your life would likely fill the microscopic hole that was the absence of Felix’s. 

“Felix?” you said in a whisper. “Are you coming to bed?”

And he melted at the sound of your voice all over again. Giddy at the thought of being close to you again, of smelling your familiar scent and waking up next to you when Mark surely wouldn’t. 

“Coming,” Felix replied. “Just letting my mom know I’ll be late tomorrow.”

And before he could think it over any further, he slipped back into bed beside you. Hands folded over his chest, staring up at the ceiling that now seemed much more inviting than the thought of leaving you to sleep alone. The picture of Mark was etched in his mind like a painful tattoo, and he winced when he remembered the texts you would wake up to.

But not before you slept beside him first, gracing his presence with your light snores and sweet scent. Something Mark wouldn’t get for at least tonight- and for that reason alone, he was satisfied. 

*

“I dreamt I was standing in your doorstep, licking sweat off of your forehead, with your finger in my mouth, and the sound when leather jackets hit the ground”

Labored breaths escaped your parted lips as you slept, turning over in discomfort. 

You’d fallen asleep hours ago, Felix following shortly after. And quickly, he found his way into your dreams. 

Maybe it was the absence of intimacy between you and Mark, or maybe it was that stupid leather jacket Felix had worn tonight. Either way, your mind was clouded with images of it, painting vivid pictures of it on the floor between you. 

Felix towered over you, blonde hair falling into his face as he tilted your chin up to meet his, pressing wet kisses to your lips and neck. Your hands remained at your sides, waiting for him to take the lead. 

An eager hand snaked up your frame, finding its way to your mouth, where he interrupted the kiss by sliding a slender finger into your lips. You sucked obediently, never letting your eyes lose sight of his. 

When you’d soaked him in your spit, he guided you backward to the bed, desperately parting your legs and inserting two fingers into your aching sex. You gripped his forearms with pleasure, moaning against his lanky figure and begging for more. 

He hummed at your noises, pressing the hardness in his boxers against your core. When you gasped in response, he stood up again, running a hand through his hair as you watched him pull the waistband down lower, lower… 

Your own gasps woke you up, pausing at the realization of how much you’d sweated onto your sheets. Felix was sound asleep on the pillow next to you, his chest rising and falling gently with his snores.

You glanced at the time. It was just past 3. Felix had not even been asleep for a full hour, and yet here you were having lewd visions of him fingering you in the very spot you slept. You quietly slipped out from the covers, strolling to the bathroom and shutting the door behind you. 

You didn’t bother turning on the light, afraid you would wake Felix and cause him concern so late at night. Instead, you pushed aside the curtain in the bathroom window, allowing silver-blue moonlight to illuminate the room around you, observing your disheveled appearance in the mirror above the sink. Beads of sweat glued curly strands of hair to your forehead. 

Still aware of the heat in your core, you pulled down your shorts, and then your panties, quietly gasping at the sight. They almost peeled away from your wetness, stringy white lines of desperation disappearing on to the soaked spot where your longing for him made itself known. 

All it took was that stupid leather jacket, and here you were, almost cumming at the sight of him in dream. 

You couldn’t help yourself, letting one finger circle the pool that had accumulated between your thighs. The panting began gradually, as your mind wandered back to where you’d been so rudely interrupted in your dream.

You continued the fantasy of his boxers being pulled fully down, eyebrows arched in pleasure at the thought of his cock springing out, all hard and leaky and ready for you. In consciousness you’d probably tease him, a gentle hand caressing his length as you’d coo little compliments up at him, admiring the way he could barely contain himself. 

You’d bend yourself over the side of the bed, instructing him to use you, to fuck you hard, until he was satisfied. And he would, his length finding its way to your aching pussy, rubbing his wet head over your clit until you were begging to have him inside you. 

You could feel yourself getting close as you fantasized when he’d slide into you, his erection stretching you out the way it did all those years ago. You’d promise with pleading in your voice that you’d let him use you whenever he wanted, however he pleased, so that you’d get used to his familiar size and shape again. 

And he would smile between hard thrusts, picking up the pace as his hand would find its way to the small of your back, rubbing a thumb along your skin soothingly before leaning over and pressing a wet kiss on your shoulders.

Your moans would fill the room, saying his name like a prayer you’d repeat again and again, the four walls around you teeming with echoes of wet skin and filthy words. 

And that same gentle hand would caress your throat as he found his release, this time inside of you. He’d shower you with praise the way he always did, his deep voice making your skin tingle as he pressed little kisses to your neck and ear. And you’d kiss away his tears, staying close to him until sleep called your name.

As your mind drifted back into reality, you brought a finger up, observing the way you’d made a mess of yourself right in front of the sink. You parted two fingers curiously, white cum glistening under the moonlight. 

How pathetic. You’d been the one to establish boundaries again. You’d been the one who specified this was a platonic occurrence. 

Yet here you were, masturbating to filthy thoughts of him while he slept in the room next door, knowing very well you had a boyfriend waiting for you back home. 

After getting cleaned up, you found your way back to the bed, crawling in next to him like a guilty sinner. He turned to face you in his sleep with small breaths escaping his parted lips. 

Felix looked like an angel at this time of night. But the thoughts he gave you were anything except saint-like. 

*

Felix had to leave again in the morning, waking you up as he sat up in bed and stretched beside you. 

“Felix?” you said, memories of last night flooding your head all over again. You hoped he didn’t hear you in the bathroom. 

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he replied, his raspy morning voice sending shivers down your spine. “Have to go get some stuff done today.”

You turned over so that you were facing him and stared up at him through groggy eyes. 

He tucked his hair behind his ears, looking down at you and giving you a small smile. The sunlight kissed his blonde hair, setting it aglow and making it appear almost white. His eyes were puffy with exhaustion, but his smile exuded that of a restful night. 

“Did you sleep well?” he asked. 

You thought back to a few hours ago. 

“Yeah. Better than I have in a while. You?”

He rubbed an eye, nodding. “I feel less tense.”

“Good,” you said. Maybe his dream self relieving some tension had carried over into his consciousness. 

“Do you want to do something tonight?” Felix asked suddenly. “I mean, like, go somewhere? I feel bad that we’ve only been catching up at ungodly hours of the night and then I have to leave.”

You reached a hand out, playing with a loose hem on his shirt. “Yeah. That sounds nice.”

He smiled again. “Cool. I’ll pick you up at around 6? We’ll go somewhere fancy.”

You nodded, shutting your eyes again. 

Without another word, he was out of the bed, pulling on his clothes from yesterday and neatly folding the pajamas before storing them back in the dresser. 

“Don’t forget your jacket,” you said, giving him an amused smile as he pulled it off your desk chair and draped it over one arm. 

“Oh yeah, thanks,” Felix replied. 

And with a small wave he disappeared out the window again, leaving you to the vacant room with thoughts running rampant. 

*

“I guess it’s different ‘cause you love him, but I’ve got an interactive sick and twisted imagination”

It was no use. Felix couldn’t behave like a normal functioning human when he wasn’t around you. Nor when he was around you. His mind wandered back to that photo set as your lockscreen- of Mark holding a spoonful of ice cream, looking handsome and intimate. 

As he sat in the backseat of the van, his mom talking the family’s ear off about plans for his sister’s upcoming graduation, he gritted his teeth remembering the texts.

He wondered if you read them yet, and how you felt about them. Maybe you were elated to hear from Mark, traveling back to the apartment to make love to him and accept his half-assed apology. Maybe you had already broken up with him, finally realizing your true feelings for Felix and waiting up for him in bed like you used to, only this time madly in love. 

Felix felt like such a loser. He could no longer deny the way he felt about you, constantly wondering what you were doing when he wasn’t around, who you were interacting with, and how often you thought of him. He’d give anything to crawl around in your mind and find out how you felt about him now that things were this different. He probably would’ve snooped through your phone last night if it wasn’t locked, to find a trace of him, and come to the absurd conclusion that you wanted him just as badly as he wanted you. 

Felix glanced down at his phone, opening Instagram for the millionth time today and clicking on your user. You didn’t use it much, but the 18 little squares did provide a window into your life without Felix, and he hated it. 

He hated to see you in a short dress at a club he wasn’t aware of. Hated to see your graduation photos, ones he wished he would’ve received when they were taken. 

Hated to see the pictures you had with Mark. One whole carousel dedicated to him, ten random photos you selected for a birthday post. A selfie of the two of you in bed, a funny picture of him wearing a face mask, a photo from when he let you make little braids in his hair and posed for you. And another photo from that same ice cream date, a different angle, but just as handsome and intimate as the first time. 

Felix clicked on all the same photos, reading the captions over again, stalking users from the comment sections and piecing together who they were in relation to you. But it was no use. No amount of obsessive stalking was going to make you like him. You had a life without him, beyond what you had five years ago. You’d been right about that.

Felix sighed, locking his phone again and thinking back to last night. He’d been so ecstatic to spend the night by your side again. It felt like home. He felt safe. 

He hoped you didn’t notice the erection that troubled him early into the night. He’d been forced to focus on his breathing patterns, moving as far away from you as possible to not get aroused by your sleeping figure. He remembered you getting up at some point, a brief interval of time which he felt empty and exposed without you in your bed. When you’d returned, he felt his heart could burst, suddenly overjoyed at the reminder that you were here beside him in your bed. And that it would remain that way until morning broke. Each passing minute worried him, and he so badly wished he could freeze time and stay with you in your bed forever.

“Felix?” a voice interrupted. He snapped his head up to the mirror, humming in response to his mom. 

“Should we coordinate so you can stay at the cabin with us? Or do you want your own room?”

His sister’s graduation. She’d planned a few days with her friends to stay by the lake, and most of Felix’s family would be at the neighboring cabin. 

“Oh, uh… I dunno, I was planning something with a few friends.”

“That’s okay,” she responded. “I know you have a lot you wanted to do.”

Her voice trailed back to the topic of their plans, and Felix’s mind wandered back to you. His family being away meant he had you to himself for a few days, and he wouldn’t have to leave you in the mornings. He bit back a smile at the thought of staying in bed with you all day. Even just as friends.

But the change of plans meant he had to organize something special tonight. Dinner? A movie? The two of you seldom saw movies together back then, always leaving 20 minutes in to go get busy in his car. He wasn’t even sure if you still liked all the same restaurants. 

But he did have one thing in mind, and he hoped it would help you forget all about Mark. 

*

When you woke for a second time, it was well past 11. You rubbed your eyes of sleep, surprised at how tired you’d been all week. Last night’s events really relieved your stress- maybe a little too much. 

You made your way to your phone, several notifications catching your eye. 

Ten total texts from Mark, a few from last night, the last one being just an hour ago. 

Mark: Call me when you can

Mark: I want to talk

Mark: Can you come over at all?

Mark: Sorry

You furrowed your brows, the texts ringing several alarms in your head. The constant apologies, the urgency to speak with you. The fight hadn’t been that bad, right? Did you remember it differently?

And one from Felix, who seldom texted you. The two of you were still getting acquainted with speaking through little messages like this- you didn’t have to in the past because you were always together. Phone calls were your preferred method of communicating with him if anything, but his texts were always so innocent, and knowing he was thinking of you made you smile. 

Felix: 🐣

The little emoji made you giggle, momentarily forgetting about Mark’s eagerness to speak with you. You shot him back a little emoji in response, settling on the sun, representative of both the day outside and his presence in your life. Sunshine. 

You put your phone face down on the bed again, gathering your clothes and toiletries for a shower. You had to go see Mark, and something told you it was going to be a long, long conversation. 

After a quick shower and some breakfast, (or lunch, rather), you were off to see Mark again. 

*

The apartment was beginning to look messy all over again. There were more takeout boxes sprawled along the counter, random belongings on the dining table and dishes stacked on the coffee table. 

“Mark?” you called out. 

“In the bedroom,” he shouted back, a somber tone in his voice. 

You kicked off your shoes and followed to your shared room, and the state of it confused you.

His clothes, stacked high on the bed, some hung neatly on hangers and some folded. His collection of sneakers, piled in one corner, along with his belts and hats. And miscellaneous paraphernalia that belonged to him- journals, briefcases, mementos.  

“Mark?” you said, taking in the sight. 

He looked up at you, pulling his lips in a thin line. He looked as though he’d been crying.

“Sit,” he said plainly. You complied. 

Before he said anything, he let out a heavy sigh, scratching the back of his head. 

“I never meant for you to find out like this,” Mark said. 

You waited for him to continue. 

“I just… things were hard. And I guess it was hard to come to you about it, because you always have your shit together.”

You twiddled your thumbs together nervously, “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

He looked behind him at the pile of clothes. “I didn’t think you’d want me around anymore.”

You turned to look at him, a little angry at him for jumping to conclusions like this. “I’ve done nothing but care for you. You’ve been here at some of my lowest points. Why do you discredit me when I’m here for yours?”

He looked at the floor, saying nothing.

“I mean for god’s sake Mark, not telling me about your job is one thing. But you’re going to act like I’m the bad guy for needing a little space when we’re going through a rough patch? I let you have the place for a bit, doesn’t mean I’m not coming back for you. I love you and you know that.”

He swallowed. “I just don’t know how we’re supposed to come back from this.”

“Come back from what, you drinking here and there to cope? A small argument we had last night?”

“Me sleeping with my lab partner,” Mark blurted out.

You fell silent. A wave of shock washed over you, and then distress. Your throat went dry, your eyes trembling with tears prematurely. 

“You what?” you asked, your voice coming out in a whisper. 

Mark hung his head. “I thought you knew.”

“No I didn’t fucking know! Jesus, Mark! How long has this been going on?” The tears began to fall, staining your face with mascara. 

“Four months,” he answered. Mark didn’t cry, nor did he raise his voice. It was a casual confession, like he’d been waiting to tell you all this time. 

Mark hadn’t even been out of a job four months ago. The cheating had begun when you two were still on good terms. Or so you’d thought. 

You nodded, silent sobs escaping your lips. Mark watched you with a guilt-ridden expression, knowing that this was it. 

“Okay,” you said, standing up from the bed and slinging your purse over your shoulder. 

He stood up too, observing your face. “I’ll be out by the time you’re back. I already arranged for my stuff to be picked up.”

His nonchalant tone angered you. You wanted to scream, to hit him and try anything to make him stay. But the truth was, you’d already lost Mark a long time ago. 

The two of you had been nothing but strangers in a joint bedroom, pretending nothing had gone awry, when in actuality, your feelings were just as convoluted as his. Maybe it was the stress of your job, or the existence of a routine that drove you crazy most days. Either way, you hadn’t been happy with him for a long time. The same rang true for Mark. 

“Can I ask you something?” You said before leaving. 

He paused with baited breath. 

“Why did you act like I was the one who threw this all away?”

He hung his head again. “Like I said before. It was hard to come to you about it. You always have your shit together. You always know what you want. And I think…” his voice trailed off. You raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to finish. 

“I think your heart might be elsewhere too.” 

It was your turn to shift to an expression of guilt. Had he known all this time? About your complex feelings? About Felix coming back, and your nights with him, albeit nothing intimate? 

Though you wanted to defend yourself, you couldn’t. Instead, you pursed your lips together, nodding reluctantly in silence.

“I’ll be back in a few days,” you said. “Can we grab a coffee or something soon?”

