#a third girl was like ‘wow ur curls are so pretty’ which is the one way compliment to my heart

[stuckinapril]

Absolutely nothing beats getting complimented by drunk girls at a club.

[inkykeiji]

little bit of poison in me

characters: dabi | todoroki touya, takami keigo | hawks

genre: smut and angst

notes: okay FINALLY!! very loosely inspired by tag you’re it by melanie martinez!! uhh dabi’s a drug dealer, keigo’s in his third year of university and a track star, reader’s in her first year of university. please, please pay attention to the warnings below! if keigo’s your comfort character and you cannot handle him being physically abusive and a drug addict, then you might wanna sit this one out! promise he’ll be painted in a more sympathetic light in part two. | aaah dedicating this to @rat-suki​, because ur the only one who’s actually known the details of this fic since november, and because i put a lil something inspired by new moon in there for u ehehe <333 | title credit: tag you’re it by melanie martinez

warnings: 18+, noncon/dubcon, physical abuse, drug use & abuse + graphic depictions of addiction, mindbreak, overstimulation, manipulation, lowkey yandere vibes (which will get worse), daddy kink, a brother a lil too obsessed with his sister + questionably close sibling relationship, generally toxic relationships (possessiveness, jealousy), rough sex, semi-public sex, cumplay/cum feeding, minimal prep, degradation/dumbification, choking, kinda brat taming???

words: 14.8k

synopsis: 

“Do you wanna come home with Daddy, princess?”

He’s caging you between his body and the murky convenience store window as he asks, both palms pressed flat against the grimy glass.

No. You shouldn’t. You know you shouldn’t, can almost hear your brother’s voice in the back of your mind telling you not to. But you’re too enticed in sapphire to care, drawn into pretty, almost glittering blue fire, letting the flames lick your skin as you immerse yourself in it, deeper and deeper and deeper, and allowing it to wrap itself around you, to consume you, to knock the very breath out of you as you gaze into it.

“Okay,”

It’s well past midnight, but the moon is still hanging high in the sky, illuminating the dingy shopping mall parking lot, its reflection gleaming on the wet, cracked concrete. Breathless little laughs and squeals of surprise and pleasure ring out among the vast empty space, your own voice echoing around you.

“Gonna get ya, baby,”

He’s chasing after you, legs longer than yours, faster than yours, mischievous little growls getting caught in his chest as you daintily leap away from him, just out his grasp again, the tips of his fingers grazing the soft linin of your dress.

“No!” you giggle, pushing your burning thighs to keep running just a bit longer, propelling you forward.

But he’s getting closer and closer with each pound of his boots against the pavement, encroaching on you more and more with each tiny gasp exhaled through your parted lips.

Eventually, he catches you, like he always does, large hands wrapping around your hips as strong arms pull you backwards against a solid chest. You’re both panting, chests heaving with exertion, bubbles of laughter escaping your throats.

“Tag,” he breathes, hot breath curling around the shell of your ear. “You’re it,”

His arms encircle you, holding you tightly, your own arms covering his, little fingers digging into the skin of his forearms almost possessively as he uses his strength and bodyweight to guide you towards the car—a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz that runs like shit and guzzles gas like no tomorrow. But it’s pretty, and he loves it, with all its chrome and argyle blue, glittering in the moonlight.

“You’re being bad, princess,” the words are mumbled against the skin behind your ear, and you can feel the smirk on his lips. “Good girls don’t run away from their Daddies like that,”

And he says the word with so much disdain, cruel and mocking, making you feel sick for liking it.

“Baaad girl,” he whispers, dragging the word out.

A tiny pout settles on your face, eyebrows knitting. “Am not,”

“Are too,”

“Am not,”

“You are,” he chuckles, pressing you against the damp metal of his car as you finally reach it, his body still draped over yours. “What? You gonna fight me on it?”

Squirming a little in his grasp, you turn to face him, a playful glint shining in your glassy eyes as you nudge your nose against his. “I just might!”

“Hah,” the breath of air washes over your face, scorching and sweet, a stark contrast to the humid, cool air surrounding you, causing your exposed flesh to break out into chills. “I’d like to see you try, dollface,”

“Oh, I’m sure you would,” you murmur, yelping when his fingers dig into the supple flesh of your ass through your dress, grabbing a healthy handful and squeezing in retaliation.

“Mmm,” he hums nonchalantly, pushing his forehead against yours, eyes nothing but gaping pupils outlined by a thin ring of sapphire. “You gonna show me?” his rough voice fades into a whisper, unblinking eyes holding yours steadily. Calloused hands are sliding up your thighs now, slipping underneath the thin material of your dress and taking the hem with them.

“N-Not here,” you breathe, trying and failing to pull back from him, eyes widening in alarm as you feel his fingers hook in the waistband of your panties.

“Yes, here,” he responds, voice smooth as velvet as soft lips drag along your neck, sharp teeth sinking into your flesh like a hot knife slicing through butter.

Panic is beginning to rise in your chest, your throat closing up, and you choke a little on your words, shaking your head frantically. “Please, Dabi, no, we could just—”

“Wow, you really want me to bruise that pretty ass of yours,” he smirks, cutting you off and pulling back to gaze at you lazily, lips glimmering with saliva.

“No, I—”

“Especially with how much you’re saying no today,” he tuts his tongue in disapproval. “Such a bad girl; a silly, little, stupid, bad girl,”

Each word is punctuated with a sharp slap to your scantily clad ass, each bringing with them a sharp sting that you can hear, echoing out among the parking lot.

“Not bad,” you whimper, eyes shutting tightly against the familiar burn of tears. “Not bad, j-just wanna—”  

“Wanna what?” he teases, voice mocking yours as his palm collides with your ass again. “Huh?”

“W-Wanna—Want you to fuck me right,” you rush to say, the words exhaled as a singular huff of breath.

“Oh?” he pulls back slightly, eyes searching your face, his own features contorted with false concern. “Is that so?”

You nod quickly, eagerly, and he can see it in your eyes, how desperately you want him to buy your lie.

But you know he hasn’t the moment that trademark smirk returns to his face, mouth curling up at the edges as he leans forward, lips moving against your ear. “I think that’s a boldfaced lie, babygirl,” his voice is low, sinister, dangerous, traces of amusement sown into his tone. “I think it’s because you don’t want anyone to see how much of a little whore you truly are,”

“D-Dabi, please,” you whimper, vision blurry with tears as you paw at his jacket, pleading with him.

He thinks it’s so cute when you beg, his silence imploring you to continue, urgently rambling on in your quest to convince him.

“I-I want you to really fuck me; I want you to leave b-bruises all over my body, I want to feel you in my tummy, I want you t-to stuff me so full of cum that it goes to my brain and makes me stupid, please Daddy, I want—”  

Slim fingers wrap around your neck and squeeze, forcing a cry of surprise from your lips and effectively cutting you off. “I’m gonna make sure you remember those words, sweetheart,”

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

The thump of your own heart echoes in your ears as the Cadillac Eldorado thrums under your body, the leather sticking to the bare skin of your thighs.

“Open,” he demands, delivering a harsh slap to the thigh nearest to him, eyes never leaving the road as his foot presses down, car accelerating. Your thighs obey immediately, spreading as far as they possibly can in the cramped space, knees knocking against the door and center console box.

A rough hand, decorated with callouses and scabs, kneads the flesh once before sliding up, up, up, and then hooking in the elastic of your panties, Dabi spitting out a curse as he lets it snap back against your skin.

“Take those off,” he seethes, aggressively ripping his hand away from you as if he’s aggravated that you’re even wearing them at all. Your dress hitches up around your waist in your haste to obey, little fingers catching in the lacy material as your hips squirm, seatbelt cutting into your flesh, wiggling a little as you pull the dainty material down your legs.

He’s already holding his hand out expectantly and you press them into it, waiting for his fingers to close around the garment before taking your hand back. He feels them, rolling the fabric around in his palm, between his fingers, chuckling darkly as he chucks them over his shoulder a moment later, onto the dirty ground of the backseat.

Those were your favourite, but you know better than to say anything, forcing your expression to stay neutral, to keep your nose from wrinkling up in distaste.

“They’re wet, but not nearly wet enough,” he tsks as if he’s disappointed, hand finding your thigh again. This time, they part instantly, without any verbal prompting, hips pushing towards his palm as it skims the skin of your inner thigh.

“Now, I’m gonna play with this cute lil clit of yours,” he begins, fingers brushing the sensitive nub, words tumbling from his lips slowly, lazily, unhurried, as if you’re stupid, as if you need an ample amount of time for each word to sink in.

It makes your pussy throb, and the borderline malicious smirk that spreads across his face tells you that he felt it, too.

Speaking through his smirk, he continues in the same patronizing voice. “And you—you’re going to be Daddy’s good little girl and get nice and wet for him, so he doesn’t hurt his cock when he fucks you. Do you think you can do that for me, sweetheart?”

Yes Daddy, of course Daddy, anything for you, Daddy.

It’s torture in the most delightful way, coarse pads of his fingers just barely grazing your clit, just enough for you to feel it, just enough for you to want—no, need—more. Heat, thick and sticky, pools in the pit of your stomach, thighs straining to open impossibly wider, edges of the car’s interior digging into your knees as you desperately try to shift your hips, to press further into his touch, to evoke anything harder than these teasing, feathery touches.

Blunt nails sink into the tender flesh of your inner thigh, hard enough to make you yelp, entire body flinching from the sudden pain. “Big girls use their words,” he chastises, voice fading from a growl into a pleasant, light tone.

“Please, Daddy, I-I want more,” you whimper, hips still trying to catch your clit on his fingers, on his palm. “Touch me more,”

The hum that vibrates in his throat has your heart sinking, corners of your mouth tugging down as you blink against the sting of disappointment—you know that hum, know it all too well, know all of Dabi’s bizarre mannerisms at this point and what they mean for you. And that hum, the one that only lasts for a moment, the one that’s barely a noise at all, the one that doesn’t even sound like he’s considering anything, means no.

His eyes don’t leave the road in front of him, despite the fact that his car is going faster, and faster, and faster, whipping through the empty city streets, neon buildings and harsh florescent lights becoming nothing but a blur. And if it weren’t for the hard lump straining against the black denim of his jeans, you’d figure him disinterested; facial features relaxed, breathing normal, entirely unresponsive to the pathetic little noises he’s so effortlessly pulling from you.

It ignites a fire in your chest, blazing with the need to make him react, to make him pay attention to you.

Wearing your best pout, you arch your back a little, the action shoving your hips towards his hand again. “Daddy, Daddy,” you whine, low and needy in the back of your throat, looking at him with wide, pleading eyes. “Please, touch me more? Please, Daddy, I want it so bad, want your cock so bad, please, help me get wetter? Wanna be dripping for you, Daddy, I wanna be soaking for you,”

“Fuck,” he breathes, smirk growing into a full grin as he glances at you from the side of his eye. “Such a brat,” he shakes his head, through the grin is still present on his face as he finally presses two fingers against the swollen bud, rubbing slow, hard circles into it. “You better be drenched for me by the time we get home, you little bitch,”

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

Large hands are on your body as the two of you stumble up the stairs, nimble fingers digging into the soft flesh of your hips, obscene sucking and slurping amplified by the stairwell, bouncing back to your own ears, saliva slicked lips slipping and sliding together messily as teeth clack together, practically tripping over each other’s feet and fucking Christ he needs you, he needs you now, his cock hurts, goddamn it.

And you’d be lying through your teeth if you said you didn’t absolutely love it when he gets like this, all clingy and needy and desperate, hushed little whines catching in the back of his throat, fading from deep, rumbling growls as rough hands paw at you.

A sharp gasp is knocked from your chest as he slams you against the wall on the landing of floor three with such force that your head ricochets off the concrete, your resounding cry silenced by Dabi’s lips, tongue invading your mouth as he swallows your beautiful little noises of pain.

You can feel his cock pressed up against your hip, hot and hard and throbbing through the denim that conceals it as he grinds against you, fervent, eager, impatient.

That panic is bubbling up in your throat again, bitter and acidic and eroding, rendering your voice weak and frail as scabbed knuckles drag across your bare thighs, inching higher and higher.

“Da-Daddy, wait,”

“No,” he growls, biting down on your shoulder hard enough to break the skin. “I’m done waiting,” hands are rucking up your dress. “You made me wait that whole fucking car ride,” sharp hipbones keep your thighs spread. “I can’t wait any longer,” the clinking of his heavy belt buckle echoes throughout the stairwell, sending chills pebbling across your skin.

And then he’s forcing himself into you, shoving his cock into your tight little hole, a choked cry bouncing off the dirty white walls as your eyes squeeze shut, tears leaking from the edges.

The stretch is magnificent, little cunt aching as it sucks in his thick cock, and you swear you can feel the burning in your belly, little pinpricks of pain shooting through your gut.

“G-Gonna tear me in half,” you wail, head falling forward, forehead bumping against his.

“Shh, baby, Daddy’s got you,” a callous laugh leaves his lips after he spits out the nickname, the singular word filled with such derision it must sting his tongue. Large hands hoist you up, and your legs immediately latch around his waist, seeking comfort in the monster that hurt you.

“Daddy, Daddy,” Tears drip down your cheeks as you bury your face in his shoulder, the word escaping your lips in tiny half-sobs catching in your throat, little fingers curling against the worn leather of his jacket.

And he can’t help but soften a little as you weep into his neck, thinks it’s so cute that you need him so bad, your little stuttered breaths hot against his neck as you cling to him, reminding him that he is the only man that can make you feel like this; he is the only man that can make you cry while simultaneously finding solace in his embrace. It makes his blood surge, sends cinders searing up his spine, gives him a high better than any other drug every could, and he finds himself hushing you gently, twitching cock buried in your cute lil cunt, snugly pressed against your cervix.

“Okay, okay,” he’s saying as his hips begin to pump, slow and languid. “Quiet, Daddy’s gonna make it feel good, alright? Daddy’s here, Daddy’s gonna make it go away,”

The sweetest, airiest little mewls of Daddy, yes, Daddy, soak into the inky skin of his neck, sandwiched between uneven hitched breaths. He’s gaining speed with each thrust, though, working up a steady rhythm that has you practically bouncing on his cock, little wails of pain fading into whimpers of pleasure. The combination is dizzying, infecting your mind with a haze that is only Dabi, surrounded by him, immersed in him—glowing sapphire and burning hickory and spicy nicotine—unable to quell the little noises spilling from your throat, each one louder than the next with each bump against your cervix and drag against that spot.  

“That feel better, princess?” he breathes out, pausing just to readjust his grip on your ass—to angle your hips just right, chuckling at your selfish, needy whine—and then he’s drilling his cock into you, head pounding against the spot that has his name escaping your lips in high pitched squeals that break in your throat, heavy belt buckle clanking against the wall with each of his thrusts.

It sends sparks of mind-numbing pleasure burning through your abdomen, your chest, straight to your very core and collecting there, each spark adding to the growing fire that’s beginning to blaze, followed by intense spears of pain, slicing through your gut and down the muscles of your thighs, legs beginning to quiver as ankles hook tighter, tighter, tighter, the heels of your sneakers digging into his back dimples, trying to get him closer, closer, closer, desperately begging for more, more, more.

Yet it’s all so much, too much, please, Daddy—the harsh sound of metal colliding with concrete mingling with your pathetic whines and his panted breaths, rough whimpers catching deep in his chest, and you don’t think you’ve ever heard a more beautiful sound.

“C’mon, babygirl,” he gasps, pace never slowing, never faltering once, even though there’s glistening dewdrops of sweat decorating his hairline, inky strands beginning to stick to the skin of his forehead. “Be a good girl and cum for Daddy, cum before someone catches you being such a sweet little—God, Christ—a sweet little slut for me,”

And your cunt submits, would never dare to disobey a direct command from its master, from its owner, clenching around him as you cream all over his cock, a sharp cry ripping up your throat as your nails scrabble against leather clad shoulders.

A growl rumbles, deep and dark and dangerous in his chest, as his hips piston a few more times before they still, tips of his fingers digging into the flesh of your ass, branding his name in tiny blotches of navy and violet as his cock throbs, coating your insides with spurts of thick cum.

Head falling forward, his forehead collides with yours, chests heaving and breathing laboured. And he can’t help the little chuckle he huffs out as you wiggle your hips a little, eyes still closed as you rock in little motions against him, clit catching on his pubic bone.

Needy little bitch.

But he isn’t nearly done with you yet, because that desire, thick and sticky in the very pit of his stomach, only wants more, insatiable and voracious, desperate for more of your whines, more of your tears, more of your cunt.

You’re gonna make good on all those words you spewed in the parking lot, baby, he’s nearly snarling at you, cutting off your whiny complaints as he drags you up the final flight of stairs, stopping halfway to haul you over his shoulder with a huff and a deft slap to your ass, carrying you the rest of the way to his apartment.

“Dress, off. Now.” He orders as he throws you onto his mattress, pulling his shirt over his head, belt buckle jingling as he walks, still hanging undone.

And then he’s crawling over your naked body, lips attacking yours, smashing and smacking and slurping, a large hand wrapping around your wrists as he shoves his tongue into your mouth, laving over yours in slow, deliberate drags, pinning your wrists against the cold cracked drywall behind his nearly bare, minimalistic bed, squeezing hard enough to grind the bones together between a singular rough palm—a silent warning—and forcing a yelp from your throat into his.

“Don’t move them,” his lips mumble the command against yours before he sucks your bottom lip into his mouth, between sharp gleaming teeth that bite down hard, sinking into the soft flesh and refusing to release until he tastes copper, the tip of his tongue tracing the harsh indents left behind, licking at your lip once more before pulling away completely.

“I want you to leave bruises all over my body!” he mimics, voice absurdly high as lips skim the curve of your neck, tongue darting out to trace along your collarbones. “Isn’t that what you said, baby?”

But you can’t answer, too busy sucking on your now swollen lip, trying to soothe the incessant throbbing as metal stains your tongue. That’s disrespectful, you think you hear him growl into your unmarred skin before something sharp pierces your nipple, clamping down around it and tugging. A resounding cry tears through your throat as your body instinctually bows off the bed, pressing further into him, a muffled snicker vibrating against your chest before his tongue flicks, licks, slobbers, thick strings of saliva glimmering in the dim light as he pulls away, breaking and slapping against his chin.

“Answer me next time I ask you a fucking question,” The words are spit so harshly they slice into your skin, head nodding fervently before he’s even finished speaking, blinking the bleariness from your eyes. Smoldering sapphire holds your gaze for a moment, burning into your very soul—digging, prying, searching, scrutinizing, his breathing slow, calm, controlled with each deep rise and fall of his bare chest.

You aren’t sure what it is he’s looking for as he peers into the depths of your eyes, but you don’t dare let your gaze stray from his, don’t dare blink, don’t dare breathe until he breaks the spell, blinking once as his lips curl up into a wicked smirk.

“I’m gonna turn your body into a work of art,” he promises you, voice low and guttural, forcing thorns of ice up your spine as lips drag across your jaw.

And he does, paints little galaxies across your skin with his tongue and his lips, asymmetrical blotches of blues and greys and purples, ivory bones scraping against your flesh, signing his name into his masterpiece in deep, dark indents of crimson and violet.

It aches and it pulses and it stings, glittery trails of salt water staining your cheeks, tiny shimmering droplets clinging to your clumped, spiky lashes, adding the finishing touches on the greatest piece he’s ever created.

And it’s so pretty, you’re so pretty when you’re like this, baby, covered in navy and plum and carmine, and, fuck, it’s a shame you won’t stay like this.  

It seems he’s in a trance for a moment, in awe of his craftsmanship, of what he’s produced, breathing laboured as shining azure eyes drift over your body, slowly, purposefully, as if he’s memorizing every single nick, bite, scrape, bruise, burning the image into his brain forever.

His gaze floats back up to yours, holding it for a moment, pupils big and gaping and swallowing you whole—before something snaps, breaks, and he comes back to himself, remembers why he did it.

Narrowing slightly, his eyes darken, that sadistic smirk returning to his lips. And then he’s shoving his cock into you again, hard and leaking and the prettiest red you’ve ever seen, cute little cunt stretching around him for the second time tonight.

But little girls who act like brats deserve to get fucked like brats, he tells you in a snarl, slender fingers collaring your neck and squeezing slowly, slowly, slowly, crushing the column of your throat.

Everything’s beginning to grow hazy, vision sliding in and out of focus as those calloused hands continue to tighten, and tighten, and tighten. He looks like some sort of sick angel as he looms above you, nothing more than a shadow of sharp edges and smooth curves, inky spikes and glowing sapphire, haloed by the weak neon light that spills in through grimy windows. Jutting bones prod the soft flesh of your inner thighs, carving out a space just for them as his hips snap viciously, relentlessly, obstinately.

And it’s all overwhelming, overstimulating on every front, uncontrollable tears streaming from your eyes as you choke roughly on your own sobs, each one being forced from your chest by your Daddy’s harsh thrusts, only to get caught on the palm pressed to your airway, ears ringing from the slap of skin against skin overlapping those harsh words spit at you in his falsely saccharine voice.  

Aw, no, baby, wispy words caressing your cheek as they float by, eyes starting to roll back in your head. Don’t pass out on me, dollface. I want you awake when I fill your cunt with cum.

The pressure around your throat lets up just a hint, and you wheeze in air, a rush of cold flooding your body. You can feel it, that contrasting, familiar heat scorching the pit of your stomach, beginning to curl in on itself more, and more, and more with each pump of his hips, until it explodes, your body arching off the mattress, unintentionally pressing into the hand adorning your neck, restricting your air entirely.

The chuckle that leaves his lips as you choke yourself is dark, would send spears of ice slicing through your veins if you weren’t otherwise focused on trying to fill your lungs with air. Nothing leaves your mouth other than a few choked whines, barely more than a huff of light breath.

But his hips don’t slow, and he’s glaring down at you with parted lips and lidded eyes, pupils gaping, so large you’re unable to detect even the slightest hint of blue outlining them—nothing but big black orbs, absorbing everything in their vision, sucking everything from you, every hitched sob and soft whine and gorgeous wince, each time he pounds against your cervix.

And it’s how your looking up at him—with those gleaming, adoring eyes and that blissful, fucked out grin—that has him cumming with a shuddered f-fuck, forcing his eyes to stay open as he pumps you full of thick cum, desperate to catalogue every little expression that crosses your face, the way your eyes flutter slightly, the way your neck arches, the tiniest little moan slipping through chapped lips as his cock pulses inside of you.

You must pass out for a second, Dabi’s calloused palm lightly tapping against your cheek as he murmurs to you in that sinful, silky voice, sugared sentiments twining around your exhausted body.

Wake up, princess. Daddy isn’t done playing with you yet.

Words tumble past your lips in a mumble, though you aren’t quite sure what you’re saying—everything feels hazy, like you’re gazing through a thin cloud of smoke, and despite the fact that you can barely move, your body feels light, almost floaty in a way, entirely numb to the immense pain it has endured thus far.

Two fingers, coated in thick, gleaming cream, are thrust into your gasping mouth, tongue met with the salty, bitter taste of his cum. You cough around the sudden intrusion, immediately obey when he orders you to clean, sluggish tongue sliding up and lapping at and slipping between them, sucking the digits free of cum.

Good girl, he leans away and your heart flutters weakly at the praise, saliva slicked fingers dipping into your hole again to gather more.

“C’mon,” he breathes as he brings his fingers to your mouth again, sticky viscous glops collected on his fingers. They catch in the dim light streaming through the window, a unique mixture of pale moonbeams and hazy neon, cum almost glittering, almost pretty. “You wanted me so bad, didn’t you?” your head’s moving—nodding, you think, you can’t really tell, breathing shallow as your eyes belatedly follow his glistening fingers—and he smirks down at you. “Then eat my fucking cum,”

Lips part instantly, mouth falling open as your tongue lolls out, eyes drifting up to his and pleading mutely, begging for the substance—the very essence of him—and nearly moaning when he drags his fingers across the saliva coated muscle, curling and sucking his digits back into the heat of your mouth.

And he’s fucking high off of it all, pupils blown to hell, outlined by the thinnest ring of cobalt, barely detectable, visible only when it catches in the moonlight.

A lumpy pile of denim sits abandoned and bunched up near the end of the bed—he must’ve kicked his pants off at some point, though you don’t remember when—and his cock’s hard again, head brushing your inner thigh. It’s hard for you to tear your gaze from it, fleeting thoughts of stamina and impressive grazing through your mind, turning to smoke the moment you try to latch onto them.

He notices, of course—you’ve been staring at it for nearly a minute now, glazed eyes unblinking, soft little pants passing through barely parted lips. But it’s the way you’re staring at it—in the purest, unadulterated form of desire—that makes it jump, twitching a little against your thigh. You think you hear your Daddy breathe out a curse, think his rough fingers brush some hair back from your drenched forehead, think he says something along the lines of how much he fucking loves you, but in your dreamlike state, you can’t be sure.

Because then rough hands are on you, manhandling you as whatever trance he had fallen into yet again snaps once more.

“We’re gonna put that pretty, empty head of yours to good use!” he’s saying almost enthusiastically as he hoists your boneless body up, propping you up against his chest and securing you with a strong arm wrapped around your waist. “Whaddya think about that, hmm, princess? Want Daddy to use your little skull as his own personal cumdump? Huh?” lithe fingers squeeze your cheeks so hard your lips pucker up, a high-pitched whine getting caught in your throat. “That’s all it’s good for anyway, isn’t it?”

You try to nod, but all your head wants to do is flop back against his shoulder.

“Oh baby,” he cooks mockingly, jutting his inky bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout. “I thought that was what you wanted?”

“T’is!” you mumble through his grip, drool beginning to collect in the corners of your scrunched mouth, dribbling down your chin. Gazing at him through the corner of your watery eyes, your resolve hardens, doing your best to hold your exhausted body up on your own, expression steeling as you force your woozy head to nod as best you can in his bruising grasp.