Mark’s expression softened. He took a step forward, opening his arms for a hug, which you stepped into. His hugs, always so familiar- the scent of his cedar cologne and the firmness of his arms always felt like home. Or at least they did until this point of your life- maybe your chapter in this apartment with Mark was finally at a close. 

“Of course we can,” he said, his voice muffled into your tear-stained shoulder. 

And there you stood, basking in the last fragments of the place you’d called home for so long. 

*

“Do you like these little sonnets? ‘Cause I wrote them just for you”

In all honesty, the last thing you wanted to do was go out tonight. You’d spent the afternoon crying in your room, grieving the last few days you had with Mark. He’d been a steady part of your adult life for as long as you’d known it, and suddenly, he just… wasn’t anymore. 

You wanted to call him and ask if he was still seeing the girl he’d cheated with. A part of you wanted to hate him, but the other part just wanted him to be happy. Maybe this adult life was something you needed to navigate away from each other now. Maybe this routine wasn’t healthy for either of you. Since your freshman year of college, Mark was all you’d ever known. You hadn’t slept with anyone else, hadn’t dated anyone else, and hadn’t really met other men aside from his friends. But the thought of navigating the future without him was petrifying. 

On the other hand, you longed for the uncertainty. You wanted to have the freedom to go out and come home late, not having to worry about anyone waiting up for you. You wanted to discover new things about yourself, see the world, and make your own coffee at night when you worked. It’s not that you didn’t appreciate everything Mark did for you in that sense, but when incorporated into the repetitive routine of adulthood, they had lost meaning to both of you. Maybe that’s why Mark sought something else in another woman. 

And maybe that’s why you couldn’t push Felix away anymore. 

You weren’t sure about any of it. But you did know Mark seemed to have a weight off his shoulders. And you did know sleeping next to Felix felt… right. It felt safe again. It felt like home. 

You packed a few of your nicer clothes from the apartment, trying on variations of them in the bathroom mirror back at your parents’ house. 

Felix had called briefly to tell you to wear something that would match his black suit, and you were intrigued by the amusement in his voice. But you also faked your excitement on the phone, trying your best to hold back tears and sniffles.

So you settled on a silky maroon dress, the draped neckline accentuating the curve of your breasts and hugging your waist like it was tailored to you. A pair of black heels complemented your dress, and you felt sexy for the first time in a while. 

Felix called you when he arrived, almost on the dot. 

“I’m here,” he said. “Do you want me to go up? Or- are you parents home? I should probably say hi.”

You giggled at his nervousness. Just about anything made Felix nervous. He was an over thinker at heart. 

“I’ll meet you out there,” you said.

As you adjusted your earrings in the mirror, a wave of sadness washed over you again. It had been this very dress that you’d worn when Mark was a guest speaker at your school’s biology department. He loved the color on you- even made sure he snapped a few photos of you in it before tearing it off between kisses. 

You shook your head, ridding yourself of the memories, and tried your best to remind yourself that tonight was for fun. You needed a night to get your mind off things, to think of something other than your job and Mark. 

You made your way outside, and Felix stepped out from the driver’s seat, hands folded behind his back nervously. You locked up behind you and carefully started toward the car, Felix jogging up to meet you halfway. 

“Wow…” he said, staring at you in wonder. 

You chuckled, feeling a blush rise in your cheeks. 

“You look…” he started, losing track of his words as his eyes locked with yours. 

He brought two fingers up to his neck, discreetly checking for a pulse as you smiled at him. It was a habit he’d done since he was young- an even cuter one considering he always thought you’d never noticed.

“You look very pretty,” he finished, a twinkle in his eyes as he spoke. 

“Thanks,” you replied. “You look very handsome.”

Felix checked for a pulse again, playing it off as an itch on the crook of his neck. 

“Ready?” you asked as he stood in silence. 

“Yeah,” Felix replied, trying his best to snap out of the trance he was in. 

The two of you made your way to the car, Felix holding the door for you, and sat quietly for a moment while he confirmed the address on his phone. 

“Where are we going?” You asked. He only smiled at you. 

“It’s a surprise.”

Once he started the GPS, the two of you chatted the whole drive, exchanging stories about your families and friends. Felix told you about his sister’s graduation party, and that he would have the place to himself for a few days. Doing his best to slip in a casual invitation for you to spend the night. (Platonically, of course.)

You told him all about what your own graduation was like- down to the hangover you had after clubbing for 13 hours straight. Felix couldn’t help but wonder where Mark fit into your story. 

The drive was much like they used to be. Aside from the steamy moments you used to share, conversations were always the most fun part about being around Felix. He always had something new to tell you, little tales that kept you on your feet and drew you even closer to him. It seemed that after five long years, you could finally reciprocate with your own fascinating anecdotes. 

Before you knew it, the two of you had arrived at a hotel, finding a parking spot in the garage below. You stepped out and looked around, wrapping your arms around yourself and inhaling the cool breeze. 

“Cold?” Felix asked, and you shook your head. 

“Feels nice, actually.”

You linked arms with him as he led you into the building and to the elevator, where another elegant looking man pressed the up button for the two of you. A little bell chime indicated it was at your level, the double doors opening slowly in front of you. Felix ushered you in first, following carefully behind you and pressing the silver circle marked ‘R’. 

As the elevator began, it jerked with force, causing you to gasp and grip the bar to the left of you. Felix moved closer to you, placing a gentle hand on your waist as the ride continued. You felt goosebumps form on your skin at his touch, remembering all too well how it had felt back then. It still made your heart race. 

When you arrived, the double doors slid open again, and you gasped at the view in front of you. It was a rooftop restaurant overlooking the city, thousands of little buildings below you glowing like stars in the night sky. The tables were neatly lined with white tablecloths and candles. And the best part? The rooftop was empty, aside from a waiter who politely gestured to the table nearest the ledge. You bowed graciously as he led the way and poured you both a glass of champagne, placing two menus on the table before he left. 

As you stared awestruck at the skyline, Felix’s gaze remained locked on your gentle expression. His heart raced watching you smile, eyes twinkling with reflections of the city he called home. 

“Do you like it?” He asked.

“Like it?” You repeated. “Felix, it’s so beautiful up here... How’d you even find this place?” You turned to look at him and he glanced down nervously at the menu, feeling his heart might burst with affection.

“Heard of it through a friend.”

He wasn’t going to tell you the truth of course- that he spent nearly two hours of his day in the backseat of his parents’ van googling romantic dinner locations in the city. Calling up 14 in total for a last minute reservation, eventually convincing his manager to have them clear the reservation list so you’d have the privacy you deserved. Which he paid extra for- along with the private parking spot, a table closest to the ledge, and the specialty request champagne. 

“Raspberries?” You said curiously, taking a sip of the sparkling beverage. A raspberry champagne cocktail on ice- a recipe Felix found online and personally requested. 

“Wow, you have to try the champagne,” you told Felix, eyes glimmering at the heavenly flavor. He knew you’d like it.

When the waiter came back to your table, Felix ordered you both a mutual favorite of chicken risotto, handing your menus to the waiter and turning back to you with a shy smile. 

“What?” You asked playfully. 

He giggled. “Nothing. It’s just nice to be here with you.”

You nodded, taking another sip of champagne. Of course, memories of your day with Mark still plagued your mind. You didn’t want to give Felix the wrong idea considering you were still going through a rough patch, unsure of what the future even held for the two of you. Keep it casual, you reminded yourself. 

“It is nice,” you said. “I needed an outing like this with my best friend.”

Felix’s smile faded a little, reaching for his own glass of champagne and taking a big sip. He cleared his throat, his coughing getting louder as he set the glass down. 

“Are you okay?” You asked. 

He nodded with flushed cheeks and watery eyes. “Raspberry. Got stuck in my throat.”

You slid him a napkin and he wiped his mouth of the pink residue, turning away to not embarrass himself further.

“Do you want me to get you a glass of water?” You asked with concern in your voice. 

“I’ll do it,” he said quickly, standing up from the table. I’m doing so, he bumped his knee on the edge, knocking his glass over and staining the white tablecloth. 

“Fuck,” Felix said angrily. “Shit.”

You placed the glass upright again. “It’s okay, we can just remove the tablecloth.” You glanced around the rooftop for the waiter who’d been away at the kitchen. 

Felix piled the cutlery with shaky hands, dropping a fork with a loud clang as he scrambled to remove the tablecloth. You noticed his shakiness and reached out to place a hand gently over his own. He stopped to look at you with wide eyes. 

“Felix,” you said. “Breathe.”

He took a deep breath and blinked a few times at you. 

“Sorry,” Felix said, embarrassment evident in his voice. “It’s been a while since…” his voice trailed off, knowing he wasn’t allowed to refer to this as a date. 

“It’s okay,” you said. “It’s just me.”

Just you, Felix thought. Just the woman he’d been fawning over for years. Just the woman he hadn’t forgotten once in the span of his new life. The woman he looked for in everyone, in everything. The woman he couldn’t form sentences around or stop stumbling over himself.

“Just you” was the problem. 

Felix sat down across from you again, and the waiter returned with your food, placing it on the bare wooden table with a questioning look. Felix sheepishly handed him the strained tablecloth. 

Felix’s nervousness had always been charming to you. You couldn’t help but smile at the way he’d display those same mannerisms from years ago, desperate to look “cool”, and being anything but in the process. 

“What?” Felix asked you this time, cutting into his chicken. 

“Nothing,” you said. “I think it’s better without the tablecloth anyway.”

He huffed out a laugh. “It was a little overkill.”

“Oh, definitely. In fact, they should’ve swapped our table for one of those plastic outdoor ones. Those are peak fine dining. Or maybe those cheeseburger stools from McDonald’s? Now that would’ve been impressive.”

Felix laughed loudly, and you joined him, watching as his shoulders relaxed with every movement. 

As the night progressed, Felix seemed a lot more comfortable, finally coming around to the idea of having dinner with his best friend- nothing more. Memories of Mark tainted your mind when the night fell silent, and the images of him were still burned into Felix’s mind. But you both embraced the night with open arms, like you were the only two who existed in this timeline- the way it was when you were just kids. 

At the end of the night, you got up to get a better look at the view. Felix followed, snapping a few photos and dragging you into one for a selfie in front of the skyline. 

You wrapped your arms around yourself, admiring the way everything looked so small from up here. So insignificant, so fleeting. Like your life was a city, and every building was just a small part of it, no matter how big it seemed from down there. 

“See there?” You said, pointing at the south side. “That’s where my apartment is.”

Felix looked out, squinting at the horizon. 

“And there,” you said, pointing in another direction. “Is where my university was.”

From the corner of your eye, you could tell Felix wasn’t looking at the skyline anymore. He had his gaze locked on you, carefully observing the way your hair flowed in the gentle night time breeze. Two fingers worked their way up to check his pulse again- still breathing. 

You didn’t look back at him. Instead, you studied the way the city seemed to change by the minute. Planes with flashing lights flickering in thick fog, cars that drove by in the blink of an eye. Offices still with their lights on, apartments and houses already asleep for the night. It was all so changing- so uncertain. You could take pictures just seconds apart and it’d be the same place, but never the exact same moment in time.

“Want to get going?” You asked, still aware of his eyes on you. 

“Yeah,” Felix said quietly. He wasn’t sure what he’d been hoping for, but he felt briefly disappointed. 

You finally turned to him, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear and smiling at him. “Come on then.”

Felix led you down the stairs to the elevator, where you both entered, and he pushed a silver circle marked 17.

You cocked your head in confusion. “Isn’t it the garage level?”

A knowing smile met your confused expression. “I booked us a room for the night.”

It was the last of Felix’s surprises- one he knew you’d be excited about. Similarly, one he hoped wouldn’t overstep his boundaries. Fancy hotel rooms were something the two of you only dreamt of in the past, joking about how you’d order one of everything from room service and sleep in everyday till noon. Along with a list of other things you always wanted to try, but he knew very well that was no longer a part of the plan. He didn’t mind, simply wanting to spend a night by your side in a room that wasn’t your childhood bedroom. Now that he could afford it, he’d make sure you experienced everything you once wanted to. 

“Felix…” you began. “This is too much.”

He shook his head nonchalantly. “It’s a little day trip. You don’t work tomorrow and my family’s out for the weekend. Might as well stay while we’re here.”

The elevator stopped at your floor and you got off, following his strut down the hall as he found your room. He pulled a white card out from the pocket of his suit, scanning it and pushing the door open with ease. 

“Come on,” he said, gesturing for you to follow him. 

The sweet scent of vanilla and sandalwood filled the room all around you in an instant. You gasped at the sight of tall clear windows that overlooked the same skyline view you had at dinner. Two massive beds occupied the middle of the room that connected to a single bathroom.

“What about our stuff?” You said suddenly, unable to imagine sleeping in this gown. 

“The staff’s already on their way up with our bags. You don’t have to worry about that.”

 Felix sat on the edge of the bed, arms rested behind him. You made your way over to him, sitting opposite him on your own bed, unable to speak. 

“I… I don’t even know what to say.”

He chuckled. “You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to do something fun for my best friend.”

“Thank you,” you said. “Seriously- thank you. This has been the best surprise after such a… shitty week. I really needed this.”

“I’m glad,” Felix replied. “That was my plan.” He laid back on the white duvet, spreading his limbs out along the surface. “Now can we please order some dessert from room service?”

*

“We wanna talk about sex but we’re not allowed” 

“Solid 6/10.” 

“What?” You replied. “No way.”

“Way,” Felix replied. “The vanilla tastes… bitter.”

“Bitter? Are we eating the same thing?”

“Crème brûlée. Bitter crème brûlée.” He remarked. 

You laughed, setting down your fork. 

“Okay, last one.” You lifted the silver dome cover off the last plate, revealing a single slice of cheesecake. 

“Now this one I’m judging harshly,” Felix said. 

“You judged all of them harshly!” You said jokingly.

“Touché.”

“Ready? One, two, three…” you popped a forkful in your mouth, chewing for a moment before nodding. “That’s the single best slice of cheesecake I’ve ever had.”

“No way,” Felix said. 

“Way,” you replied.

You handed the fork back to Felix, who took a bite of his own, thinking it over for a second. “8/10.”

“What! You’re just being cocky now.”

“Mine is better! You can’t deny that.”

“Mmm I’m not so sure.”

In a fit of laughter, you laid back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and shutting your eyes briefly. “I can’t believe we’re here.” 

You turned your head to face the view again, speckles of city lights gleaming from beyond the tall glass windows. 

“It’s something, huh?” Felix said. 

“Mhmm. This was one of our bucket list items from that summer.”

Felix felt his heartbeat quicken, surprised you brought up the topic of that summer at all. He’d wanted to talk about it for so long, not being able to with your new established dynamic. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I remember.”

“What’d we plan again? Dessert from the room service menu, steal the amenities? Sleep on silk sheets?”

He looked at you nervously, waiting for you to say it. Something- anything at all to prove you remembered. 

Have sex in the jacuzzi, Felix thought to himself. Fuck on the balcony. Do it in the middle of the night and try not to wake the neighboring rooms. 

“Yeah,” he settled on replying. “Think you got everything.”

You sat up again, making your way over to your suitcase and digging out your toothbrush out from the pile of clothes. “Gonna brush,” you said. 

Felix followed, sharing the sink space with you as you brushed your teeth in front of the large mirror. 