“Yeah?” he breathes, mouth curving into a dangerous smirk before his lips are at your ear, voice dropping an octave lower. “You’re fucking stubborn, y’know that? Stubborn little brat, just like your bullheaded brute of a brother,”

And then he’s pushing you down, shoving your head into the mattress and pulling your hips up, a hiss spit through your teeth as he purposefully presses into the fresh bruises.

Your poor little pussy aches, fucked open and raw by his cock, but you are stubborn—you can’t help it, it runs in your blood—exhilarated by the challenge and pushing your hips back weakly towards him.

Your Daddy chuckles behind you, but it’s one of those annoyed chuckles, one of those disbelieving chuckles, one of those chuckles that consists of an audacious smirk, quick short nodding that’s more to himself than anyone else, and a tongue running along his top teeth, sucking on the bones, before it fades from his face completely, replaced with scorn in an instant, eyes cold and jaw clenched as he delivers a harsh backhand to your ass.

Then his body’s blanketing yours, chest hot and heavy against your back, lips moving against the shell of your ear.

“Oh, you really want me to break you, don’t you?”

No, truly, you don’t, but you grit your teeth, eyes shut tightly against the sting of a fresh wave of tears, trying to stop your head from involuntarily shaking no.

He laughs again, this time mean and sharp and full of malice, as he straightens up, lining his cock up with your hole.

“Nah, nah,” he’s saying as he pushes in, and God, it still hurts, it still stretches you, reopening little sutures created in the stairwell. “I think you do—Actually, I know you do. And Daddy knows best, right?”

Yes, of course, Daddy knows best, Daddy always knows best.

And it burns, that relentless snap of his hips, driving his cock into you with deep growls and grunts, with such force that it’s jostling you up the mattress, little hands planting themselves in a pitiful attempt to press back against him, to keep yourself in one place. Every muscle in your arms screams at the effort, stiff and rigid from being held, kept, still and obedient against the wall for an extended period of time.

The dreaminess has faded again, leaving behind a dull haze, and it all just hurts. It seems to come in bouts, inexplicable waves of numbness and pain, alternating sporadically and sprinkled with spikes of intense pleasure, a potent mix of chemicals swirling in your brain, lust and desire and terror and anguish burning through your veins.

You’re sobbing into the mattress now, fingers curling tightly in his soft black sheets as your bleary vision begins to darken at the edges, mumbling out something almost in a chant—his name, you think, though you’re not sure, it all sounds muffled to your ringing ears—vibrations of your voice getting caught in your throat, hitching with your sobs and the rough piston of his hips.

It’s building again, licks of fire scalding hot against the walls of your stomach, the temperature rising with each drag of his cock against that spot, until you’re sure the flames are going to engulf you from the inside out.

Little squeaks, poor imitations of moans, escape your lips, interspersed with your pathetic wails. He’s speaking once more—you can feel it, his chest reverberating against yours, lips moving against your ear again. Something rumbles, rattles, deep and dark and dangerous at the very core of his body, and then he’s tangling a hand in your hair and tugging, hauling you up, a choked cry slipping from your lips.

It pulls you from unconsciousness’s grasp, just for a moment, clears the mist from your mind as he snarls against your ear, taking the cartilage between his teeth and biting down, hard.

“Thought I told you to answer me the next time I ask you a fucking question,” he breathes, and he almost sounds gleeful, contradicting his voice, so rough, so hoarse, so hot.

You did, Daddy, you did, you’re trying to say, trying to nod in the vice grip he has on your strands, the words jumbled and muddled and near incomprehensible, wet and messy and coated in spit.

“But I guess my—Christ—my cock makes you too stupid to do that, huh?” he’s panting now, in time with his thrusts, huffs of breath sweltering against your already sticky skin. “What would your goody-two-shoes brother say if he could see you, hmm? If he could see how fucking dumb his little slut of a baby sister goes from my cum,”

It’s too much, too much, Daddy, too much, the brutal pounding of his cockhead against your swollen cervix and the continuous stream of strained, husky, filthy words he’s spewing in your ear and the sting in your scalp and that spot, that spot, that spot—

It hits you so hard it’s painful, knocks what little breath you had right out of you as your entire body convulses on his cock, little cunt clenching and gushing as you weep Da-Daddy! over and over and over, the only word your soupy brain is capable of conceiving, body going pliant in his arms as your head lolls back against his shoulder, struggling to keep your eyes open while he continues to drive his cock into you, hard and fast and messy.

He cums with the prettiest broken whine you’ve ever heard—or at least, you think he does, entire body gone numb once again, think you feel his hips juddering and his cock pulsing, think you feel that familiar, thick substance filling you to the brim. Everything is still for a moment, his chest heaving against your arched back, and then he laughs malevolently, though it sounds far away, even though you can feel the sound vibrating against you.

“That ought’a teach you to say no to me again,” he spits harshly in your ear, giving one more hard yank on your hair before letting go completely, your abused body collapsing in a heap on his mattress.

It feels like you’re more Dabi than yourself now, with his name written all over your body, signed by his mouth, his teeth, his fingers, and his cum leaking out of you, drying hard and sticky on your thighs, his scent being all you can smell, all you can taste, heady and fiery. And as you crawl into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness—finally, finally—you think about just how much can change, and how fast it does, in a mere 92 days.

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

Three months earlier

The air is hazy with thick smoke, heavy enough to dilute the already dim yellow light shining from the bare lightbulbs overhead. The stench of cheap beer, weed and sweat stings your nose, and it wrinkles reflexively.

You aren’t supposed to be here.

Throbbing music radiates through the house, causing the structure to tremble in time with the beat, the dirty drywall you’re currently pressed up against quivering in response. It’s so loud it hurts, vibrating through the warped linoleum floors and through your body. It makes you shiver in disgust, as if it’s some sort of parasite worming it’s way through your veins in timed intervals.

Your brother would kill you if he knew.

You’ve been backed into a corner—literally, surrounded by three college boys you’ve never seen before as they drunkenly leer at you. They’re a year or two older than you, glassy half-lidded eyes scanning your body in a way that makes you feel filthy, in a way that makes you want to scrub your skin raw to rid it of their slimy gazes.

They’re mumbling out something, speaking amongst themselves in low voices, peppered with raspy snickers that make your skin crawl. Pressing further into the corner, you quickly wrack your mind for something—anything—that will get them to part just a little, that’ll crack the wall of bodies you’re now surrounded by just enough for you to barrel through. Adrenaline begins to surge through your veins as you gear up, drawing in a deep breath, and—

“Whadda we have here?”

The men part immediately at the sound of that low voice, smooth as melted chocolate, revealing a figure with spiky onyx hair, an involuntary gasp escaping your lips the moment your eyes collide with sapphire.

“Ah, I thought it was you,” he smirks, peering down at you with a gaze so intense it feels like your body’s been set aflame. “What’s a good little girl like you doing in a place like this, hmm?”

Dabi.

This wasn’t the first time you had seen him, remembering the man with the pretty cobalt eyes and inky hair standing under a singular flickering lamp post outside of the tiny house you and your brother share, or lingering on the threshold of the front door, eyes lazily darting around the space as he waits.

He never comes inside. Your brother doesn’t allow it.

You’ve barely spoken any words to him, always responding to his polite greetings with shy nods or little waves.

But this is the first time you’re meeting him properly.

Feet bolted to the floor, you try to respond, only able to emit a pathetic little squeak.

He huffs out a condescending chuckle, gazing down the bridge of his nose at you, head tilted up just a touch, lidded crystal eyes glittering in the dim light. That trademark smirk spreads into something darker, something almost ominous in nature, something that whispers in your ear that it knows something you don’t, sending sharp spikes of ice shooting up your spine.

“Does your brother know you’re here?”

You shake your head quickly, eyes widening in panic as anxiety begins to rise in your throat. He isn’t about to rat you out, is he?

“Thought so. Dunno why I asked,” he heaves a heavy sigh, chest rising with the force of it, as if he’s extremely exasperated, as if you’re some sort of child lost at a supermarket and he’s bringing you back to your parents. “Alright, let’s go,”

A hand extends, hanging limp in the smoky air for a moment, waiting, before Dabi sighs again with a roll of his eyes, latching onto your wrist and all but dragging you out of the corner, maneuvering through the mass of sweaty bodies crowding the dingy living room.

“We’re leaving?” you ask dumbly as Dabi approaches the back door, hand still wrapped in a firm grasp around your arm.

“Yep. My work here is done, and you,” he tuts his tongue with a slow shake of his head, hidden smile on his face. “Your work here is done, too,”

“W-Where are we going?” you ask as the two of you stumble outside, shivering a little as the cool, fresh air hits your heated skin.

“No idea. Away from this place,” he looks back at your briefly, giving your wrist a soft squeeze before dropping it. “You tryna put your brother in an early grave or somethin’?”

A frown tugs at the corners of your lips as you shake your head again. “No, I just—”

“You shouldn’t have been there,” his words echo your thoughts from before. “You were in some real danger for a second, y’know that?”

“I-I know. Thank you for, uh, s-saving me, Sir,”

“Sir?” his eyes are bright with mirth, shining despite the weak light provided by the waxing moon. The smirk returns, and you feel it again—like he’s plotting something, like he’s got some big secret he’s hiding, a plan, something up his sleeve. “Sir is nice, but I think there’s another name you’d rather call me,”

Eyebrows knit in confusion, your eyes drift to the ground, mulling over his words. Something else you’d rather call him? Like what? You’ve only seen the guy a few—

“Still have no idea why you haven’t fucked him yet,” one of your friends muses as Dabi’s exiting his car, eyes watching him lazily from where you’re both seated on the front lawn.

“Keigo would murder me, literally,” you giggle a little, glancing over at the man with inky hair before looking away again, down at your lap as little fingers thread through the grass beneath you and shaking your head.

“Shame,” she sighs, twirling her sticky pink lollipop idly, the candy catching in the sun. “He’s Daddy as hell,”

A sharp gasp leaves your parted lips, eyes snapping back to her face and holding them for a moment before the two of you burst into a fit of giggles, your fingers tapping her bare knee in a silent warning that he’s approaching.

Heavy black boots collide with the front stone path, buckles jingling daintily, his head perking up in a catlike manner, trademark smirk forming on his lips as you both urgently try to calm your laughter.

“Ladies,” he nods with a wink as he passes, little giggles cutting off instantaneously, the two of you mumbling shy greetings in response.

That was the only time you had ever spoken to him, until now.

“Oh my God,” you whimper, eyes squeezing shut in embarrassment. He did hear.

He chuckles slightly, dropping the subject with a shake of his head.

“So. Where to?” he asks expectantly, feet slowing to a stop on the cracked sidewalk as he taps out a cigarette. He whips a silver Zippo open, sharp twinge of metal swiping against metal cutting though the silent nighttime air. “Home?”

A shrill bubble of incredulous laughter escapes your throat. Dabi glances over at you, amused, raising an eyebrow in question as he cups the flame and brings it to his lips.

“Do you want to put my brother in an early grave?” you snort.

“I could just walk you to the street, you know,” he rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile on his face. “Precious niisan wouldn’t even need to see me,”

You shake your head, idly kicking a rock with the toe of your shoe as you begin walking again. The campus is beginning to bleed into the city now, engulfing the two of you in familiar florescent light. “No, I can’t go home,”

“Why?”

“I…” you trail off, heat flooding your cheeks. “I, um, told him I’d be staying at a friend’s place tonight,”

Dabi gasps mockingly. “Baby, you lied to your niisan?”

Knocking your shoulder against his arm, you scoff, trying to hide the stupid smile the nickname conjures. “Oh, shut up,”

“Getting bold now, I see,” he hums to himself. “Could’a swore just a few minutes ago you were scared of me,”

“N-Not scared, just—uh, just surprised, that’s all,”

“Uh-huh, sure. Tell me again why you can’t just go to this friend’s house?”

“Well, she’s—she’s, like, y’know—” you shrug as a form of explanation, deflating a little at his unimpressed stare as he blows smoke out his nose. “She’s going home with some guy,” you mumble. “A-And I was supposed to too, but…”

Dabi tsks, shaking his head in false sympathy. “Sweetheart, you’re a teenage movie cliché,”

“Shut up,”

“You tell me to shut up one more time and I’m gonna have to do something about it,” he singsongs, a thinly veiled threat coated in sugar. Swallowing thickly, you glance up at him, blinking twice. His eyes tell you that he’s not fucking around, despite the relaxed features of his face, smile easygoing and gaze lidded.

“S-Sorry,” you murmur, looking away.

“Don’t you know? Good little girls don’t speak like that to Daddy,”

He spits the word out, almost patronizing in his tone, but that fails to stop the way your stomach flutters when it falls from his lips, fails to prevent the choked little gasp that escapes yours. He laughs loudly, your cheeks burning with shame.

Sapphire eyes glint in the pale moonlight, as if he’s just discovered the most valuable treasure, as if he’s just been given the key to the universe—a predator who’s just ensnared it’s prey, and the smirk that slowly etches itself across his face is nothing short of sinister.

“Do you wanna come home with Daddy, princess?”

He’s caging you between his body and the murky convenience store window as he asks, both palms pressed flat against the grimy glass.

“Hmm?”

No. You shouldn’t. You know you shouldn’t, can almost hear your brother’s voice in the back of your mind telling you not to, but you’re too enticed in sapphire to care, drawn into pretty, almost glittering blue fire, letting the flames lick your skin as you immerse yourself in it, deeper and deeper and deeper, allowing it to wrap itself around you, to consume you, to knock the very breath out of you as you gaze into it.

“Okay,”

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

He only has one bed and no couch, he informs you as he leads you up four flights of stairs, explaining that the elevator’s been broken for a few months now, panting out the words just a little.

A soft giggle slips from your lips, amplified by the empty stairwell and echoing off the concrete walls, and Dabi looks back at you, amused.

“Something funny, princess?”

And although there’s a friendly grin on his face and mirth in his eyes, something in his voice makes you tremble, shoots scorching sparks up your spine and sends them rushing through your veins, and your laughter immediately cuts off.

“No,” you say simply, shaking your head and hoping that he didn’t catch the full body shiver that coursed through your figure just a second ago, all thanks to his voice. “Just laughing at the absurdity of it, s’all,”

“Ah,” he says sagely, nodding once. “Well, here we are,”

A tattooed hand gestures vaguely to a white door with a large, black 4 painted on it, the paint beginning to chip away, worn down and faded in some spots.

Dabi’s apartment is small, but you like it. He’s surprised, he tells you, expected someone like you—someone brought up with luxury, someone who’s never had to ask for or want anything in their life, because they always already had it—would hate it.

“Or maybe, that’s exactly why you like it,”

It’s a little snarky, the way those words flow out of his mouth, biting your cheek as they pass, and you wince a little.

“I think it’s homey,” you say quietly, tiny voice raw and honest, deciding to omit the fact that you’ve never really had a space that felt homey yourself. “It’s very you. I really do like it.”

His eyes soften at your gentle confession, features relaxing a little as calloused fingers tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.

“Then, I’m glad,”

For a moment, you’re positive he’s going to kiss you, staring down at you so intently with that look in his eyes as they slowly sweep across your face. But he turns on his heel a moment later, stalking into the tiny bachelor and beckoning for you to follow with a wave of his hand, flicking on a lamp as he passes.

“You hungry?” he’s asking as he walks. “I know this kickass noodle place that delivers 24/7,” he collapses on his bed, outfitted in black sheets, looking up at you expectantly when you stop hesitantly a few feet away. “You should probably eat something,” he continues, pushing himself up on his elbows, legs dangling off the end of the mattress. “Especially if there’s still alcohol in your—”

“Oh no, I don’t drink,” you cut him off without thinking, the words etched into your permanent vocabulary, sitting down next to him, just a hint too close.

“No, no, of course you don’t,” he says with a laugh and a shake of his head, sitting up fully. “Let me guess; niisan doesn’t allow it,”

A frown forms on your lips, brows knitting together. “Well I—”

“Ah! Stop,” he cuts you off with a disinterested wave and a roll of his eyes. “I’ve heard enough,”

Normally, you’d scoff at someone speaking to you so rudely. But with Dabi, with Dabi, it’s different. A little giggle escapes your lips without your permission, the bubbly noise surprising you, and Dabi chuckles in response, a genuine grin spreading across his face, glancing at you from the corner of his eye.

“So. Food?”

The takeout arrives at 1:56am, Dabi bringing the bag full of noodles and other appetizers—too much food for only two people, if you’re being honest—back to his bed, placing it in front of you and then crawling onto the mattress, sitting cross-legged.

The action surprises you—he doesn’t have a table, but you had been expecting him to bring the food to the small breakfast bar, complete with two mismatched stools, not his bed.

Old Hammer Horror films flicker on the TV as the two of you pick through the food together, Styrofoam containers littering the bedspread. And it’s…fun—it’s the most fun you’ve had in a long time, a strange, unfamiliar giddiness fizzing in your tummy every time you make him laugh, every time his eye catches yours, every time he shoves your knee and calls you dollface, despite the deep, honey-coated voice echoing in your head telling you that you shouldn’t be doing this and he’s dangerous.

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

“Bedtime,” Dabi says simply as he returns from the little kitchenette after storing the leftover takeout in the fridge, using a hand to tug at the back of his shirt and pulling it over his head.

“Wha—”

The material hits you square in the face and an involuntary, entirely unsolicited giggle bubbles past your lips, pulling the garment from your head.

“Pajamas,” he nods at the fabric now bunched in your hands, but you can’t seem to find your voice to respond.

Teeth bite into your tongue hard enough to make you wince in an effort to keep a gasp within your chest when he comes into view. He’s lean—toner than you expected, muscles gliding smoothly under his skin as he moves—and you’re unsurprised to find his chest and back decorated with vibrant, intricate tattoos.

Of course, you knew Dabi had tattoos—they’re on his face, his neck, his collarbone, disappearing under the neckline of his shirt and resurfacing under his short sleeves, curling around his arms, brilliant flowing ink telling stories across his skin. They’re beautiful—they’re mesmerizing, inquisitive eyes slowly roaming the expanse of his chest.

But you had never noticed the soft, slightly puckered skin they hid. Scars, your mind provides dimly.

“Do you want to touch them?”

The rumble of his deep voice snaps you out of your revere, heat flooding your cheeks when you realize you were staring. There’s a playful lilt to his voice, and you can’t quite tell if his offer is serious or not, your eyes floating up to his.

“Here,” he chuckles a little as he sits down, offering you his forearm, flipping it over and resting it on the bed.

He lets you trace every single one. He won’t tell you where or how he got the scars, and you don’t push, even as curiosity erodes your chest. It’s impolite to pry, Keigo’s voice echoes through your mind, and you nod once to yourself.

You don’t have sex that night. He doesn’t force you. You nearly tell him that you’re surprised, what, a man of his stature, of his reputation, has a pretty girl in his bed and he doesn’t fuck her?, petty retaliation for what he had said to you when you entered the apartment hours ago, but you chicken out at the last minute. You’d soon come to find that some things are better left unsaid.

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

Spring has just arrived, bringing with it cool, gentle breezes and swaying blades of grass decorated with glistening dewdrops that sparkle when the sun catches them in just the right way. The smell of freshly battered cinnamon sugar donuts and cheap coffee wafts in through the open window, drifting over your bodies and embracing you.

It rouses you, and your eyes flutter open to be met with Dabi’s face. And, God, he’s so damn pretty, with thick dark eyelashes fanned out delicately across inked skin and tousled onyx hair, breathing deep and calm, sharp jaw on display. Reaching out, you daintily trace over his relaxed features—circling defined cheekbones, sliding down the slope of his nose, trailing along his jaw—allowing yourself a moment to admire him before thick guilt begins to strangle you.

You should go. Keigo still thinks that you’re at a friend’s house, and doesn’t expect you to be home until late afternoon, but that belated bitter guilt finally brands the back of your tongue, face souring a little at the idea of deceiving your big brother. And after all he’s done for you, niisan tsks in your head, voice sweet and syrupy, and you can almost see the disappointment in his eyes as he shakes his head. We’re all each other has, you know. And you do, really, you do know, head nodding routinely, instinctual at this point, as you begin to push yourself up.

“Stay,” Dabi says softly, eyes still closed as a hand catches your wrist. You stop immediately, allowing him to pull you back down to the mattress as lids lift to reveal the most brilliant sapphires. Fingers trace down the curve of your neck and you hum, arching into his touch.

“Keigo—”

“Doesn’t have to know,” he cuts you off, his voice still quiet, rough around the edges and heavy with sleep. “C’mon. We’ll go get pie for breakfast, and I’ll have you home to niisan by dinner, promise,”

Giggling a little, you roll into him, allowing him to wrap his arms around you and pull you atop his chest as he flops onto his back.

“Pie,” you laugh, resting your chin on his toned muscles and gazing up at him. “For breakfast?”

“Why not?” He asks, and that smile is back again, the boyish one that looks like he’s hiding something, a little amusing secret just for him, the one that induces a whole flock of butterflies in your chest. “It’s Saturday,” he shrugs as best he can, then squeezes you to his chest. “You don’t got anything to do, I don’t got anything to do...”

Crystal eyes glitter in the morning sun as they gaze at you, golden rays creeping through the small gaps in his thick purple curtains, swaying gently in the wind.

Molars sink into the inside flesh of your cheek as you think, and Dabi tuts his tongue softly, a hand coming to gently pull the skin from between your teeth.

“Okay,”

His lips curl into a smirk, something sharp flashing in his cobalt eyes. “Okay,”

That’s how it begins—with deceptively bright, youthful smiles and cherry pie for breakfast— and five days later, in the backseat of his Cadillac Eldorado while James Cagney flickers on a worn out, off-white screen and two of his fingers are three knuckles deep in you, he asks you to be his, digits curling in your pretty little pussy as he breathes the words against the shell of your ear.

You’re whimpering out yes as you cum, nodding almost frantically against his shoulder as your hips roll towards his palm.

That’s it, that’s his good girl.

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

But it progresses faster than you ever thought it would—faster than you ever thought possible—like a shot of morphine straight to your bloodstream, pupils gaping as DabiDabiDabi surges through your veins, becoming all you can think about—all you want to think about, all you want to do, eat, feel, breathe.

Midnight double-features of old Hollywood films at the local rundown drive-in become one of the many staples of your relationship, finding comfort in the sharp smell of buttersalt popcorn stinging your nose, in the way the film’s sound cracks and pops as it travels through the car radio, staticky like an old record, in the way Dabi forces a cherry Jolly Rancher from his mouth into yours, the hard candy clacking against your teeth.

This is how you spend most of your weeknights for the next month or so—passing candy through kisses in the backseat of the Eldorado, tongues shoved down each other’s throats, stained red and purple and blue from the cheap artificial dye, hands wandering up dresses and little fingers tugging at beltloops and buckles.

On Saturday mornings—sometimes Sundays, too, if you’ve been a really good girl—you find yourself in a familiar red booth at The League—a little diner tucked away on one of the city side streets not too far from Dabi’s apartment—cheap speckled plastic glittering in the sunlight and sticking to your thighs as your favourite waitress, a young woman by the name of Himiko who insists that you call her Mimi, takes your order. She seems to know your Daddy—your Dabi—somehow, but you don’t press, because it’s impolite to pry, you know and niisan raised you better than this.

He always lets you pick what you want for breakfast, but Daddy always orders it for you, always reminds you the mornings you decide on pancakes that if you get those, you aren’t allowed any sundaes or a slice of pie, because too much sugar is bad for his babygirl, and he knows how much syrup you drown those things in, dollface.

But there’s one staple of your relationship that you love more than all the others.

Joyrides.

That’s what he calls them, those drives through the bad parts of the city, the parts with cracked concrete sidewalks and shattered glass and needles littered in the dying grass.

Dabi takes you along frequently, tells you that you have an important job to do, that you play a crucial role in this whole operation, because the police—including your father—have been cracking down especially hard on dealing in this area. But nobody bothers to question a seemingly innocent young woman delivering inconspicuous brown paper bags—bags full of pretty little pills and tiny baggies of white powder—to shop owners and crumbling apartment complexes, eerily reminiscent of a Girl Scout selling cream filled cookies and thin-mints.

Keigo would kill you, if he knew.

It’s an instantaneous rush, though, being allowed to participate in Dabi’s business ventures, being allowed to help. It’s a privilege, you think, makes you feel like he trusts you, and you absolutely live for the praise, for that gorgeous smile he gives you after you deliver the sweets to the client, for the passionate kisses he rewards you with for being such a good little helper.

Joyrides are the best. Because it’s just you and him, the Eldorado’s radio struggling to play whatever station it’s picking up on—usually some sort of sixties rock—as you cruise the streets in his absurdly large car, the sky smeared with strokes of faded pinks and oranges, peppered with wispy clouds that look like loose strands of white cotton candy.

And sometimes, after his work is all finished, he’ll drive you to one of those cliffs you’ve come to know so well and let you ride him in the drivers seat—precious little whines and pathetic broken whimpers spilling from your lips as you rest your head against his shoulder, gyrating your hips in fast, shallow little circles, using his cock like it’s a toy, just like he told you to—before taking you back home to fuck you properly, to fuck you right.

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

It’s quaint, the little house you and your niisan live in, with its perfectly trimmed hedges and well-manicured grass, a stone walkway leading up to the front door, which is painted white. White windowsills, white brick, white, white, white, the whole thing is white—bright, pure, untarnished.

It’s just enough space for the two of you, your adoptive father, an absurdly large man by the name of Toshinori Yagi, had stated proudly, the first day he showed it to you.

And it’s only a short walk from the university, his wife chimed in with a smile too wide for her face, nodding excessively.

It’s convenient, they had said, the day you received your acceptance letter and scholarship offer from the university your brother attended. It’ll be good for you to stay with your older brother for a little, before going off into the world on your own, they had promised.