He wore a simple white shirt and blue flannel pants, you much more exposed in white cotton shorts and a tank top. Felix’s eyes darted briefly to your body and then back at your reflection in the mirror, and you suddenly felt much more aware of your appearance. 

When you finished, you crawled under the duvet again and enveloped yourself in the thick white sheets. You turned to face Felix, who climbed into his own bed across from you. 

“Thank you,” you said to him again. “For tonight.”

Felix nodded nervously. “You deserve it.”

And sleep washed over you quickly. 

*

“So how should I begin this? I guess it started when you were with him”

Felix hadn’t slept at all- in fact, he spent a good portion of the night facing you and letting the steady sound of your breathing fill the room. Rather he couldn’t sleep, unable to contain the growing bulge in his pants at the sight of your figure. 

He felt like such a loser again, his mind going back to summer when you made all those plans for a hotel room. And yet here he was, sleeping a few feet away from you in his own bed, having unholy thoughts about someone with a boyfriend. It was an unprecedented level of pathetic he felt. 

Trying his best not to wake you, he slipped out from the covers, tip-toeing his way to the bathroom. At least he could get some relief in there and maybe get some shut-eye. 

But his efforts were futile, waking you up as soon as he took the first steps toward you.

“Felix?” You called out. 

“Sorry,” he responded quickly, awkwardly bending over to hide his crotch. “I couldn’t sleep. Was gonna get a drink of water.”

You smiled sympathetically, patting the bed next to you. “Get in,” you said politely. He panicked. 

You’d surely find out about the ongoing incident if he complied. But selfishly, he wanted to, hoping that being closer to you would help it die down. A dense thought process, that’s for sure. 

So he obeyed, pulling his t-shirt down and slipping under the sheets so fast you couldn’t possibly have noticed in this darkness. You turned to face him, finally being able to see his face at this proximity. And for a minute, the two of you said nothing, gazing at each other under the dim glow of the city lights outside. 

You can’t remember who initiated it first, thinking it might’ve very well been you, who scooted closer and kissed him. 

Felix shut his eyes instinctively, like he knew this was going to happen. But the fact was, he didn’t. His heartbeat raced at a concerning speed now, head dizzy with thoughts. Still, he said nothing. Asked nothing. He just stayed there, kissing you back like his life depended on it. 

A tender hand found its way to your cheek, where he brushed a strand of your hair aside to place little kisses along your face. In doing so, he moved even closer, accidentally brushing his waist against your thigh. 

“Fuck,” Felix said while pulling away. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

He was rock hard now, head spinning with the reminder of how you tasted and breathed against him like this. 

You hoisted yourself up, looking down at his fearful expression. But you didn’t say anything in response, instead leaning down to kiss him again. His kisses were more desperate this time, little moans escaping into your mouth as you ran your tongue along his bottom lip. You pulled away again for a breath, and Felix panicked thinking you might leave or stop. 

This time however, you climbed over his delicate frame, straddling his waist as he sat up and rested his back against the headboard. His crotch pressed against you eagerly, but you stayed there for an excruciating few minutes, running a hand over his chest and into his blonde locks. 

“Blonde…” you said in an amused tone.

You traced his freckles with a single finger, sliding down to graze over the slope of his nose and then over his plump, needy lips. 

“Please…” Felix whispered as you leaned in to kiss him. “Please,” he said again between soft kisses. “Please, please, please…” 

His usually deep voice was much higher in pitch when he was this needy, and you’d never heard it this way before. 

“Mmm. Please what?” You said against his wet lips. He hesitated for a moment. 

“Please… use me…” he said shyly, a twinge of desperation as his breath hitched in his throat. His hips rocked gently against yours, reluctant hands finding their way down to your waist. 

The friction made you moan softly against him, and it was your turn to kiss him with longing. You wasted no more time reaching a hand between the two of you to pull off his pants as he slid your shorts down. You wrapped your legs around his torso in just your panties, clothed cock pressed firmly against your growing wetness, and he groaned in frustration. 

“Fuck…” he breathed out. “Don’t move or I might finish.”

You smiled between gentle kisses to his collarbones. Knowing he wasn’t exaggerating about finishing prematurely, you finally pulled his boxers down, wrapping one hand around his length and moving up and down. 

“Ah…” Felix struggled against your touch. 

“What’s wrong?” You cooed sweetly. “Gonna finish?”

He nodded with his eyes squeezed shut tightly. 

“That’s okay,” you said with a smile. “You can cum if you want to.” 

“I don’t… ah…” 

And with a scrunched nose, he found his release, making a mess all over his stomach between you. 

“Fuck,” Felix said. “I didn’t want to finish yet. Sorry.” His eyes were teary and spaced out as he caught his breath. 

You circled the strings of liquid with your index finger, dipping into his navel to gather some on the tips of your fingers. 

“That’s okay,” you said calmly, bending down to kiss him again. “I didn’t say I was done using you.”

Felix swallowed nervously, trying his best to hold back the inevitable tears. 

“You okay to give me one more?” You said, sliding your hand down between your legs to play with yourself. You circled your clit with his cum, gasping in pleasure at the warm sensation. 

Tears fell from his face as he nodded and waited for your instruction. 

“Good,” you said, kissing away his tears as you continued to touch yourself. “Tell me if you want to stop, okay?”

Felix nodded nervously, watching intently as you finally removed your panties and spread further to take all of him. With gentle movements, you wrapped your arms around his neck, positioning over him and sliding down ever so slowly. His hands gripped your waist as he helped fill you up. 

It was a sensation Felix hadn’t been prepared for. He winced at the overstimulation, trying his best to remain semi-hard so you’d have a chance to finish. But the feeling of you gently bouncing on his cock made him cry even more, desperate to help you find your release and to hear you shower him with praise. 

“Doing so good,” you told him between breathless movements. “Kiss me.”

He obeyed, planting sloppy tear-stained kisses on your mouth as you used him for your own pleasure. He pulled away again, mouth finding its way to your breasts, where he kissed and sucked your nipples with fondness. 

And between his fervent kisses in the valley of your breasts, you found your own release, clutching his shoulders as you trembled and dribbled cum all over his length. 

You slid off of him with ease and back onto the bed, where you both took a minute to catch your breath. Felix was unsure of what to say, and you could hardly form a sentence. 

Instead you got dressed again and sat up to go to the bathroom. “Gonna get cleaned up,” you said simply. 

As you stood, Felix gripped your wrist, pulling you toward him again. “Don’t leave,” he said in a frightened tone. 

“I just need tissues,” you explained. 

“Don’t leave,” he said again, tears trickling down his face. 

“Felix, I’m just-”

“I’m in love with you,” Felix blurted out. 

Your heart raced and you took a deep breath. You stood between his legs observing the way he now let out dramatic sobs as he began to speak. 

“I’m so fucking in love with you and I can’t help it. I’ve always loved you. Ever since we were kids. You can hold me and comfort me until I stop crying but it’s not gonna change the fact that I’m crying because I love you.”

You reached a hand up, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. He continued talking as he cried, the stream of consciousness giving him the confidence he’d always yearned to utilize. 

“I tried. I tried for so long with other girls, with other people. It was never the same. I thought there was something wrong with me because I’d cry so much whenever I was with you. And it never happened with anyone else. It took me years and some stupid hookups before I realized it was because I was always in love with you. 

That’s why I came back. You make me feel so damn safe all the time. I can’t taste Oreo mcflurries or raspberry chapstick without thinking of you first. I would’ve still been in love with you if you kept ignoring me. I’m still in love with you even though you have him. And I don’t know what we’re doing, but I do know that I’m in love with you. Back then, and now, and in five years time.”

He hung his head in shame, crying like a guilty child, and you towered over him in silence. He’d never felt so vulnerable before, crying in front of the girl he loved in complete nudity. 

Part of you knew this was coming- there was no denying Felix hadn’t been the most inconspicuous about his romantic feelings toward you since returning. But you couldn’t find the words to say to him, knowing anything you could say right now was only going to hurt him. You and Mark weren’t technically broken up yet, and your heart largely remained there still. You and Felix also led two completely different lives- yours, a monotonous adult routine, and his, riddled with fame and splendor. It was never going to work the way he wanted it to. This was all a fleeting thing like it had been back then- this wasn’t reality. 

“Please say something,” Felix pleaded.

“I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “We shouldn’t have done this.”

He looked up at you through tears, hardly making out the expression on your face as the room blurred around him. And with a simple nod, he understood. You were not in love with Felix. 

With a gentle release of your wrists, he allowed you to get cleaned up, crying in front of the bathroom mirror as you rid yourself of his traces. When you returned, Felix was back in his own bed, lying on his side away from you.

Not so much as a sniffle was heard as you turned out the light again, falling asleep to his words replaying in your head like a broken record. 

*

“Did he ever make you cum? Did he ever make you cry?”

You were up early that morning, quick to shower last night’s mistake off your aching body. Felix stayed in bed facing the window, forcing himself to keep his eyes shut though he wasn’t asleep. His eyes could hardly pry themselves open anyway, now swollen and red from all the crying he’d done. 

When you finished getting dressed, you sat on the edge of your bed, staring out at the view in the daytime. The city was completely different at this time of day. People looked like little ants from this high up, and you followed their paths as they navigated the world below. Into stores, apartment buildings, even meeting for coffee. It was so human- so unpredictable where the next little ant would find themselves. So uncertain. 

You heard Felix shuffle about in bed, and you decided to go check on him for the first time, holding your breath as you made your way to his side. 

“Felix,” you said timidly. “You should eat something.”

He kept his eyes shut, furrowing his brows into a frown as he felt your hand run through his hair. 

“Not hungry,” he said in a raspy voice. 

“Come on,” you replied. “Checkout’s at 11. We’ve only got two hours to enjoy this view before we have to leave.”

Felix fluttered one eye open, looking at you for the first time since last night. His heart pained him all over again. Your hair was still damp from your shower, face free of makeup and the lingering scent of peaches on your skin. 

He exhaled through his nose, eyes wandering past you and zoning out. 

And then with some hesitation, you crawled into the unmade bed beside him, slipping under the covers and wrapping an arm around him the way you always used to. You held him like that for a minute, rubbing his arm soothingly and playing with the back of his hair. 

Felix couldn’t feel excited about any of it, too heartbroken to feel anything but sorrow in your arms now. Tears brimmed his eyes again as you lulled him into another wave of sleepiness. 

“Do you love him?” Felix broke the silence suddenly. You swallowed, finally choosing to be honest with him. It was the least you could do while he grieved. 

“Yeah. I do.”

“Does he… satisfy you?” Felix asked. You were taken aback at the question, and Felix was shocked that he brought it up. But he needed closure right now. He needed answers to the questions he’d been overthinking all week. 

“Mhm.”

He thought for a second. “Does he ever make you cry?”

It was your turn to think for a minute. “Sometimes. When we fight, I guess. It’s not often, though.”

Felix shut his eyes again, wanting to ask more questions, but feeling too tired and anguished. You continued massaging his arm, feeling his tension loosen in your touch. 

“Go back to sleep,” you said finally. “I’ll wake you when it’s time to check out.”

And he did, dozing off properly in your tender embrace.

*

When you parted ways that day, Felix knew very well he might never see you again. 

He’d messed things up by confessing how he felt, only to be met with what he’d feared all along- you were indeed in love with Mark. There was never a chance that the two of you would work out. Still, the truth pained him. The dull ache in his chest was made worse by the way you cared for him, giving his hand a little squeeze in the car and rubbing his back when he pulled you in for one last hug. He knew you were just trying to make him feel better. But deep down he was angry- at himself for not staying, at Mark for being able to call you his, even at you for being intimate with him last night. He didn’t regret it, but he did wish it ended the way he’d hoped it to. 

On the drive home, Felix had the realization that things were now different. His feelings were out there in the open, and you were free to do whatever you wanted with them. Regardless of how you felt, it meant things between you were going to change. 

He was no longer welcome to sneak into your room late at night- even as friends. He couldn’t bake you little surprises or text you at random times throughout the day. And the idea of ever kissing you again was just a distant daydream, so far out of reach it seemed like something that had never occurred in the first place. 

He wondered how you felt about the situation. And he wondered if you knew how terribly he regretted it. In an alternate universe, Felix had just let you go get cleaned up and cuddled you to sleep, pushing away the idea that you had cheated on your partner. It would have been a fleeting thing like it had always been. Like it was always supposed to be. A lingering thought made Felix consider calling you up to ask why you’d cheated on Mark if you loved him, but that would involve talking to you. 

What he didn’t know, of course, is that you weren’t in love with Mark anymore. 

*

“I hope we’re still friends, yeah I hope you don’t mind”

Standing in the living room you two shared, Mark wrapped up the last of his boxes with tape and looked over at you. The room had never felt this empty without his video game consoles or his sneakers lying around carelessly. 

“If I forget anything I’ll come by to pick it up later this week,” he said. “But that’s the most of it.”

You wiped a few stray tears. “Where are you going again?”

“I told you,” Mark said, sitting on the couch next to you and resting a hand on your thigh. “Couple friends have a room for rent just an hour from here. It’s safe. I don’t want you to worry.”

He reached up to wipe a tear with his thumb lovingly. You missed these moments- sitting on the couch together like this, only now they were tainted with heartbreak and mourning what once was. 

“Is she going to be there?” You asked after a moment. 

Mark looked down, and then back up at your face. “Do you remember when I had blue hair?” He asked suddenly. 

“What?”

“The blue hair. Arctic fresh, like you used to call it.”

You chuckled a little. That term had slipped your mind after graduation. 

“Yeah. I remember.”

“And you used to sit in the library all day.”

“Until you started stalking me.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t love it!” Mark retorted. The two of you laughed for a bit, and you almost forgot you were sad in the first place. 

“I didn’t know when you were gonna be there,” Mark continued. “I had no clue how to approach you. Hell, I didn't even know what kind of person you were gonna be.”

You listened to him as gestured with his hands. 

“That uncertainty- there was something so fun about it.”

There was that word again- one that had been on your mind lately. A lot of things felt uncertain as of right now. 

“Remember when we didn’t have a mattress?”

You shook your head. “God. Don’t remind me.” Mark laughed in response.

“We used jackets as blankets! It was fun though, wasn’t it? We thought we’d never finish furnishing the place. I kinda loved not knowing what it was going to look like yet.”

You pondered his words carefully. There was a lot of truth in them- the months you spent sleeping on the floor and eating microwave pizzas together for dinner were some of your most memorable times. You only got through it because you had hope that the future would make up for those nights. 

“You seemed happier too,” Mark said. “And I want you to be that happy all the time. I don’t want you to be scared of the future.”

You began to cry again, trembling as Mark pulled you in for a hug. 

“I don’t know how to do this without you,” you said. “This… routine. Being an adult.”

“You’ve always known how,” Mark said. “You just have to go live it. Don’t let yourself get stuck at a computer all day. Don’t let the only time you leave the house be to get coffee creamer at night.”

You smiled at him sheepishly. 

“I’m learning too,” Mark said. “I kinda want to get out of this city. Get a new job.”

You nodded. 

“And I want you to do some badass things,” he said, poking your knee and making you smile. “I want to hear all about them. But you gotta do them first!”

With a gentle sigh, you nodded again. 

Mark twiddled his fingers for a moment. 

“It’s him, isn’t it?”

“What?” You said, head snapping up to look at him. 

“Dude from the band.”

Your heart sped up, unsure of what to say. 

“I tried your parents’ house a few days ago. Two of you were headed out somewhere. Can’t believe I even recognized him, but I pieced it together.”

“Why… I mean-”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said with a reassuring shake of his head. “I want you to be happy. I wasn’t the most honest with you, either.”

After a pause, you took Mark’s hand in yours. “I’m sorry,” you said. “And I love you. And I’ll never stop loving you. Whether we’re together or not.”

He nodded at your words. “I know. And I’m sorry. I’m never out of reach- you know where to find me.”

Mark pulled you in for one last hug, crying softly into your shoulder. “Go find that happiness again,” he said. “I’ll always be here.”

After helping move his boxes to the car and exchanging your final goodbyes, you returned to the apartment, clutching the keys in hand like you did the very first time you got them.

The apartment felt quiet, yet strangely comfortable. You’d never seen so many sunbeams shine through the windows like this before- illuminating the empty corners with a hopeful glow. Despite the vacant areas, the apartment felt eerily beautiful like this. You caressed the drywall with a tender hand, thinking briefly about the potential this place always had. There were so many new spots for paintings and photos. So many opportunities to decorate again. So much to look forward to. 

*

“Swear we were only being honest”

Mark’s departure made a lot of things clear for you. You thought about what he said for days after adjusting to the empty apartment- about chasing happiness and learning to embrace the uncertainty you were always so afraid of. 

He was right. You had become a shell of the woman you once were, only existing to do work and repeat the routine that tricked you into believing it was the epitome of life itself. But it never had been- it was you who made it that way. 

Looking out your window at the empty street late at night, the only noise you could hear was the dull buzz of cicadas that stalked the tall grass.

You returned to your parents’ house for one last night to collect your things and say your goodbyes to your parents. Everything looked the same as it always did on nights like this- cars parked neatly in their spots, houses with their lights off, and neatly trimmed bushes swaying gently in the summer breeze. Your hands trembled as you climbed out the window, dressed for the weather in a light sweater and a pair of shorts. 

As you jogged out to the street, you paused to look up at the vast sky above you. The sky had never seen you this late at night like this, out in the middle of the street with such purpose. You were normally curled up with a book at this late hour.  Yet you greeted it with excitement and curiosity, laughing up at the constellations as you planted two feet in the concrete below you. 

After admiring the scenery at this time, you were on your way again, racing like a child down the block. You passed the houses you had always known, appreciating the way they were a steady part of your life for this long. You turned the corner with such vigor, you thought you might fall if you didn’t slow down. But you didn’t- you ran and ran, and you didn’t stop. 

Felix’s house was a mere three blocks from yours, yet you’d never visited in the middle of the night like this. It has always been him to initiate it. He was the risk-taker, the troublemaker, a fact you forced yourself to challenge after your conversation with Mark. 

When you arrived, you looked up at his house, unsure of what to do for a moment. You weren’t entirely sure which room was his anymore. 

So you pulled out your phone, dialing him before you could stop to overthink it. Felix answered on the second ring.

“Hi,” you breathed. 

He paused for a moment. 

“Are you… okay?”

“I’m fine,” you replied. “Could you open the window?”

“What?”

“The window. I can’t remember which one is yours- God your grass is tall. There aren't any spiders here, right?”

Before you could finish, the curtains drew back in front of the window closest to you, and Felix stood there with his cellphone pressed to his ear. He observed the way you scratched at an itch on your ankle, finally looking up to meet his gaze and giving him a little wave. 

“Aren’t you cold?” He asked, dropping his phone down at his side as you walked over. 

“Not a bit. It’s actually kinda nice out.”

He helped you climb in, and you looked around the room with wonder in your eyes. 

“Wow. I haven’t been here since we were kids.” 

The walls were lined with old photos of him, neatly arrayed in white picture frames. There was a large desk opposite his bed with old taekwondo medals hanging directly above. And his bed was neatly made, except for one corner from which Felix had untucked himself from. 

“What are you doing here?” Felix asked with hesitation. His voice was tinged with sadness still. 

You set a paper bag down on the desk, turning to face him. “Little something from me.”

Felix looked at the bag and then at you again. You eyed him for a moment, noticing his unkempt hair and the subtle bags under his eyes. His blonde locks were pushed out of his face, framing his expression of sorrow. He wore a plain black t-shirt and sweatpants, much simpler than you’d seen him dressed on other days, yet he somehow still looked so sophisticated. 

With reluctance in his step, he unfolded the bag, reaching inside to pull out a small Oreo McFlurry and a carton of fries. He examined the cup, setting it down again and avoiding eye contact. 

“I told you I don’t get these anymore.” 

“No,” you said. “You said you couldn’t get them because they brought back memories.”

He shrugged. “Yeah. What’s the difference?”

“The difference is that I’m here now. And you don’t have to stop doing all your favorite things because they bring back memories.”

“You don’t get it,” he said, sighing again. “Please don’t make me say it again.”

You hid your hands in the sleeves of your sweater, eyes trembling with fear as you began to speak. Breaking down your walls around other people was always a difficult feat for you. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” you told him. “Just please listen to me and then I’ll get out of here.”

Felix sat on the edge of the bed with his hands on his knees.

“Felix- you and I live completely different lives. You left before my life even started. Most of what I know about you I had to learn through google searches. You wake up in different countries 6 out of 7 days in the week. You know what you want, and every single day is different for you.”

“You googled me?” Felix said. You ignored his question as you continued to speak. 

“You have to understand that this never would have worked out between us.”

He hung his head and wiped a few stray tears with the back of his hand. “I kind of figured it wasn’t going to work out. You didn’t have to come here to tell me again.”

“I came here,” you interrupted him. “Because I’m in love with you.”

His head snapped up this time, eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as you continued to speak through tears. 

“And it scares the hell out of me. We’re two different people in two completely different worlds, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s always been you. And it’s always going to be you. There’s no one else I’d rather get McDonald’s with at 3 in the morning. Or stain fancy tablecloths with. I love it when you do that thing where you check your pulse when you get nervous. Or when you bake me little desserts, even though I never ask you to. And I love wiping your tears after we get intimate, because I hate seeing you sad and I’d spend a lifetime wiping your tears if it meant I could be by your side.”

The room fell quiet as you finished. Felix looked up with an expression of sorrow and shock. His eyes welled with tears as he sniffled and gave you one short nod. 

“How about Mark?”

You smiled and shrugged. “Sometimes love has other plans.”

And Felix smiled for the first time tonight, stretching out both arms toward you, which you wasted no time running into. He wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you into his lap and holding you for a moment as you both laughed through sniffles. 

As he pulled away to look into your eyes, his thumbs wiped your tears away delicately, caressing your face in a gentle embrace. 

“I don’t want to lose you again,” he said suddenly. His expression shifted to that of concern.

“You have me right now,” you said calmly. “And we’ll figure out the rest. I don’t want to get too caught up in worrying about the future.”

He smiled again, moving a strand of hair out of your face as he leaned in to kiss you. His lips tasted like raspberry, moving gently along yours as you smiled against him. 

“What happens now?”

You thought about it for a moment. It was a good question- you hadn’t thought about where the night was going to take you after this conversation. 

“Let’s go out.” 

“Now? It’s almost 2 in the morning.”

“Now. Let’s go anywhere. I just want to be with you.”

Felix ran a hand through your hair as he chuckled. 

“You’re full of surprises tonight.”

You climbed off of him as he walked to the closet and picked out a pair of pants. And you sat watching him eagerly, afraid you might lose him if you looked away for even a second. 

When he turned around again to button his pants, he locked eyes with your tender gaze and smiled. The moonlight glistened through the window onto your skin, little blue patches painting your frame delicately like an oil painting. Your eyes sparkled with longing for him, and he smiled at the way you blinked up at him with such endearment. 

“I love you,” you said suddenly. 

“I love you,” he replied, leaning down to kiss you. “I love you. I love you. I really love you.”

When he finished getting dressed, he took your hand in his, helping you out the window and into the cool summer air. The cicadas and birds were quiet, and the only sounds you could hear came from the trees rustling in the nighttime breeze. Felix towered over you in the dim glow of the streetlights, never once looking away from the twinkle in your eyes as you spoke. And you continued, with no destination in mind, down the streets you had explored so many times as kids together. The same picket fences and concrete roads seemed so much more charming this way- hands interlocked as you stopped every now and then to exchange kisses and share spoonfuls of the now melted Oreo McFlurry. At last, you were home again- all was safe. 

*

“All by yourself, sitting alone”

The loud chime of the overhead speaker caught your attention as you meticulously worked to buckle your seatbelt. All around you, people took their seats too, children squirming with excitement and couples assisting each other with the overhead bins in the aisles. You sat alone, taking in the atmosphere as you prepared for hours of being sat here. 

Thoughts of doubt rushed to your mind as you examined a Korean pamphlet in front of you- was this the right decision? Were you going to be happy? Would you even find work there?

Your throat went dry thinking about the endless possibilities. And then you remembered Mark’s kind words echoing through you- “go chase that happiness”. 

You were never going to know if you didn’t get out there first. Maybe this was where you were always meant to be. 

In between conversations with yourself, your phone buzzed with a new text. You checked it frantically, smiling at the message.

Felix: 🐣

Your heartbeat slowed again, and you took a deep breath as you pushed your negative thoughts aside. You were finally chasing your happiness- Felix was your happiness. And maybe traveling 5,000 miles for the guy you loved seemed crazy, but it felt right. As long as you were by his side, you would face the future together. 

You shot him back a little sunshine emoji before putting your phone away again. And you shut your eyes, grateful for the gentle reminder of why you were doing this. You weren’t certain about much, but you were certain about Lee Felix. And maybe that was enough.

[scaly-freaks]

inmate 13453

okay don't get excited, i just felt like writing a bit of a drabble to feel out the atmosphere of a potential start to this au (clicking the tag will give up the other stuff i've posted for it btw)

btw check out the playlist and the pinterest board made by @theageofsilver and @allicentsallure bc they're fab

cw: kidnapping

Soft seventeen.

Bambi eyes, bambi legs.

There’s a certain edge to the way people describe the age she’s at. Not quite eighteen, not quite legal, tangible as cherry juice on greedy fingers. She isn’t sixteen, sweet and tender. It’s a soft first step into adulthood, skirting the border, the in between, the unknowable horrors that lie ahead.

She fucking hates being seventeen.

It’s a shit number first of all. Odd numbers make her want to spew. They feel like nails on a chalkboard, polyester static on leg hair. She can’t even dance, so whatever ABBA are singing about doesn’t apply.

Amara sticks out her tongue and tastes the air as the breeze blows west. She swears she can get a sense of the world when she does.

Her stepfather mocks her for it. That blue-eyed, blonde maniac with the ugly Buick Electra he treats like a brand-name Italian from the southern coasts of Europe. He used to treat her mother the same. Until he began to tell Amara you look just like her when she was young. He leaves his porn tabs open on his computer, as if he wants her to know. ‘Teen’, ‘Latina’, ‘Stepfather’, ‘Rough’, ‘Face-fucking’, ‘Breeding.’

She doesn’t have a drop of Hispanic blood in her.

She really wants to tell her mother, but there is a chance her mother will look right through her instead. She’s been doing that a lot more nowadays. They can’t afford her meds anymore. She just sits on the porch and watches and waits. For what, is anyone's guess.

>> can you pick me up?

>> its dark

>> pls

>> sorry ik its inconvienant

'Step-Daddy' always replies quickly when it’s her. He has a heart next to her name on his phone. She never agreed to that.

>> it’s spelled inconvenient

“Suck my dick,” Amara tells the screen and switches her phone off before he can message again.

She can walk.

The route back runs dangerously close to the edge of the forest. All kinds rot away in there, but she doesn’t like to think of them by name. They’ll become real if she does. She wishes her mother had found a man who lived in the wetlands, and not here at the cursed border between life and the realm beyond. Marshes are easier to understand. Forests are cursed.

Still, life is horribly simple here. Her high school is placid and filled with the dull-eyed children of dull-eyed adults. The gas station where she works didn’t bother to interview her. She walked in and the guy behind the counter stared at her breasts until he remembered she had a face. Her breasts aced the interview for her.

Can I work here? Just until I graduate.

Sure, grab a nametag.

Four months later, and she doesn’t mind it anymore. Her brain shuts off. Her customers are a ragtag mixture of suspicious, ferret-eyed locals and the occasionally buoyant hiker from out of state. If she doesn’t look like she belongs, she’s pretty, and that usually gives people like her a pass. At least until the sleazy comments become ethnically charged. But even then, Amara has a way of making her eyes go ‘dopey’ and just smiling like she’s too slow to understand. Displaying discomfort is what eggs them on (kind of a nasty realisation she opened her eyes to one day).

An engine growls some way down the road.

Old Chevy pickup, faded gold.

She recognises it from the parking lot at the station near the end of her shift.

A guy stepped out, young, early twenties, with a shock of hair that looked white until she realised it was just really, really blonde. She remembers thinking it was odd. The range of blondes in town runs from deep and dirty to the artificial bleach rattled out of holographic boxes of dye. No one has hair like his. She’d have noticed.

His eyebrows were a little darker, and his lashes were darker still. He had a funny way of walking, and he looked at her like she had the head of a fish and the body of a human being. Amara did her best dopey eyes. She asked him if he’d had a good day, pointed out the offers they had on pork rinds. He didn’t say a word. His skin had smears of black grease, glistening with sweat and bronzed by the sun.

Deep blue eyes.

Horribly deep.

Not the kind you’d want to swim in. She likes a softer blue, blue like chlorine, reminiscent of the safety of swimming pools. His were anything but.

She picks up her speed, and for some reason, puts her phone to her ear as if mid-conversation. Nothing about him said he was dangerous at the time. At least not from the way he’d barely said a word or looked down at her body. He was just there, and then he was gone.

And now here he is again.

The Chevy hits the horn. He is creeping closer. Amara turns and waves at him to go on. She doesn’t want a ride. Why isn’t he rolling down the window to offer one though?

It slows to a crawl. Her throat closes up. She has a feeling speeding up will give him what he wants. He’s obviously trying to be a prick. But if she goes back to talk to him, that would be exponentially worse. She switches her phone back on and sees her stepfather’s message telling her to get back home herself after she didn’t reply to tell him her location.

She quickly shoots him a message, and prays he’ll respond.

He doesn’t.

Fuck it.

She walks faster. The Chevy matches the increase. Sweat blooms on the back of her neck.

Every woman has that oh fuck moment. That I’m going to be on the evening news moment. The please god if he catches me let him kill me before he gets to raping me moment.

None of that goes through her head. She keeps thinking of her mother’s cooking. Her mother hasn’t cooked in a year and a half, not since her mind began to slip. But Amara can taste the spices on her tongue, the way the rice was perfectly simmered, the cinnamon in the back of her throat, the smell that clung to the walls, the heat of it.

I wanna come home, Momma.

Her mother’s face gathers into shape in her head, built with sand particles and saltwater. When the Chevy roars, she starts running. Her mother vanishes.

The lights of the truck blink across the tarmac. It’s a signal. But it isn’t for her.

She looks over her shoulder, and she can’t see him.

Run me over. Leave me like carrion on the road. Let the maggots eat me. Don’t cut me up first.