You hadn’t really wanted to go to this university—would’ve much preferred to go away to school in another country—but you didn’t. Keigo knew it, too, knew your desire to leave, to see more of the world, to experience it on your own without that hulking shadow with the wild hair. But he coaxed you into it, convinced you to stay, just like he always does, begging you softly not to leave your poor niisan all alone as gentle fingers pushed locks of hair from your face, trailing down your cheek and coming to cup your jaw, reminding you that you’re all each other has.

And you had nodded, nuzzled your face against his palm, sought comfort and relief in the presence of your big brother, just as you always do. He was right; you had your entire life to travel the world, what’s the rush? Why leave now? Stay with him, just for a little longer.

But your niisan, your niisan has a secret.

It wasn’t like you didn’t know. Keigo has always had a penchant for living fast, after all, seems to somehow incorporate conceptual and literal speed into all aspects of his life—his marks in school, his record-breaking track races, and now, his personal life, too.

It started in high school. He was in twelfth grade. You still don’t know who gave him his first taste, still don’t know why he decided to shoot up that night, but he did.

And it made him feel invincible. It made him feel like he could fly.

He hid it well, didn’t look like a heroin addict—at least, not what the words ‘heroin addict’ usually conjure up. His topaz eyes were bright as ever, even if his pupils were just a pinprick; nails cut so short it looked painful, to keep from scratching and scabbing his body; was always sure to keep his track marks well hidden, methodical in choosing his injection sites, and kept up with regular hygiene, even if his wild, windswept hair did get a little messier.

Yes, he hid it well.

But he couldn’t hide it from you for long, didn’t hide it from you well enough, becoming increasingly careless the deeper he spiralled into the addiction.

And it takes a while for you to truly acknowledge it. You didn’t want to—not at first, anyway—didn’t want to believe that your all-star, top-of-his-class, golden-child of a big brother was a junkie.

So you ignored it. You ignored the way he began recklessly disposing of the needles in the small trash can under his desk instead of hiding them in the kitchen trash whenever your mother asked him to take it out, ignored the burnt spoon you found in the sink and the bloody Q-tips you found littering the counter of the bathroom the two of you shared, ignored the way those tiny orange syringe caps had begun appearing in odd places, seeming to pop up more and more frequently.

Yes, you ignored it, until he stole one of the shoelaces off of your sneakers. And you still can’t explain it, exactly, can’t explain why that was the final straw, why that had you gripping a laceless shoe in a trembling hand as you stormed into the washroom uninvited and unannounced, catching him with the string between his teeth, just as the last of that disgusting orangish-brown liquid sunk into his veins.

The words disintegrate on your tongue, escaping in a pitiful little squeak, all of the fury you felt towards him for his behaviour melting the instant your eyes catch the end of the injection, wide and unblinking as they stare at the needle stuck in his forearm.

For a moment, neither of you are able to speak, Keigo’s mouth opening and closing a few times as his eyes flood with tears, the prettiest topaz shining in the warm washroom light as they frenetically search your face.

“Sit,” you tell him, finally breaking the silence, your voice not your own. His eyebrows knit together, and he shakes his head a little in misunderstanding, but you persist. “Sit,”

Shoulders deflating, he holds your gaze for a moment longer before nodding once and obeying, sitting on the closed toilet.

“We have to—” you stop as your chin begins to wobble, swallowing thickly against the sob crawling up your throat, quivering hands rooting haphazardly through a first-aid kit. “W-We have to clean those, so they don’t get infected,”

Glassy golden eyes watch you intently, his chest hiccupping just a little as he wordlessly holds his arms out to you, armed with a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol, the scent stinging your nose.

There aren’t many—only a few little pinpricks on each arm, some decorated with dark blooms of periwinkle and violet, but they still cause your tongue to crumble to bitter, suffocating ash in your mouth.

Tiny fingers encircle his wrist, your touch always so soft, so gentle, as if you’re afraid to break him, and he chokes on a noise that sounds suspiciously similar to a sob.

“You don’t—You shouldn’t have to—” and he can’t even force the words out, breathing out forcefully through his nose as his tears finally overflow, glistening drops streaming down his cheeks, bleary eyes unblinking, focused on your little fingers as they continue their tender ministrations with so much care, with so much love it’s nearly stifling, and he can’t breathe, because he doesn’t deserve it, he doesn’t deserve it, he doesn’t deserve it—

“I want to,” a knuckle catches one of his fresh tears, swiping it across his cheekbone and leaving a glimmering trail in its wake. “Alright? I want to,”

And this—this becomes a habit.

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

You don’t tell Keigo about your relationship. Not at first, at least, conjuring up flimsy excuses that become more ridiculous as the days pass, as your disappearances steadily increase. Dabi doesn’t want to, makes up some bullshit excuse about how he isn’t ready yet. But you buy it anyway, and you wait.

Until the morning of one of your niisan’s big races, the ones where multiple trainers and coaches come from all over the country to assess his performance, when Dabi shows up entirely unannounced and uninvited, makes sure he’s in Keigo’s line of sight as he bounces around at the starting line, and kisses the life out of you, right in front of him.  

That’s the only time he attends one of Keigo’s races.

The rest you continue attending by yourself. Dabi doesn’t like it, doesn’t like to have you out of his sight at all lately, but he knows it’s moot to argue with you. You’re going, you told him firmly, the night before Keigo’s next race, whether he likes it or not.

But, boy, was your niisan fuming by the time the two of you arrived home that day.

He hadn’t cared that he had, essentially, lost the race, hadn’t cared that he didn’t even manage to place in the top three for the first time in literal years, hadn’t cared that he just blew several chances with potential coaches and sponsors.

None of it mattered.

With a rough hand wrapped around your bicep, he all but yanks you out of the car, doesn’t care that you’re stumbling over your own feet as he drags you towards the front door, doesn’t care that he shoves you inside the house so hard you do trip, crying out as your hands and knees collide with the cold tiled floor.

And he’s yelling, yelling at the top of his lungs, the moment that white door slams shut, shut so hard the walls tremble.

“Fucking Touya Todoroki!? Are you fucking kidding me?”

You can barely see him through your tears as you quickly flip yourself over, beginning to inch away on your hands and feet as you stare up at him, breath hitching in your chest.

“Wh-Who?”

“Dabi, for Christ sake!”

“T-T—” Touya?

“Oh Jesus, don’t tell me—He didn’t tell you his fucking name?”

No, you shake your head quickly, chest stuttering as the name echoes through your mind, your big brother nothing but a blur of crimson and gold advancing towards you, mumbling to himself about how no, of course he didn’t, why would he? Of course not, as he drags nimble fingers through his messy hair.

“To-Todo—”

“Todoroki,” he spits, so harsh it makes you flinch.

“Your coa—”

“Yeah, I know his father,” Keigo rolls his eyes as he crouches down, catches your trembling chin between his thumb and forefinger, and you cease all action immediately, freezing in his grip. “You know his brother,”

Your brow furrows as you belatedly search your memory for any instance of the name, gunmetal grey and snow white flashing through your mind, but everything’s too foggy, too hazy with the fear of disappointing your niisan more, eyes squeezing shut as you hiccup at the mere thought.

But then he’s sighing, always knows when he’s gone a little too far—you are very delicate, after all, so small and naïve and in desperate need of someone to take care of you, aren’t you?—collapsing back on his heels and pulling you into his lap as soft hands smooth down your hair, murmuring it’s alright, it’s alright and niisan’s got you, niisan’s got you.

“What’re you doin’ with a man like that, my little songbird?” his voice is gentle as he rocks your bodies back and forth, after your sobs have calmed a bit.

What are you? you want to ask, front teeth sinking into your tongue hard enough to make you wince, keeping those three tiny words inside of your mouth.

“I like him,” you mumble instead, nuzzling your face into his chest and hiding from those bright, inquisitive topaz eyes.

“You—You like him,” he snorts to himself in disbelief, shaking his head a little.

“I do,” you respond, a little firmer as you pull back to stare at your big brother’s face, eyebrows knit together in determination, sparks of fury igniting deep in your chest at the thought of Keigo thinking he knows better, when he’s just as bad.

“He isn’t good for you—”

“He isn’t good for you,” you shoot back, tone clipped as you level your gaze, squirming a little in his arms. His grasp tightens, like he’s terrified you’re going to leave, honey eyes holding yours for a beat before he lets out a breath, looking away, defeated.

“That doesn’t mean you should be allowed to see him,” he mutters, glancing at your tear-stained face for a moment before his eyes flit away again. “But…” his chest rises with a deep inhale, pressing against you. “I guess…I guess it isn’t very fair of me to, uh, judge you, is it?”

“No,” you pout a little. “It isn’t,”

He huffs out a soft chuckle, gazing at you from the side of his eye, a tiny smirk spreading across his face. “Stop being so cute,” he grumbles, squeezing you against him just a bit too hard, giggles spilling from your lips as your fingers curl in the cotton of his hoodie. “I’m trying to be mad at you, y’know,”

“Kei-nii,” you whine with a roll of your eyes, shoving his shoulder weakly, though there’s a smile on your lips.

“Alright, alright, alright,” he’s saying as lithe fingers brush some hair back from your face, palm resting against your cheek, thumb stroking your jaw rhythmically. “Just—Promise me, if he ever hurts you…You’ll tell me immediately, yeah?”

Blinking a few times, your eyes search his face, sobering up as gold bores into you. There’s something in his stare, something you’ve never seen before, something that you can’t decipher, and it sends chills pebbling across your skin. Swallowing thickly, you nod, little jerky movements as your eyes hold his. “Y-Yeah, promise, niisan,”

“Good,” he whispers, chin resting atop the crown of your head as he cradles you to his chest. “We’re all we have. Never forget it.”

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

You only question Dabi about his name once, lounging around on his bed in the early hours of the morning, tangled in his sheets, wearing his t-shirt, with his large hand resting on your bare thigh. His head’s tipped back against the headboard as he exhales smoke in pretty little curls that disintegrate into hazy nothingness only a moment later.

“T-Touya?” Your hearts thudding against your ribcage as you almost whisper the name, barely audible at all, but his head snaps forward, sapphire eyes finding yours immediately.

And for a moment you’re terrified you’ve made a grave mistake, that you’ve crossed some invisible line you hadn’t had a clue about, his glare scathing your skin; but then his features relax, and a little smirk spreads across his lips.

“Ah, so he finally told you,” his voice is quiet, and you can’t read his tone, eyes squinting a little as you lean towards him. “I don’t go by that name anymore,” he speaks up, voice ringing out clear and strong. “Don’t call me that again,”

The or else is implied, and you nod meekly, promising him softly that you’ll never utter it again.

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

It’s been gnawing at you all week, sitting heavy like a block of lead in your stomach, the cuticles on your left thumb bitten raw in agitation. You need to tell him. You’re going to tell him, it’s just…

It just never seemed like the right time to tell him—then again, is there ever a right time to tell your older brother that you’re spending the entire weekend at his drug dealer’s place?

But now it’s Friday, and Dabi will be here in a few minutes, and you still have yet to let Keigo know.

Because Keigo is currently otherwise occupied. With a girl.

You hadn’t been expecting to hear the tinny laughter of a woman when you entered the house, arriving home after your last class of the day, hadn’t been expecting to walk into the living room to find said girl splayed across your niisan’s lap, staring up at him dreamily as endless giggles spilled from her painted lips, hadn’t been expecting him to be so completely enamoured with her that he doesn’t even greet you.

It burns up all of the anxiety that had been building inside you in an instant, turns it into boiling rage that bubbles and pops, noxious as it rises up your throat.

And so, you decide that you won’t say anything at all. If he’s too busy to even acknowledge you like he normally does every single day, then surely he doesn’t care if you leave, right?

“I’m going out,” you toss airily over your shoulder as your halfway out the front door, a small grin spreading across you lips as you spot Dabi leaning lazily against his car. He gives you a nod of acknowledgement, smug grin of his own forming on his lips.

Keigo shoots up immediately, nearly knocking the girl to the floor, moving faster than he ever has in his life as he catches your wrist and tugs, hard. A loud yelp sounds from the back of your throat and you stumble backwards, right into your big brother’s chest.

“Where? Huh? Where?” he growls out the word through clenched teeth, squeezing again. “With who? That—That fucking scumbag?”

At the sound of your yelp, Dabi straightens up instantly, usual lidded eyes now wide open and alert, zeroing in on where Keigo has ensnared you.

“Not like it matters to you, not when you have a whore to entertain,” you spit, and though your gaze is blazing, your eyes are filling with tears, gleaming in the late afternoon sun. “Right?” you push, after a few moments of silence.

His grip loosens, although he doesn’t let go completely, fingers still clasped around you.

“Princess, I…”

“No,” you snap, viciously pulling yourself free of him. “Don’t princess me. Not after ignoring me like that,”

“You’re overreacting—”

“Then so are you,” you cut him off sharply, already beginning to back away and blinking hard to clear your eyes of stubborn tears. “I’m spending the weekend at Dabi’s. I’ll see you on Sunday,”

Dabi catches you the moment you’re within reach, drawing you close to his chest for a second before pulling back. Calloused hands gently raise your wrist, sapphire eyes assessing the damage. His thumb caresses the rapidly bruising area rhythmically, back and forth, back and forth, and he frowns deeply, his gaze finally meeting yours.

“Does he do this often? Hurt you like this?”

And it’s startling, shocking, to see the overflowing concern in his crystal eyes, studying your face intently as you try to find your voice. You don’t think he’s ever sounded that serious before.

“I—No, of course not,” you shake your head, tongue tripping over the words. “We—Y’know, siblings fight, and stuff, it’s—he doesn’t know his own strength, sometimes, uh, forgets it, a-and I bruise easily,” you shrug, wincing a little at the serious expression still etched deep into Dabi’s face.

“If he ever puts his hands on you again, I’ll fucking kill him,” Dabi says slowly, softly, as if he’s reciting the morning news to you, dark eyes drifting up to refocus on the figure still standing in the doorway. “Do you understand me?” he asks, though his stare does not leave Keigo’s, voice still calm, almost serene. “I’ll fucking kill him,”

He won’t, you reassure him, countless times over the next few weeks. Niisan’s never intentionally hurt me, Daddy, he won’t, I promise.

And they’re all true, those words you repeat to him, over and over and over again, while you comb fingers through his inky hair or press chaste kisses against his scarred skin. They’re all true.

Until they aren’t.

You should’ve known, really, not to talk about it. He doesn’t—not when you’re cleaning his track marks or wiping sweat from his forehead, not when he lays his head in your lap as he’s coming down, eyes fluttering as your fingers thread through his hair, not even when you’re feeding him teaspoons of water to keep him hydrated as his body forces him to throw up nothing, again, lips dry and cracked, skin clammy and cold—and you shouldn’t, either.

“Have you ever thought about switching to pills?” You ask one night, casually, as if this is mundane, normal, to discuss while washing dishes. “I heard oxy is like, heroin in a pill,”

His jaw clenches, you can see the motion out of the corner of your eye, quickly refocusing your gaze on the bowl in your hands, the same bowl you’ve been washing for about five minutes now.

“No.”

“Why not? They’re more controlled—”

“I said no,”

“And I asked why not,” you spit, dropping the bowl from your hands. It cracks as it collides with the aluminum of the sink, the sound piercing through the tense air as you turn to glare at your brother, soapy hands on your hips. “It would be safer—”

“Marginally—”

“That’s still better than nothing, Keigo! Christ,” you sigh, running a sudsy hand through your hair. “They’re all fucking opioids, what’s the difference!? They’re all gonna get you high the same way, aren’t they?”

“No—for fuck’s sake—”

You wouldn’t understand, even if he tried to explain to you. You wouldn’t understand that he’s already attempted this, attempted to switch from heroin to pills, and that it wasn’t the same—isn’t the same. You wouldn’t understand that oxy doesn’t give the same instantaneous rush as heroin does, doesn’t take his breath away like heroin does, doesn’t warm his entire fucking body the way heroin does.

No, you wouldn’t understand how most of the time he feels like he can’t fucking breathe until he shoots up, wouldn’t understand how, at this point, heroin feels like an old friend, safe and cozy and more comforting than anything he’s ever felt before, than even your arms are, wouldn’t understand how heroin makes him feel like he’s fucking invincible, like he can take on the entire world in one day, like he can continue living.

It makes him feel whole again, full again, put back together with no cracks or missing pieces. It distracts him from how irrevocably shattered his insides truly are, providing him with quick, fleeting relief, just long enough for him to keep going, keep striving, keep breathing. But you wouldn’t understand any of that. How could you?

He’s sighing as he walks away from you, raking both hands through golden hair.

“You don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t see what this shit is doing to you! It’s killing you, niisan!”

God, no, not the honorific. Not when you’re gazing at him with tears spilling from your eyes, little hands desperately pawing at his t-shirt, urgent just to make him understand, to get through to him for one instant.

“I-It’s killing you and all I can do is watch,” your voice fades into a whisper, breaking on the last word as more tears streak your cheeks, leaving small gleaming trails in their wake, fingers readjusting, knotting in his shirt and tugging, latching onto him as he keeps walking, jaw clenching again as he tries to ignore you. “Y-You have to stop—no, no, n-not stop, just—just slow down, yeah? Slow down a little, it’s—it’s too fast, niisan, you’re going too fast—”

But it’s building, and building, and his head is throbbing, and throbbing, and your voice is rising higher and higher, louder and louder, and it’s all just too much, and before he even knows what’s happening, his hand is cutting through the air, knuckles colliding with your cheek so hard it sends you stumbling backwards, tripping over your own feet as you fall on your ass.

He regrets it the moment it happens, the very moment his skin makes contact with yours.

But that doesn’t matter; the damage is already done.

He’s never hit you before. Sure, he may be a little rough sometimes, and his grip may leave a few bruises every once in a while, but he has never deliberately hit you, until today.

He never thought he would.

Golden eyes dart from his hand, still raised in the air from where it struck you, blood gleaming on his silver rings, to your face, small and terrified, crimson flowing down your cheek, mixing with your tears as it slowly drips off your jaw, and then back to his hand.

And for a moment, he swears, the whole world stops.

Then, a mere second later, his whole world shatters.

You’re trying to form words, staring up at him with impossibly wide, unblinking eyes, but they’re just escaping your lips in little mumbles, half-formed and coated in spit.

His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again, nothing more than a pitiful huff of air formed in the shape of a curse leaving his lips.

It takes your mind a moment to register what’s happened, numb with dizzying shock, stupid with the most heartbreaking pain, dazed as tiny, trembling fingers raise to tenderly prod at the wound, wincing the moment they make contact. But the throbbing of your cheek brings you back quicker than Keigo would’ve liked, and then your eyebrows are knitting together, mouth settling in a wobbly line, blinking hard to clear your eyes of pesky tears.

And all he can do is watch, watch as you shakily push yourself to your feet, watch as your hand grips your phone like it’s a fucking lifeline—a lifeline he very briefly thinks about diving forward and snatching out of your grasp—watch as you turn on the balls of your feet and disappear down the hall, the slam of your bedroom door echoing a moment later.  

You barely make it into your bedroom before your collapsing on the floor, wheezing out uneven breaths, sharp, hard huffs of air that slice through your tight chest with each exhale, vision blurry with stinging tears as you stare down at your phone, cradled in quivering hands.

You know that if you make this phone call, Dabi will never let you come back. You know that if you make this phone call, this is it. Trembling fingers hesitate over his name, those four glowing letters staring back at you, an unnecessary amount of various heart emojis cushioning them.

He doesn’t pick up the first time. Maybe it’s a sign, you think to yourself, a sign that you shouldn’t leave just yet, that you should stay and rot away with him for a little bit longer, remain with him for a little more and give him another piece of your soul that he can add to his prized collection as he slowly steals your life force from you.

But then searing pain radiates through your entire face, along your jaw and to the back of your head, and the coppery smell of blood stings your nose, and you press on Dabi’s name again.

   ✰          ✰          ✰            

If he’s being honest, he would’ve never picked up for anyone but you, probably would’ve killed the idiot that thought to interrupt him during one of the biggest deals of his career—of his life.

“What?” he snarls as he answers, pacing along the wall outside the warehouse like a rabid dog, anxious and eager. “This better be important, sweetheart. You knew I was meeting with one of the bosses today—”

“He hit me,”

It’s hard to understand you when you’re still sobbing, words all wet and garbled, and Dabi squints as he focuses his concentration, feet skidding to a stop as his heart begins to pound.

“What?”

“He hit me. Nii—Keigo hit me,”

And then, his blood runs cold. His ears are ringing, vision fading in and out of focus as red tinges the edges, breathing beginning to accelerate, exhaled harshly through flared nostrils. The thin skin stretched taut across his bony knuckles has turned white as he grips his phone so tightly he’s surprised it doesn’t shatter in his hand.

“Pack your shit,” he tells you, voice oddly calm, cold and sterile and sending shivers skittering up your spine. “I’m gonna fucking kill him,”

[spenciebabie]

Um... so like... post prison Reid taking his gfs virginity? 💕💕💕💕🥺🥺🥺🥺 also I love ur writing wow

im presuming you’re looking for dom!spencer? it’s gonna be in that vain but if you were looking for something softer ive got a 7k 2 parter on my main (Show Me) that’s got a soft late seasons spencer taking his gf’s virginity

— —

They’d been dating for a while now and Spencer had his suspicions. They never seemed to do anything more than kiss, the odd time she’d let him finger her, and she’d sucked his cock twice now.

He loved her, and he would wait as long as she needed to. But he had to know.

One day while they were in her bed she was straddling his lap while they kissed, one of her legs perched either side of his thigh. He decided to kick things up a notch, bringing his hands down to her hips, gripping them harshly and pulling her down at the same time that he pushed his thigh up.

She let out the most desperate moan he’d ever heard from her. Her lips breaking off of his as she did, unable to contain it. So in an effort to tease he stopped, taking his hands off her hips and laying back a little, propping himself up on his arms and just looking up at her.

“Are we a little desperate today sweetheart?” He says teasingly

“I don’t know, that felt— nice” she looks shy all of a sudden, her cheeks heating up.

“You want me to touch you?” She just takes her bottom lip between her teeth, nodding.

“You want me to touch you with my fingers, or maybe my tongue?” She nods again, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her skirt.

He sits up again, snaking his hand up under her skirt, feeling the wet patch she’d made against his trousers. Curling his fingers up he presses them up into the crotch of her panties. She lets out a soft mewl at the sensation.

“You’re so fucking wet sweetheart. If I didn’t know any better I’d think you wanted to be fucked?” He moans against her ear, and he can hear her breathing almost stop completely.

“Unless of course, no ones ever fucked this pretty little pussy before?” He pushes her panties to one side as he speaks this time, running his fingers along her slit, feeling her arousal almost dripping along his fingertips.

“Please Spencer, I want it to be you” she moans out as he presses two fingers right against her entrance. Only toying with her, never pushing them in.

“What you do want me to to baby?” He teases, burying his face in the crook of her neck, sucking a harsh bruise at the base.

“Want you to fuck me—ah!— want you to be the first one inside me” she moans out and he pulls back again to examine the little bruise.

He looks satisfied, quckily changing their position so that she was laying flat beneath him on the bed.

“Tell me what you want sweetheart, and I’ll give it to you” he says, commanding but soft.

“I want to feel your cock Spencer” she moans but she looks shy all of a sudden.

“What’s wrong baby?” He asks, just a little concerned, as bad as he wanted this, he didn’t want to genuinely pressure her into it.

“I just—it’s embarrassing” she forces out, closing her eyes before she says the rest, “I’ve wanted to— with you— for a while now, I just— I didn’t know how to ask but um, I’ve been taking the pill and—” his heart almost stops.

“And?” He coaxes, his hands running along her body over her clothes now. Encouraging and eager.

“And would you want to cum inside me? Please? I wanna feel you, I wanna feel all of you?” She’s asking like it’s some kind of imposition, like she had no idea how much and for how long he’d wanted to do just that. He almost can’t even give her a response, he just starts by pulling at her clothes scrambling to take them off until she was wearing nothing at all in front of him.

“Fuck sweetheart, you’ve got no fuckin’ idea how bad I want this” he’s breathing heavy and labored now, making his way out of his own clothes until there’s nothing between them.

When he runs his fingers along her slit now it somehow feels even wetter than it was before, if he rests his fingers against her and keeps them still he can feel the way she throbs against them.

“Is your little cunt desperate for my cock sweetheart?” He groans against her ear and she nods, her lips opening softly to moan just a little.

“You think you can handle it baby, you’ve only ever had my fingers.” He pushes two inside at the same time that he says it and she’s whining now. Tiny little noises that sound like ‘please’ flowing out of her, getting trapped in her throat as he curls his fingers up against her walls.

“I don’t know” he teases, “this desperate little cunt is tight, I can barely fit a third finger in here” he’s turning himself on while he’s saying it, pushing in three fingers at once, he can just about force them in and he feels the way she clenches around them. He’s teasing her, but he’s also right.

“Please! Spencer please— fuck— want your cock, need it” she’s whimpering and he wants to be inside her more than anything. The way she’s looking at him is so soft and pleading. He just has to give in to what they both want.

“Since you’ve been such a good girl I’ll let you have it.” He says like it’s not exactly what he wants too.

Pulling his fingers out he places two of them in her mouth which she gladly accepts, sucking them in and hollowing her cheeks around them, tasting herself. Once they’re clean Spencer uses that same hand to line himself up between her legs, running the head of his cock along her folds, mixing his precum with her own arousal before he’s pushing himself inside.

She squirms a little at the immidate contact. The stretch she’d never quite felt before. She knew his cock was thicker than his fingers, but like this, it felt so much bigger.

He took time to check in with her each time he moved, slowly sliding in, inch by inch until he was buried inside of her.

“Fuck, baby you’re so tight.” He moans out against her ear, “So fucking wet too” he’s not even moving inside her and he think he might cum from the little faces she’s making alone.

“It’s all for you” she whines out, “I’ve wanted this for so long” something about her innocent little face spurs him on, he wants to hear those delicate lips say the filthiest things.

“Tell me what you thought about sweetheart, what did you fantasize about while you touched yourself?” It’s also a means of distraction. Once she’s thinking he takes the opportunity to slowly start moving.

“Ugh! Fuck! I thought about your mouth” she moans, “how good it feels when you suck on my clit, the way your stubble feels on the inside of —ah!— my thighs” he starts to speed up slowly now that she’s moaning softly, adjusting to his size already.

“What else baby? What does your pretty little pussy want?”

“Thought about riding you” she says and stops, clearly a little to embarrassed to say it out loud.

“I thought about that too,” he leans right down next to her to growl against her ear, “the image of your perfect ass bouncing up and down on my cock, or the way your tits would look above me” he’s got a hand snaked between them now, teasing at her clit.

“Shit Spence, I want you to— fuck— want you to fuck me from behind sometime. I wanna feel just how— uh— deep you can get” she’s losing it now, her nails digging into his shoulders, her back arching up off the bed as Spencer continues his movements.

“You gonna cum for me baby?” He groans and she’s nodding and whimpering beneath him now.

“Feels so good Spence, so close” she’s panting right before she’s toppling over the edge, shaking and squirming around him, the filthiest moans coming out of her as she clenches around his cock.

“That’s it baby, I’m almost there” he continues to fuck in and out of her, getting her through her aftershocks as he’s cumming himself. Spilling deep inside of her as he does.

“Fuck, fill me up Spence” she whines, desperate and breathy, “I’m all yours”

He pulls out of her slowly, and takes his time to admire her. The way her hair is perfectly messy, her forehead all sweaty but in the kind of way that makes her glow. The little bruise on her neck from earlier that he already knew she wouldn’t be able to hide. The way she looked at him with her swollen bottom lip caught between her teeth again. And on top of all of that, now there was the added bonus of the way his cum looked as it dripped out from between her thighs, just a little falling onto the bedsheets.

[jasontoddswhitestreak]

sleepovers with peter (and ned)

summary: in which you have a sleepover with your dork of a best friend and your boyfriend peter.

content warning: peter parker x fem!reader, fluff, set after spider-man homecoming (friends to lovers, mutual pining)

note: this is from my old tumblr account adoringparker i decided to post it again but change some things up :)

REQUESTS ARE OPEN! (let me know if you want to see more content like this <3)

masterlist

the entire thing being ned and yours idea because you've all been having so many exams recently and barely hung out after school due to revising and peter’s schedule.

peter being hesitant because he was worried that something bad could happen in new york and spider-man wouldn't be there to stop it

you reassuring him that the world can survive without spider-man for one day

oh man you were wrong

you three started the sleepover right after the school bells rang !!!

going to delmars to get sandwiches before you all went to peters place (forgetting the fact that there's only two beds in his room)

you and ned making fun of peter because has to state that the sandwich has to have pickles and be squashed real flat

“peter parker picked a pack of pickled peppers”

"why are you guys ATTACKING me.”

also getting slushies, peter trying to be creative and get red and blue to match the spider-man colours, ned getting red and you mixing cola and cherry to ‘make a cherry cola slushie’

“that is so disgusting y/n”

“shut up pickle breath”

going back to peters apartment and greeting may with a hug (she loves you <3)

“how's my favourite sweetheart doing?”

peter immediately cutting in like the dork he is

“i'm doing pretty good may!! how are you doing?”

teasing peter back

“she likes me more than you pete i’m her favourite”

eating ur sandwiches at the table while talking about what happened in school

“man today’s debate was so easy!”

you and ned throwing lettuce at peter in response “that’s because everything is easy for you smartass”

“did you hear that flash showed photoshopped pictures of him and spider-man during bio and said they went to a party together last night?” “that- i don’t even know how to respond to that..”

going back to peters room once ur done

ned wearing the spider-man top you jokingly bought for him to annoy peter for his pyjamas

“hey pete what'd you think abo-“ “WHY DO YOU OWN THAT”

peter walking in with his messy brown curls wearing his star wars shirt and grey pyjama bottoms but still being able to look fine as hell

peter forcing you to wear his sweater

“do you feel cold? you could wear my sweater- i mean if that’s what you want-”

you walking back into peters room after changing in the bathroom to be greeted with peters cutest smile ever

his eyes would be full of love he feels as though he fell in love all over again

he pulls you into him and hides his face in your neck while hugging you mumbling “you're so pretty in my sweater” ¥]!|¥\$]€{$]

having a star wars marathon and quoting the movies

“i have brought peace, freedom, justice and hot guys to my new empire-” “y/n that’s not the quote!!” “yeah but LOOK AT HIM?”

ned and peter reenacting the mustafar in front of you with rulers instead of light-sabers

“only a sith deals with absolutes, i will do what i must.” “you will try.”

ned winning the ‘light-saber’ duel

“god your such dorks” “and you love it”

ned falling asleep after the third movie bc it's already midnight

peter being antsy about not going on patrol tonight because he still feels like something wrong could be happening right this moment

you searching the latest news articles to see whether anything is happening to reassure him

“see everything is okay-” you get cut off by a bunch of sirens

worst. timing. ever.

him shooting out of his seat very quickly due to the spider reflexes, muttering a quick "i got to go" and kissing you on the forehead before putting on his suit and swinging out of the window

you worrying about peter bc he could be hurt

him coming back home at 4 am in the morning with cuts and bruises on his body

"so did spider-man stop the bad guys?" "he did"

tending to his wounds and scolding him for not being careful enough

him being so tired that he begins to say weird things as you continue to clean his cuts and bruises

"hey y/n, y/n y/n baby listen to me y/nnnn, angel, baby, pretty girl, you’re so pretty i love you”

him asking you to make him hot chocolate at 4am in the morning

resulting in the two of you sitting at the table drinking hot chocolate talking about life

"do you think we're going to stay friends after high school?" "of course we’ll stay friends!”

him talking about your future together not aware of the feelings it's giving you because although the smartest person ever, peter could be so clueless sometimes

"do you think we're going to have dogs or cats?" "w-what i-"

falling asleep on the living room couch with ur head on his chest and his arms around you tightly

waking up to the smell of May's choc-chip pancakes !!! (that ned mostly helped with)

wow i wished i had this

[ktheist]

2prettybestfrens | jjk

muses. jeon jeongguk x reader x park jimin ft. kim taehyung

genre. strangers to lovers!au. university!au. 

words. 18.2k

drabbles. pjm

feedback.

warnings. mentions of physical insecurities, alcohol use, juul use, mention of adoption, mentions of dysfunctional families, handcuffs - lots of handcuffs, jeongguk crossdressing, too many one-sided pinings lmao 

synopsis. you’re in love with kim taehyung who’s in love with jennie kim who’s in love with professor kim namjoon. so park jimin doesn’t exactly fit in all of this, yet he’s always been there in your weakest moments which may or may not be caused by your heartbreak boy - or so jeongguk likes to call him.

oh and jeongguk? you don’t even know jeongguk until that party-gone-awry night where you end up handcuffed together to ponder on what you did.

x

when you uploaded a snapchat of your darkened room and a single teary-eyed emoji because kim taehyung uploaded one where a beautiful girl was covering her mouth while she giggled, jimin snapped back a ‘why r u awake 😬’ to which you snapped the same darkened room with a slightly different angle and a ‘just cause’. his last snap to you contained a ‘cool wanna call?’ before you dialed him up and ended up talking until 5 in the morning before bidding each other-

“well, good night then,” you’d muttered.

“g’morning,” he’d wished you back in a soft mumble and a hint of sleepiness taking over.

that happened on a friday night. on monday and for the rest of the week, you merely greeted each other in the hallway and went on your days without the inclusion of the other.

when you sat by yourself on the bench on the sidewalk of campus, under the shade of a great old tree a few feet away from your department after being left high and dry when kim taehyung’s friends asked him if he’s joining them to get mcdonald’s which he’d in turn asked if you wanted to tag along and you said you were good only because you never did well in groupies - park jimin sat down next to you, head thrown back as he squinted at the gaps of the leaves where the tiniest of sun rays managed to pass through and dot his face. blonde tresses swaying ever so softly when the wind blew past you.

“so how was finance?” he looked like he was asking the waving branches.

“eh, it was fine, professor kim’s a good teacher,” you shrugged, the sight of jennie suavely smiling and said professor shooting glances at her made you mentally vomit.

“man,” he blew a gust of air from his mouth as he ran a hand through his semi-long tresses, “were we in the same class? because all i remember was dozing off five minutes into class.”

“that’s why you should sit at the front,” you’d suggested.

it was then, did he push himself off the ground and stood up, black and white jacket pushed back as he slipped his hands into the pocket of his jeans. eyes narrowing while his tongue protruded against the inside of his cheek before he went, “you hungry?”

“starving,” you rolled your eyes before collecting your mac and holding it to your chest, bag slung over your shoulders.

the both of you didn’t go to mcdonald’s but the food tasted just as good that day at the cafe in your faculty.

when kim taehyung asked jennie if she was free friday night and the girl turned to you with an endearingly oblivious, “do we have any plans on friday?” and taehyung awkwardly but not so hesitantly corrected, “um, i mean, just you jennie,” the air, without a doubt turned tangibly tense and awkward.

“oh,” jennie’s brows knitted together as she stared at him, as though trying to spot the caption on his forehead as to why he invited only her when everyone knew you and jennie never go anywhere without the other if you didn’t have any prior engagements, “well, ___ and me are going to hang out together so yeah, i’m not free.”

you weren’t sure if she was dumb or playing dumb but you’d found out later that night, that she’d been irritated with kim taehyung’s non-considerate advancements which she’d recently noticed seemed to exclude you ‘i hate people who make plans in front of someone and not invite them’ was her exact word before she followed up with a ‘blockedt’.

but backtrack to when the tension seemed to rise higher than the sky, you were saved by jimin when he came mini-jogging towards you with that adorable boyish smile and crescent eyes, “hey, i was looking for you - you wanna walk to accounting together?”

you’d waved jennie and taehyung goodbye and gladly walked with jimin to class.

and so it goes, with kim taehyung’s eyes lighting like fireworks in the midnight sky when he sees jennie and the girl itching to make a beeline to the opposite side of where he comes from and you shooting her ‘be nice’ looks whilst park jimin pops up now and then in the most convenient time until ‘us’ no longer comprise of you and jennie but also taehyung and jimin.

so much so, some of your casual friends come to you asking for either of the boys when they seem to have something to inform them which you’re not sure why isn’t informable through text. but either way, you’ve become two best friends with additional friends.

maybe said additional friends happen to fall in the top list of cuties in the girls and gays’ books but besides kim taehyung, if you looked, like really really looked at park jimin, you concurred, perhaps he does have the right to be in said list with his unblemished, smooth skin, perfect pink lips and pretty sparkly eyes.

“what?” his lips do the thing where they curl, revealing a pair of perfectly lined white pearls.

“nothing,” you say as you find yourself third-wheeling in taehyung’s bmw with jimin at the back and the first commenting something about his older sister liking to shop at zara as well when jennie asked you if you were free tomorrow to go to the mall near campus.

“i mean i can go with you girls, i have a two-hour gap between classes,” the boy offers.

“oh,” the first laugh trickles out of your mouth without a stop switch, “you’re so cute.”

you can hear jennie snickering in the passenger seat as you turn away from the angle where taehyung could see you in the rear-view mirror, only to come face to face with jimin who seems to get your humor.

“it’s not a big deal,” taehyung shrugs, a tinge of pride in his voice.

“my man,” jimin pats said man on his shoulder, “you don’t know jack shit about women.”

“what?” the older boy asks, perplexed and quite honestly irritated for some reason - but then again, he never seems to like jimin’s quick-to-catch-on nature when it comes to any girls-related topics.

“two hours is not enough to shop, taehyung,” jennie finally decodes the long standing cipher, “we can barely explore one shop.”

by the end of her words, you’re is full out snickering like an unattractive hyena, “i thought you have a sister?”

“i do,” there’s a tinge of confusion in his tone, “she usually goes shopping with her boyfriend.”

“well, how long did it take them to go shopping?” she quizzes, sharing an amused look with jimin.

“uh,” it’s then, do you hear the sound of the screws in taehyung’s brain twisting, “she usually stays over whenever they do.”

“well, whatever you think they did after they went shopping - it’s probably not it,” jimin snickers, shoulderline jolting as he crosses his arms over his chest.

“so cute,” jennie echoes your earlier words, neck craning to look at the two other passengers in the back seat as she gives you a one-eyebrow-lifted look as if to say ‘this is the guy you’re crushing on?’

at that, you shrug, unapologetically mouthing ‘he’s cute’ - in a much different and adoring sense than the first time which jennie must’ve gotten when she shakes her head, a hopeless smile on her lips as she turns to the road again.

you were on your way to the movies then.

x

“oh my god,” jennie squeals, eyes skimming your specifically-handpicked-by-jennie-kim attire, “you look so cute!”

“only because i agreed to be your live mannequin,” you say rolling your eyes but the curl of a smile on your lips is unstoppable.

“no - because i know what kind of style suits you,” she narrows her eyes in a ‘you know i’m right’ kind of manner, “no offense, your usual style is cute too but it’s more like an... ‘i have a crush, don’t talk to me’ kind of look, you know?”

“am i wrong though?” your eyebrows rise, mimicking her ‘you know i’m right’ look.

she raises a hand, her free one scrolling through her phone as she announces, “i don’t recommend crushing on airheaded guys but you do you sis,” then she looks up, staring at you straight in the eye with the most deadpanned expression, “but if he breaks your heart, i’ll break his leg,” it’s a full, solid moment later, just as you were about to burst out laughing, does she say, “literally.”

and it’s times like these that you fear for another person’s life that isn’t yours - well, taehyung’s life isn’t just anyone’s but - as she turns back to her phone ever so casually.

but before you can fret any further, your phone vibrates, the words ‘chim’ flashing across your screen with a ‘get yo asses down’ and contrasting ‘ur chauffer awaits’ popping a second later.

“get your ass up. they’re here,” you end up saying, pushing your phone into the back pocket of your leather pants that jennie manages to convince you to put on for some unknown reason - that reason going along the lines of ‘kim taehyung’ and ‘jealousy’, but you’re not one to dwell on why one do things they do as you accept jennie’s grabby-motioned hands in request for assistance to be pulled up.

it turns out the shopping plan gets pushed to saturday where taehyung is basically spouting out how he’s a good judge for fashion and that he hasn’t gone to the mall since the semester started which to be fair, was only a month ago. 

you’re not sure how jimin ended up tagging along - the two aren’t even the bestest buddies - but someway, somehow, he always manages to get taehyung to pick him up and drop him off whenever the taller man makes plans to go out with you and jennie.

“wow,” jimin is the first to notice, mouth taking on an ‘o’ shape he basically ogles in plain daylight.

“what do you think?” jennie comes up behind you, chin resting on your shoulder as she wraps her arms around your waist then she turns to taehyung who was the last to get out of the car, “doesn’t ___ look pretty, taehyung?”

at the sound of his name rolling off the tongue of the girl he’s been pining for since he laid eyes on her, his gaze lights up - but only to meet jennie’s. one look at you and he turns back to her with the most beautiful smile, “yeah, she looks great - did you help choose the top?”

“actually,” the girl begins with a cheery tone - they’re walking a few steps behind you whilst you and jimin walk together. it’s been like that for as long as you remember, “i picked out the whole fit. it wasn’t easy though because...”

kim jennie walking side-by-side with kim taehyung whilst you with jimin whenever the two boys join you, be it whether to get to a class you all share, to go to the library to study or to get some lunch - has become a familiar view to your mutual friends. so much so, you’ve heard of a rumor going around that you’re a couple of best friends.

like literal couples. you with jimin and jennie with taehyung. thanks to that, no one would have suspected jennie’s relationship with professor kim nor would anyone see through the veil of friendly smiles and amicable conversations to be you pining over your best friend’s alleged boyfriend.

you’ve gotten used to hearing jennie and taehyung’s conversation fade into the background yet never really able to disregard the way taehyung laughs at something your best friend says or the sight of the two walking a few feet ahead with taehyung’s head almost always turned to jennie’s and the girl, oblivious, occasionally cranes her neck to look at him at the beginning of her sentence before directing her gaze to the front where she’s walking.

jennie dislikes taehyung less now, if only because he steers the conversation towards the areas of interest - which he seems to know a lot of. kudos to you for answering his ass-crack o’clock texts of ‘heyyy what kind of movie does jennie like?’s and ‘heyy you girls got any plans tomorrow?’s.

“you look great in those leather pants, by the way,” jimin’s voice makes you turn to the other boy, a boyish smile on his lips, “so let me guess,” his head tilts to the side as the dip between his thumb and index finger hooks itself underneath his chin, eyebrows knitted together in heavy contemplation, “are you going for a good girl gone bad kind of look,” a playful smile tugs on the corners of his lips, “or are you in a secret biker gang and have a biker meeting at 7?”

you lean closer to the man, hand covering your mouth as you whisper, “you didn’t hear this from me but we’re convoying to disney land. i heard it’s more magical during christmas.” 

or so you thought your whispering skills were close to perfect but a cat with brown hair pops up from next to you, eyes glinting with excitement, “did someone say christmas?!”

so you end up early-christmas shopping just because of that one word that triggers the warm-hearted-who-ness in her. and that’s how you, taehyung and jimin gets dragged from one store to another. but where your attention gets robbed with material things like-

“oh look, a snow globe with a puppy and a snowman in it!” you shake the see through globe, watching as pseudo snowflakes rain over the unmoving pupper and olaf lookalike before you sigh, “technically the snowman isn’t alive and the doggo is alone by itself in a world where nobody else can enter - and on christmas at that . oh my god, i think i’m gonna cry.”

- but jennie’s interest lies within the holiday-themed clothes. sweaters. costumers. lingerie. you name it and jennie kim tries it on.

“___ - pssst, hey,” there she goes, hiss-whispering your name as if you’re not right in front of the curtain she’s poking her head through, eyes darting around for the two boys who, last you saw, were doing the best to look interested in reindeers and candy printed sweaters.

“what, girl, what?” you whisper back, trying to peek through the gap of the curtain over her head as if you’ve never entered a changing room together.

and as if reading your mind, her bare arm that’s supposed to be wrapped with the floral cotton material of her sleeve - shoots out, hand wrapping around your wrist.

a “wha- ah-!” probably echoed off the walls and turned some heads but you’re no longer in the position to check as you find your back pressed against the wall of the cubicle and red and white lace-wearing jennie posing for you.

“so?” she beams.

“those are so cute, oh my god,” you end up his-whispering whilst trying to keep your voice low, “where did you get them? i only ever saw you checking out - and you have got to admit this - ugly sweaters!”

“girl, the lingerie section is just next to the sweaters,” her eyes seem to disappear behind her crescents as she crinkles her nose, “no but for real, you think i was gonna buy them? i just needed the boys to go away. and. they. finally. did,” she rolls her eyes, “it took awhile but kim taehyung is so persistent.”

“that’s why he’s so... cute,” you hum, eyes shutting close as the picture of the aforementioned man flashes behind your eyes. he’s looking at you with those dark eyes and he’s smiling at you with that magnetic-

“gross! get your ass out of the gutter,” a squeal hits the air as your eyes flutter open to the sight of your best friend’s contorted faces as if-

“um, girl,” you tilt your head just the slightest bit, hand on your hip while your other hand raises in a ‘hold up’ manner, “out of the two of us, you’re the one that’s gotta stop being silly and start wrapping professor kim’s willy.”

a stick of tongue out is all you’ve got as a response before she turns to her phone that’s vibrating at an alarming rate.

that’s when you feign almost-vomit, “did you - ulgh - sent him a - ulgh - nude?”

in any ordinary circumstance, she would have made faces to mimic a much ridiculous series of vomiting in response to your fake almost-vomits but when her smile tugs downwards in a disheartened pout, you practically drop all the ugly sweaters you picked out just for the sake of getting into the christmas spirit and rush over to the girl - which is only one and a half feet away.

“hey, hey, what’s wrong?” you coo as she starts blinking back tears.

“i knew it,” she huffs out a puff of air, hand fanning at her waterline, “i fucking knew it.”

in between the ‘you’re okay’s and ‘everything’s going to be okay’s on your part and jennie’s increasingly growing sobs, you manage to make out the words she blurts out. something along the lines of ‘not spending as much time as we used to’ and ‘because i’m ugly as fuck’. so you hold her tighter, fingers brushing out the potentially forming knots in her hair each time it gets into her tear stained face and gets aggressively pushed out of said face with the back of the hand. 

it’s been going on since the start of the third year - the ‘i can’t make it tonight’s and ‘sorry, i’m going to have to rain check’s. 

you’ve been a silent spectator of how your best friend’s face lights up whenever she talks about her secret affair with the youngest professor in the business faculty, how he lives up to her private swooning with the smallest ‘miss kim, how was your day’s when he met her in the hallway, ever so casually greeting one of his supposed students like any professor would and treats her to fine-dinings and became the reason why forehead kisses are her favorite kind of kiss now.

he never really tried to hide his fondness for her even at the faculty and though you knew your best friend could get anyone she wanted, you were dubious of whether that anyone actually deserved such a loving, beautiful person. nonetheless, kim namjoon seems to be the exact person who does.

“hey, look at me,” you implore, sitting cross-legged on the floor whilst your knees touch and your fingers twine together in a fingers hug, or so jennie coined the term in your first year, “you’re so beautiful.”

“you don’t mean that,” she mumbles out.

“girl, if i were to be born again and were allowed to choose how i’m going to look - i want your eyes, they like, pull people in - not gonna lie, i started talking to you because you were intimidating but also really alluring. does that make sense?” you hold up a hand when she begins to giggle lightly, head shaking in show of her disagreement.

“but when i did get to know you, you’re the sweetest, squishiest,” a protest falls from her lips as she clasps a palm over the spot on her arm that you just pinched, “person alive. and oh!” you pinch her cheeks next, chuckling at how she crinkles her nose and like the feline she’s always been associated with, “and i want your cute chubs cheeks! and your adorable nose, and your lips,” you pause for the longest moment before retracting, “okay maybe i’d want my lips but your lips are juicy too!”

she makes a sound at the back of her throat, eyes of dried tears rolling, “please, i barely have any lips.”

“i mean, they’re still kissable,” you shoot her a suggestive look, “and i know out of the two of us, one would kiss you if she’s a little bit more fruity.”

“okay, maybe you think i’m kinda pretty,” she gives in.

but that’s not enough for you,“bih, you’re a literal goddess,”

“i’m not but anyway beauty is subjective so maybe namjoon’s perspective’s changed.”

“nope - nu-uh, we can cry and just... let ourselves feel the emotion that’s been bottling up and burst at one single message but what we’re not gonna do is mope around, being sad all day because of our presumptions that someone else thinks we’re not good enough or pretty enough. because you are and i would die for you.”

she hiccups, “i don’t know if i would die for you but i’d sacrifice my first born for you.”

“ew,” you feel your nose crinkling, “no, you’re not gonna trap me with a kid - that’s a trap right there and i’m not falling for it.”

jennie ends up laughing too loudly that one of the store attendants end up kicking you out. jimin and taehyung followed suit a second later, acting like they didn’t know you two but walking towards you anyway. you’re not sure if they noticed jennie’s swollen eyes but neither mentioned anything about it. instead, taehyung suggests- “since we’re already out, you guys wanna go to chanyeol’s party?”

x

so you end up going to the party. the apartment’s too cramped for your liking but jennie’s found some mutual friends of yours that she’s dancing and laughing with. and maybe that’s why you haven’t bolted right out of the door the moment you stepped in.

jimin found some of his own friends. they’re probably not from the faculty since you don’t remember seeing them around and taehyung-

you’re not quite sure why taehyung is following you around like a lost puppy and trying to make small talks with you. internally, your heart’s doing flips but your head’s been giving out one of those obnoxiously loud sirens with lights as red as the cup you’re holding.

“...and you know, it’s pretty cool how they managed to attract foreign investors within six months of starting up their business,” taehyung is saying, the awkward shrug and eyes glued to the ground telling you that he’s not so into whatever he’s saying either.

“yeah, like, they definitely got lucky or something,” you nod in agreement.

funny how the blare of the music is barely allowing you to have a proper conversation but all you hear is deafening silence as you stand five feet apart - the kind of distance that screams acquaintances but less than friends and most definitely not lovers.

but then he stands on his two feet instead of leaning his weight on just one - and he looks at you right in the eye for the first time that night. and your stupid heart goes fluttering like the petals in a field.

“hey, i don’t wanna be a nosy or anything but,” he pauses for the briefest second, eyes slanting to somewhere on the dance floor where you think you last saw jennie and then he refocuses back to you. but you already know where his mind and soul remains, “what happened today? like, jennie’s acting off, like something’s bothering her and she’s kinda drinking more than she should and it kinda feels like she doesn’t want me around.”

it takes a moment to ponder on how much you should say before your words become affirmation and affirmation will probably lead to more assumptions and - “well, you should ask her.”

“uh, i- she doesn’t- i don’t know how - i don’t wanna annoy her, you know what i mean? and since you’re best friends, i thought maybe you’d-” he’s scratching the back of his head when you cut him off.

“there’s your answer,” you raise the half-empty cup that’s been lying undrunken in your hands, “if you’re not gonna square up and tell her how you feel, then you, my friend,” your stomach drops at the word but you manage to land a solid pat on his arm, “are going to live the rest of your live like this - wondering what the hell is going on because you’re really not sure where you stand. and i get it, confessing to someone is terrifying and depending on jennie’s answer, you might or might not be able to talk to her ever again but it’s better to get it out there. feelings are like farts, you know?” the way his brows come together in a confused what-the-hell moment, is adorable, “hold it in and you’ll feel like something’s not right and it is never going to be until you get all of it out of your system.” and with a nod and a tight-lipped smile, you leave him with a “good luck,” before wandering over to the dance floor, not sure where you’re going because jennie, lisa chaeyoung and jisoo’s not where you thought they were and the only less crowded but still suffocating part of the apartment is the kitchen where you don’t want to risk going back and seeing taehyung there, unmoving in the spot where you left him.

amid all of it, you almost get your shoulder dislocated before a hand shoots out and pulls you back on your two feet whilst you raise your cup higher in hopes to save its contents from spilling.

the man that caught you looks between you and your raised cup for two solid seconds before a grin tugs on his face and he clicks his own cup to yours, “cheers.”