He slows when she starts to tire out. Picks up when she tries again. No other car has graced this road since she first turned onto it. A sign points her to the right, ushering her deeper into the backwoods. The town is to the left.

He figures out where she’s going when she suddenly makes a dash for the bend in the road.

There’s no time to dodge the pickup when it goes for her this time. The wheels skid as he yanks it at an angle and blocks her way. The door flies open and misses her by an inch. His arm grabs for her. She dodges, animal fear and rust on her tongue. He still doesn’t say a word.

A heavy fist connects with the small of her back and she drops like a stone.

The pain is electric. Air turns her lungs into taut balloons, but she can’t make a sound. She twists around and the bruise forming over her spine grates. Adrenaline quickly numbs it as she lashes out with her arms and legs. Kicking, punching, scratching, biting. Her teeth hit home. A mouthful of tattooed flesh, car oil and sweat. Still no sound from him.

She never sees the fist coming, just like last time.

A blow to the head and lights out, nancy.

[licorice-tea]

Apricity

Pairing: Sabo x reader

Content: fluff, a little kissing, gender neutral reader, short and sweet <3

Word Count: 0.7k

A/N: just a little something i wrote about sabo! i rlly thought about making it longer, bc usually i write at least 1k words or so even in one shots, but i am happy with it as it is now. i hope you like it too, thanks for reading! :)

Apricity

The warmth of the sun in winter.

Sabo drags you out of bed at the “ass crack of dawn.” Or at least, that’s what you describe the time of day as when you complain about him waking you up so early. You grumble and groan until it’s clear you’re not getting out of this early morning excursion.

“The sun is barely up!” Yet, it still momentarily blinds you with its rays when you walk out onto the deck.

He holds your hand- be it to share warmth or so you don’t turn back, you’re not sure. “It’s about a third of the way to its high point-“ then he turns so he’s walking backwards to face you, “and if the sun is up, we should be too.”

The two of you come to a stop on the starboard deck. “No,” you move one of his hands to your waist, “I should be tucked in bed under my warm covers” then the other, “with my warm boyfriend,” and finally looping your arms around his neck, “and we should both be asleep.”

Sabo smiles and nuzzles his face into your neck. “I’ll keep you warm.” His hair tickles your ear, but you can’t giggle as you’re still trying to be annoyed with him.

“Hmph.” His hands start to rub up and down your sides as the two of you take to swaying in some type of rhythmless dance. “You don’t even like this kind of cold weather.”

“I know.” Sabo finally shows his face again, much to the chagrin of your chilly neck region (and to the pleasure of your eyes.) “But, I do like when it’s cold and I can feel the sun on my face or back.”

His confession is just cheesy and poetic enough to make you smile, albeit softly. “Hm… Like a cat?”

“How dare you! I think I’d be a lion if I were an animal, at the very least.” Sabo says this all very matter-of-factly, causing you to fall into a fit of quiet giggles in his arms. His eyes track your movements- your smile, the way your eyes crinkle, the very sound of your laughter- while wearing a smile of his own.

You quiet yourself again, still grinning brightly, and shrug. “Still a cat.”

He just stares at you for a moment after that, and you think you must have something on your face. “Sabo? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” His blonde hair falls over his eyes as he shakes his head to reassure you. “Everything’s perfect, love.”

Such a simple little pet name, but it still manages to make you blush. You push the hair out of his eyes and end up cupping his face in your hands. Now you’re the one staring, but he doesn’t seem to mind the intent observation. “What was that thing you said about the sun earlier?”

“Hm? That I like how the sun feels in the winter?”

“Yeah.” You place a chaste kiss on his lips. “I think I get what you mean.” It’s freezing outside, and the wind chills every exposed inch of your skin, but none of that seems to matter right now. From the way his smile and his eyes shine; warming you from within, while also squeezing you gently to share his body heat… it’d be impossible to not understand the feeling he describes.

“Good.” Sabo kisses you back, gentle and slow. Like you have all the time in the world- which, you suppose you do. It certainly feels that way when everything is cold; it’s the type of weather where you really just want to stay in bed all day. And yet, here you are outside, entertaining your boyfriend’s desire to feel the sun in winter. “But I like kissing you more, just so you know.”

With the sweetest expression you can muster and a tilt of your head, you ask; “Does that mean we can go back to bed?” Alas, your question is only answered with laughter.

But hey- maybe winter isn’t so bad anyway, when you have the warmth of the sun right in your hands.

[pawnshopbleus]

hi! i was wondering if you could do a corio x plinth reader where he aproches her bc she is a plinth (and she notices and gets mad bc she think that corio takes her for a stupid girl who would just fall for his lies) but he slowly falls for her. i would really like if it ends well, like them together. i hope you understood my idea, i love your work btw.

𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐌𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭

coriolanus snow x fem!plinth!reader

summary - basically what the request says, but there is no happy ending because i'm evil.

contains - angst, the capital being described as beautiful, gold-digging, rude coriolanus, not beta read

author's note - i'm so sorry @simpovereveryone for the unhappy ending, but i feel like once someone finds out you originally wanted to date them for their money there is no coming back. originally, this was going to be a happy ending, but I just couldn't write one that felt natural and real. if you want, I can do a happy Coriolanus later, but there is no happy ending in this one.

IT was no secret that Strabo Plinth’s daughter was in love. It was the only thing people would talk about at the Academy. In between each Hunger Games, Capitol citizens were bored. Gossip would spread like a wildfire. They didn’t know how to keep a secret. 

Coriolanus knew that you liked him. It was obvious to anyone that had two working eyes. The way that your eyes would follow him wherever he went, and how your back would straighten every time he walked by was evidence enough that you had a crush on the blonde boy. 

Coriolanus was flattered, really, but he just wasn’t one to date. Many girls have tried and failed at dating him. None piqued his interest. He found that most pretty Capiol girls were dumb and had no interest beyond their physical appearance. They also lacked what he needed most, money. 

Coriolanus wanted to continue his education at the University after the Academy. He needed to keep a roof over his, Tigris, and Grandma’ams head, or he would have failed as a cousin and a grandson. Those necessities don’t come cheap after a war, no matter how long ago the war was. 

And then he heard the news. Some new students were chatting during lunch. His name and yours got thrown around, and after some intense staring at his apple, he heard what they were talking about. Your little schoolgirl crush on Coriolanus, and that was confirmation enough. 

Then there you were, sitting in all your glory. 

Being the one and only daughter in the Plinth family made you susceptible to fake people. Always after your money and status, but they will talk about you behind your back. Coriolanus has heard it all. He needed to outsmart the many and study the few that made it to your inner circle. Just because you already had a crush on him meant nothing if he didn’t have a good enough reason to chase after you. 

Your red school uniform mixed in with the rest of the crowd, but your face was what drew him in. It was so different, unconventional, and beautiful. The unconventionality of your face made him want to paint a picture of you from memory. You were unique, which he liked. This won’t be too bad, Coriolanus said in his head. 

Your tired eyes met his and he didn’t look away. The bags under your eyes accentuated the fact that you couldn’t sleep last night. The thunder crashing outside of your window was probable cause to keep you awake. 

Coriolanus got up from his chair and stocked towards you. His stride was purposeful, guiding through clumps of students gathered around the room. He sat across from you and said nothing as he studied your tired expression. It was weird that your brother's friend and your crush were sitting across from you all of a sudden. You were in no way ready to talk to him right now. 

“Did you want me to tell Sejanus something?” was all you could manage to ask. Your brain was begging you to ask more. Why are you here? How is your family? Do you think I’m crazy for liking you, even though we’ve never had an actual conversation? But your mouth stayed shut, which saved you from a boatload of embarrassment. 

Coriolanus smiled. His teeth were imperfectly imperfect. A natural color, not too white, but not too yellow. His right front tooth was slightly crooked, giving his teeth personality. 

“No, I came here to talk to you.”

Your brows furrowed for a second. Why in the world would he want to talk to me? Besides being the sister of his friend, you had nothing going on for yourself. There were far prettier girls that he could talk to. You weren’t all that traversed in philosophy and classic books like he was. You were just…you. 

Your lips pressed together in a small line and then returned to normal after a second. You couldn’t form coherent words right now. You nodded your head at the boy in front of you and looked across the room, not ready to make eye contact with him at the present moment. Students talked and whispered with each other as they took in the scene. Coriolanus Snow talking to the girl that had a crush on him. Many girls who had tried to date him in the past narrowed their eyes at you. 

You had not noticed that the room was almost silent, save for the whispers of the nosey students. Coriolanus kept repeating your name, trying to break you out of your trance. You liked the way your name rolled off his tongue. An unlimited amount of syllables were repeated over and over again in his baritenor voice. 

“What?” you ask as you are broken out of your trance. 

“Do you want to go on a date with me?” he answered your question with another. 

This seemed too good to be true. The boy you’ve had a crush on for years had just asked you out for seemingly no reason. Either whatever higher power in the sky was on your side, or this was one huge prank. Either way, you agreed. 

˖ ࣪ . 🦢 ࿐ ♡ ˚ .

You stood in front of the full-length mirror in the corner of your room. The baby pink silk slip dress you were wearing used to belong to your mother. She had given it to you two years ago in hopes that you would wear it. She hoped that you would wear it on a date with a nice boy. That’s exactly what you were doing, but there were two problems. The first problem was that you were nothing like your brother, outgoing and outspoken. You preferred to keep to yourself, and if you had to socialize, you would do it with the handful of friends you had. The second problem was that it was two years later. The dress no longer draped beautifully around you like it did when you were younger. It clung to every curve, crevice, and roll you had on your body. You were lucky that the dress still zipped up. You studied yourself in the mirror, going from the tip top of your head down to your painted toenails. At least it looked like you had enough money to be well-fed and groomed. 

Coriolanus was taking you to a new rooftop restaurant. The women in your mother's book club raved on and on about how elegant and regal the vibes in that restaurant felt. They also recounted how hard it is to get a reservation. For a new restaurant, it seemed pretty picky with its patrons. 

He picked you up around six. The sun had already set and a chill breeze kissed your skin, causing goosebumps to rise on the bare skin of your arms. Coriolanus kept you close to him, placing a strong hand on the small of your back. His hand was cold, causing you to shiver. 

The reviews were right. The restaurant was beautiful. The entire place was lit using nothing but candles. They lined the tables with pristine white cloth. There were other details of the restaurant that were otherworldly, but the view of the Capital made you swoon. With Coriolanus long forgotten, your eyes lit up at all the lights and such that outlined every building and street. You had forgotten how beautiful the Capital was at night. Your heart panged with gratefulness at being able to experience this even though you weren’t born here. 

Coriolanus studied you once again. The city lights flashed and shone across your body, accentuating the way your skin looked. It looked soft, almost perfect. Nothing was ever perfect. 

“So, Sejanus told me you like to paint,” Coriolanus commented, breaking the silence between the two of you. 

Your eyes broke away from the shining lights and back to the companion in front of you. “Yes,” you simply said. 

The simplicity of your words made Coriolanus fix his hand into a fist under the table. He was doing you a favor! You were the one who had a crush on him, not the other way around. He couldn’t say anything, though. He had to remind himself why he was doing this. Flashes of images passed through his mind. They all had one thing in common; they were dear to him - the only things he loved. That was the reason why he was here. He needed the money that was attached to you. 

“What do you like to paint?” The food that he ordered for the two of you was being placed down on the table. He ordered steak and potatoes with a side of steamed vegetables.

You are a vegetarian. 

Everyone knew you were vegetarian. You loved animals and couldn’t fathom eating a living animal. You didn’t judge people who ate meat. Everyone was free to live the lifestyle they wanted and you choose to live a meatless lifestyle.

“Why did you ask me out on a date?” you questioned the boy in front of you who was currently eating his food like a starved man. Which he was. He barely had enough money to pay rent, let alone pay for this meal…

That’s why he asked you on a date - for your money. You’ve lived your entire life having to question whether or not someone wanted to be your friend. Your last name followed you everywhere you went. There was nothing shameful about your family, but you hated having fake people around you. It was literal hell. 

Of course, Coriolanus didn’t like you. He just needed your money. You scoffed at him and didn’t even let him finish as you sprinted out of the restaurant, leaving him confused and with no way to pay. 

It’s safe to say that Coriolanus is never welcomed back. 

[sugarcoated-lame]

Little sneak peek of my new Jake fic, ‘Always A Bridesmaid’ bc why not! (:

Jake Seresin x female Bradshaw!reader

Summary: Bradley tells all the guys at his wedding that his little sister is off limits… But when has Jake ever listened to Rooster?

warnings: none in this sneak peek other than mentions of alcohol/drinking i think, but the full fic will contain smut! 18+ minors dni

...

After sharing a dance with your dear Uncle Mav and relinquishing him back into the awaiting arms of Penny, you spend the next half hour moping at the table on your own. Absent-mindedly swirling the straw around in your drink, chin resting in your other hand as you watch the festivities going on around you. 

And that’s how Jake finds you.

You were adorable. With your sparkling eyes and your hair pinned up into some intricate up-do that Jake wanted to see undone, a few pieces flowing down and framing your face. The hint of cleavage Jake could see beneath the cowl neckline of that lavender dress that hugged your curves so well as you leaned forward against the table, a slight pout on your lips as you observed everyone having fun on the dancefloor.

Jake could tell that you weren’t having a good time and he knew exactly why. 

Little did you know, that earlier that morning while Bradley and his groomsmen were getting ready in a suite separate from the girls, your brother had had a “talk” with all the guys.

Debriefing about last night’s rehearsal dinner, Hangman, Coyote, and Fanboy—all of the single groomsmen—had been discussing a few of Natasha’s bridesmaids that they thought were cute. Especially the maid of honor. 

Rooster’s ears had been ringing when he heard them describe you to a T, and Jake could practically see smoke coming out of them as he turned toward his friends, always the overprotective big brother ready to shut them down.

“The maid of honor,” all of the groomsmen turned to look at the mustached groom as he began to speak.

“Is my little sister. And she’s off limits.” At his words and the stern, serious tone of Bradley’s voice, Jake and the others collectively shut up, matching caught-out and shocked expressions on each of their faces.

“I mean it, guys, I don’t wanna see any of you hitting on her. I love you all like my brothers, but I’m not afraid to kick someone’s ass if I see you trying it on with my sister.”

The guys all knew that Rooster wasn’t bluffing. With rushed apologies and confirmations that they’d leave you alone, the tension left the room as they all laughed it off and went about their business getting ready for the ceremony. 

With Bradley’s warning in mind, the dagger squad had spent the rest of the day being nice—but not too nice—whenever they spoke to you, and tried to keep their interactions with you to a minimum, so as not to face your older brother’s wrath.

Jake was ready to follow the rules too, it was Bradshaw’s wedding after all. He could hold off on pissing off his best frenemy for one night. At least that was the case, until the reception. 

When he saw you sitting all alone, all gorgeous and sulking, Jake knew right then that he had to go talk to you. He knew he was the only one stupid enough—or brave enough, if you ask him—to go against your brother’s wishes, and who was Jake if he wasn’t stirring the pot?

Was it so wrong for him to help a pretty lady have a good time? And you were beautiful, strikingly so, so Jake wouldn’t mind if he got a little something out of it too.

Jake isn’t scared of your brother. Besides, Rooster was far too busy dancing with Phoenix, the newlywed couple far too preoccupied with making heart-eyes at each other to notice him making his way over to you.