“aha, yeah,” you laugh as you feel his grip on your arm loosening and you pull it back to your side like a robot, taking a sip of your nicely saved drink.

“thanks for not letting me fall,” you say a moment later, after thanking whatever deity is out there that allows you to get your first drink into the right pipe without feeling the need to cough out loud.

“no problem,” even in the poor lighting, you can easily catch the sight of pearly whites lined up perfectly amid an alluring smile, that is, before a pair of brows knit together in what seem like an unresolvable conundrum, “hey, you don’t happen to...” he pauses for the longest moment, eyes slanting to scan the crowd and making you do the same until he commands your attention back with his next words, lips curling back into the breathtakingly attractive smile as words tumble past them, “...see two pretty best friends in here, do you?”

and that’s when your interest, wherever it is, plunges straight down to the ground and into the ether, “oh,” your vision shakes as you nod repeatedly before forcing out a dry “ha ha” which isn’t meant to disguise your displeasure at all - if anything, a wave of satisfaction crashes over you when his smile falters, “yeah, that - that’s really funny,” you say plainly, smile still plastered on your face.

“o-kay,” he drags out the word for half a second, teeth clenched together in growing panic as all traces of humor fade away, “...joke too old?”

“well, let’s see,” you feel your index finger tapping your chin as you throw your gaze up to the ceiling, “i get it, tell the ugly best friend she’s ugly but in a joking way,” you shrug, “you don’t need to rub it in my face cause i know and yes it’s getting old.”

it takes a whole solid moment of blaring music and non-caring half-way-drunken college students continuing to grind against one another and this insanely attractive stranger staring at you with jaws on the ground, for you to wave a dismissive hand.

“you know what? don’t worry, jennie’s not here, thankfully or she would’ve blo-” air fills your throat and cuts you off when he frowns, “who?”, to which you raise your eyebrows, “je-” you almost choked, “jennie?”

he shakes his head the second time, bottom lip jutting out in an additional- “nope” gesture as he continues with “never heard of her,” after your “jennie... kim?”

so you go one, “kinda cute height, long hair, brunette-” he shrugs, “nope- doesn’t ring a bell,” in the middle of your, “-fierce cat-like eyes but adorable as heck personality?”

in the end he wins with a final word of, “no - nope,” after a whole solid moment of your silenced disbelieve and him drawing his pondering session to a close.

“oh,” escapes your lips before you can even register, “so - it was- like-”

“yeap,” he nods, “it was-”

“a joke?”

“a joke.”

you both announce at the same time. the tones may differ but the essence is there, leaving one to stare at the ground in shame for having snapped at a complete stranger and the other staring with unapologetic eyes.

“i’m sorry,” you finally manage to utter, shoulderline falling with your walls of pride, “i thought it was one of those micro aggressive jokes people throw around just because they can’t straight out tell someone they’re ugly-”

but the words seem to enter through one ear and go out the other when his brows begin to knit together for the nth time of the night - and in a matter of less than thirty minutes at that - when he declares before you get to properly end your sentence, “you’re pretty as hell. why did you think i’d randomly try to crack a joke to a stranger and risk pissing pants off on the off chance she took it badly... which you did. i’m sorry for pushing the wrong button.”

“oh,” but just like him, your brain short-circuits and you seem to only truly hear the first part of what he’s saying as just like any girl - you curse yourself as you - shy away from his gaze, hand going up to tuck your hair behind your ear before you slowly peek up through your lashes, “thanks,” you blink once, shrugging, “and it’s fine i get that joke a lot - i don’t usually care, i don’t know what got into me tonight.” 

but before he manages to say anything, the loudspeaker starts reverberating with the sound of someone clearing their throat and a “how’s everyone doing?” and a dismissive “alright, alright you might be wondering ‘who the eff is this guy’ right? yea, yea, i know, but-” he stops, eyes scanning the crowd for a suspenseful effect, “-but you’re gonna wanna hear this,” to which a groan erupts from the crowd, so he quickly gets to the point “don’t panic,” most of the time, that’s exactly when you should panic, “so, the police are coming.”

x

his name is jeon jeongguk and he goes to your university’s rival university. his hair is actually a shade of rich deep brown that forms wavy ends and contrasts glaringly against his sharp jawline under the fluorescent lighting which also highlights his pearly whites that remind you of bunnies when his lips curl over them when he smiles.

to think that he’s doing that now while the police officer, a man in his 40′s and on the shorter side of the spectrum is ten steps from marching up to you with a disapproving gaze on his face.

his hair falls over his face in half ringlets, an excited glint in his eyes, “he’s mad cause we’re clean.”

a guy somewhere a few people away from you is sobbing increasingly loudly with every step the officer takes before he comes to a stop in front of you, eyes skimming each faces one by one until he stops on you.

“you,” he announces before sighing deeply, “you look like a kid who wouldn’t cause trouble, why are you here?”

“uh,” the chain around your wrist feels cold but jeongguk’s pinky that’s touching yours as your thighs brush together - is warm, “i...” you pause, in search for words before settling with a disappointing confession “i don’t know,”

the officer echoes your statement with a critical emphasize on the ‘don’t’.

and because of that, you blink once, “in fact, does anyone know what they’re doing at all? if you think about it we’re just astronomical particles in this vast universe which is called the milky way,” you pause, if only squint at his sparse mustache, “why is it even called milky way? like, there’s absolutely no scientific evidence that milk exists in outer space or do you reckon the guys that named it just feels like drinking some milk while they were-”

by the end of it, a few snickers have escaped from the people you and jeongguk were caught with, the aforementioned man, having turned his head the other way as his shoulders jolt silently and it’s only then does the officer’s increasing confused expression contorts into that of a maddened bore, “keep hanging out with him and you’re gonna find yourself behind bars.”

“that hurts my feelings, detective yoo,” jeongguk confesses, forehead creasing as his uncuffed hand holds the spot on his chest where his heart should be.

the man finally shakes his head, motioning to a younger officer who looks just about your age to start unlocking everyone’s cuffs - there were a few other people you’ve never seen before dragged out of the vicinity and to the station. he speaks a moment later, “you kids are lucky because none of you are associated with the ones down the hallway - we were initially going for them. busted their asses and found over a hundred kilograms of cocaine.”

once your cuffs are off and you get your phone back, you’re fast-scrolling through the messages on the notification window before swiping up and searching for jennie’s contact. it turns out she, taehyung and jimin guessed you were one of the few who didn’t make it and waited for you near the building where the party was busted.

“oh my god,” jennie is the first to dash into your arms as if she hadn’t seen you since forever, “i’m so sorry i left you!”

“well to be fair, i left you,” you mumble, your arms banded around her waist while hers around your neck.

and just when you thought the melodrama would end when she pulls away, you find yourself staring at sparkly-eyed jennie and the most heartbreaking downturned lips, “i will never,” she pauses, “ever let you out of my sight.”

you’re exactly against that idea - after all, you’ve made plans to buy a beach house and move in together in your olden days once you’ve poiso- burried your husbands who died of a totally natural cause.

it’s only after breaking apart from a second hug, do you realize the man standing not-so-awkwardly five feet away.

“don’t mind me,” jeongguk holds up his hands, “i don’t watch much drama but i might after all this.”

“jeongguk,” you can’t help the smile that creeps up your face at his joke, “this is jennie,” then you turn to the girl who still has her arm around your waist, and you her, “jennie, jeongguk.”

“have i seen you before?” her cat-like eyes narrows just the slightest bit, as though if she tried hard enough, she’d see the pieces of moving memories that’ll somehow point out where she claims to have met him - but you don’t doubt it if they have, jennie gets invited to a lot of parties and hookups.

you should’ve known when jeongguk’s eyes sweep over you with a playful glint in them as he begins, “that’s funny because ____ here-” that from this point forward, that you shouldn’t have put your foot forward and prance at him like a predator with a secret, hand clasped against a surprisingly hard chest before your brain can register what you’re doing.

and when it does, you’re left to awkwardly pat his chest in what you hope to be friendly gesture whilst you force out a laugh, “that- that was really funny jeongguk,” you turn to jennie who, having known you all your life easily catches onto your out-of-character laugh but says nothing, so you point at the guy you’re basically and is still groping - to which you’ve finally tear your hand off his body, “he’s a funny guy.”

“and who exactly is this funny guy?” taehyung comes up on your left - you think you catch sight of his sleek bmw parked on the other side of the street where he must’ve strutted up from in his beige jacket with his hands buried in its pockets.

“just...” you trail off before your brain completely fries and you blurt out, “some guy.”

and that’s when jeongguk decides to call you out, “some guy? i helped you through a life lesson.”

you attribute the alcohol in your system that’s slowing down the neurons and disables you from thinking before you act when you roll your eyes, “in case you didn’t realize, you were in there laughing your ass off when i had to have my own back while that officer looked like he was a word away from dragging me to the police station for talking back to a law enforcement.”

“you talked back to an officer?” jennie chirps, her jaw falling to the ground as her cat eyes widen in excitement and astonishment.

“she did,” jeongguk nods at the girl, a displaced proud smile on his lips before he looks back to you, “brought out the boomer in him too.”

“you pissed off an officer?” this time, it’s jimin who pops up from behind taehyung, before casually nodding to jeongguk with a “hey man.”

“i mean, it was probably ___’s sheer guts and rebellious streak alone that helped free us,” jeongguk goes on, eyes glinting with amusement in the briefest moment they slant to meet yours but they’re gone too soon as he redirects your attention to jimin and jennie’s overpouring questions.

and because jennie wanted to hear more about how jeongguk embellished what went down, taehyung ends up agreeing to give the stranger a ride as you get squished between two men with jennie constantly pulling on the strap of the seatbelt to look over to the backseat, her mouth constantly dropping with every word jeongguk utters like he’s some well-known storyteller.

by the time the car rolls to a stop in front of his apartment building, jennie’s shooting you approving, borderline provocative looks your way - you don’t doubt that if she had any power in her hand to put both you and jeongguk in the same room, lock the door and swallow the key, she would in a heartbeat.

“hey,” jeongguk leans over the doorframe, “can i talk to you for a sec?” it’s the way he tilts his head to the side on a 35 degree angle, paired with that dangerous smile he’s been shooting you in the briefest span of moments jennie’s head is turned to the road and jimin’s gave is thrown outside of the window and taehyung isn’t stealing glances from the rear-view mirror - that makes you want to shake your head in rejection to his request and prance out of the car like a predator in heat at the same time.

but instead, you calmly slide over to the side now vacant side and slip out of the car, closing the door behind you so no ears can eavesdrop.

the scent of his cologne wafts stronger into your senses now that you have no police officers to be cautious of nor any embellished stories to correct.

that, or maybe it’s the way he’s got you trapped against the car door and his body, right arm placed perfectly on the roof of the car, next to your head.

“bout time you give me your @, no?” the corner of his lips tilts higher into a cocky smirk.

“um, yea,” you begin, “i think it’s better if we leave into the night like strangers with stories, you know? and if we’re meant to find each other, we will,” you swear on your grandmother’s grave that you will never go to any parties anymore, “makes a good plot for a drama,” eyes going wide and mouth taking on an ‘o’ shape, you continue, “didn’t you say you were gonna start watching those?”

 his shoulderline shakes as he chuckles, head dropped it tilts up, eyes capturing yours, “i’m not falling for that,” his announcement is plain and simple and yet you’re forced to put twice the effort in your smile as to not let it falter, “after getting my chest groped and caressed, i deserve at least-”

“it was a friendly pat, mind you,” you correct, smile still glued to your face before rolling your eyes, “but snapchat is as far as i’m willing to go.”

“works for me,” the screen of his phone flashes with a dark mode keypad splayed over it - you’re not sure how he unlocked it without taking those glinted eyes off you but he did. so you swipe the phone off his hand and send yourself a request through his account.

“i’m gonna open your snap and leave you on read!” you announce, and he laughs, “alright, bet!”

and with that, he waves at you using the same phone he told you to put your number in, taking a few steps backward, allowing you room to breathe properly again before he whirls on his heels and walks through the glass double doors.

you don’t wait any longer than you have to, shivering from the cold night air when you slip into the car.

“did you give him your number?!” jennie practically screams.

“no but i gave my snapchat only because he looked like he wouldn’t sleep a wink at night if i didn’t,” you shrug.

and that’s how kim jennie gets it into her head that you’re going to get your first-boyfriend-cherry popped. or so she likes to believe.

but that’s the least of your concern for the greater one comes in a devil with black jeans and matching plain t-shirt and timberlands and a lit up screen at exactly three something in the am, right after you’re done with a hot shower and in a middle of towel drying your hair and putting on your night routine skincare.

you open the text revealing a night view of a cityscape from a window which room is surrounded by darkness and a transparent horizontal strip with a ‘❄️ ’ in the middle from a goldenjks.

so you snap a picture of your skincare products next to a mirror with you and a towel on your head, face blocked by your hand that’s holding your phone, choosing  to send ‘🍜’.

and so it goes, the snap war that erupts between you and user goldenjks throughout the night which, after you’d gotten into bed with the lights off, basically includes snaps of your darkened room and his more superior window view.

before long, you started texting on snapchat about how the police officer seems to know him and how-

goldenjks

u were p chill for someone who got arrested for the 1st time

you’re giggling in the darkness at 5:23 am.

you

cs ik i didn’t do anything wrong

duh

and he mentions something about a sobbing kid that was made to wait with you and nobody really did anything to comfort him.

goldenjks

that coulda been u if i wasn’t there probably

you roll your eyes but you can feel your muscles becoming sore from the way your lips are stretching from ear to ear.

then it starts with how taehyung didn’t saying anything throughout the ride up until the car rolled to a stop in front of jeongguk’s place.

goldenjks

r u guys using him for his car???

cs same 

i would 2

you

wtf

we’re not 😭😭

and without much thought, you end up spilling a not-so-secret but not-so-well-known truth.

you

welp

he’s using me to get close to jennie so

ig i should use him for his car

oof

goldenjks 

ooof

so let me guess

u can’t say no to him  cs u have the biggest crush on him

“what the hell?” you mumble to yourself, smile pulled down into a frown, but before you can type out a reply, two more pop up on his side.

goldenjks

and jimin head over heels for u

you

🧢 🧢 🧢

u funny 😂😂😂

goldenjks

fr fr tho 😔😔😔

i would b too

all of a sudden, a boy with the softest blonde hair and crescent eye smiles floods your throughts. you and jimin might have been casual friends for the longest time and only until recently started hanging out together - and he may or may not hold confidential information about the littlest details of the lack of smile on your face and the blank snaps in your stories whenever you’re down.

but to say he’s reacting such way because he’s into you would be a total scam.

so you shake your head, laughing out loud, “nah can’t be.”

you

alright imma 😴😴😴

to which jeongguk tests back a gnight and after one whole solid minute, a text u tmr?

you leave him on read.

x

“like, who does he think he is?” you huff, burying the plastic spoon into the ice cream before scooping up a chunk of neapolitan flavored goodness and directing it into your mouth, “he literally met us just last night and he’s spouting shit like he knows us for years?”

“i don’t know,” jennie humps, tongue darting out to lick the remnants of strawberry ice cream on her upper lips before she goes on with a smile that screams ‘just get together already’, “it’s kinda hot to me when guys know shits, you know what i mean?”

you’ve managed to avoid jimin and taehyung at all costs and sneak to the ice cream parlor that’s five minutes away from campus where you spilled your guts out about how you got unreasonably irritated by the long running joke, about how jeongguk’s hand wrapped around your wrist and he pulled you out of the way of the chaotic college students who were rushing to get out of the small, cramped apartment and how you stopped him from relaying your disbelief of his lack of knowledge about her.

“like, i flipped out at him because of some stupid joke,” you shrugged, hands fiddling with each other while a coat of smoke wafted over the newly scooped and paid-for ice cream.

your name rolled off her lips before she stared at you with her hands on hear heart, “i- i didn’t know you would go so far as fight a guy for me for calling me ugly,” then she laughed, “but you don’t have to. girl, we been knew i’m ugly as fuck.”

your jaw hit the ground at the word she used to describe herself before you blinked and came back to your senses and aggressive defenses, “oh my god, i’m the ugly one and you’re the literal goddess - like, i shouldn’t even be looking at you. i should be looking at your sole. you should be stepping on me - step on me! now!”

a yelp resonated into the air as you groped around for jenni’s left leg in an attempt to lift her foot to make her step on you to which you both ended up laughing hysterically after realizing that she was wearing a skirt and the way you were sitting may or may have not resulted in an array of possible outcomes.

“oh my god, do you think she saw my panties?” she meant the woman in her late 40′s who were shooting disapproving eyes at the both of you as she scrolled through her phone, seeming to be waiting for someone before placing an order.

“you just flashed a poor old woman who came to have some ice cream,” you were hunched over, hand covering your face as you stole glances her way which didn’t hold long because you ended up giggling with the girl when you caught each other’s eyes.

“you think she likes what she sees?” jennie’s brows rose suggestively and you knew what she was going to say next before the words even leave her mouth, “you think maybe i should tell her about my onlyfans?”

it was a few bursts of giggles later, that you’d finally managed to talk properly. or probably because jennie’s question brought out an unwelcomed emotion that you pushed to the back of your conscience last night and for the most part, managed to forget, “so,” her brows were wiggling like earthworms on her forehead, “did he text you?”

that was what spurred the whole confession and up to the moment where you spilled the contents of the unfairly attractive stranger’s text.

“i don’t know, he kinda went overboard,” you shrug and jennie’s hand reaches over yours, patting it once with what you assume is an understanding manner.

“sweetie, i get it,” she announces, “you feel exposed because he said the absolute truth and only the truth and now you’re projecting your embarrassment on him through disdain.”

silence follows her statement.

and staring.

on your part, that is.

“girl,” you blink once, eyebrows arched, “whatever you’re having - i want some.”

that warrants a bout of giggles from said girl before she scoops her last bite of ice cream and hook arms with you as you walk towards the trashcan to dump your empty paper bowls, “no but for real, i like jeongguk-”

“then you date him,” you announce, nodding in approval.

“i like how he brings this... this... fire out of you, you know?” she quizzes to which you shake your head in a ‘no, i don’t know’ kind of manner as she goes on, “and i already have namjoon so,” she sing songs as she starts to skip in the middle of the mall and since your arms are linked together, you end up taking larger steps to accommodate to hers before deciding that you can’t root your feet down to slow her down into a normal pace. so you join her, skipping to the exit where you wait for your uber.

“you guys made up?” the question comes out in a calm, poised manner once you’ve both slipped into the backseat of the uber - you’d like to believe you’re doing a pretty good job on trying to conceal your spiking disbelief and the need to whoop someone’s ass. that someone being a girl who just pledged an oath to choose herself first instead of some man who-

“i texted him and told him how i felt with him cancelling on our plans and when i didn’t get any reply, i turned off my phone and got into bed because i’m not gonna mope over someone who won’t appreciate me,” at that, you give her an approving nod, “but then he came knocking on my door at like 5 in the morning in yesterday’s suit because apparently he has a deadline to meet and he’s been bending over backward trying to finish it on time and he brought his laptop with him too and managed to submit on time after explaining everything. he said he tried calling multiple times but obviously it went to voice mail so... yeah we made up.”

“that’s...” you trail off, only to stare at your friend’s beaming face like she’s just had one of the best facials on earth, “wow, i... i don’t know what to say now that we know he’s not trash.”

“i know,” you feel her pat the back of your hand sympathetically, “and that’s what a man is,” and when she looks at you with eyes that have one goal in her mind, you know not to start listening because the facts are going to bruise your pride and hit the nail on the head more times than you’d-

“liking a boy has more downs than ups but i’m not too worried because you’re a self-loving bitch and i love that for you but kim taehyung is not it,” she says all that with a straight face.

“yeah,” you mumble, thumbs fiddling together as you turn your attention to them as if it’s the most magnifying thing in the world to find out that identical parts of your body could move on their own with just a thought.

“okay, but i swear, he’s so oblivious all the time-” the girl stops short of her lament, you can see her head tilting to peer at you at a slightly different angle as if to see traces of an impostor on you, “wait, what?”

“we got into a fight last night- i don’t know if it’s even a fight but you know how i go off in a tangent when i get like annoyed, right?” you steal a glance at her for half a second before going back to your thumbs, “so i kind of did that to him before the dude announced the cops were coming and we haven’t really talked to each other since then.”

before any of you could say anything else, the sound of a cough echoes in the air, warranting your attention to turn to the driver, a woman in her mid-thirties. you return her smile through the rear-view mirror, “if you don’t mind me saying this - i know you girls are smart as fuck, but you sound just as dumb as that guy - whoever he is because it’s completely normal to get mad at someone you’re crushing on and still have a crush on them but sounds to me like you’re thinking one fight is the end of the world for you.”

“sis, please, don’t encourage her,” jennie talk-whispers as she leans forward just the slightest bit and covers the side of her mouth with her hand.

“well, we’re not really friends,” you begin and jennie groans - you two went over this and agreed to disagree with each other’s wildly contrasting views about crushing on crushes that could crush you but the lady hasn’t heard it so you’re not going to stop lamenting over it, “and whatever i do, it’s like i’m teetering on a tight rope because one wrong move and he probably won’t talk to me ever again and i’m not like miserably crushing on him - like, whatever we are right now - it lets me see him every day and he has the cutest smile and the prettiest fingers- i just - it’s better than not talking to each other forever, you feel?”

“um, don’t i?” she rolls her eyes, as if coming from a place filled with oblivious boys and hopeless crushes.

her name is solar and she does uber as a part time while working 9 to 5 at a firm that she claims to pay better but still not enough for her to save up for her wedding on the side and she and her fiance knew each other since high school but she’s seen him date two girls and get his heartbroken by both before he actually noticed her, the friend that’s always been there for him through his heartbreaks.

coming from someone who isn’t jennie and her alarming obsession with breaking parts of bodies of people who hurt her loved ones, solar’s view is somewhat a mixture of you and your best friend’s which still bases on one simple fact: whatever you say to and about taehyung comes bouncing back at you like a ping pong ball because-

“you have a crush on him and he has a crush on jennie,” she surmises before looking over at the aforementioned girl, “and people with crushes act like idiots- by the way how do you feel- like how do you handle the guy’s advancements and still aren’t awkward with each other because i have never seen...”

when the car rolls to a stop in the parking lot of your faculty, she finally turns to the two of you, her bleached blonde hair framing her face in waves as the silence - on you and jennie’s part as you both share glances at the indicative joke opening - hangs in the air with a sort of tension you can feel.

might even bite back like you did with jeongguk but you’re more in control now.

 “...two pretty best friends who are still best friends when there’s a guy that comes between them.”

“oh thank god,” jennie sighs, laughing and you’re nodding in agreement, “thanks for not-” and your best friend echoes, “yeah,” before you can even finish your sentence, “-saying that cliche joke or like for giving your own twist to it,” waving a dismissive hand, you address her initial worries, “and taehyung doesn’t-”

“he doesn’t-” jennie chimes in.

“-come between us.”

you both say at the same time. 

“oh my god, that’s great, you know my best friend tried sleeping with my fiance behind my back once,” solar crinkles her nose, “wasn’t a good experience but anywho, i’m so glad to see two girls having each other’s back like you guys. makes me want to...”

it’s a few moments later that you finally hand her the money and murmur out appreciations for being such a great uber driver along with some ‘give me five stars! thanks!’ and ‘we will! have a nice one!’

you both part ways in the hallway when you’re supposed to go for marketing and she has to go for personnel management. jimin’s already reserved a seat for you, waving at you to catch your attention which he succeeds splendidly. by the start of the second year, you’ve opted to sit together in classes you have in common, though not as close as the front as you’d like, it’s better than sitting at the back where you can hear the buzz of flies - you mean people, talking.

“are you doing anything this friday night?” jimin asks amidst people zooming out of the class as if they don’t want to be there for longer than a minute after being dismissed.

that, or they have another class to get to on the other side of the campus.

“uh, just me or me and jennie ‘you’?” you dumbly question.

that warrants a chuckle from the boy, “you and jennie... unless you wanna come alone?”

a hum vibrates in your chest as you narrow your eyes at him, as though if you looked close enough, you can see through his skull and right into his thoughts. 

but you can’t so that’s why you’re spouting out another question, “where exactly are you inviting us again?”

“so, like, you know i dance right?” he drops his gaze for the briefest moment before coming back up to lock it with yours, “it’s very lowkey - just something i do for fun, but we kind of have a dance off with other teams every month and this month’s round is this friday night so i was wondering if you wanna come?” then he quickly adds, “with jennie, of course.”

to be frank your weekends are as boring and dull as it gets - the party-busted incident was a rare exception - but you and jennie are quite content with it. you start having more to do and places to venture out to when taehyung and subsequently jimin join your group of two and made it a group of four but for the most part, if you’re not going anywhere, your weekend is usually spent with watching movies and burying yourself in work for the rest of it.

“bet,” your reply might have come a tad bit delayed judging from how his brows rise to the ceiling and his eyes go round as he chirps, “really?” 

“yeah, just text me or jennie the location the day before,” you request as you both walk down the hallway.

“great- yeah, i’ll... i’ll text you the place,” jimin beams even as he bumps into someone behind him, turning around to lower his head and mumble out an oh sorry before turning back to you, “i got another class but i’ll text you- on thursday - not today, of course.”

and you wave back, shouting out an ‘okay bye!’

then he’s gone like the wind.

x

the days pass by like a breeze.

kim taehyung caught you in the middle of waiting for jennie’s class to end whilst also finishing up some work in the library. he knew your favorite spot and he knew where you’d usually be - but you had an inkling that you weren’t exactly the reason why he memorized these little things. he waved at you in greeting and you waved back. you would’ve pretended he didn’t exist after that and go back to your laptop if he didn’t hold up his phone screen with blank white space and blue and grey bubbles on the side.

so of course you picked up your phone, noticing that there were already three wiggling dots when you tapped on his name.

kth: hey

you met his gaze once, as if to affirm that he meant to send it. when he shota half, almost pleading smile, you typed out a reply.

you: hey what’s good

kth: nothing

kth: just waiting for a friend

seeing as there was not really a conversation going on where jennie wasn’t involved and how the boy’s blatant dismissal in addressing the big, giant elephant in the room, taehyung must’ve had seen the way your lips pursed into an irritated pout before his phone vibrated.

you: cool

and then you were back to your laptop, typing sentences out and backspacing because of its incoherent nature, or lack of quality or whatever reason that stopped you from doing your job before kim taehyung’s arrival.

then he started whispering “hey, uh, ____,” from across the table. upper body leaned to the front as if it’d help enunciate his words.

you took your sweet time taking out your airpods from each individual ear and placing them down next to your mac before finally arching a brow at the boy, “what?”

“hey,” he repeated, this time with a frozen mid-wave, “hi, how you doing?”

“great thanks,” there was a minimal effort on your part to disguise your ‘what even?’ expression on your face as you picked up your right airpod first - only to be stopped by the boy’s-

“i’m sorry.”

it’s clean and short but his face made up for conveying his genuinity.

“why are you saying sorry?” it didn’t mean you were going to let him off the hook easy.

“well, because...” he trailed off for the briefest moment but the unconcealable bop of his adam’s apple isn’t really helping him appear any more convincing, “i was being pushy...” he looked to you for an indication of him being on the right track to which you were not sure if he did get any but he still went on with his wits and his will - it took you everything not to gush over how cute he looks with his panic-blinking and pretty lips moving as if to say something but no words coming out, “...and i was generally being an annoying little shit.”

“and?” you pressed on, blinking once as if to paint a look of unbotheredness.

“...and...” he echoes, eyes darting from your phone to somewhere behind you and then something next to it but only silence fills the space between you and him.

“alright, i’m gonna be real with you,” leaning back, you cross your arms over your chest, “i know you talk to me when you need something and i don’t really care - well i do, but i just bottle it up until it one day burst out, you know what i’m saying? so yea, if you’re wondering if that night was me blowing up on you, it kinda was and it wasn’t because you were making small talks with me just to  poke into my best friend’s business - well, it kinda is but like not in that way, you follow? what i mean is.. don’t let me catch you sneaking behind jennie’s back asking personal shits about her that you don’t think she’s going to disclose even if you straight up ask her - that’s sus, taehyung.”

by the end of it, he was staring at you like you had two horns and a tail swaying around behind you. but you concur, that may or may have not been your inner self coming to light - just a hypocrite criticizing someone for doing the things she would have done, if she wasn’t already doing it, if she was in his shoes.

and to be quite frank, taehyung’s shoe size is probably a few inches bigger than yours but if they had laces, you would’ve been able to put them on and tied them up to accommodate your ego.

so taehyung didn’t - couldn’t say anything in response to your second time going off into a tangent and because of what he did, at that. he stopped texting you altogether and only talked to jennie whenever you weren’t around and left before you got to them if he saw you coming his way - jennie’s actually. 

either way, jennie wasn’t as elated as you thought she’d be once you told her that you called taehyung out on his bullshit.

“um, i’ve always wanted to tell him about me and namjoon so he’d give up - you were the one who didn’t let me,” she might or might not have said something along the lines of you making her “lead him on all because you wanted to an eye candy to look at every day.”

“what do you mean?” your forehead was creasing a thousand folds.

“not that i’m pointing fingers,” she went on, eyes glued to the pairs of indoor shoes in the corner of the room and anywhere but your eyes, “but i’m like, cool with or without him around but you sort of said ‘okay, then it’s cool if he comes with us right?’ and you were making puppy eyes and i couldn’t no to that-”

and so you were laughing dryly, “aha- wha- what so it’s my fault that he’s being a total wuss and won’t square up?”

“i didn’t say that,” jennie’s reply came a heartbeat later which meant yes, it was.

so now you’re not talking to your best friend and neither are you talking to the boy who’s crushing on her. which leaves you a lot of free time to finish up your work in time to hop into a bullet train and then an uber and get to the building where jimin’s dance off is held. 

you’re in the middle of texting the boy a ‘sorry, might b late. i didn’t know there’d be a line 😭’ when a figure comes up to you from the corner of your eye.

fitted in black jeans and matching tucked in t that shows off his slender waist and beanie, the only thing that isn’t black is probably his white-yellow timberlands, “so you weren’t kidding when you said you were gonna leave me on read.”

“you know, it’s so cute that you think you’re worth the reply at all,” you blink, eyes going wide and jaw hanging loose from shock, “this... this... confidence - where do you get it? seriously, tell me because i have never seen someone with such immaculate self-absorbance.”

jeongguk’s head moves as he nods in admittance, hands buried in his pocket before he looks up at you. that familiar glint in his eyes is telling you that whatever he has up his sleeve, you’re not going to be able to refuse.

“you know, eugene over there and i are homies,” he nods towards the burly tall man at the front who’s mainly the reason there’s a line in the first place - one that no one seems to dare cut, “i could get you in faster.”

“oh my god, look what that self-absorbance’s got you believing,” you put one, sympathetic hand on his shoulder as your free hand goes to cover the spot on your chest where your heart is, “i’m so happy for you,” you glance over to the not-declining-anytime-soon line behind you, “but sometimes, even confidence can’t get you into invites-only events.”

 to any other person, it must’ve looked like you and jeongguk are friends - friendly acquaintances hitting best buddies at the very least. but something in the way his grin curling sweetly on his lips and the curve of the half ringlet of his hair touching the corners of his onyx eyes, makes your toes curl inwardly and your stomach churn with a sort of emotion you can’t pinpoint.

and because of that, you know there won’t be any sort of friendship forming between you and jeongguk.

he leaves you with an amused smirk and a “see you inside,” and marches up to eugene, the two sharing an uncomplicated handshake before the man steps to the side and lets him in.

well. 

it takes you another ten minutes of standing in line and assuring jimin that he doesn’t need to rush out and risk having his team go without him when their turn comes. which according to jimin, ‘isn’t anytime soon - they let the bigger teams go first’.

but then jimin knowing jimin, that probably meant soon enough.

when you’re finally on the front of the line, crumpled up ticket in hand, eugene gives you a once over and nods at his not-as-burly-but-just-as-scary-looking friend.

“follow me,” and with that, she struts in through the door but instead of going down the hallway like the ones before you did before they disappear from eyesight in the corner, she takes a sharp turn to the right until she stops in front of an elevator.

her deep violet hair brushes against her cheekbones as she nods at the empty box with mirrors all around.

yeesh, guess everyone expresses themselves with their bodies here.

the numbers constantly change from ground level to 1 to 2 and finally stops at the 3rd floor where the blare of the music seems to come from. and that’s when you see the black haired boy who has his forearms leaned against the railing as he grins at something on the bottom floor where the shouts and cheers seem to erupt from. but before you can make a sharp 180 to go back down where jimin said you’d only need to follow the hallway and take the turn around the corner like the people before you did, jeongguk looks up as if sensing the heat of your gaze drilling holes inside his head. with one hand raised, he beckons you over.

“your majesty,” you drop into a bow once you reach him, “this humble servant thanks you for bringing her here but,” pointing your thumb over your shoulder at the hallway you just came from you continue, “i think i’m on the wrong floor because all i can see here is flocks of hair - an oh, shiny scalp from that guy - arms flailing around. takes away the magic of dance, you feel?”

“so you’re here for jimin.” it doesn’t sound like a question - so it must not be. a ponderous hum vibrate from his chest as you shoot him an arched brow whilst your insides burst like fireworks at the way his darkened eyes traces down your body and back up after he’s done with what seems to be a scout’s assessment.

“no leather pants and no best friend or heartbreak boy hovering around like a lost puppy - let me guess, he did something that made you mad, the best friend backed him up and now you’re mad at both of them?” he raises his own brow, lips curling into an assured smirk, “oh and jimin here’s probably taking a neutral stance because it ‘doesn’t concern’ him.”

you don’t know if you want to run away or grab the neck of his shirt and smack your lips on his.

so you settle with handguns pointed in his face, “alright, catch you never.”

but before you can even take a step to where you came from, jeongguk’s laying out his card on the table, “you sure bout that? it’s bulleproof boys’ turn - it’s jimin’s teams name, in case you’re wondering and judging by who they’re going against, it might be their first and last performance for the night.”

“i knew that,” respectfully, you had no idea that the teams have specific names besides the alphabetical letters given to them upon registration.

jimin’s only mentioned dance match once and that he’s in team c that’ll go against team d.

so you stick around, watching from all the way on the third floor where the lest people are gathered, cheering out names of teams that are alien to your ears which seem to be the team jimin is going against. but the fact that jimin could dance with such precision and grace is magnifying enough. he’s mostly posed on either sides of the formation, switching from the front left to the furthest back line on the right side as the beat drops.

jimin’s name pours out of your mouth in cheers but it’s swallowed by the other cheers before it can even reach him. in the end, jimin’s team loses. they still go up to their opponent and share handshakes and sidehugs before moving away from the dance floor.

he’s not smiling nor is he frowning as he stands in the crowd after the prelims but his lips curl and eyes disappear into crescents when he sees you.

“hey!” his arms open up into a hug, only to stop halfway in hesitation but by then you’re already wrapping yours around his neck with a “you were so cool!”

and just like that, the awkwardness in the air dissipates.

“i didn’t see you in the crowd.”

“so what? you thought i left?” a light smack lands on his arm, “by the way, you didn’t tell me it was this intense - i can feel the tension from all the way...” you pause for the briefest moment, “...in the audience.”

“everyone here just likes to dance so it gets competitive at some point but at the end of the day, it’s important to have fun,” he shrugs, a shy smile plastered to his face.

“either way you did great,” you bump his elbow with yours, and he shifts his weight to his left foot.

“we lost but it was a fair match the bts people were too good,” a mixture of regret and contentedness crosses his face as he nods to himself, as if admitting the difference in skills.

“let’s get a drink later, i’m buying,” you propose and jimin looks like a kid who just received his favorite candy.

well, that was the plan for the rest of the night up until the winner was announced. then a boy no older than you and jimin came up to the latter, arms slung over his shoulders, “dude, beyond the scene just asked if we wanna join them at the afterparty. can you believe it?”

“dude, you capping - don’t fucking joke with men man, i was about to shit my pants-” jimin attempts to shove the guy away half-heartedly which does nothing as his friend - teammate, cuts him off.

“i’m not fucking joking, man, behind the scenes literally asked if we wanna chill with them!”

the two boys are basically shoving each other back and forth before they start slapping each other on the face once to wake the other up. whoever this behind the scenes guys, they seem like a pretty big deal if two grown adults are fanboying this hard about them.

only after they’re sporting the faintest shade of pink on their right cheeks, do they finally realize that they weren’t squeal-whispering by themselves. he introduces himself as kai - “jimin’s best friend and mentor.”

“he likes to say that because i got into dance because of him,” jimin adds, debunking the mentor myth.

you’re about to wave the two goodbye and call it a night since it’s pretty clear that the behind the scenes guys only invited them and not their friends.

“come with us,” kai announces as the three of you walk down the back entrance where it’s less crowded and meant for the participants to use, “baekhyun can’t make it so we’ll still be five people.”

“i really should go- it’s getting late and my place is in seoul-”

and so begin your war of apologies and ‘no, you’s.

“oh shit, i forgot.” jimin’s usually almond-shaped eyes turn round and wide, “you used the subway-”

“yeah, but i can still catch the last train home-” you try to assure.

“i’ll accompany you back-”

“no, no - you should go with them-”

“no, i made you come to watch-”

and it would have gone on until morning if you and jimin were left to argue on who should do what if kai didn’t clap his hands together and put an end to the long debate, “okay, okay, break it up.”

he looks between the blonde haired best friend and then to you, “jimin came with me so i’m gonna drive him back anyway and i could drop you off too after chilling with bts - it’s nothing you’re not used to, beers and games and shits, you know? plus it’ll be like, less than 20 people there - bts never invites other groups into their circle - who knows, maybe you’ll find your true way like jimin did,” he pats the aforementioned man on his shoulder whilst jimin rolls his eyes at the way best friends who’ve heard their best friend boast about an-untruth for the umpteenth time.

and because you basically made another friend and that means you’ll have at least 2 people to hang out with if the rest turns out not to be your kind of people - so you cave in, “okay, sure, why not?”

x

'why not’s are subjective - or so you’d like to think.

like when you’re not particularly into americano and prefer latte but wouldn’t say no to having the first if jennie mixed up your order and bought you your not-so-favored but also not-so-hated drink.

but jennie’s known you since she shoved you off the swings at five after you outran her only to get to the swings faster because only one was vacant and the other kid was already in the other one.

so she’d know your preferred drinks.

but in the event she suddenly has amnesia or anything and got you and americano, that’s when you’ll go, “why not?”

but that and finding out that jeongguk used to be part of bts until he hurt his during practice, having to have 2 major surgeries because of it, rendering him no longer able to dance so he’s only going to the dance offs to cheer for his friends which was how he met you at the entrance and now you’re handcuffed together (and yes, again) in the middle of the forest - are two disparate things altogether.

hoseok, the most outgoing and friendliest of the bunch, suggested for the ice breaking to be in a form of 2 beer bottles and a sort of rope or chain tying people from bts and the bulletproof people together to talk for five minutes. they only have 2 pairs of cuffs so the others that lack them have to make do with bandanas and you think a seokjin got harassed into taking off his shirt and using it as him and his designated partner’s pseudo handcuff.

yours and jeongguk’s are - you’re not sure if it’s a fortunate or unfortunate thing - real ones (you’re not sure if you want to know why and how seulgi easily pulls out a pair of fluffy pink handcuffs and a normal-looking one - out of the blue).

but you’re almost sure that you’re leaning on the side of the internal argument of this - this, right here - is why not.

“why didn’t you text me back?” jeongguk is in the middle of asking as you take a big chug of the alcoholic beverage.

"oh my god,” you let a pleased smile tug at your lips as you feel the buzz of the alcohol coursing through your system, “i was just gonna talk to you about that - jennie said i was being a ghosting b because you only said facts and i got like, offended without a reason but i agree that people can be wrong sometimes and that was her time... i just...” you shrug, “i just didn’t want to text you back so i didn’t,” you look at him with a new found familiarity, “anyways, how was your week?”

by the end of it, jeongguk’s nodding and poorly suppressing his smirk.

“well, let me start first,” you begin before he can even say anything, listing down the happenings in a chronological order which may or may have not confirmed his initial assumption on why you’re here alone “...i mean, was it my fault though? between you and me, i think jennie and i need to sit down and actually talk about accountabilities first, you know? but anyway, that’s how my week went! how about you, how was your week?”

to say that your turmoil of a week is anything close to a laugh-worthy joke, would be a lie but for some reason, trickles of laughter are escaping jeongguk’s lips and into the night air as he leans back, holding his stomach. he would’ve hit the ground if you’d poke him.

“wow,” you slowly nod, “that’s... that’s very... flattering that you think my somewhat a quarter life crisis is amusing,” a grin stretches across your face but your eyes drill holes into the boy’s skull, “maybe i should just quit uni altogether. that’d be... exciting, right? just... quit uni and live a life as a comedian because look at how much i’m cracking you up right now!”

and it goes on for another minute of jeongguk’s laughter filling the air as you threaten him to stop in the guise of encouragement besides the cracking of the branches as it gets swallowed up by the fire in the barrel not too far away from where everyone’s scattered.

“god,” when he’s finally reduced to chuckles and wiping invisible tears off the corner of his eyes, you’re about halfway done with your bottle.

“and he’s back,” you announce, “welcome back. can’t say i missed you though but glad that you’re back with us.”

but before jeongguk can get a word out about his own week which you’d asked, if only to be polite, hoseok is already summoning everyone to gather around the barrel as he raises a bottle in the air to - “new groupship and friends!”

or so you think he said.

you’re not too sure because you’re too busy demanding jeongguk to - “uncuff me right now, jeon - was that too pushy? let me try again,” you pause, clearing your throat, “can you please, please, please, uncuff me so i can go back to my friends and not have to stay here a minute longer?”

“don’t act like you don’t enjoy my company,” he offers you one of his self-assured smirks before addressing your concern, “i’m trying,” he says simply, free hand patting around the pocket on the side of his jeans before groping his own ass.

“um, maybe try harder?” you suggest, smiling sweetly but it downturns into a frown not even a minute later when he declares, “i can’t find it.”

“you... can’t find it?” you echo his words.

“it’s not on me,” he states.

“well, did seulgi give it to you at all or...” you trail off only to be met by a devious smirk which doesn’t exactly help his case.

“guess you’re stuck with me,” he shrugs ever so easily.

“oh, hell nah,” and that’s when you latch onto to smirking boy’s body - on your hands at least, and since his left hand and your right hand are cuffed together, it doesn’t allow much room for your physical inspection which is how using your only free hand to get to the side of his pocket that’s farthest from you - may appear suspicious to others.

you only notice that you’re fully facing jeongguk and having your back turned to everyone else when hoseok’s voice cuts through the air, “yo hold up, hold up, hold up - this is bonfire and chill, not netflix and chill.”

your jaws hurt from hanging a bit too low as you meet each and everyone’s eyes, their giggling and laughing already telling enough of what the majority thinks - everyone except jimin, that is.

but you’re a bit too preoccupied with trying to clear the supposed air of you and jeongguk getting it on in the middle of the forest with both your friends and his around, “aha,” you force out, “i know this,” free hand waving between the chain linking your wrists and the open air which isn’t helping your case because jeongguk’s poor attempt at subduing his smirk is well, poor, “might look sus to you but it isn’t - jeongguk lost the key and if someone could help us find it, it’d-”

“oh, don’t worry, i have a spare at home,” seulgi chirps up, hand waving her illuminated phone, “i’ll text my girlfriend to bring it here.”

well, that explains the fluffy cuffs.

“sick,” jeongguk nods over to the girl to which she holds up an ‘okay’ sign and a meaningful smile to him which shouldn’t be ominous but is.

so you fix him a stare when hoseok goes to say something along the line of ‘great’ and ‘lifesaver’ to seulgi.

which the boy only asks back with a “what?”

“i have something to say but i’m not gonna so i’m just gonna keep quiet but just know that i’m watching you,” but the warning doesn’t exactly bring out the intimidating aspect that you hoped for.

“watch all you want, i’m yours for tonight,” the velvety sound of his chuckles is awfully distracting because you don’t even notice the chain clinking until his fingers interlock yours before he brings them up in the air - as if to emphasize on the technicality of his titillating claim.

the night goes on with bottles of beers scattering over the ground, faint smoke dissipating into the air as the scent of something sweet and fruity wafts around whilst the juul gets passed around.

once in a while someone’s laugh echoes between the gaps of the trees and into the night, amidst the sound of woodland creatures. you’ve downed one and a half bottle of henny whilst jeongguk doesn’t seem to have gone past even half of his first bottle. but he’s chuckling and laughing at something someone said which, for the most part, is funny or warrant a jaw-dropping, pin-drop-silence kind of reaction just like now as seulgi confesses to-

“never have i ever slept with my mom’s boyfriend at 19.”

“and that’s on mommy issues,” you hold up a beer in a ‘cheers’ manner at her whilst she mimics your action before you both tilt your head up and take a chug out of your individual beers at the same time.

“what about you?” jeongguk asks and for a moment, you forget that there are people around because jeongguk’s eyes look like someone reached up the sky and handpicked two stars each for his irises and trap them in there like a class case.

but you’d like to believe it’s the alcohol doing its rightful work in your system because you’re back on the ground with an unrelenting itch on your ankle where it’s brushing against the blades of grass.

“yea, what’s your never-have-i-ever mommy issues edition?” kai speaks up.

“nah, it’s wack,” you wave a dismissive hand but end up agreeing to spill the beans when a bout of protest spreads across your ever so faithful audience.

“okay, okay, never have i ever fucked my biological mom’s husband who isn’t my dad,” you say which earns a bout of cheers and ‘that’s messed up’s before seokjin claps his hands together.

“never have i ever...” he pauses, grinning as an added suspense before he goes on, “fucked my brother’s boyfriend.”

the game doesn’t last for long when everyone collectively agree to take the atmosphere up a notch and play strip truth or dare. but before your turn came, seulgi announces her girlfriend’s arrival concurrently with her having to leave for the night because she’s her ride home. and because you and jeongguk are both of the same mind that you’re the ones that should be following after her to get yourselves uncuffed, you do just that. 

yeri is a sweetheart and matches seulgi’s playful yet reserved nature. they take the cuffs with them and seulgi waves you two goodbye with the same, meaningful smile directed to jeongguk - but if that’s not enough, the ‘good luck’ thumbs up is a screaming red button for you.

but before you can even call him out for his possible hand in convincing his dance friends to invite jimin’s and consequently you to the forest after the match - he beats you to it.

“you okay?” this time, his features are lacking the smirk.

“yea, why wouldn’t i be?” you say, hopping on the rail of the train track that’ll lead to the spot where the others are - so far, you’re doing a good job not falling to your demise.

“i don’t know,” the scraping sound of his soul kicking against the pebbly ground fills the air as he walks next to you, hands in his pocket, “you’ve been pretty quiet after that thing about your mom.”

“you think what i did was messed up?” you inquire, resisting the urge to steal a glance at him to see what kind of emotion he’s making - whether it’s contorted with disgust or whether his nose is crinkling at an attempt to appear unbothered or whether there really isn’t any judgments being passed and he’s just downcasting his eyes because he’s looking out for possible sharp objects protruding from the ground.

“everyone’s a little messed up,” his shoulderline shakes as he shrugs, “it’s the why behind it that counts.”

“nah,” your hair tickles your face as you shake your head in blatant refutation, “i didn’t have a reason.”

and just when you expect a disgusted scoff to erupt from jeongguk’s pink lips... it doesn’t.

“that works too.”

silence follows his words for the longest moment with you trying placing one foot in front of the other, pretending like teetering on that tightrope you’re stuck on with kim taehyung at the end of it, not even waiting for you but just happen to be there.

so you break the silence, “i finally found her last year - flew all the way to jeju  because my biological aunt saw my the post i put up on facebook in a last ditch attempt before i hire a private investigator like my dads suggested. she set us up to meet,” the picture of a woman who’s so similar yet dissimilar to you flashes at the back of your head, a biscoff cheesecake slice lying untouched on the table and someone screaming at the top of their lungs right in front of your ears, “my biological mom didn’t know anything about it, flipped out and told me to never bother her again so i looked up where her husband worked and slept with him and sent the video to her.”

jeongguk doesn’t say anything, only nodding in your periphery before a soothing kind of silence lapses between you.

“what’s your story?” you ask a moment later.

“hm?” he glances at you, the moonlight shining over that smirk that you’ve come to miss in the course of the five minutes it went missing, skin painted a creamy white.

“if you don’t wanna tell, that’s fine too but like, you basically tore down my walls and i’m naked as hell - figuratively -” you add as soon as his eyes light up, “right now.” 

but then he tries to bargain, “promise you’ll text me back and i’ll tell.”

and you try to teeter in the grey area between words and its meanings, “alright, promise... i won’t leave you on read.”

“nah, you gotta promise to text back,” his half curls sway as he shakes his head - your end of the bargain not sufficiently satisfying.

it’s a few moments after your surrendering, “you know what? keep your skeletons in your closet - i’m good,” that he finally says something.

“i used to do tracks, lucked out with a sports scholarship but by freshman year in college, realized i didn’t even like tracks and dropped out...”

jeongguk’s parents weren’t happy about it - didn’t exactly welcome him when he came back with a suitcase and a letter from his unversity claiming the outstanding balance of his first two semesters. but he wasn’t happy at home either. 

so he packed his bags one more time and took the first train to seoul where he worked part time at a restaurant and occasionally at the dance off’s, before he found the beyond the scene people and subsequently found dance. that was amidst of a developer of the game he was playing approaching him through the game’s chat server and offering him a job to test out their games with the condition that he gets a degree in computer science which they paid for on the company’s scholarship fund.

and so it was obvious that jeon jeongguk, wherever he chooses to go and stop at, blooms like a wildflower that strives in any condition thrown in his face whether it be a storm, a hurricane or a sunny weather that barely allows any rain to cover the soil he’s rooted in.

and because he’s true to himself, it isn’t as unbelievable, when almost everyone - from every layer of backgrounds, flock around him like honeybees in spring - allured, magnified and bewitched by jeon jeongguk that makes him... well, him.

to say you understand him a little bit better may be an overstatement but maybe you’re less suspicious of his keen intuition and uncanny prognosis of what happened in your relationships, both with your friend and your not-so-friendly crush.

jeongguk jests that his leg “doesn’t work like it used to but-” - he’s been to places. seen people.

“so why are you obsessed with me?” you question into the night in a light hearted joke, “i mean, i can possibly see why because well, i’m... me and i’m amazing but you know, it’s not healthy to be this obsessed with people.”

his chuckles sounds like wind chimes on a spring day, "besides the fact that i was too busy being a tracks nerd for most of my life so i have zero flirting skills and decided to make all the calls that seem to irritate the one person i want to get to know? it’s because you looked like you were head over heels with the guy you were putting in place but still managed to not make it personal.”

it takes a moment for you to digest what he just said, and even then, you’re nodding in complete disagreement as you blurt out, “pretty sure some parts were personal,” and you turn to him with a smile stretched over your face, “but glad that you don’t think i’m the impostor.”

so you stop twenty steps away from where you can see the fire in the barrel and hoshi, one of the guys from bulletproof boys, standing in boxers and shouting an oath before gulping down a bottle of henny at an alarming rate.