Your eyes widen with intrigue as the tall, blonde pilot—Jake, or Hangman as he’d been introduced to you—sidles over to where you’re seated.

God, was he handsome. You sit up a little straighter as he plonks himself down in the chair next to you, a devilish smirk on his lips as he turns toward you. 

“What is a pretty little thing like you doing sitting here all on her lonesome?” He inquires, a slight Southern drawl to his voice. Texan, maybe?

“Um… drinking?” Your answer is short, but you’re a bit caught off guard and still annoyed by the fact that all of your attempts at socializing tonight with anyone outside of the few members of your family and Phoenix, had failed.

But now, here was Hangman, going out of his way to talk to you and looking you straight in your eyes. His green gaze intense and leaving you a bit flustered. 

Jake glances down to where you’re still toying with the straw in your near-empty glass. With that playful smirk still present on his face, he goes to speak again.

“Well, darlin’, I cannot in good conscience let you drink alone. What are you drinking and how ‘bout I buy you another one?” His question makes you scoff. 

“Tequila Sunrise, and it’s an open bar so… no, you can’t buy me a drink.” You roll your eyes at the almost too handsome pilot. 

Oh. Pretty and feisty. Jake was going to have a hard time staying away from you.

“Well then, how about I acquire you another one, and because I’m such a nice guy, I’ll even join you?” Jake winked at you and stood, striding towards the bar before you could even answer his question. 

…

Update: the full story is up now! You can read it here ! <3

Thank you for reading! x

I hope to get the whole thing posted soon, it’s been done for a minute now tbh I've just gotta edit it <3

taglist: @wkndwlff @chaoticassidy @sebsxphia <3

[jaelaxies]

𝟏𝟐:𝟎𝟎

12:00

fluff; wc: 635.

Soobin x fem reader!;good sugary fluff; friends to lovers au!; makeup artist au!; tw: none.

Song recommendation:  Daylight — Taylor Swift. (lover)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･

—Choi Soobin!

She cupped his cheeks softly, making him look even more cute in the dim light of the room. The only other thing that was distracting in every sense was the mess of different reflections of glitter in transparent components, but Soobin couldn’t be more focused on anything but making sure he wasn’t as red as a rose and the way his best friend was chewing at her lip, so concentrated on delicately placing her fingers on his skin. A very childish yet adorable smile adorning her features. — I told you to stay quiet!

When she called him at 10:00 pm, practically begging him to come for help; this isn’t what he had in mind, nor did he expected other stuff, but surely, being a model wasn’t one of them and his body just had to react to her. To her touch. Because what a big boy he was with a crush he didn’t want to confess yet. After shooting her a playful glare and a huff, he shifted closer. Just an inch, because he really did wonder if she could hear his loud and thumping heartbeat.

Another soft dab at his cheeks, she inched closer to his cheekbones. Her minty breath suddenly grabbing his attention. The way she softly touched his skin while applying layers of glitter was as calming as a breeze, something unexpected for him. — You really suit this concept, Soobin.

Now she was grabbing his chin, her gaze locked into his. Soobin was mesmerized by the way her eyes shined even brighter than the particles she had spread all over his cheekbones and the ones who glimmered behind her in the moonlight. Her gaze was something that always made him flush; the way her round and big eyes just softened and looked at him trough long lashes and a half smile. — I’m sure you’re going to steal a lot of hearts.

She said eagerly while grabbing another jar this time with a blue tint to it, leaving his chin and face to rest for a bit. Playing with the jelly like texture of the glitter, she absentmindedly let her thoughts out of her head. — Just like you stole mine.

Wait.

Wait.

What?

She widened her eyes as she let the thought of what she had just said sink in, while Soobin snatched his look onto her figure again. She was no longer holding the jar but her sweater paws were covering her mouth; her face covered into the prettiest shade of pink, Soobin could ever describe. Is this how he always looked? And of course, he couldn’t let this one go, he couldn’t make an excuse or thought he misheard because those same big eyes were expecting an answer: silently but still pleading to hear something from him.

He did what his brain thought it was best to convey his feelings. He positioned himself closer to her and brough his plush plump lips to her cheek, kissing it softly but just for long enough to feel the warmth of her skin and the butterflies in his own stomach. As he separated himself a little bit, she reached for her cheek, still having the same bambi eyes.

— I always thought I would confess first. — He said while looking for her free hand, gently caressing it with his thumb, he could feel the heat in his face and neck but it didn’t matter to him that much right now, he always wanted to hear that. To feel this.

—Yeah, me too…— She chuckled to herself, as she intertwined their fingers this time; causing the boy to relax even more; her touch was like Midas. — But I guess I couldn’t hold it anymore.

They looked at each other and smiled, just as the clock stroked midnight, a new love story had just started.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･

Ever since i saw these concept photos i always wanted to do a small drabble like this, bc blonde soobin and glitter and omg 🥹😌🤝🏻

Also I hope you all dont mind that I'm starting again with shorter drabbles for now; it's a temporal thingy tho, i just wanted to write again but with a plan in mind 🧘🏼

Remember that feedback is always appreciated and i love reading you guys comments! 🤍

Taglist is also open! just comment and i'll add you to it! Im sorry if somebody was in my old taglist but i kinda forgot with the whole hiatus thing.

Hoped you enjoyed reading,

xoxo, stella! ☁️🤍🪄

[synintheraven]

Okay let's clear some things out; 1) I don't write smut bc I suck at it 2) this is part of a bigger story where the main character/reader gets to know Sihtric throughout several situations, so this is perfect if you want to read about Sihtric & reader's little made-up adventures but not so much if you're only here to read naughty stuff 😅 3) I have no idea what I'm doing :p

pic credits to myself, feel free to use them too/ask for originals (:

✵pairing: sihtric kjartansson x fem!reader

✵summary/small introduction: reader (she/her) is a Norse, Sihtric is a (actual, as in born there) Dane. Sihtric & reader meet each other for the very first time, but I kept it simple and kinda short so you'll have to keep on reading to find out how this goes (; [Side note: Yggr is one of my ocs and the Jarl/Chief of the group, but will not be a current character other than to accompany/give orders to Sihtric and reader]

✵tw: mentions of violence

✵word count: 1,5k

characters info | part two

We were near; the tall cliffs once casting shadows over the sea were far behind us and the fog was getting thicker over the marshes. East Anglia was a land of fishermen huts, distant trees and bad weather: yet somewhere in this muddy land, a band of fiery fighters were hiding and getting ready to fight for their lord.

I recognized the stranded ship half covered in sand, which Yggr had described to me, surrounded by muddy rocks and a small spot of land untouched by the sea waters. Near the rocks, among tall reeds, the camp was set and a handful of men were sat around the bonfire in an attempt to fight the cold wind.

Except for one man.

A tall, dark haired man, covered in a fur cloak; his left hand was resting over the hilt of his sword as he stood near the coast, staring cautiously at our ship as if he was trying to tell who we were. But, as we approached the small island and the fog revealed Yggr’s wild hair, the mysterious man prepared to greet us.

The sail was taken down and the crew started to row against the current, sliding through the rather calm waves to take the ship towards the land. It didn’t take long for the prow to reach the sand and before we were fully beached, Yggr jumped off our ship to meet with the dark haired stranger.

He had a concerned expression and his hand remained over the hilt of his sword, ready to fight should the need arise. Yet, unlike him, Yggr was quick to smile and open his arms, embracing the now smirking Dane like a brother.

The man was Sihtric Kjartansson, a warrior that served the long haired blonde, though he treated him like a big stupid brother rather than as his lord and jarl. Both Danes had grew up together, sticking to each other as their parents seemed to care little next to nothing for the young boys, making it no surprise the concerned stranger was in command during the jarl’s absence.

I didn’t know much about him back then, only that he was a fine warrior and a loyal man; but I had also been told he was rather friendly and welcoming, yet Sihtric looked at me with wary eyes. I stared back at him, almost trying to decipher what was going on inside his mind: studying his gaze, the storm brewing inside his blue eye and the dancing flames around the pupil of his brown eye.

He had the face of a warrior, with scars running down from his forehead and marking the flesh over his deep cheekbones, making me wonder if he was hiding any other under the strands of hair over his temple or under the scarce beard around his rather full lips.

I had jumped on the wet sand of the island shortly after Yggr, however being the only woman among all those men, suddenly the warriors resting around the fire seemed eager to welcome our crew. Everyone but Sihtric, who embraced his lord for a while but pushed him away as his men came along with curious looks.

Unfortunately for everyone else, I was not to be touched or harmed: for I was there merely to help build the camp and eventually, should the strings of my destiny allow it, find the man that killed my family.

The first birds of the day were singing their songs and the sun was setting, the land slowly revealing itself from the fog. It was a cold morning and it got worse as we had to get our feet wet in order to cross from shore to shore, but we were to stay unnoticed and therefore not to use our ship.

We were scouting the surrounding area, following the shore in hopes to find a bigger place to set a new camp. I was walking beside Yggr, with Sihtric a few paces before us to guide our way around; the rest of our group were either guarding our current camp or exploring other areas, though all of us were after the same goal.

The best hiding spots were among reeds, trees and muddy rocks, but those often surrounded water and the rising tides could be treacherous.

We saw stone ruins, abandoned churches and half burnt farms, all a consequence of folk escaping their homes in order to keep their lives, to escape the horrors brought by the monsters from across the sea.

Danes like us were plundering all of Britain; they came with the promise of riches and vengeance but stayed to become kings and killed anyone who opposed them. They had come here to do what that mad man had done to my family, my people.

 I trusted Yggr’s words when he said he didn’t care about a title. He lost his chance to be king and decided to embrace a simple life, only hoping to find a nice place to thrive and stay unbothered by Saxons. Or so it was until the Great Heathen Army decided to terrorize the country, turning our heads into targets for anyone who caught us, Danes and Norse alike, wandering around.

We had stopped, suddenly. We were standing atop a small hill that went deeper in land, hoping to get a better view; the wind was blowing hard and the sun shone upon the land, easily revealing all areas of the territory.

Yggr remained silent, his mind lost somewhere in the dark blue waters from the ocean as the cold wind blew on his hair and beard. Sihtric stood next to me, his eyes narrowed because of the sun while he pointed his finger towards the tall roman ruins to the north.

—That looks like a good spot. —He said to Yggr then quickly looked my way, noticing I was the only one truly listening to him. It was, probably, the very first time he wasn’t eyeing me as if expecting me to take a knife to their throats. —I saw it before, but rain soaked the mud. It will take some work to stop that from happening again.

He had a very calming voice and explained all the work that had to be done for that old ruin to be a proper camp, though in truth all I could think about was the scars on his face: suggesting the man had been in many battles, despite being only a few winters older than Halfdan’s son.

—You two can go. —The blonde man interrupted, resting a hand on mine and Sihtric’s shoulder. —Find some horses and secure the camp, I’ll go find the men and meet you there with the ship.

—Just the two of us? —Sihtric sighed, despite trying to hide his discomfort. —What if the place has been taken? I can’t fight them with, no offense, a woman. —He glanced at me for a split second then stared back at Yggr, hoping to be released of my company.

—I am Norse. And my father raised a warrior, not a weak girl that needs some Dane’s protection. —I snarled back, watching as my words damaged his pride and brought a wide smile to our Jarl.

The only horses we could find belonged to a group of Danes camping in Theotford, a small town with thatched roofs and a run-down church that once sheltered Saxons.

There was about twenty of them, maybe more, standing watch in every corner and every small gap they could find.

—I am not “some Dane”, I’m a warrior too. —He finally added, remembering our earlier conversation.

—You’re the son of Kjartan, right? —I let out and he gave me a grim look then proceeded to avoid my glance, still walking between the tall grasses.

—We’re never going to make it out alive if we try to take one of their horses. There’s too many of them. —And he was right, those were trained warriors and we were merely a pair of lost dogs to them. —The ruins are not too far, we should get there before Yggr if we walk in a straight line and avoid following main roads.

And just like that, our short journey through the autumnal forests of East Anglia began. We walked through shrubs, trees, short walls made of stone and saw a few deer, but there was no sight of other people anywhere. We avoided getting too close to farms or church ruins, trying to remain silent whenever our surroundings were suspiciously quiet.

—So tell me, Dane, how did you end up in Norway? —I interrupted, getting a judging stare from him when he caught me walking closely by his side.

—He told you we should get to know each other, right? —He asked dismissively, moving a few steps ahead of me.

—He suggested we should get along if we’re to live together in the same camp, but you’re not as friendly as he promised.

A hint of a smirk showed on his face, though it didn’t last long. —My father sold information to Halfdan and left me in Alrekstad to either die or be raised by the king’s servants. —He admitted after a while, looking troubled as he spoke.

—There are worst destinies than to be raised with Yggr, I suppose. —I said and saw him grinning at my comment, finally showing some sort of emotion in my presence.

—What about you, Stavanger? —He taunted, making it obvious that our fool of a Jarl told him about my homeland and, therefore, my newly acquired nickname.

—That’s my homeland, yes. But I come from the Isle of Ikke, a once thriving city to the north of Stavanger.

—Then what brought you to Alrekstad?

—Vengeance. —I said cheerfully, but he gave me a concerned look in return.

Some bonus fun facts:

✯Yggr is the son of Halfdan, King of Alrekstad (modern Årstad, in Norway). He's not inspired by any TLK character, though he has a similar personality and looks to Ragnar The Younger, with some of Cnut's silly sense of humour. Yggr was to inherit his father's throne, but has no issue embracing a simpler life - even though his former position as a prince and charisma turned him into his Clan's Jarl (basically an english Earl, but a Jarl can also be someone trusted by its people and chosen as a chief).

✯Reader was born in a small island in Norway (Ikke, which is totally made up hehe) but her family was massacred when she was a baby, so she grew up seeking vengeance.

✯Sihtric isn't a bastard but his mother died giving birth to him and so Kjartan despises him/never properly treated him as his son (nor did he to Sven but he grew up to be just as his father and so Kjartan eventually accepted him as his son).

✯As this story is unrelated to what happens in TLK, I had Kjartan vanished from Denmark; though he became wealthy again by playing the pirate in other territories and selling information to kings as Halfdan, Harald Fairhair and few more across the sea...

[reddsame]

Hi yes I would like a Vash / reader headcanon or fic where he shows the reader’s his scars for the first time during a very intimate moment and then the reader shows their scars as well (from fights, stretch marks, birth marks anything) just comforting and soft please and thank you.

Oh hi, i like this one, at your service~

I want to mention that all the headcanons, fics, scenarios, etc, that i do, will be an intermediate point of the Vashverse, that is, that they will not be any of a specific work. (Not Maximum, OG or Stampede, something in between)

————————————

• First of all, Vash probably wouldn't show his scars until he can be sure that his partner wouldn't freak out seeing them.

• Once he is sure, he would show them one night in a motel about to go to sleep, when he changes clothes in front of you. (Finally, bc i have the hc that he would change in the bathroom.)

• Seeing that you did not react badly, but rather you worship his body, he will literally MELT in your arms, feeling so loved and safe with you, he was so happy, until you took off your clothes too.