“everyone’s a little sus now and then,” he refutes, nose crinkling as a grin spread across his moon-kissed features as he offers you his hand and you take it, hopping off your tightrope journey and onto grounding earth.

x

when morning comes, you wake up to the familiar but not-very-welcomed sound of cars honking from outside your window and the light piercing through your eyelids, so much so, you surrender to the start of the day. arms stretched over your head and a guttural sound vibrating within your chest as a sign of protest before your vision finally gets used to the bright sunny rays.

and that’s when you freeze. arms stretched and all.

“after all this, you can’t say no to a date with me,” jeon jeongguk is lying right next to you, in your one-person bed which you could never imagine would fit more than your need-for-maximum-space self when you sleep but there he is, in yesterday’s clothes, hugging your light pink alpaca plushie on his stomach whilst his elbow which you don’t notice before is poking into your rib.

the events of last night untangle in a web of hazed memory coming to high definition as each passing second pass by.

you and jimin live on the opposite ends of the city which made you reluctant in having kai drive you back at all, so jeongguk offered to split the uber bills with you because apparently, “oh, hey, we live in the same area!”

which later turned out you didn’t and it would’ve made more sense for him to hitch a ride with kai and jimin. but you didn’t even need to ask why he did what he did.

because by the time you and jeongguk returned, it’d been a set-in-stones assumption that you were off making out somewhere under a tree and everyone cheered you and him for it upon your return.

well, except jimin.

so you pulled jeongguk to the side once the attention was directed to hoseok whose dare was to lick the grass he was stepping on.

“is that thing about jimin liking me true because he’s been like, avoiding my eyes the whole night and now he’s acting like i don’t exist and i’m pretty concerned because his friend is my ride home,” you whispered underneath your beath.

jeongguk threw one, confirming glance at the aforementioned man before nodding casually, “he’s jealous as fuck because he thinks we did the do - cross my heart and hope to die.”

so you ended up offering jeongguk to sleep in your bed because it was already late and it felt like a waste to spend another thirty bucks to go back to a place where nobody was waiting for him anyway.

you were so beat, you’d fallen asleep as soon as jeongguk pulled your protesting self off the futon-splayed floor and held you captive in your own bed.

“you know what? i might as well,” you say, legs thrown off the bed and stretching some more before looking down at the smiling, plushie-holding, grown ass person in your bed, “now we need to figure out how to sneak you out because this is a girls-only dorm and if they found out i have a guy over, i might get expelled.”

but before you can even start brainstorming the best possible route for jeongguk to sneak out without being detected, an obnoxious rapping reverberates against your door. the look of pure horror settling in as jeongguk’s smile melts into a wide-eyed, panicked face would have been adorable if you’re not in the middle of shoving him into your “quick, in the closest!” which he needs to hunch his shoulders to become as small as possible before you can close it whilst you yelp out a “just a minute!”

by the time you manage to school a smile on your face, jennie’s is already sprinkled with a dust of red as her brows come together, judging your choice of outfit and the events that went down last night.

“hey, girl,” you drag out the first word in idle panic, body leaning against the doorframe a little too defensively, “what’s...” you can’t even find the right words as you tap your fingers against the doorframe before finally saying, “what’s good?”

but one questioning look from her and you’re stepping out of the way, left to stand at attention like a cadet in the presence of the general whilst said general struts into your room and scans it once before turning to you.

“’what’s good?’” jennie echoes and you know from the way her head does the slightest of movements according to her enunciation, “imagine seeing your best friend on some mutual friend’s snapchat story which mind you, said mutual friend isn’t anywhere close to either of you and the time in the snap says a big whooping 4:03 am while you’re here feeling bad for hurting her feelings with your words words. but does she feel bad? well, it doesn’t flipping look like she even gave any thoughts about you, did it?”

and that’s when the closet decides that it’s had enough of storing a full grown human in its belly and slowly, but surely swings the door open with thunderous creak in the midst of the calm before the storm. and lo and behold, a jeon jeongguk, still hugging your alpaca tightly, keeping his eyes closed as if it’ll make him invisible before he gradually screws one eye open to the sight of a raging but confused  jennie kim and a mortified you turning to said girl.

so much for keeping skeletons in closets.

“i-i can explain.”

x

it turns out all it takes for jennie’s anger to subside is for her to find a boy in your room. namely the boy she’s been blatantly shipping you with even though you barely knew each other then.

“i have a wig in my room,” she suggests after you’ve exhausted all options - jeongguk can’t climb through the window and jump down from the second floor.

“well, he can but there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to leave without one of his limbs intact,” you’d added, shrugging.

he’s sitting crossed leg on your bed, alpaca in his lap and looking cute as hell as his eyes go round at the mention of a wig and five minutes prior, crossdressing.  the plan is for you and jennie will walk him out once he’s all dresed up like you’re just three - well, one is kind of buffed up but still pretty - best friends who had a girls’ night and crashed in your room.

he whistles lowly, head lulling to the side as he stares at the door before turning to you with a playful smile, “i’ve always wanted to wear a skirt.”

and so it goes, jennie kim’s squealing and making a short trip to her room and returning with a bag full of wig, stretchable sweaters and lycra skirts whilst she scours through your closet for clothes that you have but don’t even remember. the oversized sweater that’s a few more inches too big for you wraps around his body tightly and the skirt is a tad bit too short for him, going down to a few inches above the knee. but the head turner is the way the curly brown wig gracefully frames his face and softens his jawline, giving an illusion of how his half-ringlet would have looked if he grew them out.

you apply the soft pink lipgloss on his already rosy lips as a joke in a guise of a final touch, heart skipping as his lips curl whilst he gazes at you the whole time you’re putting on the glimmering liquid.

“okay, i feel bad,” you confess, shoulder line falling, “i thought you’d hate the lipgloss and i was going say it’s important to make the look work if you said no but you’re not saying no and you’re looking at me like you’d trust me with your life...” a sigh rolls off your lips at the end of it.

“you feel bad?” he echoes, glossed lips looking kissable as hell - it doesn’t even matter that he’s smirking like it was part of his plan all along to manipulate your conscience into confessing your ulterior motive.

so you nod.

“good,” he states simply.

“you saying good like you’re satisfied that you managed to pick on my guilty conscience is making me feel less guilty,” you narrow your eyes, not even bothering to hide the smile creeping on your lips.

“oh my god, my ship is sailing!” jennie’s whispered squeal cuts through the air before she reverts to her deadpanned self, “okay but seriously, if you’re done sprinkling sugar cubes all over the place, i think we should get jeongguk out before miss snitchery sonyeon next door sniffs the man in jeongguk and snitch on us.”

sonyeon has been known for reporting 2 boy-sneaking activities that went on last year which would have been justified if the girls that brought the boys into their room was doing questionable things and loudly at that but the first incident was with a late enrolled newbie that just moved in and didn’t know that boys weren’t allowed inside and though the other girl did sneak her boyfriend in, it was only because he was bleeding profusely and needed first aid treatment which she stored in her room.

you’re just about a few feet away from the double doors when a familiar but disembodied voice drums in your ears.

“you three, stop right there.”

you think your heart stops working for the briefest moment as time freezes and you’re craning your head to look at jennie whose fear-stricken face mimics yours and then jeongguk whom you don’t expect to wear such ceases in his forehead.

so you do the one thing that you think of-

“run.” you whisper.

all of a sudden, the wind is in your face and a few heads turn your way - but you doubt that it has more to do with how unfairly gorgeous jeongguk looks than the fact that the ra is on your tail, her pitched demands for ‘someone stop them!’ whilst. you’re not sure if someone did try to chase after you or if the adrenaline pumping in your system is what helps you sprint faster than a cheetah but when you finally slow down, almost skidding to a stop on the grass somewhere on campus grounds instead of the dormitory area - it’s because jennie is dramatically breathing through her mouth and found herself a bench to put on an act of dying whale.

“you guys... go on... leave me be...” she croaks out in between breaths, hand reaching out to the air.

“dude, tell me if you’re gonna stop so we can stop and get caught together,” you guff, plopping down, your state no better than jennie’s while jeongguk shakes his head at the two of you.

not even a beat of sweat or heaved breathing coming from him - not to mention that-

“how are you the fastest-” you suck in a much needed breath, “-when your leg doesn’t work as good anymore?”

“yea, didn’t say i can’t run,” he grins.

“jen, let’s go,” you say, tapping the dying whale on her shoulder as she starts wailing words of saddened goodbyes.

“forsake me! save yourselves!” she wheezes, staring into nothingness before waving a dismissive hand, “no for real, i don’t think they’re gonna chase us all the way here. you guys go, i have a date anyway, i’ll text kim,” it’s the name you coined for namjoon whenever you talk about him in public, “to pick me up here.”

a year ago, you would have called her a brave fool for having her boyfriend slash professor that’s teaching at the same university - pick her up in plain sight. but once you saw the unfamiliar ferrari roll to a stop in front of the dorms with tinted black windows, you understand why they can be as free and uncaring as they are.

“you sure? what if they saw you here?” you question, needles of doubt still deeply pierced into your racing heart.

but when she looks at you with arched brows and a familiar couldn’t-care-less attitude, you know nothing you say can change her mind which helps ease the knots in your stomach by a lot.

so you cave in, waving her goodbye - but not before the scarring ‘we still need to talk though’ reminder - and going back to the tall, brown haired person who’s holding his left hand midair and wiggling his fingers about in what you think is a parodic depiction of how girls wave at each other while mouthing a nasally, higher-pitched “thank you so much for helping us.” 

one minute into the walk, you stop in front of the cafe you’re used to having lunch at with your group of 4 - if there’s even any group left after this, “so this kim guy - he’s way older isn’t he?” 

“if you’re all knowing, you wouldn’t end that sentence with a question,” you assert, “so i’m not gonna say anything.”

“that’s a yes then,” he nods. 

“i think we lost them,” you say, a tad too late but pretend to look around anyway like you’re not 200% sure of that fact.

to any outsiders, you’ll probably look like two girls standing three feet apart from each other, looking out in a distance.

“nice,” jeongguk nods, joining in your scouting party before he squints his eyes at something in the most casual manner before suggesting, “so... you wanna go on a date?”

x

“you think we lost them?” you whisper under your breath, worry filling your chest as you throw your gaze over somewhere at the end of the alleyway where flashes of red and blue lights passed by.

but before the black cladded boy can say anything, his lips smack together as he and you both press yourselves flat to the wall as the sound of radio static bounces into the narrow space you’ve found yourselves in. six months after your first date, which involves a crossdressing jeongguk and a day at a park that had you returning to the dorm with a giant teddy bear and a strip of photo you took from the booth comprising the multiple personalities embodied in one person from sassy to stare-into-the camera-intimidating face to him looking down and shyly peeking through his pushed back curls - you’ve gone on multiple other dates.

none of which can be considered normal because you’ll always end up in a sticky situation like you are now.

on your second month, you found out that jeon jeongguk not only has a stable  income for literally playing games while trying to balance out his education but he also paints and draws.

on your third month, you go on your first mural-painting-in-the-middle-of-the-night-dressed-as-robbers date to which ended pretty well with the two of you getting hungry and having ramen at a 24 hour convenience store. so the mural painting becomes a monthly routine.

jimin finds out about it somewhere down the line and broke out into the most heartwarming smile while teasing you about how “the singles lost another one,” as he shook his head in dismay. but things went back to normal for the most parts. taehyung talks to you more now. he apologized for having only treated you like someone useful to him when he needed something and found that you have more in common than you think.

like how you’re decently informed about the greatest artists of all time - all because jeongguk was telling you about them whilst you chill at his place on days you don’t feel like going out but still want to spend time together. jeongguk, later found out that his supply of artistic information was what led to you and taehyung’s improving friendship and offers to become your spokesperson by having you invite taehyung to a cafe so he can pour his abundance of knowledge in the fine arts of painting - “since he’s so interested in van gogh, you know what i mean?”

he even finished it with a tilt of his head and an sassy ‘ugh.”

“i think we gotta run,” jeongguk’s declarations doesn’t have you arching your eyebrows and looking at him in an ‘are you for real?’ kind of manner.

it could be because you’re so used to running from law enforcement now.

or maybe because jeongguk showed you the world through his eyes. doesn’t mean it’s any less terrifying - the thought of being caught and shoved behind the bars whilst they included it in your records. but hey, at least, you’re no strangers to handcuffs.

“on one,” you say and he nods, hand squeezing yours as if saying i’ll never let them get you.

“three,” you begin, eyes fixed on the stars in jeongguk’s gaze, “two,” jeongguk breathes in deeply, “one.”

run.

x

note. i hope you guys enjoyed reading!! and if you want anything similar to this kind of style, i have one more college au. the second part of that one is my pinned post which also has a link to the first part. if you’re curious why i’m not gonna link or name it is because i’m convinced that tumblr literally makes anything that’s linked or mentioned it blocked for some reason idk.

but anyways, thank you for reading!!

[merryfortune]

Blue Water High Club

Written as a gift to @pinceauarcenciel as part of the @precuresecretexchange

Fandom: Tropical Rouge PreCure

Ship: Manatsu/Laura

Rating: T

Word Count: 5.2k

Tags: Alternate Universe - Blue Water High, Rivals to Lovers

Synopsis: Manatsu is one of the five teenage girls who has been selected to be apart of this year's Blue Water High Club cohort: a group of competitive surfers who are trying to make it to the elite circuit. However, one of the other girls, Laura, is unimpressed with Manatsu's 'bumpkin' style of surfing and feels threatened by the rival that she sees in Manatsu until finally, it all bubbles and boils over.

  Manatsu was buzzing with excitement as she hauled her backpack and her surfboard to the competing zone. Her parents were more naturally anxious beside her, flanking her at every point and making sure that she wasn’t hitting innocent bystanders with how she flaunted her surfboard affectionately named Summer.

  Manatsu donned her name tag and competition status on her skin-tight, leotard bathers – up to snuff with competition rules and had cost a pretty penny to afford but were absolutely worth it. She looked good in them and she looked like just the other hopefuls looking to get into the Blue Water High Club.

  The Blue Water High Club was the name given to a personalised set of surfing studies given to only a handful of teen girls per year. They were given a hostel by the beach and automatic entry into the closest high school. For one year, they would have the opportunity to eat, sleep, and breathe surfing. Every bit of their schedule would be tailored to them and getting them even better at their craft. Then, at the end of the school year, there would be a competition which was bigger than big which would either swim them into the professional circuit or cause them to sink. There was nothing more than Manatsu wanted than to be one of the five girls who would be the cohort of this year’s Blue Water High Club.

  Only thing was, this was Manatsu’ first tournament and she was proud as punch to be here. Her parents… not so much. To her, possibility was as boundless as the sea they were giving a wide girth to as there were so many people here: other competitors, their families, judges, the media. But to her parents, whilst Manatsu thought she could only go up like the sun, they were worried she was going to sink like a shipwreck. Not because they didn’t have faith in her abilities to surf but because they were worried that she was a big fish in a small pond. She might have dominated back on their island, but this was a gathering of all sorts of people, from all sorts of places.

  Nonetheless, with Manatsu all signed up, she was raring to go. Words were getting lost over the crackly speakers, competing with the sounds of people and the beach itself but it was apparent from the electric tension in the air: something was coming. Something was about to happen. And in a stroke of good luck, the announcements solidified. Manatsu’s heat was about to be up.

  Her mother smiled and held her face, with a feeble voice she said to her daughter, “Good luck.”

  “Go get ‘em, sweetie.” her father added as well.

  Manatsu beamed and her left hand rocketed up, “Will do!” she shouted.

  Her voice all but broke the barrier of general noise and ordinance. Some people stared, some people ignored her: either way, Manatsu was totally oblivious and so, she swung out. She had to go join the line with all the other hopefuls. She marched over like she was on a mission and hovered through the crowd of equally competitive and nervous girls until she finally found the person with the number before her.

  She was irritable looking. And utterly unimpressed with Manatsu. She flipped her pinky-purple ponytail off her shoulder and bore a generally cross-looking expression on her elegant features. Manatus was utterly oblivious.

  “Hi, my name is Manatsu, what’s yours?” she asked.

  “Its none of your business.” she retorted back.

  It seemed this girl had already made up her mind about Manatsu and that decision was that Manatsu was nothing but trouble. Nothing good at all. Either to socialise with or to compete with.

  “Well good luck.” Manatsu shrugged off such hostility with a smile.

  “You really shouldn’t bother Laura…” the girl on the other side of Manatsu whispered.

  Manatsu flinched. She hadn’t even noticed that another girl had joined the line-up. She was spooked by this sudden voice.

  “She’s really serious.” This other girl said.

  “And so am I.” Manatsu boasted and she stuck her tongue out at the other girl. Laura.

  “Ugh.” Laura growled.

  “Shush, all of you, we need to get ready.” the girl in really thick, prescription goggles on the other side of Laura added.

  She was right of course. Even if she was being a little bit pernickety. Laura huffed and sighed, folding her arms but mostly settled down. Same for Manatsu and the other girl, she stole another look at her and then there was more crackling over the speaker system.

  “Ladies, gentlemen, and esteemed guests, friends and family, we welcome you to the eighteenth annual Aozora City Blue Water High Club tournament.” the speaker said. “Middle school girls from first to third year are eligible to compete. There will be multiple heats and the best of the best from them will be chosen. Thus begins, the first mixed heat of four.”

  An air gun was shot, and all the girls rushed out to the water. It was like second nature to them. Feeling the wind in their hair and soon enough, the chill of the saltwater on their ankles. Their hands. Paddling out and taking turns scanning the horizon for waves and they were all truly beautiful.

  What a day for surfing it was. The air was just right. It stuck to the skin like a blanket, invigorating and alert but comfortable. These were all girls in their prime after all, in their element. The water was choppy and getting higher and higher. It was a shame that a couple of the girls had already ridden their wave and it didn’t feel like it had been all that long out there. They had all been briefed prior in the guidebooks and sign-up sheets that the heats only had so much time.

  Manatsu was awed as she found herself among the last of the girls to make their move. Her heart was pounding. These conditions were great but not as great as the ones back home. The waves were taller there. The wind was somehow windier. And it seemed that every couple of seconds the perfect break came along and right now, as Manatsu weighed up her options, there wasn’t even going to be something close to her ideal break.

  And as she looked around, she noticed that she wasn’t the only one who had pulled back perhaps too long. Laura. For some reason, Laura took Manatsu’s breath away right there and then. She could have choked on salt thinking that her rival competitor, and a snot-nosed inner-city type at that, was literally sitting pretty on her pearly, blue and pink board like that. But she was.

  Her eyes were sharp; her ears were pricked. And then something happened. Her determined demeanour shifted, and she paddled out. Manatsu watched as Laura caught a wave that was almost as gorgeous as she was – and about as perfect as this cityscape beach was going to provide for a competitor.

  She was all hard work, Manatsu noticed immediately. Studied and prim, nothing about her was out of place, not even a single curl of her hair as she rode that wave. Performing tricks that Manatsu would never have dreamed up by her own right. She was out on the water like she had been born beneath its waves, like a mermaid. Her routine stunned and, in that awe, Laura was shining like the shimmering, swaying ocean all around her and when she came ashore, her board skidding on the sand, she didn’t falter once, ending it with a dramatic bow.

  Laura wowed everyone and anyone with her performance. Even the speaker system was singing her praise. And making warnings unto Manatsu. She gulped and she looked around. With Laura ashore, she was the only one left and the waves her getting flatter and flatter by the second.

  But Manatsu had hope and there was this one gleam of foam that she was going to put the utmost hope. To be vivacious and full of energy. To earn her spot. It was as if she were willing nature to abide by her whims – and even weirder, it seemed to be working.

  A wave began to rise up and out. Getting bigger and bigger and bigger until Manatsu leapt to her feet. Suddenly she wasn’t just the only girl on the water, she was the only girl in the world. It was just her and the water and she was soaring. Flying. She carved the waves and pulled off moves she couldn’t name technically but she had technically named them after herself. They were all her discoveries, through trial and error, her own thought process. She was the ur-performer, the talent to the technician and when she washed up, she did it with a smile.

  Her parents were applauding her as hard as they could; more casually, a few others in the audience was doing the same. Even a couple girls – like the ones from before, not Laura though – were patting her on the back as well. With her finisher, the announcements began to trickle on over the announcements. The first heat had come to a glorious conclusion and there would be ten minutes until the next. Then, by the end of the day, the results would be privately shared with the girls and their parents. Once the results were given out, the tentative wait would occur next and soon this year cohort for the Blue Water High Club would be solidified.

  She could hardly watch the other sets but from what she had glimpsed, the only girl worth watching was the sixteen-year-old with long, red hair. She got more fanfare than the others.

  Once the other sets completed, Manatsu was on edge all afternoon. She was just buzzing with excitement that she couldn’t do anything else. Even a friendly girl like her, who had already made a couple of connections here, couldn’t go out and socialise. She was just staring down the judges’ tent with a cool drink in hand, waiting for her results to come in through text message to her parents.

  It was seven minutes past five o’clock exactly when that highly awaited moment came. Manatsu’s mother phone pinged and Manatsu could have tackled her but fortunately, her mum was quicker with her thumb, opening the text message in the nick of time. And she couldn’t believe it. Neither could Manatsu’s father but Manatsu could. She took her mother’s hand and lowered it so she could see the screen. Smile didn’t begin to be an apt word for the expression that Manatsu was making.

  She was grinning ear to ear. All for that mass copy and pasted text with a few changes. Miss Natsuumi Manatsu, congratulations, you scored incredibly well, tieing with only one other girl, and thus we welcome you to the Blue Water High Club. Follow the link for more information.

  Her parents couldn’t believe it. Manatsu’s pipe dream had become reality. A reality that dawned on her and her folks quicker than they could have imagined. First term was two weeks away and there was a lot to get in order. A new school uniform, entrance exams in nature of arthimatic and literature, and so much more. At least accommodation was paid for but everything else came so hard and fast they were all breathless as those two weeks slipped through their fingers.

  Before Manatsu knew it, she had arrived on the mainland again. Her father’s kiss still on her forehead as she marched up to the school and dormitory complex of the Blue Water High Club. It looked just as casually chic and pristine as it did on television, in the brochures, and on their official website. It was on a private beach front and had a pool as well, there were two-three storeys kind of melded with the hills that it was built on and ultra-modern by Manatsu’s standards.

  She couldn’t wait to meet the other girls and see her room. The latter was brand new to her. Alien and without a homey feeling, at least until she started to make it more comfortable to herself by piling her clothes into the provided storage and putting up her posters and macrame. The former, however, was quite familiar to her.

  She found the other girls in the common room, having already set up and arrived since apparently, they were local to Aozora City, unlike her, and Manatsu did know their faces. She remembered the purple-haired girl with fluffy, twin plaits and the girl with glasses from the competition. She was also willing to bet that the tall girl playing on her Nintendo Switch was the red-haired girl who had been the best in her heat according to the announcements.

  “Hi!” Manatsu exclaimed when she found them. “My name is Natsuumi Manatsu, its great to meet you all!”

  Her voice was way too loud for an indoor setting, but her enthusiasm was sparkling so for that noisy transgression, she was forgiven. At least for now.

  Cringing through a smile, the purple-haired girl put up her hand gingerly and introduced herself, “It’s good to meet you, Manatsu, my name is Suzumura Sango.” She said.

  “Takizawa Asuka.” the red-haired girl piped up and she pointed towards herself with her thumb.

  “I’m Ichinose Minori…” the girl with glasses mumbled, her eyes somewhat obscured by them but it was also, as though that she were looking away from Manatsu. “There’s still one other girl left for you to meet…”

  Manatsu almost didn’t quite catch that but she started to count. One for herself, two, three, four: oh! Minori was right. Someone was missing. Manatsu blinked. She wondered if that girl had simply not arrived yet, but the aura of the room was strange. Growing tenser and tenser by the minute but Manatsu was entirely oblivious, up until she decided that using all this brain power was making her thirsty.

  She spun on her heel and she came face to face with the fifth member of the Blue Water High Club cohort – and even in her lackadaisical, happy-go-lucky state, Manatsu recognised her instantly. Laura. The rude girl from before but even so, Manatsu cracked a huge smile and held out her hand.

  “Oh! Hey! I remember you,” she said, “I think we got off on the wrong foot, I’m-”

  “Natsuumi Manatsu. I heard. Everyone heard. I think the whole city likely heard.” Laura retorted.

  Manatsu laughed awkwardly and she scratched behind her head, “Ah, sorry, sorry, I’m just so excited to be here. It’s been my dream since forever and when I heard that I’d gotten in with top marks, well, I’m still surfing that high, haha.”

  Laura’s eyes widened and her arms slowly unfolded, as though confrontational. Manatsu blinked again.

  “You got in with top marks?” Laura asked.

  “A-yup.” Manatsu replied.

  Laura was completely off put by Manatsu’s answer. Her eye twitched and she stepped back. It was all written on her face: utter disbelief. Her lower lip trembled as this flabbergasted expression wrung her out.

  “I was told that only one other girl made it into the Blue Water High Club with unprecedented top marks, was – was that you?” Laura asked.

  “Huh, must’ve been.” Manatsu shrugged.

  The other girls were most certainly not owning up to their own scores. Either way, Asuka rose to her feet, sensing a conflict.

  “Let’s not get too hot and bothered about those scores,” she pointed out, “we’ve got plenty more to get. Both in the Club and in our schoolwork, let’s keep a clear head.”

  Laura glared but before anything more could be said on the matter, it seemed their teachers had arrived too. Couldn’t have a handful of competitive teenagers unsupervised for too long and so, the five of them were carolled up outside and put through orientation.