You were both sitting on the bed, facing each other, with your legs crossed and the blond's gaze fixed on your body, analyzing each area of ​​your body with worry, he felt bad...bad because, as you explained, most of the wounds were from old battles, in your back, legs and torso. You told him it was fine, he couldn't do something anyway because you two didn't even know each other at that moment, what had to happen happened.

On your waist there were also a few stretch marks due to growth, as well as on your shoulders and thighs, unlike him, you had some little scars on your face too, your body was full of freckles and moles, for him, it was precious, he approached you, taking your hand to bring it closer to his face and kiss the back of it. Feeling the cool touch of his cybernetic arm, offset by the warmth of his lips, a little heat coming up to your face, he told you to get closer so you could sit on his lap and you did, he took off his glasses so you could appreciate those beautiful blue eyes with green hues, he was so pretty and his touch was as delicate as the stroke of a feather, he treated you as if you were going to break at any moment, like that, he put his chin on your shoulder and before whispering a small "can I? ", he began to kiss each of your marks and scars when you made a small gesture as a yes, going down from your neck to your chest, passing through the freckles on your face, putting special delicacy on the largest/deep scars on your chest.

"I admire you a lot, you know? You've been through a lot...and here you are, those marks and scars represent how strong you are, you're so beautiful, so strong, so...good to me." He pronounced, while you chuckle, placing your lips on Vash's, causing his cheeks to turn into a shy pink, he reciprocated, closing his eyes as he pressed his chest against yours. Only with that kiss, he know that you would be with him until the last breath of the planet. Now, you press a gentle kiss on his forehead, while he sees you with the most precious, cute and heartwarming smile.

"I should say that, angel ~" It didn't take many words to describe how much you loved each other's scars, and he loved those cute nicknames that you picked for him.

©　reddsame/me

[acheronist]

HI ISABEL i was thinking abt ur beechey boys + peglar/armitage extended cinematic universe while doing my laundry earlier (<- normal guy behaviour) and now i'm curious if u've thought of any actors/face claims for them – beechey boys especially bc we don't even have terror versions to use lol 👀🎤

HI GENEEEE 🖤 this is interesting.... honestly i've never been very good at fan casting shit because my default is always just going "x character should be played by riz ahmed" which ummmm would not work here i fear.

anyways everyone watch out there's gonna be mummy images below the cut

okay i really don't care about actors enough to do this well ummm LMAO johnny bertchtold YOU🫵🏻 are now john shaw torrington!! except johnny's way too tall and also ripped to be jorts.... i will say tho, as annoying as the john torrington/david young erasure is in the amc show, they did kind of nail it with alfie kingsnorth... now that's a skinny blonde bitch who looks half dead! he's got the right big round eyes + prominent cheekbones as jorts

if we could get some mutton chops and the uniform of a royal marine private onto ferdinand kingsley i think he'd be fantastic as william braine..... actually now that i'm looking at this i kind of feel like a genius for this one LMAO??

john hartnell is a little harder because i've already decided in my heart that this daguerreotype is 100% undeniably him even though the chances of it are actually probably very low. in actuality. but i have tried to match up the daguerreotype "hartnell" with the mummy hartnell and i do think it's a super close match.... i just wish mr. daguerreotype hadn't tucked his hair over his ear so i could compare the shape of john's ear.... but anyways there is actually one bg dude from terror amc who i have also kind of decided could be jarts!!! he was one of the dudes who voted to stay on terror and die there instead of out on the shale before everyone abandoned ship... he's got the right haircut for it <3 but also i think rob james-collier could be kind of a slay for jartnell if we can get him back to his downton abbey prime

and then thomas morgan hasn't really made his debut in the beechey boys cinematic universe (yet. chapter two still cooking......) and we also haven't exhumed HIM so this is really just like throwing a dart and calling it good. i did draw a little version of him here tho . so do with this as you will i guess. me when i'm just making up whatever the fuck. he should be kind of sickly looking as well though because my dude was going THROUGH it (+ he had one million pre existing conditions) before he died.

and for like... henry & thomas theyre much more nebulous in my brain..... maybe i'll try and draw them later!? i did do fanart here of henry tho but i fear it's got a heavy amc casting influence on what he looked like.

real life facts: thomas (5'9") is 2 inches taller than henry (5'7"), henry probably had broad/strong arms and shoulders due to climbing around in the rigging for his whole career, both of them had brown hair, and thomas was older than henry enough that he was probably starting to get salt-and-pepper grey during the miserable stressful parts of the expedition. henry's id papers describe his complexion as "sallow" and based on how many captains said he had a shitty/indifferent/bored attitude while working leads me to believe my king had chronic resting bitch face + looked vaguely exhausted and pale and unwell even when he was healthy.

also in my heart amc nailed it with giving thomas curly hair tho... charlie kelly is cute to meeeeee... unfortunately he isn't 40 years old enough. no source no facts anyways i just want to believe in curly girl armitage supremacy. ALSOOOO in my heart (again) henry has sailor tattoos-- HOLD FAST on his knuckles for good luck in the ropes + two swallows on his chest under each collarbone to mark his 10,000th mile at seas. i forgot what i was talking about. i think do think k*vin g*thrie's face was honestly too conventionally attractive for henry though. i just know my man was mid as fuck. frown lines from scowling, ink stains on his fingers at all times, never worn sunblock ever, thinks splashing water on his face counts as moisturizing etc.... MY henry peter peglar is pretty weather-beaten and looks like a mean cunt and sometimes he snarls at people like a badly trained dog. amen.

[zennybearr]

imagine cygnus was away for a couple days on a business trip when their daughters were only toddlers and he comes home a day early to surprise druella (and bc he misses them too much) and they share the cutest embrace 🤗🫶

the black family manor felt unusually quiet without cygnus. druella stood in the nursery, her blonde hair falling loose over her shoulders as she carefully tucked bellatrix and andromeda into their cots. narcissa, still so small, was asleep in her bassinet, her tiny fist curled around a blanket.

it had been a few days since cygnus left for a business trip, and though druella managed everything with grace, she missed him terribly. the nights felt longer without him by her side, and she could see the girls - especially little bellatrix - looking around as if wondering where their father had gone. druella reassured them he would be back soon, but in her heart, she longed for his return just as much.

unbeknownst to druella, cygnus was already making his way up the front steps of the manor. he hadn’t been able to bear the separation any longer. every letter he’d received from druella, describing their daughters’ days - their giggles, their tiny first words, and the way bellatrix had been asking for him - had tugged at his heart. he had missed them too much, and business could wait. he needed to be home, with his family.

as he quietly opened the front door, he inhaled deeply, the familiar scent of home washing over him. the manor, though grand and elegant, had never truly felt like a home until druella and their daughters filled it with laughter, warmth, and love. he set down his suitcase, taking a moment to compose himself before making his way upstairs.

druella, who was gently humming to soothe narcissa, suddenly heard the sound of footsteps approaching. her heart skipped a beat.

could it be…?

she turned, and there, standing in the doorway of the nursery, was cygnus. her breath caught in her throat as she saw him, his familiar, strong figure framed by the soft light from the hallway. his eyes were filled with emotion, and in that moment, any tiredness or stress from the past few days melted away.

"cygnus," she whispered, barely believing he was really there.

without a word, cygnus crossed the room in a few quick steps, pulling druella into his arms. the embrace was tight, as if he never wanted to let her go again. druella wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his chest, breathing him in, her heart racing with joy. they stood there, wrapped in each other’s warmth, feeling the love that had only grown in his absence.

“i couldn’t wait another day,” cygnus murmured against her hair. “i missed you… and the girls, too much.

druella smiled into his chest, her eyes misting over as she held him tighter. “i missed you, too,” she whispered, her voice soft but filled with emotion. “we all did.”

cygnus pulled back slightly, his hands cradling druella’s face as he looked at her with the same adoration he’d felt since the day they were married. “you’ve been amazing with them, i know it,” he said, his voice low and full of admiration. “but i had to come home. i needed to see you, to hold you.”

druella’s heart swelled at his words, and she kissed him softly, feeling the weight of the last few days melt away in his embrace. it felt like he’d never left.

just then, there was a soft murmur from one of the cots. bellatrix, always alert even in her sleep, had stirred and was now sitting up, her tiny hands rubbing her eyes. when she saw her father, her face lit up, her little voice squeaking in surprise.

“daddy!”

cygnus turned and smiled, his heart melting at the sight of his eldest daughter. he knelt down by the cot, scooping bellatrix up into his arms. she giggled and clung to him, her dark curls bouncing as she nuzzled into his shoulder.

“i’m home, bella,” he whispered, kissing her forehead as he rocked her gently.

andromeda, who had also stirred from her sleep, peeked over the side of her cot. cygnus reached over and lifted her as well, balancing both girls in his arms with ease. he stood up, holding them close as they snuggled into him, their sleepy faces full of love.

druella watched with her heart full, her smile tender as she saw how much the girls missed him. cygnus glanced at druella, his eyes shining with happiness as he rocked their daughters in his arms.

“they’ve grown so much, even in just a few days,” he said softly, his voice tinged with awe. “i don’t want to miss a single moment.”

druella walked over to them, wrapping her arms around cygnus as they stood together, a perfect little family. narcissa, still fast asleep in her bassinet, was the only one who hadn’t stirred. cygnus leaned down and kissed druella’s forehead, then gently kissed andromeda and bellatrix’s heads.

“we’re all together now,” druella whispered, her voice filled with contentment.

cygnus smiled, his heart feeling whole once more. “yes, we are.”

and in that quiet nursery, with the gentle breaths of their daughters and the warmth of their embrace, the blacks felt the unshakable bond of their family, a love so deep it wrapped them all in its perfect, comforting glow.

[bubble-popping]

snippet #1 of (almost) daily writing bc idek honestly

If asked, Techno wouldn't be able to explain how he found himself in his current situation. He was trapped on the couch, squished between two small blondes and held down by the soft comfort of a multicolored quilt.

Punz curled under his left arm, ear occasionally flicking due to Techno's breath and hands bunched into fists just below their chin. He drooled in his sleep, softly snoring. Dream, however, laid unnaturally still. His only signs of life were the steady rise and fall of his chest and the death grip he had on the front of Techno's shirt. Sometimes, he twitched and frowned, which Techno learned meant he was having a nightmare. Thankfully, it simply took a little shake and nuzzle to make him settle down.

He wasn't complaining, not in the slightest. He wouldn't have it any other way. Sure, it surprised him too when he realized how much he liked Punz since he'd had a crush on Dream for Prime knows how long, but they fit just as snugly in Techno's hold as Dream did.

Still, in these moments of peace and quiet when sleep just eluded him no matter what he tried, he had to wonder. Truthfully, so much happened in just the past couple months that it made his head spin thinking back on it...

The night Punz arrived on his doorstep kicked off everything. They'd shivered in clothes ill-equipped to handle the Arctic air, further proving his utter desperation. Most of the details were fuzzy now, something about being hired for a job that led to them inadvertently learning of Quackity's 'activities.' They needed help, they needed Techno's help. How could he refuse those puppy-dog eyes?

But, it was his idea for them to stay. It was game night for the Syndicate; the best place to be on the server in Techno's humble opinion. And despite how much persuasion it took to finally get him to join, Techno could see they'd make a perfect fit in the group. Not to mention their help was vital in breaking Dream out, given his intimate knowledge of the place and planning. (At least, that was what Techno assumed at the time, something that turned out to not be as true as he thought, which begged the question of why they agreed...)

He got along well with everyone, amicable if a bit stiff. Definitely an introvert, so Techno made it his mission to include them in everything, his own introversion be damned. Gradually, the tightness in his limbs loosened and they relaxed. He even laughed at some of Techno's little jokes--in a scoffing, eye-rolling, head-shaking kind of way, but still. And once Techno introduced them to the bee farm, it was over. All their nervousness disappeared as they fawned over and tended to the insects, getting grass stains on their jeans and honey stuck in his hair.

That was probably when Techno fell for them hook, line, and sinker. A wolf hybrid, all sharp canines and pointed ears, predatory instincts honed to track and kill almost anything. Yet, he had kneeled in a bed of flowers, smiling and gushing over how precious the tiny creatures were. Small enough to fit in their palm, to be effortlessly squeezed to death without a second thought, only for them to carefully guide it to the fragile petal of a tulip.

Techno wasn't given much of a chance to do anything but fall in love.

Then, there was Dream. Dream was... Techno could go on for hours to describe everything he adored about the man. Pretty green eyes, his slowly returning freckles, that wonderful wheezing laugh. So easy to fluster, to get a beautiful shade of red on his cheeks and a shy smile on his face. Again, that started long ago, practically since Techno joined the server.

[whowantslovergirl]

An: this is a looong one enjoy my lovers 🤍

Rise and Fall

JJ Maybank x reader (gender is not specified)

warnings: cursing, kissing, talks about marriage, ig suggestive content, fluff turned to angst bc why not, talks abt jjs bitch ass dad, shitty parents, jj is an ass in this lowkey, reader is described as middle class, and let me know if i forgot anything hope you enjoy my lovers 🤍 somewhat proofread 🤪

outer banks masterlist

Summary: the story of JJ and Y/n and how they rise and how they fall

posted: June 25,2023

the start:

If you knew JJ (which everyone did) you would know that he never settles down. It’s always one and done. And always the same bullshit excuses. “I’m not emotionally available right now.” “I’m not really looking for a relationship.”

Well that was before he met Y/N.

how they met:

You were walking around outer banks soaking up the fresh air. You always take walks when your parents were fighting. It always made you feel like you were the problem since your name was always brought in their ‘nice’ conversations, “Y/N did this.” “Y/N always said.” “God! Y/N was right about you!”

You were fucking sick of it.

_____

JJ noticed you walking when he was with John B in the twinkie. “Yo JB” JJ tapped his best friend’s shoulder. “Who is that person walking? Might add them to my list.” John B looked over at him with ‘what the fuck dude’ eyes. “Well that person is Y/N L/N.” “Aren’t they a kook?” He said with disgust and amusement. “No JJ they live in the middle. Too rich to be broke but too broke to be rich.” JJ just nodded.

He wanted you and he wanted you bad.

_____

The pogues threw a party after JJ forced them to so he can get to know ‘Y/N.’ He looked around and asked around. No one knew where you were and some didn’t even know who you are. Which baffled JJ since everyone in this town was somehow connected to the other.

But after waiting forever and a day (two hours) he finally saw you in an outfit that just made him want to run over there and rip your clothes off, but that can happen later.

JJ never ran so fast just to talk to someone.

_____

“Well hello there.” You heard a male voice and turned around to see a tall blonde boy with blue eyes. His hair was shaggy it looked like he just woke up. Which you found very attractive. “Um hi?” JJ looked at you with his signature smile. “I’m JJ.” He reached his hand out for you to shake and you just looked at it. He saw the expression on your face and slowly lowered his hand. “I know.” You said with a soft voice.

He smiled at that. “Glad to know you know who I am baby.” You internally gagged at the pet name. “I only know who are because you’re known as the ‘man whore of obx’.” You looked at him while doing air quotes when you said his nickname. JJ smiled dropped since he didn’t know he had a nickname around here and especially not a man whore title. “So man whore of obx, is there a reason you are talking to me?” You continued.

“I am not going to fuck you.” You said a little too fast for his liking. He let out a small laugh at that statement. You just looked at him with ‘how the fuck is that funny’ eyes. “I am not here to do anything baby. I’m just here to say I like your outfit.” You was everything but ready for that response. “Oh well in that case thanks JJ.” He smiled and nodded and walked away.