  They sat on the beach together, like it was a campfire and were put through the rules and expectations of the year which was about to be. Everything from their chores to their homework to, of course, the competitions which would make them standout from the rest of their peers at the Aozora City Middle School. It was the mere mention of competition that caused ears to prick and eyes to slit. These girls were primed and ready and to their mixed delight of apprehension and thirst, there was going to be a surfing competition sooner than they thought. Just at the end of the month: three weeks away. For it, they were willing to put in more than just tooth and nail at school and at training.

  And already they had their first competition on the calendar. It was a mere four weeks away but until then they had plenty of other things to keep afloat in such as school and training. Both were going full straight ahead with no letting up on either side: everything they did, they had to push themselves to. It felt like they were crammed from every side as they were told to rebuild their surfing from the ground up at training and then slammed with assessments at school but there was one another problem too.

  Trouble was brewing amid the girls. They hardly knew each other and already there was drama. Specifically, between Laura and Manatsu, of course, who else?

  It was like a war zone in the off moments. The rare moments they had in between all the chores, assessments, and workouts that they had to do in and around the dorm. When it was during the on moments, like the aforementioned examples, it was stellar. Their competitiveness was bringing the best out of them but when it wasn’t, it was making the other girls’ lives – and even their own – a living hell.

  Week one had been mundane. Little spits and spats here and there. They mostly stayed out of each other’s hairs as Laura was so entirely offended that a country bumpkin like Manatsu could even dare to reach glory that a technician surfer, taught professionally from a young age, all but hailed a child prodigy, could achieve even a slither of what Laura had. Manatsu, however, was mostly oblivious to the fireworks, trying to be cheerful as possible and doing her best to at befriend the other girls so they knew, when they were eventually caught in the crossfire, that it wasn’t entirely her fault.

  Week two had escalated. Staying out of each other’s way hadn’t mostly worked. They lived together, after all, went to the same classes and everything else about what made the Blue Water High Club cohort so impossibly close by the end of it. Here, even their teachers – in and outside of the Club – had begun to take notice. Just not to the full scope of it and were under the impression that the rivalry was for the best. After all, their results were truly scraping against each other – and the other three girls, not wanting to be left in the dust already in what was still very much the beginning were keeping pace too. But that had its backfiring effects as well.

  And by week three, it had become entirely unbearable. Everyone was tired and irritable. There was rarely, if ever, a moment of peace and quiet. The dorms were usually so, so, so loud with arguments and bets and trying to get the two firecrackers to sizzle down but not even all the water in the ocean was capable of that. It was wearing on everyone. Minori could hardly study, Sango could hardly sleep, and Asuka could hardly hear herself think. None of them had even the remotest idea on how Laura and Manatsu was fairing and they were the centre of all this.

  It wasn’t for lack of trying or mediating. There had been many, many compromises and shouting match to just be young adults and put everything aside but trying to change those tides was meaningless. There had been many different approaches; some sly and some fortright. All was to little result. Manatsu had tried. Asuka had tried. Sango had tried. Minori had tried. The only person who hadn’t really tried was Laura. Until now, that is. The day before their first competition and everyone was ram-shackled on every possible level of their wellbeing.

  Laura strolled up to Manatsu at noon sharp. She had bags under her eyes and tucked her arms in front of her, a slight pout to her lips as she loomed over Manatsu. Manatsu slowly looked up at her, equally tried seeming if more dishevelled looking, her hair was lifeless, and her eyes were drooping. The way she was spooning her lunch – leftover curry from the night before in her mouth – could be likened to that of an elderly woman’s technique in that it was very slow and very wobbly.

  “Ah-hem,” Laura began, “I want to call a truce.”

  Just those few words completely revitalised Manatsu. Her jaw went slack but her shoulders went taut. She slammed her hands on the table, “Really?” she exclaimed

  Laura huffed, “On a condition or two.” she said.

 “Okay, cool, what is it?” Manatsu asked, her words were rapid fire.

  “You. Me. At dusk. Let’s have ourselves a friendly little surf. I want to see your skills up close and personal again before the big meet tomorrow.” Laura said.

  Manatsu’s face split into a huge grin, “Your on.”

  “excellent.” Laura sounded pleased with herself, smiling a small smile, before frowning again. She glanced towards the living room, “And girls,” she said, pointedly addressing Minori, Sango, and Asuka who were eavesdropping with great relief from their various spots of lounge and study in the living room, “this will be a private affair.”

  “So long as this isn’t a ruse to drown Manatsu before tomorrow, have all the privacy you need.” Asuka retorted.

  “Seconded.” Minori piped up.

  “You have four hours to prepare, Manatsu.” Laura said, moving on just to warn Manatsu.

  “Got it.” Manatsu chirped.

  “Excellent. I’ll meet you on the beach then.” Laura told her.

  “Sounds good.” Manatsu replied.

  Laura nodded, not having much more to say and so, she sashayed off, presumably to do her own preparation for this finally healthy iteration of her and Manatsu’s friction. It was almost too good to believe.

  Asuka, Minori, and Sango ventured out of the living room and with bright eyes, Minori asked, “So? Are you going to drown her?” she asked and then adjusted her glasses, having a literal flash of inspiration. “Or do you have any contingencies for if she tries to drown you?”

  “Minorin… that’s so morbid.” Sango whined.

  “Well, do you?” Asuka countered.

  “Well, um… no.” Manatsu said, and she beamed. “I don’t think Laura’s that kind of person. She might be really, really driven and self-absorbed, but I don’t think she’d resort to something so low as to incapacitate her rivals. So, I’m gonna win our little spar fair and square. The only way I know how.”

  “Oh, Manatsu…” Asuka murmured. “You are too cute for your own good, sometimes.”

  “Huh?” Manatsu blinked.

  “Well, um, good luck.” Sango added.

  “And you know where to find us if you need any help.” Minori replied.

  “Thanks.” Manatsu said. “Well, I’m gonna need a full belly if I’m gonna beat Laura tonight so if you don’t mind, I’m gonna re-heat my curry and track down some melon bread to have as well.”

  “Sounds good.” Asuka said with a thumbs up.

  Manatsu smiled and made good on exactly what she said she was going to do. She re-heated her curry and sussed out something sweet to have after it and then got to work. She hit the beach for a few laps, both swimming and running and got in tune the best she could. It looked flighty and playful, but it was very Manatsu and so, when the promised hour came, she felt as much as she could be at her peak on such short notice and off the back of many horrible nights of sleep.

  Laura met Manatsu on the beach, looking prim and stern just by the waves. Her hair looked darker in the dimming sunlight. Twilight was encroaching fast tonight and no doubt by the time they were down with their little showdown, it would be utter night they would be returning home to, presumably as victor and loser. Still, in those moments as Manatsu got closer to Laura, sand scrunching under her toes, she felt breathless. It sure was beautiful tonight.

  There was an anticipation on the air, roughing up the waters that glimmered beneath an orange sky. The clouds were fat and fluffy, drifting slowly through; the sun was sinking quickly in contrast, however. The black and gold waves lapped at their ankles as the two girls came to stand before one another, with their chins up and absolutely in tune with that environment of rivalry fuelled apprehension.

  “Glad you could make it.” Laura politely greeted Manatsu, her arm shifting slightly around her surfboard.

  Manatsu grinned and she patted down her own surfboard, Summer, “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Good.” Laura tutted. “I want to settle our little… disagreement once and for all, it’s gone on long enough, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, absolutely.” Manatsu agreed – both wholeheartedly and exhaustedly.

  “I want to see it.” Laura interjected with a glare.

  “See what?” Manatsu asked, puzzled.

  “That you didn’t just get lucky and managed to tie with me, a future queen of the surfing championships. I – I just couldn’t believe it. I still can’t and so, I want to see it. You’re surfing so good allegedly it can challenge me, even with my pedigree and promise.” Laura explained.

  “Well, I’m no one that fancy…” Manatsu humbly countered through a smile. “But I try my hardest and try to shine as best as I can. I mightn’t wanna be a queen like you, but I do want to stand at the top of the world.”

  Laura blushed, feeling horrible for some harsh things she had said – and thought – about Manatsu in the weeks previous, “Perhaps we’re more alike than we realise…” she murmured.

  “Maybe.” Manatsu laughed.

  “Then it will be with the same critical eye that we surf together and come to conclusion of who inches, or even miles, out the other.” Laura asserted.

  “Yes.” Manatsu nodded.

  Laura smirked and she thrust her other hand out, “I won’t lose to some random islander, you can count on it.”

  “And I won’t lose to some smug princess either.” Manatsu rebuked and she mimicked how Laura pointed at her.

  “On the count of three, we hit the waves, got it?” Laura said.

  “Mm-hm, got it.” Manatsu confirmed.

  Laura’s arm lowered and her hand curled into a fist, “One-” she shook her fist with one finger extended, “two, three!” With each number, she rocked her hand and she unveiled more of her fingers and then there was that final three.

  She tried to lunge first towards the water but Manatsu was just as swift. In their mad dash for the deeper waters, it was a miracle that neither of them got shoved out of the way, from either their flailing hands or with their angling surfboards. The decks of which hit the water with a smack as they paddled out, parting from one another.

  Manatsu waded through the waters, it was colder than she was expecting but it invigorated her rather than deterred her. She glanced out to Laura who was like a shark in the water, gliding through with precision and finesse on her pretty blue and white surfboard. Manatsu could have gotten lost, floated out to sea, admiring Laura from afar but her attention snapped back when a wave dumped on her, but she shook it off. It was just that Laura’s form was so captivating and one more glance towards her, Manatsu watched as Laura sprang up to her feet.

  She was so delicate, like a dancer, as she got to her next form whilst Manatsu was belly down like an awkward turtle still. The wave that Laura had popped up on was gorgeous, not as high as other waves that Manatsu had seen on this beach in sunnier weather but still pretty good with fluff that foamed at the hanging curls of it. She gritted her teeth and scoured the backrow for something good.

  Laura surfed so elegantly, pulling off spin after spin, looking utterly graceful doing it whilst Manatsu floundered. Even so, she refused to let that keep her down. Manatsu scanned the horizon for a wave, and she saw it. Not only did she see it, but it also called out to her with a siren song. She paddled out to it, viciously hard whilst Laura began to end her set.

  Manatsu took a breath and she put her all into her pop-up. She landed with a wobble, not great, but her expression was fierce. Manatsu let her heart guide her through the water, pulling out moves that she had honed in her island home and moves that she had learned from the others. The cute acrobatics moves that Sango liked; the more technical moves with long names that Minori liked; and the core strength and upper arm moves that Asuka liked; and maybe even some stuff that she had learned from competing with Laura. Their teachers were good but honestly, it was her peers that Manatsu learned the best from.

  Laura beached herself on the shoreline and she twisted around to watch Manatsu’s set. It took her breath away but most of all, it was the sheer joy that Manatsu emanated that really impressed Laura. She wondered when the last time was she looked so happy during one of her own sets. It was melancholic. Melancholic and dark and Manatsu washed up lazily next to her.

  “What do you think?” Manatsu asked as she dug her legs into the wet sand below to anchor herself.

  “You weren’t bad.” Laura brushed her off.

  Manatsu giggled, she leaned in and could tell Laura was lying through her teeth, “I thought you were magnificent,” she said, “totally tropica-shining.”

  “Thank you, Manatsu.” Laura awkwardly accepted the praise.

  “So?” Manatsu asked, splashing about in the waves that came and went, tickling at her and Laura’s waists as they sat on the shore atop their boards. “Who won?”

  “I don’t think I can crow myself the winner on a good conscious.” Laura admitted.

  “And I’ve gotten better as late knowing where I can improve…” Manatsu added.

  “Then its another draw.” Laura decided.

  “Yup.” Manatsu agreed.

 Laura glared playfully, “Then you better promise that we won’t draw tomorrow because that simply won’t do.”

  Manatsu beamed, “You’re on.”

  “That’s a good expression, Manatsu.” Laura murmured.

  She leaned in too and surprised Manatsu with a kiss. Her lips were cold, from being wet and salty, too, but they were soft. Her technique was coy, but it was more than enough to fluster Manatsu. She went bright red and burned up to boot. Laura giggled as she kissed Manatsu before pulling back.

  “More mind games?” Manatsu asked.

  “Something like that.” Laura replied and she found herself unable to resist the impulse of touching her lips.

  “Well kiss or no kiss,” Manatsu told Laura very seriously, “I’m going to win tomorrow’s competition.”

  “I’d love to see that.” Laura preened.

  Their conversation held some semblance of seriousness for a second before devolving. Manatsu splashed Laura and Laura splashed back. It was getting late but neither seemed to care. The moon seemed fuller and more silver than usual tonight, they couldn’t help but want to play in the water just that little bit longer before dinner and curfew passed them by.

[irwinkitten]

okay daddy!ash taking princess out to dinner to make sure it’s okay that he proposes to you and then going ring shopping with her!!! LAURA IM NOT OKAY this idea popped in my head and now i’m a mESS

bro what about when ashton asks reader to marry him but he has to get Princess’s approval first and he asks her if it’s okay for him to marry her mommy and he proposes in the sweetest way possible

IDEA! your daughter having a daddy & daughter date with ash and she’s like “so when are you and mommy gonna get married?” AND SHE’S GOTTA HELP PICK OUT THE RING LIKE HE HAS A FEW HE LIKES AND HE HAS TO RUN IT BY THE PRINCESS FIRST

ok hi I cant stop thinking about Ashton talking to his princess about proposing to y/n and y/n overhears and she cant help but smile so big adhauerh

Heyyy! I’m absolutely loving your Ash posts with his little princess! I was thinking, maybe another part where he asks you to marry him after joining him with your daughter on tour?

Just finished the Daddy!ashton and i NEED one where ash gets princess to help with him proposing please! Love you!

Why hasn’t daddy!ash proposed yet???!?!?! I NEED this in my life.

ya’ll have been requesting this from day one. 3k words of pure fluff have fun with ur heart. this is my christmas present to you all. love u xoxo

masterlist is linked in the source

this is part seventeen

—

It was a rare day that you got with just your little girl.

Ashton was tracking for the record for the day and then he and the boys were off out to celebrate the final day. Plus Ashton was stealing her for the day tomorrow as they were going shopping for their theatre date of Finding Neverland. Which gave you an entire day with your princess.

As she climbed into your bed, Ashton having long since vacated his spot, she snuggled close with the small stuffed bear that never hardly left her arms when she was tired.

Most days, you had a list of stuff to do, but Ashton had gotten the last of chores that needed whilst he had his day off and your little girl had her last few days at school.

“Mama, can we bake today?”

“‘Course we can baby. What do you want to make?” She pressed closer to your side, her eyes falling shut as you ran a hand through her hair.

“Cookies n cupcakes.” Her words were half slurred as her breathing evened out and you half smiled, picking up the book on the bedside table. It wouldn’t do either of you any harm to enjoy this lie in and so you took full advantage of it.

When you both next woke up, you felt a lot more refreshed than you had done in a while, and the two of you were in the kitchen with the ingredients all across the counter.

“Cookies or cupcakes first?” You asked your little girl who gleefully cheered.

“Cookies!”

The mixture was easy to make, but it was mostly stopping the both of you from eating the raw dough.

Whilst the cookies were baking in the oven, the two of you washed and dried the bowls and equipment before you set up for making cupcakes.

You had the playlist playing through the speakers in the kitchen, a grin on your face as you helped her prep all of the ingredients before the timer went off for the cookies.

It felt like bliss being able to enjoy this time, taking short videos of her and snapping as many photos as possible, your favourite being the messy selfie she’d all but demanded you to take and send to Ashton.

He sent one back of him and the boys in the studio, waving at the camera.

With the cookies out to cool down, both of you sharing a warm one with a giggle and a promise not to tell Ashton when he got home later on, you began the attempt of making cupcakes.

This was more familiar territory as the two of you sung and danced your way around the kitchen flour everywhere and giggles echoing around the room.

By then time that Ashton crept into bed at about one am, you snuggled closer as he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead.

“How was it?” You mumbled, cracking open an eye to see him switch the bedside lamp off before curling his body around yours.

“Tracking went good, all finished up and shouldn’t need any extras. Party was a success. Pretty sure Luke left with the girl he’s been chatting up.” That made you giggle before snuggling closer as his arms tightened around you.

“She’s excited for tomorrow. We baked cookies and cupcakes. You have a very special one that she decorated by herself.” You hummed and he laughed softly.

“I look forward to it. Get some rest, love.” You were out like a light.

The next morning, you’d fully expected to have to wake Ashton up, especially after the long night he’d had. But the space next to you was empty and your daughters giggles were echoing up to your room, making a soft smile appear on your lips.

As you reached the kitchen, you felt your heart almost burst at the sight of her sat on the counter top, trying to shove a cupcake that had been made yesterday into his mouth.

Ashton was laughing whilst trying to take a bite, pausing to chew before peppering her face with kisses.

“The best cupcake I’ve ever had!” You watched as her face lit up with the biggest smile.

“Looks like I’m not needed for breakfast today.” You commented, both of them turning to look at you with cheesy grins.

“Sorry mommy! Daddy wanted a cupcake but I told him he could only have one if I fed him.” You laughed at this as you greeted Ashton with a quick kiss, blowing a raspberry on your little girls cheek before making breakfast for yourself.

“When you and your dad get back later, we’ll head out for dinner, how does that sound?” Your question drew an excited ‘yes!’ from her and Ashton laughed as he set her down on the floor.

“Go get changed then, princess. We’ve gotta leave in thirty minutes.” And with that, she was off upstairs, her footsteps stomping across the hallway as she headed into her room.

“And you, Mister Irwin, owe me.” Ashton grinned as his arms slipped around your waist, his lips finding the sweet spot on your neck with ease.

“You know I’ll make it up to you. For now, I’ve gotta get ready because if she’s ready and I’m not, there will be hell to pay.” He chuckled as you sighed dramatically before shoving him from the kitchen.

“Go on then. I’ll see you later, handsome.”

—

Once they were in the car and away, the excitement increased tenfold.

“Did you remember the notebook daddy?”

Ashton held up the little book before passing it back to her.

“It’s your job to keep it safe. We’ve got an appointment with the ring people which means that we’re gonna shop for yours and your moms dresses first and then we can go and see them.”

This earned him a playful whine of annoyance and he laughed as they headed into the city.

“Patience princess. We need to get the dresses first before we do anything.” This earned him a dramatic sigh in return before he rolled his eyes at her and turned the radio up, both of them singing along.

—-

It was the third store of the day before their appointment and they’d managed to find your dress pretty quickly.

Ashton had a good eye for colours and he knew what colour suited you best.

But his princess was determined to find one that matched her moms and he was helpless against her puppy dog eyes that she pulled which had him caving almost every time.

“Wait-daddy you gotta close your eyes!” He grinned at the sales assistant who’d been helping them out.

“Okay, my eyes are covered.” He called out once he dramatically placed a hand over his eyes, earning a giggle.

“Open ‘em daddy!” And as he pulled his hand away, he couldn’t get over how sweet she looked in a dress that wasn’t too dissimilar from yours.

“What do you think daddy?” She took the obligatory few steps forward before giving a small twirl and he grinned before putting on his best commentator voice.

“And here we have, a wonderful princess modelling the latest collection, a cute red dress, matched with a small black cardigan that makes her look like an absolute superstar!” he watched as her cheeks went very red, a shy giggle escaping as she rushed over to him, his arms opening up automatically.

“You really think so daddy?” Her tone was shy and he smiled, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“I know so princess. I think we’ve found your dress, don’t you?” She nodded her head before beaming up at him. “Go get changed, I think we can grab some food before our final stop of the day.” Her excited gasp made him laugh as she ran straight back to the changing room, the sales assistant helping her once more.

He could hear her excitedly telling the assistant where they were going.

“My daddy is finding a ring for my mommy!”

Once she was out of the changing room and holding his hand, they paid for her outfit before heading out and to the building that housed their appointment.

It wasn’t overly obvious that it was a jewellers, but as they went up the stairs and reached the set of doors that led in to the actual store, he chuckled as her eyes took in the plethora of rings that adorned cases.

“Wow daddy.” She whispered as they moved to the counter so she could study the rings a lot better.

“Hey there guys, you our two o’clock?” Ashton nodded to the assistant.

“Yeah. We said we had a rough idea of what we were looking for. You got the notebook princess?” He turned to her and she grinned, her free hand clutching the small book before offering it to Ashton.

The assistant moved them over to a part of the counter where they could show the different ideas and soon the assistant was moving around the shop picking up various rings to show the two of them.

He tried not to get disheartened at the fact that none of them screamed out to him. He was determined and so was his little girl who vetoed a lot of the rings almost instantly.

It took a while before the assistant found the ring that had her gasping in excitement.

“Daddy look! This is like nana’s too!” Ashton found himself staring at the ring for a second before he felt that feeling in his gut, an excited twist.

“You reckon that’s the ring we’re getting for your mom?” She nodded vigorously and the assistant laughed.

“It’s a solitaire twist band with a princess cut diamond, 18 carat white gold.”

“Daddy, we have to get it!” He laughed as he pulled her up so that she could see the ring closer. “Mommy’s gonna love it.”

Ashton could feel his heart in his chest going miles a minute.

“Yeah, I think she is princess.”

—

You’d thought nothing of the small looks your daughter and boyfriend shared every so often. You knew they had their own inside jokes, so it didn’t bother you as much as the week carried on and before you knew it, it was time for the family date night.

Finding Neverland had been on the list of things you wanted to eventually see, and you knew that Shay had deliberately let slip to him about it, so when he surprised you with the tickets for your birthday, you knew this was going to be a good evening out together.

The show itself was incredible. You couldn’t help but share a look with Ashton every time the two of you glanced down to your little girl who had her eyes glued to the stage in awe.

By the end of the performance, she was going over her favourite parts before you finally realised that Ashton wasn’t driving you home.

“Ash?” You glanced over to him and his face held a grin.

“We’re doing a detour.” Was all you got in return which only served to confuse you further.

But you waited patiently.

Eventually you recognised the area and this only made you question what was going on.

“We’re going to Cal’s? Why didn’t you just say?”

“Nope. That’s a pit stop. Dropping someone off with her uncle as they’ve got a few friends around. We’ve got one more stop before we’re joining the party.” He explained and you nodded your head.

When he pulled up to Calum’s place, you went to get out, but Ashton stopped you.

“Don’t worry, love. I’ll sort her out.”

You eyed him suspiciously for a second before your daughter distracted you.

“Mommy, can we go to another show like the one tonight? I really enjoyed it.”

“Of course baby. We can look at the shows and how about you pick the next one, yeah?” She nodded her head and Ashton pressed a soft kiss to your lips before getting out of the car and then helping your princess out.

He was back in under five minutes, his lips in a full grin.

“I think a certain princess of ours is going to get taken out by one of her uncles that isn’t Luke. I’ve just had to placate two very jealous band members.” This made you laugh as he peeled away from the drive.

You talked about the album, the possible tour that would happen once it was dropped and the promotional tours as well. The discussion then turned to your job and the possible promotion on the horizon.

Eventually, Ashton pulled into one of the overviews of LA and you found yourself grinning.

“We haven’t done this since she was five.”

“Special treat.” He grinned as the two of you got out and he took your hand. The walk around was nice and you rested your head against his shoulder as the two of you walked.

“What are you thinking about, love?” His question was quiet as the two of you came to a stop, watching over the area.

“Us, the future, how much I love you.” You rattled off softly. “How lucky I feel to have you in my life and hers, and how excited I am for a quiet weekend with you.” This made you both laugh as you turned your head towards him and he leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to your lips.

“Thing is, I’ve been thinking the same thing.” You smiled at him as he pulled away slightly, taking his hand in yours.

“Ash?”

“My future with you, I see us, I see my little family that has made me a better person, a better lover, a better dad.” His tone softened entirely and you could feel the tears in the corners of your eyes.

A gasp escaped as he got down on one knee and you knew there were tears as he produced the small ring box.

“Holy shit.” Left your mouth and he smiled.

“Even knowing you had your little girl, I still wanted to know you, to be apart of your life. I can see my future without either of you in it. Both of you are such a part of my world that I cannot begin to describe how much love I have for you and her. I want to make us, a foundation for our family in the future. Will you marry me?”

“Yes, a thousand times yes!” You finally managed out, your heart hammering in your chest as he took the ring from the box and slid it onto the third finger of your left hand. He kissed it softly before you cupped his face, bringing him up to press your lips against his.

His arms wound around your waist as he picked you up easily, spinning around and making you laugh into the kiss as you finally wiped the tears away once your feet were on the ground.

“I’ve had this planned for months, but the ring, that was the very last thing we got.” He whispered, pressing a soft kiss to your lips once more.

You could see his own stray tears, your fingers lifting up to wipe them.

“We?”

“Last weekend.” And then it hit you. The secretive looks and shared giggles.

“She kept it secret. I’m impressed.” You finally got out before the two of you laughed and he kissed you once more.

“Shall we go tell the others the good news?”

“I’ve been duped. You’re a good planner, Irwin.” He grinned as he led you back to the car and kissed you once more.

“I have to be. I live with a rambunctious soon to be eight-year-old who gets bored easily.”

When you arrived at Calum’s and stepped through the door, you were greeted an excited squeal as your daughter rushed from Calum’s side and wrapped her arms around your waist.

“You are a sneaky little miss. But it’s the most beautiful ring in the world.” You whispered to her hair and she giggled.

“I had to be sneaky! Daddy promised me it would be worth it. Will he be my real daddy now?” You were crying yet again as you held her tightly.

“Looks like it baby. I said yes, which means-”

“Mommy’s getting married!” She squealed excitedly and moved from you to Ashton and that caused the cheer from the gathered group of friends and, to your amazement, Ashton’s family, and you laughed through the tears that were falling.

“I told you I have to be a good planner.” He smirked at you and you could only smile as Anne reached you first, her arms wrapping around you as she welcomed you to the family.

Good planner indeed.

—

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