You was gobsmacked because you felt like you just made a fool of yourself.

JJ just realized he never formally asked for your name so he went back to ask.

“Hey baby I never asked you for your name.”

“Oh it’s Y/N.”

“Pretty name, well bye Y/N.” He turned back around and walked away like once before.

You was still gobsmacked. And JJ got you right where he wanted.

_____

After three months of getting to know each other, you guys eventually did have sex. And it was amazing, best sex you ever had. That was also when…

JJ knew that you weren’t going to be an one and done.

He grew feelings for you and he wanted anything but that.

the rise:

You were working at the country club well if working meant staring at your friend? boyfriend? fuck buddy?? Whatever he is. You were staring at JJ wait tables and shit.

“Y/N quit staring at your boyfriend and get to work!”

You jumped and started wiping down the tables so they can be ready for the customers.

‘he’s not my boyfriend. i don’t know what the fuck he is.’ You muttered to yourself.

_____

As you were about to clock out you feel arms around your waist. And by the rings and bracelets you knew who it was. “Hey baby.” He said while putting his head in your neck. “Hi JJ.” You say while turning around and wrapping your arms around his neck.

“Let’s go on a date. I have everything set up all you have to do is show up.” He looked up to see a surprised look on your face.

“Is the man whore of obx asking me on a date?!”

“Noooo! You promised not to call me that anymore!” He said in a whiny voice.

“I’m sorry. Can I try again?”

He nodded.

“Is the JJ Maybank asking me on a date?!”

“I hate you so much and yes I am! Why is it so surprising?”

“Well one because of your nickname and two we had sex more than once-.”

“298 times to be exact.”

“And no-.” You cut yourself off. “Ew you kept count?! You are such a loser!”

“A loser you did it with 298 times!” He exclaimed.

You just look at him. “But anyway can you go with me? As my girlfriend?”

You smile and bite your lip. “Am I your girlfriend now?” He just nodded with a smile on his face. “I guess I’ll go on the date then.”

He’s your boyfriend!!

_____

“Do you ever want to get married?” You asked him. You two were swinging on the hammock while everyone is drinking beers and shit. “Yeah I already know my future and don’t worry you’re not in it.” He looked down at you and you looked like you were about to cry. “Baby I was joking! ‘And when I start to build my future she's the main component’.”

“Ew you did not just quote our song. You’re so corny.”

“Yes I did. You wanna hear our future?” You nodded ecstatically. “Ok well after we go full kook and have a big ass house. We both have well paying jobs to keep the money coming. And uh we have kids, two of them. Aireen and Vinnie.”

“You remembered the baby names I told you Jay?” He nodded. “Of course I did baby. But anyway we have a cat named Scar and a dog named Pougie. And we also have a big ass pool so we have pool parties and shit.”

You just wanted to cry as you heard his view of the future and with you in it.

God you love him so much

_____

“Happy one year baby!” JJ yells to wake you up. You bolt awake and smile. “Happy one year Jay. I finally can get my 100 dollars.” He just laughed and picked you up spinning around.

“Jay put me down!”

_____

When you joked that you can finally win the bet. He might have laughed it off but it got him thinking negative things.

‘What did she mean by that?’

‘Am I good enough?’

‘She wouldn’t bet on this would she?’

And that’s when JJ realized that before he gets hurt, he has to get out this relationship and fast.

the fall:

You started to notice that JJ was getting more and more distant over time. Not even last week you asked if he can hang out and he said something about his dad needing him. Which is weird because his dad barely talks to him.

Then he came up with even more excuses.

‘I have work.’

‘Gotta do something for my dad’

‘John B needs me for something.’

You were getting sick of it.

_____

You were both at the chateau. He was working on your car and you were just watching him. You might have intentionally did something to your car but that was only to talk to your boyfriend of almost two years who was ignoring you. You walked over to him trying to start conversation.

“Hey Jay.” He nods.

“Are you almost done? Not to rush or anything.” He nods.

“Ok so do you wanna hang out when your done? We can watch our show of the month.” You said smiling.

“Can’t. I have work.”

This is so annoying.

“Oh my fucking god! What’s your issue JJ?!” He just looked up at you. “I have no issue Y/N.”

“We haven’t talked in like two months.”

“I talk Y/N.”

“Excuses after excuses don’t count Jay.”

He started to walk and you can tell he’s frustrated and you should leave him alone.

You didn’t though.

“Jay don’t walk away from me! I’m trying to talk to you.” You continued. “I just wanna know what’s wrong.”

He turned around so abruptly that it made you flinch. “You wanna know what’s wrong?! Maybe it’s because you’re asking me stupid questions!”

“What’s wrong Jay?”

“Nothing is wrong!”

“Jay just tell me!”

“I don’t wanna do this anymore!”

You immediately started tearing up cause you knew exactly what ‘this’ was.

“What?” You said in a soft voice.

“I wanna break up. I just don’t feel like I’m ready for a relationship.”

“It took a year and seven months to figure that out?!” He just looked down.

“Fuck you JJ.” You said driving away in your half finished car.

As soon as you left he started breaking down, gasping for air while sobbing.

He fucked up. And he fucked up bad.

_____

It’s been three months since your break up with JJ. And all the pogues. You never felt so alone. JJ was the main thing making you happy and he just ended it. You were walking to the chateau to try to fix things and at least be friends with him.

But you start to tear up.

When you see JJ kiss Kiara.

An: SURPISEEEE the way this has been in my drafts for three months this was probably one of my longest stories but hoped you enjoy 😉 AND PLEASE TELL ME YOU SAW THE FRIENDS REFERENCE but until I post again my lovers 🤍 *hint: fezco x bennet reader ;)*

[sk8termikey]

Chapter 9 of 21 Questions

better interface on wattpad

Lily loml🌻

Bro

The triplets 1st podcast is today

I’m so excited

It seemed awesome already from the trailer last week

I knooow

Kinda mad if it's every monday bc it’s my closing day

Sucks to be you

I love my day off even more now💃🏻💃🏻

Jk i’ll wait for you to watch it tonight like you do for the other vids

Thanks bestie😞

<33

Also the fact they’re gonna have guests is really cool

I really can’t wait to watch the first one

I know they probs have a few episodes recorded

But i hope it won’t be too much work for them now

Ye

3 vids a week

Esp nick who has to edit

Nick our king >>

Fact

Btw i might be home a bit earlier bc the café is kinda dead rn

Just the old couple that comes weekly and they’re almost done

So you won't wait much for me to watch the podcast

Yayy

The one together for 50 years?

I love those old ladies, they’re so cute

Fr and they always leave a huge tip

We don’t deserve them😞

Anyways see you in an hour or so ig

See you soon🫶🏻

When Alex put her phone back in her pocket, the “old ladies” as described by Lily were getting ready to leave. When they reached the counter, they both gave the blonde a sweet smile as one of them pulled out a bill from her wallet.

“The chocolate cake was delicious as always, but did you guys change anything?” One of the ladies asked.

“Yeah Lily did!” Alex knew that her friend would be excited to know that someone had noticed. “She tried adding some chocolate shavings before putting the cake in the oven.”

“Now I’m going to have a hard time deciding which one I like most, but it was as good as the usual recipe. You'll tell her that it reminds me of how my mum would make it”.

Alex couldn’t help the smile growing on her face. The couple had never once been rude to her and her other coworkers when they would come. Lily was always glad when they would compliment her food and it helped improve her self-confidence as chocolate desserts were basically the only thing Lily had mastered. Alex was really happy that she would be able to pass on the message to her friend.

Alex was finally able to close the café after the happy couple left and because the day had been a slow one, she had had time to clean little by little so that she didn’t have much left to do now.

~~~

When Alex arrived home, Lily was waiting for her on the couch. The TV was already set up on the Cut the Camera YouTube channel and some snacks were waiting for the two girls on the table. Alex told Lily to start the podcast as she would just be grabbing a can of Dr. Pepper in the fridge. As Lily did so and clicked on the video, the first out of many “Good morning Campers” from Nick Sturniolo could be heard in the house.

The podcast first started with Nick, Matt and Chris talking about looking alike, which is something that never bothered them much as they know that their viewers are easily able to differentiate them – even Lily could do it without problem by now.

As they then mentioned the fact that some pairs of best friends sometimes looked more alike than them, Lily and Alex exchanged a quick glance before laughing. Even though they had been friends since middle school, they had barely anything in common regarding their physical appearance.

The podcast kept dwelling on growing up as triplets, regarding the impact it could have on their friends but also the annoying comments they would always get from people. However, as they were mostly talking about the negative outcomes, they decided to start listing the positive aspects of growing up with two other people. Nick, Matt and Chris all agreed that being a triplet was the same as having built-in friends who were here for you at all times.

A couple of minutes later, Chris highlighted the support he always felt from his brothers and that the three of them being on the same page is something they all feel lucky about.

Then, as the topic of constant comparison was being tackled, Lily and Alex were quietly listening. The two girls felt very close to the triplets in the way that they were learning about their struggles. Them being so open about it was an opportunity to understand how the Life as Triplets was. What hit the hardest was the moment when Matt summarised the small conversation by explaining that no matter if it's about similarities or differences, people still find a way to compare them.

The podcast eventually finished on a more light-hearted tone as Nick, Matt and Chris were laughing about their high school experience when someone would meet one of them without knowing that they were a triplet. This would lead to them pretending to be one another just for a two seconds conversation in the hallways – and then at the end of the day, debriefing who came up to talk to each of them.

“I just loved it so much, oh my god!” Alex exclaimed as the video ended.

“Me too, like– I absolutely adore the Wednesday and Friday videos but this type of content is so refreshing I don't know”, Lily agreed with her friend. “I feel closer to them, make it make sense I guess”.

“I get you don’t worry, I know we’re gonna have another perspective of their lives and they’re gonna enjoy giving it to us as much as we’re gonna enjoy learning about it.”

“Exactly like…” Lily thought for a few seconds, “an inside point of view of not only the Sturniolo Triplets but simply Nick, Matt and Chris as people, just individuals. This is what they're trying to make people realise, they're not only triplets – even though that's a bit of their brand I guess – but they are also their own person.”

The two girls were just really excited to see more of this new project from the triplets, although Alex had to share some semi bad news:

“However, I have no idea if I’ll have the motivation to watch an hour of podcast every Monday when I come home from work”.

“Oh yeah, I understand”. Lily put a comforting hand on Alex’s shoulder while trying to find a solution. “Just pick a day and we’ll catch up at that time!”

“I mean, I might not even watch it weekly if I’m honest so– I won’t mind and it might actually be best that you watch them whenever you want like when they come out if that’s what you prefer and I’ll postpone my ‘watch podcast sessions’ until I have enough attention span to listen to them for a whole hour”, Alex explained.

“If that’s okay with you yeah I’m fine with that”, Lily let out a smile. “We’ll still have to discuss it obviously”.

“Of course”, Alex immediately agreed. “Lots of new info we’ll have to talk about!”

What they didn’t know yet is that watching the next podcasts on their own would finally enable Lily to choose her favourite triplet as she would realise that one of them might be a bit too relatable for her taste, and maybe a tiny bit too attractive on camera.

Thank you for reading. Votes and comments are always appreciated if you like this story :) The story is co-written w @/little_grapejuice on wattpad

[johnsbleu]

hii someone asked for me for visuals of each character in hmh and tbh some people i know what they look like in my head but can't find an actor/actress that they look like but i do with some people, so here u go lmao

obviously who i picture might not be who you picture and that's totally fine! it's just who i picture in my head! if you picture someone else, let me know! i'd love to hear!

oh and also these are grown people because im a grown ass woman. i'm not gonna be like yeah i totally see sabrina carpenter as reader bc like she's 23 or something lmao i mean if you picture her, then that's cool but i don't lol anyway grown people here!

one more thing: if these people are problematic or something, do not hold it against me. i don't know half these people it's just who i picture lmao the only people i keep up with are keanu and jessica rothe.

all pics are under the cut!

ps. the last one is super controversial :/

for tess is jessica rothe. i've had her in my mind since day one of writing hmh. just everything about her is tess.

her dressed as madonna???? very tess!

jimmy is obviously the guy who plays him in the movie and that's thomas sadoski (fun fact: he's married to amanda seyfried IRL)

even though she's rarely in hmh right now i totally see sonoya mizuno as april (specially her from crazy rich asians) she has that perfect studious and cutesy look i see when i think of april (remember she's the one who researched the ~mysterious~ coin reader found in the beginning of hmh lmao)

(another fun fact her and jessica rothe were in la la land together and i didn't know that until like a year after i started writing hmh)

she's not in hmh much right now but when i think of jen, i think of arielle kebble, specially her with a bob like this. i think she's adorable! i don't know anything about her but i think she's in 911 right now??? idk i know she was in john tucker must die lmao

i see paul reiser and olivia colman (with an american accent lmao) as reader's parents. he's in stranger things and every time he says "kiddo" im like that's reader's dad!

and remember annoying matt? yeah he looks like this in my head. idk anything about this guy but i wanna punch his face lmao when i started writing matt, i knew i needed a guy who didn't look like he was 22 or something. i needed a guy who looked older and that would make john feel threatened because he's not a kid, he's a grown adult.

aurelio is obviously john leguizamo!

as for amanda, aurelio's wife, (whomst i LOVE dearly in hmh) i can't think of who i would pick to play her but i see amanda being pretty short, maybe like 5'0 and being a mid sized girly with shoulder length blonde hair.

grace is a super cutesy ginger and tony is...idk just a white kid? lmao some people i don't really think about what they look like. the people that we spend the most time with in hmh have faces to their names though for sure.

and as for reader, i picture...............no one. she doesn't have a face, which is really weird. i think being the person who writes hmh it's hard for me to picture her. i picture myself sometimes because it makes it easier to describe certain scenarios (i just picture myself doing them and write it lmao) but even then i still don't look like myself (my imagination is very nice to me and it makes me very hot when i do picture myself lmao)

reader has this ability to go from cute girl next door to being super sexy and hot and i can't think of an actress (in my opinion) who really encapsulates that. all i know for reader is that she's about 5'0 tall (only comes up to john's shoulder) and she has brown hair. and clearly because of the 'peach' nickname, she has a very nice ass. probably nice boobs too because i mean who doesn't want nice boobs lmao

i remember scrolling through pinterest one day for pics for ig edits and i came across the cutest little girl and something clicked and i immediately went..."that's ronan." obviously she's going to look different than how you all picture her (and she's still a baby right now) but to me in my mind, this is totally ronan when she's like two

bleu is the most handsomest boy, of course! here he is with chad at a showing of john wick chapter two. his name irl is bubba/burton. they ended up just calling him bubba because keanu couldn't remember the name burton. also keanu hung out with him on set of jw2 to build their bond 😭 look at his fucking pathetic little face he's so cute i love him!!!!!!!!!!!

MOST CONTROVERSIAL ONE OF ALL: JOHN WICK.

you guys might disagree with me but i totally see keanu reeves as john wick. like everything about him is so perfect for john. like his hair, his beard, his intense but soft brown eyes. he's the perfect person for john ;) he has the ability to play super dangerous and scary but also can be very gentle and soft. idk maybe it's just me though??? 🤭

anyways that's just a few people! that was fun lmao